The Fall of a Saint. Christine Merrill
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Mrs Hastings drew herself up even taller, looking quite formidable, not just royal, but a warrior queen heading to battle. Then she disappeared into the hall, closing the door behind her with a resolute click.
Maddie smiled and settled back into the luxurious velvet cushions of the divan, sipping her tea. Perhaps Boadicea had arrived too late to fight for her honour. But she appeared more than able to gain reparation for the loss of it. Maddie need do nothing but wait.
* * *
Michael Poole, Duke of St Aldric, stood in the hallway of his London town house, one ear to his brother and the other tuned to the conversation taking place in the salon. He could not very well open the door again and demand that the ladies inside speak louder so that he might eavesdrop on them. But he had to know the truth, and the sooner the better. If there was to be a child, perhaps a son?
It changed everything.
‘She found you?’ His half-brother, Sam Hastings, was focused almost as intently on the closed door, staring hard enough to burn through it.
‘She found me.’ Michael had expected it, but not that it would come as such a relief. In each crowd he’d passed, he had wondered if he would see a pair of accusing eyes that should be familiar but were not. Now, at least, he had a name and a face to attach to that night, which had been but a blurry memory.
‘I am sorry,’ Sam said, as though he had anything to regret in this.
‘You are sorry?’ Michael laughed. ‘What did you have to do with any of it?’
‘It should not have happened this way. I should not have let her escape. The matter could have been properly settled in Dover. When I spoke to her that night, she claimed she wanted no contact with you, then, or in the future. I promised to respect her wishes. But I could have done more.’
‘We had no right to keep her prisoner and force her to accept help,’ Michael reminded him. The evening had been enough of a disaster. She’d have thought even worse of him if they had locked her door and demanded she stay until a proper settlement could be arranged.
‘God knows, I tried without success to find her.’ Sam was practically wringing his hands over the matter. ‘England is a very large country and there are many unfortunate young women in it.’
An unfortunate young woman. Michael had never thought that his name would be connected to one who could be described thus.
‘The fault is mine, not yours,’ Michael replied. ‘If I had drunk myself to unconsciousness that night, then I would not have caused her harm and you would not have had to bother to clean up my mess.’
‘Or perhaps you could have remained sober,’ Sam said as mildly as possible. ‘No matter what you chose to do, we could not have foreseen the outcome.’
Had watching his father taught him nothing of the need for good behaviour at all times? ‘I should have known better,’ Michael insisted.
Sam gave no answer to this, which was probably proof that he agreed. Then he relented. ‘You would never have sunk to this,’ Sam reminded him, ‘had you not experienced a shock from your illness.’
‘I was upended by a sickness that would hardly bother a child.’
‘The effects of the illness are not the same when the body has an immature reproductive system.’
‘What a gentle way you put it, Dr Hastings.’ Michael had lain for three days with a raging fever and balls swollen so that he could hardly bear to look at them, much less touch them. Then the disease had left him. But not as it had found him.
Or so he had thought.
Now, for the first time in six months, he had reason to hope. ‘Miss Cranston has found me out and not because she is dissatisfied with your payment. She claims to be with child.’ He paused to allow the doctor to conceal his surprise. ‘Is that even possible?’
‘Of course it is possible,’ Sam said. ‘I told you, from the beginning, that the negative consequences of the mumps on an adult male are not guaranteed. Yet you insisted on blundering through the countryside, inebriated and trying to prove your virility.’
‘A bastard would have proven it well enough.’ It had been what Michael had hoped for. The fear that a simple fever had destroyed the St Aldric line had turned to obsession. And from thus had come the hope that an accident with a member of the muslin set would assure him a fruitful marriage.
To announce such a thing to his own illegitimate brother showed how far he had fallen. Now that he was sober, the plan seemed foolish and cowardly. Like father, like son. It had been Michael’s life goal to disprove the adage. He had failed.
‘If you wanted a by-blow, it seems you will have one now,’ Sam said, with a sad shake of his head. ‘What do you mean to do about it?’
Michael was amazed that his half-brother did not see what was quite obvious. ‘This current situation is much better than I’d hoped for.’
‘You hoped to deflower a governess?’ Sam realised how loudly he’d been speaking and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘And without her consent? Are you mad?’
‘No. Certainly not.’ Yet he had done just that. ‘I never meant to enter that room. I lost my way.’
‘Because you were too drunk to know better,’ his brother reminded him.
He deserved the rebuke. His father had, at least, entertained himself with the willing wives of friends. But he had done worse than that. ‘The woman I was seeking that night was hardly an innocent. Had there been consequences, she’d have been paid handsomely. I’d even have acknowledged the child.’
‘As I assume you mean to do with this one.’ Sam was offering the faintest warning that Michael must remember his obligations when dealing with the girl and her problem.
Sam had no reason to worry. After years of exemplary behaviour, Michael had made enough mistakes in the past few months to show him the ugliness of false pride and the lengths he must go to atone. There was no question in his mind as to what had to happen next.
The trick would be convincing the governess of it. ‘If Miss Cranston is truly carrying my child, it need not be as an acknowledged bastard,’ he said, cautiously watching for Sam’s reaction. ‘If I marry her and legitimise the heir...’
‘Marry her?’ Now Sam was staring at him with an ironic smile. ‘Now I do not know whether to laugh or send you to Bedlam.’
‘Why should I not wed her? Is there anything about the girl that appears she will be less than suitable? She is a governess and therefore educated. She is healthy.’ And not unattractive. He was obligated to her. After what had happened, he owed her more than money. He should restore her honour.
‘She probably hates you,’ Sam said.
‘She has good reason to.’ He had seen the look in her eyes as she had confronted him with the truth. He would not have given a second thought to the woman standing in the street before his house. She was tidy to the point of primness, simply dressed in dark blue, and hair bound painfully tight, as though she feared it would do her an injury if a single curl escaped from the pins. The lips that should have been soft and kissable had been set in a determined frown and her brow had furrowed above her large brown eyes as she’d recognised him. Everything about her had announced her as just what she was: a disapproving schoolteacher.
She’d stepped in front of him, blocking his path as no one else in London would dare to do, and said quietly, ‘I wish to speak to you about the consequences of your recent trip to Dover.’
The coldness in her voice still lingered with the memory of the words. But none of that mattered now. ‘I will give her reason not to hate me. A hundred reasons. A thousand. I will give her everything I have. If the succession is to continue, I must have a wife and a child, Sam. There may be no better chance than this.’
The door beside them opened suddenly and Sam’s