The Duke and His Duchess

Four




“He’s a good man, your papa. An important man.”

Devlin did not meet his mother’s gaze as they walked along. She was pleading with him somehow, and he didn’t like it. He also didn’t like this neighborhood, where the streets were wide and the walkways all swept and he didn’t know the way home.

“Devlin, he was in the cavalry.”

Devlin forgot about the list of things he didn’t like.

“I’m going to be in the cavalry. I’m going to have my own horse, and I’m going to protect everybody for the king.”

Now Mama stopped walking, and right there with people hurrying by, crouched before Devlin. “Your papa can make that dream come true, Devlin. I cannot.”

Which was why they were going to his papa’s house, he supposed. They’d been to visit other men’s houses. Mama would wait in the stables and mews, and Devlin liked that just fine. Those places smelled of horses, and the grooms were usually friendly to a small boy who thought horses were God’s best creation.

“Will you talk to him in the stables?”

Mama kissed the top of his head—he hated when she did that—and rose, taking his hand again. “If I have to.” Her tone was grim, determined. She said Devlin got his determination from her.

She talked to men in the stables lately, sometimes telling Devlin to be good when she went into the saddle rooms or carriage houses with them. She was never gone long, and they could always get some food on the way home when she’d had one of her visits with the men.

Then too, stables were warm, and they smelled good. Home was not warm these days.

You could tell a lot about a man from his stables. Sir Richard Harrowsham was a friendly man who laughed a lot. His horses were content and well fed, his stables clean without being spotless.

Mr. Pelham’s horses were nervous, the grooms always rushing about, and the aisles never swept until somebody stepped in something that ought to have been pitched on the muckheap as soon as it hit the ground. Mama had been crying when she’d come back from her little meeting with Mr. Pelham.

Devlin’s papa’s stables were large. There were riding horses, coach horses, and even a draft team, which was unusual in Town for the nobs, though not for the brewers and such.

Devlin did not think his papa was a brewer. The grooms were friendly, the tack was spotless and tidy, and the horses… Devlin peered down the aisle at the equine heads hanging over half doors.

The horses were magical. They were huge, glossy, and glorious even in their winter coats. Their expressions were alert and confident, somehow regal. If horses could be generals and colonels, then these horses would be.

“You wait here,” Mama said, sitting Devlin on a trunk. “Be quiet and don’t get in the way.”

“Yes, Mama.”

She said something else, very quietly, in Gaelic. Mama never spoke the Gaelic in public. “I love you.”

Devlin smiled up at her, trying not to show how pleased he was. “Love you too!”

He watched her cross the stable yard and take up a position near somebody’s back gate. All the houses here had back gardens; their kitchens didn’t simply open onto a smelly alleyway. The grooms went about their business, mucking, scrubbing out water buckets and refilling them, cursing jovially at each other—but never at the horses.

When a groom asked Devlin if he’d like to help brush a horse, Devlin decided his papa must be a good man indeed.

***

Esther knew who the pretty red-haired woman was and wondered if this remove to Town was intended by the Almighty as some sort of wifely penance.

“Mrs. St. Just, is there a reason why you’re lurking at my back gate in the broad light of day?” My husband’s back gate, in point of fact.

Upon closer inspection, Percival’s former mistress was thin, she wore no gloves, and her hair bore not a hint of powder or styling. She wore it in a simple knot, like a serving woman might. Esther hadn’t been able to put any condescension into the question—Percival recalled this lady fondly, drat her.

Drat him.

“All I seek is a word with you, my lady.”

Here, where any neighbor, Percival, or the children might happen along? Not likely. “Come with me.”

Esther’s footman looked uncertain, while Mrs. St. Just looked… frightened. She glanced toward the stables, as if she’d steal a horse and ride away rather than enter the ducal household.

“I must tell my son where I’ve gone. He’s just a boy, a little boy, and he worries.”

What Esther needed, desperately, was to hate this woman who’d had intimate knowledge of her husband, to loathe her and all her kind, and yet, Mrs. St. Just worried for her son and apparently had no one with whom she could leave the child safely.

“Bring him along.”

Relief flashed in the woman’s eyes. She scurried across the alley and reemerged from the mews, towing a dark-haired boy.

“Devlin, make your bow.”

The lad gave Esther a good day and a far more decorous bow than Bart usually managed.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master St. Just.”

He was thin, and his green eyes were too serious for a boy his age. Esther was not at all pleased to make his acquaintance, wondering with more than a little irritation which swaggering young lordling had turned his back on this blameless child.

The next thought that tried to crowd into Esther’s mind she sent fleeing like a bat up the chimney.

Esther took her guests—what else was she to call them?—in through the big, warm kitchen. Mrs. St. Just looked uncomfortable, while the boy was wide-eyed with curiosity.

“Perhaps your son would like some chocolate while we visit, Mrs. St. Just?”

If the help recognized the woman’s name, they were too well-bred to give any sign. The scullery maid remained bent over her pots, the boot boy didn’t look up from his work at the hearth, and the undercook kept up a steady rhythm chop, chop, chopping a pungent onion.

“Devlin?” Mrs. St. Just knelt to her son’s eye level. “You be good, mind? Don’t spill, and be quiet. I won’t be long.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Esther did not tarry to study the curve of the boy’s chin or the swoop of his eyebrows. He was a hungry boy, and any mother knew exactly what to do with a hungry boy. She caught the undercook’s eye and made sure the lad would be stuffed like a goose before he left.

The next issue was where to serve tea to her husband’s former mistress—for Esther would offer the woman sustenance as well. That was simple Christian charity.

Esther addressed the undercook, who’d gotten out bread and butter and was reaching for a hanging ham. “I’m feeling a bit peckish, so please bring the tray to Mrs. Slade’s parlor.”

The choice was practical: the housekeeper’s parlor would be warm and would spare Mrs. St. Just a tour past the upstairs servants. It would also mean mother and son were not separated by more than a closed door.

When that door had been latched, Esther turned, crossed her arms, and regarded Mrs. St. Just where she stood, red hands extended toward the fire.

For her sons, Esther would cheerfully kill. She’d walk naked through the streets, denounce her king, sing blasphemous songs in Westminster Abbey, and dance with the devil.

What Kathleen St. Just had done for her child was arguably harder than all of that put together. Esther took a place next to the woman facing the fire, their cloaks touching.

It occurred to her that they were both frightened. This realization neither comforted nor amused. Esther grabbed her courage with both hands, sent up a prayer for wisdom, and made her curtsy before the devil.

“Two questions, Mrs. St. Just. First, does his lordship know that boy is his son, and second, how much do you need?”

***

Kathleen St. Just’s household had shown signs of wear and want. In Cecily O’Donnell’s, the floors gleamed with polish, the rugs were beaten clean, and a liveried and bewigged porter still manned the door.

And yet, as Percival followed the woman into a warm, elegant little parlor, his footsteps echoed, suggesting every other room in the place was empty of furniture. Fortunately, this parlor held no memories of intimacy, for Cecily entertained only above stairs on an enormous carved bed sporting a troop of misbehaving Cupids.

“Shall I ring for tea?” she asked as she closed the door behind him.

“You shall state your business. One is expected to attend the morning’s levee.”

Her lips curved up in merriment. “How it gratifies me to know you’d rather spend this time with me than with our dear sovereign.”

She went to the door and rang for tea—of course. When the door was again closed and he was assured of privacy, Percival speared his hostess with a look that had quelled riots among recruits culled from the lowest ginhouses.

“State your business, woman, or you will be drinking your tea in solitude.”

To emphasize his point, he moved toward the door. She stopped him with a hand clamped around his wrist. “You will regret your haste, my lord.”

There was desperation in her grip… which could work to his favor. Percival aimed his glower at her fingers—her ringless fingers—and she eased away.

His next glower was at the clock on her mantel. “You have five minutes.”

A tap on the door interrupted whatever venom she might have spewed next. “Come in.”

A maidservant entered, accompanied by a little girl with red hair and a stubborn chin. He’d seen the child before somewhere, but couldn’t place her for the unease coursing through him.

The girl was not attired in a short dress as befit one of her tender years, nor was her striking hair tamed into a pair of tidy braids. She was dressed in a miniature chemise gown of gold with a burgundy underskirt, her pale little shoulders puckered with gooseflesh. Her hair was pinned up on her head in a style appropriate to a woman twenty years her senior, and—Percival’s stomach lurched to behold this—the child’s lips were rouged.

“Magdalene, make your courtesy to the gentleman.”

A perfectly—ghoulishly—graceful curtsy followed, suggesting the girl had been thoroughly grilled on even so minute a display. “Good day, kind sir.”

Percival manufactured a smile, because the child’s voice had quavered. “Good day, miss.”

And Magdalene—a singularly unkind name for a courtesan’s daughter.

Cecily grabbed the girl by the chin and pointed toward the sideboard, across the room from the fire’s heat. “Be quiet. You”—she waved a hand at the nursemaid—“out.”

Was everyone in this household terrified of the woman?

“You have three minutes, Mrs. O’Donnell, and then I shall do all in my power to ensure our paths never cross again.” He meant those words, though his gaze was drawn back to the child, who stood stock-still, staring at the carpet in all her terrible finery.

“Three minutes, Percival? I say our paths have become joined for the rest of our days on earth. Whatever else I know to be true about you—and I have kept up, you may be assured of that—I doubt your vanity would allow your only daughter to be put to work in her mother’s trade, would it?”

While the child remained motionless and mute, Percival felt his world turn on its axis. A hollow ache opened up in the pit of his stomach, a sense of regret so intense as to crowd any other emotion from his body.

The child could be his.

His dear, tired, dutiful wife would not kill him—that would be too easy a penance for a young man’s folly—but she’d likely remove herself from his household, and not a soul would blame her. The rules of marital combat in Polite Society allowed a wife to discreetly distance herself from an errant husband once heirs were in place.

Percival picked up the child, who cuddled onto his shoulder with a sigh. She weighed too little for her height, which looked to exceed Bart’s only slightly. Percival brought his burden—his daughter?—to the door and found the nursemaid, as expected, shivering in the corridor. “You will take miss back to the nursery, keep her there for the duration of my interview with your mistress, remove the damned paint from her face, and dress her appropriately to her station—and warmly. Is that understood?”

The maid cast a glance past Percival to Cecily, who nodded.

“Understood, my lord.”

Without another word, the child was taken from the room. Percival remained in the doorway, watching as she was towed by the hand toward the stairs. On the bottom step, the girl turned and met Percival’s gaze, surprising the daylights out of him by sending him a slow, careful wink.

Despite the tumult and despair rocketing through him, he winked back, recalling in that moment where he’d seen her before: in the park, peering out of a coach window. She’d struck him as a lonely little princess being dragged about on some adult’s errand, an accurate if understated assessment.

With a pointed glance at the clock, Percival turned and faced the woman who had in the last moments become the enemy of all he held dear. “What do you want?”

Her smile was the embodiment of evil, but she at least seemed to know enough not to approach him. “What I want is simple, my lord. I want you. Unless you can live with the fate of any girl born to Magdalene’s circumstances and live with the knowledge that all and sundry will become aware of her patrimony, then I suggest you accede to my wishes.”

He didn’t believe for one minute she meant he’d have to accommodate her in bed. She’d have to be daft to think him capable of such a thing. She wanted his escort, his protection, his wealth. Cecily O’Donnell was nothing if not shrewd.

She would understand shrewdness in another.

“Hear me, woman: You will ensure no harm comes to that child, lest the repercussions redound to your eternal detriment. You will produce baptismal records, a midwife’s sworn statement, and an affidavit from the man of the cloth who presided at the child’s christening before I even entertain the notion that girl might be my get. And you may be assured, should misfortune befall Miss Magdalene, I am threatening your very life, just as you are threatening my welfare. Make no mistake about that.”

She blinked, the only sign of intimidation he was likely to see from her.

“My arrangement with you was exclusive, my lord.”

Percival moved toward the door, pausing with his hand on the latch. “Your arrangement with me was brief and long ago. Our encounters were meaningless and few, and between them, I did not trouble myself with what you got up to or with whom. You did not quibble over the compensation made to you at the time, and you know well the risks of your profession. I will see proof the child could be mine and then decide what’s to be done about her.”

A final glance at the clock—five minutes on the nose—and Percival walked out, feeling like a man given a reprieve from a date with the gallows. And yet, as he retrieved his stallion from the mews and turned the beast for home—there would be no attending any levees today—his mind circled around one question:

What would this cost him?

There would be a cost in coin, of course, and in convenience, because no child of his was going to grow up without her father’s protection. Those costs were entirely bearable and the responsibility of any man who took his pleasures outside of marriage.

The greater cost was going to come in the distance this would create between Percival and his wife. Sooner or later, Esther would become aware Percival was supporting Mrs. O’Donnell again. Polite Society, having all the kindness of a troop of rabid wolverines, would make sure Esther knew of the child as well.

As he turned for home, the true price of his interview with Cecily O’Donnell settled into Percival’s awareness next to the grief he felt at his father’s senescence and at his brother’s decline: the only way Percival could protect his wife from all the sorrows looming as a result of the morning’s revelations was by sending her away and keeping her far from the reach of gossip.

***

“I fear for the bovine population in the Home Counties,” Esther muttered as her husband seated her for an evening meal that once again featured beef.

His smooth gallantry faltered, something only a wife of several year’s duration would notice. Percival leaned closer to Esther’s ear. “I care not what is served when the company at table is my lovely wife, whom I once again have all to myself.”

Esther smiled, but Percival’s flattery rang hollow. Everything had rung hollow since Esther had found Kathleen St. Just shivering at the gate.

Percival took his seat at Esther’s elbow and poured them each a glass of wine. “What did my dear wife find to occupy herself today?”

Esther sampled her wine, needing the time to fashion a fabrication. “I saw Gladys and Tony off, settled a dispute between warring tribes of Hottentots in the nursery, penned a disgustingly cheery epistle to Arabella, reviewed the household accounts with Mrs. Slade, discussed with her several candidates for the upstairs maid’s position, and then made a half-dozen morning calls. Devonshire sends his regards and despairs of your politics.”

His Grace had sent a few looks Esther’s way, too, the rascal.

Percival seized on the one aspect of Esther’s day with financial consequences. “We’re hiring another maid?”

Esther watched while he served her a portion of soup that savored strongly of—but, of course—beef broth.

“I’m replacing the one who found herself in an interesting condition. Surely you noticed?”

Percival’s expression was hard to read, suggesting he truly hadn’t noticed the girl’s expanding belly. “Do we know who’s responsible?”

“I have not inquired. I suspect one of the footmen.”

The unreadable expression became one of distaste. “Shall I have a talk with the man?”

Esther had not considered this option, so she spoke slowly. “He’s young, Percival, and probably fears if we know he’s been taking liberties, he’ll lose his position. Then he won’t have even his wages to offer as support for the child.”

An image of Kathleen St. Just came to mind, her dark-haired, watchful son at her side. Esther’s fingers traced around her wrist. When she’d dressed this morning, she’d fastened on a pearl bracelet her grandmother had given her upon leaving the schoolroom. The jewelry wasn’t fancy enough to raise eyebrows on Ludgate Hill, but it would feed the child for quite some time. She hoped it would feed the child.

“Let young Romeo keep his wages,” Percival said, “provided he takes a wife. Are you enjoying your soup?”

Esther glanced at her nearly empty bowl. “It appears I am. You’d allow a footman to marry?”

“I will not allow a child to go hungry merely because her parents were young and foolish. The mother will have to find lodging elsewhere, lest Moreland take offense at my interference. Is she a village girl?”

“From Dorset, though she speaks well enough and is clever with a needle. I could send her some mending if she finds lodging nearby.”

“Excellent notion.” Percival moved the soup dishes to the side and began carving Esther a serving of roasted beef that would have fed Tony for several days of forced march. “How are my little Hottentots, and what could they possibly be waging war over?”

The topic of tribal warfare in the nursery was much safer, though why the exchange regarding a straying chambermaid and her swain should be upsetting, Esther did not know.

Not exactly upsetting, but Percival’s reaction to it gave Esther pause.

He deserved to know about the boy, Devlin St. Just. Esther admitted this to herself as she and her husband wandered up to the jungle on the third floor, and tucked sleepy, well-fed, happy little warriors into their cozy beds.

As Esther settled Valentine into his crib, and Percival waited patiently in a rocking chair by the fire, Esther realized the decision was not truly about Percival’s deserts, or about Mrs. St. Just’s, or even about Esther’s.

A boy needed to know who his father was and to have the protection that man could afford him in this precarious and difficult life. One pearl bracelet was no substitute for a father’s protection, much less a father’s love.

Coming to this conclusion and broaching the matter with her spouse were two separate acts of courage.

In a silence that should have been companionable, Esther accepted her husband’s assistance undressing. His hands lingered in seductive locations, on her nape when he unfastened a necklace, at the base of her spine when he unhooked her dress. His lips strayed to the spot beneath her ear that sent shivers over her skin.

Of all nights, why was he seducing her now?

When she was wearing only a chemise, Esther turned, intending to unknot Percival’s neckcloth. She was willing to be seduced, willing to accept some marital comfort and to forget for a few moments what—whom—the day had brought to her back gate.

Had Percival not built up the fire while Esther had removed her remaining jewelry, Esther might have missed the little glint of red on his sleeve. She drew his neckcloth from him slowly and turned to toss it over the open door of the wardrobe, when a hint of coppery fire caught her eye.

Two red hairs lay on his coat at the shoulder, two brilliant, gracefully curving commas of evidence that Percival had been close to somebody other than his wife. Mrs. St. Just had hair that shade, but she would hardly have come calling at the home of a man who was paying her for her favors, would she?

Gladys also had red hair, but not nearly this long.

“Esther?” Percival leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. “I would join my wife in our bed, if she’d allow it.”

He was asking to bed her, to exercise his marital privileges, while his very clothing bore traces of congress with somebody else.

“Of course, Percival.” Esther finished undressing her husband, wondering how it was that she could love a man whose casual behavior also had the power to devastate her.

When she was naked on her back, Percival braced above her and, joining their bodies with excruciating deliberateness, Esther tried to push the ugly, desolate thoughts aside:

Was it guilt—or something more arrogant and possessive—that drove him to make love to his wife while he was also keeping a mistress?

Should she wait out his renewed interest in the behaviors of an unmarried man, or accept that their marriage had served its purpose and separate lives awaited them?

Percival set up a languorous rhythm, tucking himself close and running his nose around her ear. “Where are you, Wife? Do you grow bored with your husband’s attentions?”

He punctuated the question with a kiss, a hot joining of mouths that tormented as it aroused: Did he kiss his mistress this way?

As Esther’s body undulated in counterpoint to her husband’s, her imagination flashed on Cecily O’Donnell’s bright red hair and full mouth. Even through the pain of that recollection, Esther felt her husband’s passion shift from teasing to focused arousal. She responded—some part of her hated that she did; another part of her wept from the relief of it.

Percival levered up on his arms, regarding her by firelight as their bodies strained together. “I love you, Esther Windham. Only you, always you.”

She traced her fingers over his jaw. He meant those words. Here, now, their bodies joined, he meant those words with his whole heart.

“Percival, I love you too.”

This was a truth as well, one that might yield to what lay before them. As Esther gave herself over to her husband’s pleasuring and felt the first quickening flutters deep in her body, she said a prayer that their love would somehow endure the coming storm.

***

Lovemaking was different when a man was trying to get his wife pregnant, though Esther might kick him to Cumbria if she suspected that was his aim. Instead, she sighed and trembled and ran her hands over his backside and over his shoulders, in the light, warm caresses he’d learned to crave.

“Percival, I love you too.”

The words were wrenched from her, as if against her will. As he plunged into Esther’s body, Percival had the sense that her orgasm was also wrenched from her, a surrender she regretted even as the pleasure grew most fierce.

When he was sure her passion had been sated, Percival let himself fly free too.

A child, please, one more child so I might have reason to call on my wife when all other excuses have been exhausted.

The release was exquisitely intense, in part a function of long denial, but also, Percival suspected, a function of desperation. When he’d regained the ability to move, he pitched off his wife and drew her against his side.

“Percival?” Esther’s fingers winnowed through his hair. “Did you intend that?”

That. Did he intend to risk conception, when for the past months they’d been avoiding it? The question was free of judgment on her part and reasonable, so he told a reasonable lie in response.

“I did not. My self-restraint grows weak from overuse, perhaps, or the pleasures we share overwhelm it.” He kissed her cheek, drawing in the scent of roses and despair—he had sunk to lying to his wife in their very bed.

Something in Esther’s silence told him his prevarications lacked conviction, so he troweled a layer of truth onto his falsehood. “You’ve seemed less tired lately, Esther, or am I mistaken?”

A few beats of quiet went by while Percival traced the curve of her jaw. The depths to which he would miss this woman were unfathomable. How did a man march off to war, leaving his wife and family behind?

How did a man not march off to war, when his wife and family were threatened?

“You are not mistaken. I am feeling somewhat better.”

She sounded surprised, as if she were just realizing it. Percival sent up a prayer of thanks and reminded himself to renew his orders to the kitchen. Not a cow would be left standing in the realm if feeding his wife beef was restoring her health.

Except soon he would not be in a position to dictate her menus. Percival closed his eyes and gathered his wife closer.

“Are you up to a trip back to Morelands, Esther?”

Another silence. She rolled out of his embrace to lie on her back. When she didn’t reach for his hand, Percival reached for hers.

“You just sent Tony and Gladys to Morelands, and the children have only in the past few days settled in here, Percival.”

She did not want to go. He took solace from that. Better she not want to go than that she leave him all too willingly.

“I’ll follow soon, my love. The holidays will be upon us, Parliament will recess, and His Majesty will understand that my place is with my family.” God willing, Cecily O’Donnell would understand too.

He waited, listening to the soft roar of the fire while Esther’s fingers went lax in his. “Esther?”

She had either fallen asleep or was feigning sleep. In either case, she hadn’t refused his request for a swift departure to the country—nor had she given her consent.

***

“How much do you want?” When he longed to wring Cecily O’Donnell’s neck, Percival instead affected bored tones.

Cecily rested her fingers on the décolletage of a gown that barely contained her breasts, a gesture intended to call attention to the pink flesh peeking through pale lace just above her nipples.

“This isn’t entirely about money, Percy. This is about what’s due the daughter of a man well placed in Society. I’ve heard you might stand for a seat in the Commons, and with your ambition and social stature, there’s no telling how high you might rise in the government.”

She threatened and flattered with equal guile, though as far as Percival was concerned, her words meant nothing compared to the documents she’d produced. Irrefutable evidence that the girl, Magdalene, could indeed be his daughter.

“Magdalene is a by-blow at best, madam. One you chose to keep from my notice until the moment suited you. Society will remark that and draw conclusions that will not devolve to the girl’s benefit.”

Cecily’s rouged lips compressed, suggesting this line of reasoning had escaped her consideration. “Society will keep its opinions to itself if we’re seen in company often enough.”

“No.”

The word slipped out with too much conviction, such that even Cecily couldn’t hide her reaction.

“You are not in a position to dictate terms to me, Percival Windham. I spread my legs at your request, and you will honor the resulting obligations.”

“I will never rise in government, will never even take a seat in the Commons if you’re seen hanging on my arm. His Majesty takes a dim of view of licentiousness, as does his queen.”

Cecily rose from her sofa on a rustle of skirts and marched up to Percival, her heeled slippers making her almost of a height with him. “Then you won’t take that seat. I’ve provided for this child every day of her life, seen her clothed, fed, educated, and disciplined. You will not turn you back on her without losing what reputation you have. I’ll bruit about details of our liaison your own brother will blush to hear.”

The scent of rice powder and bitterness wafted from her person. This close, Percival could see the fine lines radiating from her eyes, the grooves starting around her smile. He turned away and fixed his gaze on the clock that graced her mantel.

Esther was tired, her stamina and energy stolen by successive births. Cecily O’Donnell had given up her youth and her coin to nights at the theater, high fashion, and a succession of lucrative liaisons. Percival watched the hand of the clock move forward by a single minute and realized he could not leave the child in Cecily O’Donnell’s keeping. If a woman was to end up exhausted, worn out, and much in need of cosseting, then it should be because she’d sacrificed much to her children, and not to her own vanity.

And as for a seat in the Commons? Esther had not been enthusiastic about such a prospect. Percival tossed that ambition aside between one tick of the clock and the next.

He shifted his gaze to Cecily’s face. “I shall visit with my daughter now.”

Triumph flared in Cecily’s calculating eyes. He’d admitted paternity, though it meant nothing without witnesses. On instinct, Percival whipped open the parlor door to find a footman crouched by the keyhole.

Bloody damn, he’d been stupid. “You, sir, will take me to the nursery, now.”

Cecily sputtered several dire curses then fell into silence, though Percival knew she was merely planning her next series of broadsides.

Leaving the woman to sip her tea and plot his downfall, Percival went on reconnaissance through the upper reaches of the house. What he found disappointed more than it surprised. At the head of the stairs, Cecily’s bedroom was still a temple to elegant indulgence. The bed hangings, curtains, and pillows were all done in matching shades of soft green brocade, and a single white rose graced the night table. Beyond the bedroom, the house grew increasingly chilly, and on the third floor, there was not a carpet to be found.

The footman knocked on the nursery door, which was opened by the child herself.

“Hullo.”

Percival glowered at the footman. “Leave us.”

The man withdrew, looking unabashedly relieved.

“May I come in?”

She drew the door back, revealing a room made sunny—also downright cold—by the lack of curtains across the windows. In the middle of the bare floor sat a worn mess of fabric, yarn, and stuffing that might once have been a doll, along with five wooden soldiers, one of whom was missing part of a leg.

The grate held no fire.

“I was taking tea with the regimental officers. Would you like to join us?”

He’d freeze if he spent much time in this room. Maggie did not seem aware of the cold. Her braids were ratty, her short dress stained at the hem, and her pinafore fastened with a knot rather than bow at the back.

“Tea would be lovely.” He loathed the stuff.

Maggie took him by the hand—her little fingers were like ice—and drew him into the room. “I will make the introductions. You may sit there.” She settled onto the floor with a fluffing of her pinafore and dress that bore a disquieting resemblance to her mother’s pretentious manners. Percival lowered himself across from her, haunted by the memory of visits with his boys in their cozy, carpeted nursery—a room full of books, toys, and comforts.

While Percival felt despair clutching ever more tightly at his heart, little Maggie spun a fantasy of a polite tea with elegant service, crumpets, servants, and a cozy fire in the grate, which the imaginary footman tended about every two minutes.

When he could tolerate her play no more, Percival interrupted his daughter’s diatribe on whose wig was the most ridiculous at last night’s soiree.

“Maggie, where is your nurse?”

Her gaze narrowed on him, showing displeasure at having to give up her fictional tea party. “I haven’t a nurse. Mrs. Anglethorpe is the housekeeper. Burton is our maid of all work, and if Mama wants me, Burton fetches me.”

“Then who dresses you, child?”

Downy little brows twitched down. “I dress myself. I’m not a baby.”

She was not. He knew exactly how old she was, and she was not an infant. She was a handful of months older than Bartholomew.

“Who cares for you, Maggie?”

She studied him with an expression of consternation. “Burton says Mama loves me, but I can take care of myself.”

The despair weighting Percival’s heart threatened to choke him. He could not abandon this child to the care of her mother. He simply could not—his honor would not allow it, and in some way, even his standing as Esther’s husband would not allow it. For a moment, he considered confiding in his wife, but even if Esther were inclined to be understanding, there was nothing she could do to still Cecily O’Donnell’s vile tongue.

Percival rose and shed his jacket. “I want you to have my coat.” He draped it around Maggie’s shoulders. It fell nearly to the floor on her, which was good.

She drew it closed at the lapels and gave it a sniff. “It smells like you, and it’s warm.”

“Exactly the point. When was the last time you ate?”

She glanced at the battered doll and the worn soldiers.

“I mean real food, for God’s sake.” At the exasperation in his tone, her expression shuttered, and that… went beyond causing him despair. No child of her years should have instincts like this, should have circumstances like this while her mother sat two floors below, swathed in lace and warmed by a blazing fire.

“Come with me, Miss Maggie. We’re off to the kitchen.”

When he’d seen the child seated before bread, butter, jam, and hot tea, Percival forced himself to rejoin Cecily in her lair. Her eyes went wide at the sight of him without his coat, but she said nothing until the door was firmly closed behind him.

“You’ve assured yourself the girl is well and hale, and you know she’s yours. If I say you’ll accompany me to the theater tomorrow night, Percival, then accompany me, you shall.”

He hated this woman. Hated her with an intimate, burning passion that was not for himself but for the small child left shivering and alone hour after hour.

He was going to rescue this child, though he must wait until Esther had removed to Morelands to implement that plan. Hatred fueled the most ironically pleasant smile he’d ever manufactured. “I’ll pick you up at eight. Try not to dress like the trollop you are.”