“I have charms?” He pretended innocence. “We shall return to the matter of my charms later. Now, I want to hear the story of this man who is such a bad judge of character.”
She felt weary—and no wonder, as she’d destroyed a crime lord and fought off a knife-wielding assailant. And that had been just this afternoon. Julia sat on the bed. “Yes, well, the viscount thought I was a bad judge of character.”
“His character?” Neil sat beside her, which she knew was improper—as was his presence in her bedchamber—but she couldn’t seem to manage to protest.
“He was all show and no substance. I knew it the first time I met him. He is like an actor on a stage who plays a part with such depth and emotion it brings tears to your eyes, but offstage, he is shallow and vain and cares more for the cut of his coat than the thousands of orphans roaming the streets.”
“In all fairness, most of London cares more for the cut of a coat than the plight of orphans.”
She waved a hand. “Yes, but you know what I mean. He played a part with my sister, and she believed it.”
“And you did not. Did she also care for orphans?”
“Not really. She was a member of several benevolent societies, but all ladies are.” It shamed her to say this, but as long as she was spilling her soul… “I didn’t always care as much about orphans as I do now.”
“Well, this is shocking.”
She rolled her eyes, but she could appreciate how he used levity. She was trying quite diligently not to appreciate the feel of his body beside hers. When he’d sat on the bed beside her, the mattress had given, and his thigh rested against hers. She liked the solid heat of him there—too much. Images of earlier that day came to her—of his mouth on her breast and between her legs. She wanted that again, and she knew she should never have allowed it the first time. She should not even be thinking of it now.
“I always wanted to do something, to help as much as I could, which was why I became involved with St. Dismas. I even visited several times, but I was only too happy to allow myself to be convinced that all was as it should be, even though the children were dirty and too thin. I had balls to attend and the theater to dress for.”
She was quiet, remembering that life, when she’d been carefree and ignorant. When she and Harriett spent hours primping before mirrors and gossiping about the most eligible men in the ton.
“And then Harriett met Lainesborough,” Julia whispered, “and everything changed. I tried to like him if only because she liked him so much, but I could not. And I loved my sister and voiced my concerns to her. Of course, she told him, and though he pretended to play the gallant knight who would win me over, I could see he hated me for daring to jeopardize his chance with St. Maur’s eldest daughter. We both had substantial dowries. Well, I still have mine. Lainesborough wanted Harriett’s, and after they married, it became clear why.”
“Gambling debts,” Neil said.
“You know him?” But one look at his face told Julia he didn’t. She supposed it was not difficult to guess why a man of the upper classes might need blunt. “You know men like him,” she said. “Yes, he gambled too much and drank too much, and, well…did everything too much. The day after he married my sister, he disappeared for three nights. We later heard he had spent the time at”—her cheeks blushed—“a house of ill repute,” she whispered.
Neil didn’t comment, for which Julia was thankful. Nothing he might have said at that moment would have comforted her. Instead, he simply took her hand and held it. She surprised herself by squeezing his hand tightly. She closed her eyes to finish the story.
“After that he was more often away than home. When my sister discovered she was with child, she came home to be with me. Our father did what he could to keep Lainesborough away, but the viscount had little interest in her at any rate. He’d wanted her money, and he had it.”
Harriett’s confinement had been a mixed blessing. She had grown more beautiful with each passing week as her body ripened with child. The sisters had spent all their time together, something social responsibilities had made all but impossible the past few years. Despite her father’s protests, Julia had withdrawn from Society to be with her sister, who also shunned Society and the news she would hear of her husband’s infidelities.
“When her time came, there was no reason to think it should be anything out of the ordinary.” She could not look at him as she spoke these words. She shouldn’t have been in the room when the baby was delivered, much less speak about it to a man, but who else could she tell? And it seemed now that the dam was open, she could not stop it up again. “The delivery seemed normal to me. Difficult, yes, but when we were younger and my mother was still alive, she would tell us about her painful labors to make Harriett and I feel guilty for vexing her.”
Neil laughed quietly, and Julia smiled too.
“But then after the baby came, Harriett seemed to become worse, not better. She was too exhausted to hold her son, and she was so pale.” Julia swallowed. “And there was so much blood. I took Davy to meet his grandfather, but when I returned, I became alarmed at what I saw. Harriett could not be revived. The midwife was in tears, and when we called for the doctor, he said there was nothing he could do. She was dead before the end of the day.”
Neil’s hand tightened where it held hers.
“I laid Davy in her arms, but the baby cried when he was away from me. Still, we stayed until the end. And then, when she was gone, I made the mistake of falling in love with Davy, though he’d never been mine to love.”
“What did Lainesborough do when he was informed he had a son and heir?”
Julia swiped at her eyes. “Nothing. He did not answer our letters or come to see the child. I think I began to believe Davy might be mine. I can’t tell you how I wished he’d been born a girl. If he’d been a girl, Lainesborough wouldn’t have ever taken notice of her, no matter how much he wanted to spite me. Girls were not worth his attention. But I suppose because the child was his heir, eventually he had to take an interest. One day he came to the house and demanded to see Davy. The baby was almost six months old at that time and just so beautiful. Lainesborough didn’t speak to him or even touch him, but he saw how attached I was to the child and how much the little boy loved me. Maybe if he hadn’t seen that—”
Neil lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Shh. None of that now. No what-ifs.”
She nodded. She knew the particular hell she entered when she gave into that line of thinking. “He came back the next week with his attorney and his footmen and took the child away. I tried to protest, screaming and crying, but I had no argument. Legally, the child is his. I managed to be calm and feign happiness when I had to hand Davy over. He was scared enough as it was, and I didn’t want to add to that.” The tears fell unbidden. “But I will never forget the way he held out his chubby arms to me or the way he cried as though his world was ending or the fear in his eyes. I will never forgive myself for abandoning him.”
“You did not abandon him. He was taken away. Those are two very different situations.”
“And yet I still feel as though I failed him—as though I continue to fail him. Where is he now? Who comforts him when he wakes crying? Who holds him and hugs him?” She sniffed and closed her eyes to stem the flow of tears before they threatened to overwhelm her. When she opened her eyes again, Neil had a determined expression on his face.
“It wouldn’t be difficult to discover the answer to those questions.”
Julia wanted to hug him. Sweet, sweet man. “I already know the answers. Davy has a nurse and Lainesborough has a house full of servants. Though he may rarely be home, the child is cared for.”
Neil’s expression turned perplexed. “Then why are you crying?”
“Because it’s not me holding him. It’s not me comforting him. I loved him as though he were my own, and I think, for a little while, he was.”