Authors: Johanna Lindsey
R
EBECCA NEVER RECOVERED FROM
her last encounter with Rupert St. John. Weeks went by, but the hurt and anger she had experienced that night remained with her. Nothing would distract her from it for long.
A trip to the theater with the duchess and her full entourage had been the most successful of the distractions. Rebecca had actually enjoyed that. Finally meeting the young queen had been exciting as well, but too brief. Few palace entertainments took place now as Victoria got closer to her term. The few words Prince Albert had spared for her offering his reassurance that Nigel Jennings was a devoted servant of the crown had come too late.
She no longer cared that Nigel’s devotion to his queen and his country was so long and so superlative that it was above reproach. She was never again putting herself in a position to be called a liar or labeled a thief. So she closed her eyes and her ears to whatever Lady Sarah was up to. She simply didn’t care anymore.
The boredom of her days left her too much time to think
about, and revile,
him
. Rebecca had walked away from Rupert a number of times at evening entertainments. Why couldn’t she have done so that night, before it became so fateful?
She’d kept tears to herself, but her snappy temper she wasn’t as successful at hiding had embarrassed her more than once. She no longer had any tolerance for Elizabeth’s vile disposition, which had culminated in a veritable screaming match that Rebecca wasn’t the least bit proud to have been a part of. But it did have one positive outcome. Elizabeth, in high dudgeon, had packed up her things and vacated the room. Too bad she hadn’t left the palace as well.
Rebecca knew that she couldn’t blame all of her emotional swings on Rupert—well, she could, but another situation had begun to take precedence, and this one she couldn’t ignore.
She needed her mother’s advice, but she’d have to go home for that. Actually, she needed her mother’s advice about going home, too. What a mess she was in, needing advice to get advice! But having made the decision that she needed to go home, it still took her three days to broach the subject with her maid, the only person at the palace to whom she was close enough to discuss such a delicate matter.
She waited until she was sitting at her vanity and Flora stood behind her, running a comb through her hair. She kept her eyes off the mirror. Her cheeks were already growing warm, but then embarrassment was to be expected.
“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about, Flora, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“The baby?”
Rebecca’s eyes flew up to the mirror to see the maid with a raised brow looking directly at her in the glass. “How did you know?”
Flora snorted and went back to combing her hair. “Who takes care of you, eh? Did you think I wouldn’t notice you’ve been filling the chamber pot with food you can’t keep down? You might have asked me to arrive later of a morn so I wouldn’t witness it, but the evidence was still there.”
Rebecca’s morning sickness was horrible. She’d even had to run out of the duchess’s chambers several times now to find a quiet place to throw up her breakfast. But at least it was only a morning malady that didn’t trouble her beyond those early hours.
“I thought the maids were taking care of that,” she said with a wince.
Flora snorted again. “I’ve never let those uppity palace maids in here to clean
your
room. That’s my job.”
“If you had guessed, why didn’t you say anything?”
“You weren’t ready to discuss it.” Flora shrugged. “Now you are.”
Rebecca sighed. “I no longer have a choice. It’s been five weeks since…”
She had a hard time saying she’d actually made love, but Flora understood and was already ahead of her. “And three weeks overdue for your monthlies,” the maid said with a nod.
“Yes. So you see why I can’t wait any longer. I could actually start showing in another month or so.”
“Some women don’t show at all until quite late in their pregnancy.”
“And some don’t have morning sickness either. I’m not that lucky. I was hoping you could help me decide what to do. Do I tell my mother and let her find a solution if there is one, or do I tell the baby’s father?”
“Do you like him well enough to marry him? Never mind, you must to have let him—”
“Let’s not discuss that, please. It was a foolish mistake. And, no, I’d rather not marry him. If I’m sure about anything, it’s that he’d make a terrible husband. I don’t know what sort of father he’d make though.”
“Well, surely you realize that your mother’s options for solutions will be very limited. She will either have to buy you a husband, which she can certainly afford to do, or find a good home for your baby.”
“I can’t bear the thought of giving my baby up to strangers,” Rebecca said instantly.
“Then—”
“But I can’t bear the thought of having a paid-for husband, either.”
Flora rolled her eyes. “If you’ve already made up your mind to let the father deal with it, then why’d you ask for my advice?”
“I’ve done nothing of the sort.”
The Angel was quite tarnished in her mind now, beyond redemption, without a single sterling quality. He was just a rogue, after all. And this was the father of her child?
“In fact,” she continued, “I’d as soon never lay eyes on him again. But I was hoping you might think of some other alternative.”
“You could go away, not just to have the baby, but for good. Live abroad and pretend to be a widow. Your mother would probably even go with you.”
Rebecca hadn’t thought of that and didn’t want to now. It would be a tremendous change in their lives. How could she suggest that to her mother when Lilly had lived her whole life in Norford? All her friends were there and she was quite happy with how socially active they kept her. But of course, Lilly would pack up and go with her if Rebecca opted for that plan. That’s how
much Lilly loved her. But the guilt Rebecca would feel at overturning her mother’s life would be more than she could bear.
None of her options were palatable, but that was to be expected after such a huge leap down the wrong path. She’d done the one thing that was absolutely unforgivable in the eyes of her peers, which was why those peers could never know.
“I can’t do that to my mother,” Rebecca said. “I really can’t.”
Flora ran the comb through Rebecca’s hair a few more times before she said thoughtfully, “You still ought to tell your gentleman—he
is
a gentleman, correct?”
“An aristocrat by birth, yes.”
“There’s a distinction?”
“In his case, most definitely.”
Rebecca said that so sourly, Flora was quick to ask, “Who is he?”
Rebecca had no reason to keep his identity a secret, at least not from her maid. “Elizabeth’s
friend
who mistook this room for their trysting place all those weeks ago and left you all agog.”
“So Lady Elizabeth wasn’t the only one who—oh my God, Becca,
him
? Marry him!”
“No.”
“How can you not want to?”
“Because he’s probably the worst skirt-chaser ever to be born. Women flock to him because of his extraordinary looks and he takes full advantage of it, seducing them all!”
“All?”
“All of them who are as foolish as I was.”
Flora sighed and patted Rebecca’s shoulder sympathetically. “This is so much more understandable now. A man who looks like that can whittle away all defenses, especially if he
tries
to.”
“His capabilities don’t matter. The situation he’s left me in does.”
“There’s one other option, you know.”
“That’s why we’re having this discussion, to explore every option. Which one did you forget to mention?”
“Well, it’s not ideal, but if you
really
don’t want to marry him—”
“We’ve established that.”
“And you don’t want to buy a husband, go away, or give your baby to strangers…”
“Yes?”
“Give it to him instead. He certainly wouldn’t be the first lord to own up to his responsibility and raise his bastard himself. He’ll probably prefer that alternative to marriage, if he’s as bad as you say. And you could become a ‘friend’ of the family so you can visit all you like, although…”
“What?”
“I’m not so sure that’d be a good idea, after all. If you get too attached, it might end up being even more painful for you, and how could your heart not get involved, when it’s your own baby? But in either case, you really must tell him, and you might as well do so before you go home. If you don’t, your mother will, and she won’t be very nice about it, I’m sure. She’ll put the whole blame where it belongs, on him.
She
will probably even demand he marry you. So if you don’t want it coming to that, deal with him yourself. He might even have some other alternative we haven’t thought of.”
F
INDING RUPERT WASN’T THE
simple matter Rebecca had thought it would be. Although she’d caught a glimpse of him at a couple of palace events right after that fateful night, she’d heard that he’d moved out of the palace. He hadn’t even returned for the celebrations after the queen birthed her first son in early November, the new heir apparent to the throne.
But she knew Rupert lived in London, she just didn’t know where and didn’t have any acquaintances in town that she could ask. She tried several hacks, hoping one of the drivers might know where the Marquis of Rochwood lived. That didn’t work. She asked another to take her somewhere she could find a book of addresses, but that driver said he only knew of gentlemen’s clubs that kept addresses of the nobility, and neither he nor she would make it through the door of one of those establishments.
She could have asked Nigel Jennings, but she hadn’t seen him since he’d given her the letter to deliver to Rupert, and she certainly didn’t want to talk to him now. Besides, Rupert must have told him that she couldn’t be trusted, which might account for why Nigel hadn’t sought her out again himself.
Finally she told Flora of her difficulty, and an hour later the maid came back with the address. John Keets again. What a resourceful man!
Rebecca waited until the next morning so she could arrive at Rupert’s home early enough to be assured he wouldn’t be out and about for the day yet. She should have told Flora to come to the palace early so she could accompany her. But a chaperone wasn’t really necessary when she was only going straight to Rupert’s house and then coming straight back to the palace, hopefully before her morning sickness showed up.
Arlington Street was much closer to the palace than she’d thought, too. She could probably deal with this dreaded conversation with Rupert before she got sick. But as she stepped out of the hack and walked up to his house, her nervousness returned. She dealt with it, though, by reminding herself of all the reasons she should be furious instead. That worked. She was halfway to high dudgeon when the door opened, but within a few moments she was filled with dismay.
The marquis wasn’t home, the butler informed her. In fact, he wasn’t even in the country. Perhaps she could return in a few weeks. He
might
be back from France by then, though that was doubtful, since his ship, the
Merhammer,
had sailed just this morning.
That’s when Rebecca felt a tiny shred of hope amid the panic. Had his ship actually sailed yet, or did his butler just assume it was gone? In either case, she had to find out which port the
Merhammer
was sailing to, so she had to go to the docks anyway. She walked briskly back to the hack and informed the driver of her new destination. Waiting several more weeks for Rupert to return to London was out of the question. She didn’t have much time to spare at this point. She’d have to send
someone after him right away, that very day! Perhaps John Keets could be persuaded to take a small vacation….
“What in the bloody hell are you doing here?”
“How nice to see you, too,” Rebecca replied curtly before she turned to the young deckhand to thank him for showing her to Rupert’s cabin.
She’d experienced every sort of anxiety on her race to the docks. It would have been much worse though if they hadn’t quickly found out at which dock the
Merhammer
had been berthed. But it all went away as soon as she saw that the
Merhammer
hadn’t yet sailed. Well, not quite all. There’d been enough left for her to spill her guts into the Thames before boarding the ship.
How embarrassing that had been, but none of the sailors who might have witnessed it had commented on it. As bad as the river smelled at dockside, they were probably used to seeing men and women do the same thing.
Rebecca couldn’t believe her good luck. The ship hadn’t sailed as soon as the tide rolled in because some of the ship’s cargo was late in arriving. But the ship would sail as soon as it did, so she was warned to keep her visit brief.
With that in mind, Rebecca moved past Rupert into his cabin and said, “You might want to cancel this trip.”
She was keeping her eyes off his face. Having not seen him in—it was closer to six weeks now than five—she didn’t want to risk that old bedazzlement she used to feel.
“Might I indeed? I suppose I should ask why, but since I’m not likely to believe anything you say, I think I’ll contain the urge.”
He’d closed the door. He was leaning back against it, his
arms crossed over his wide chest. He was casually dressed in buff-colored pants with a dark brown jacket and his white shirt open at the neck. Did he actually sound amused at her suggestion? Amazing how he could raise her ire so easily, but at least it allowed her to look directly at him and not be affected by his dazzling handsomeness—too much.
“Fine,” she said stiffly. “If you can make your decision quickly without giving it much thought, then I can be on my way all the sooner. You are merely an option at the bottom of my short list, after all, and it wasn’t even my idea to put you on the list. Someone pointed out that—’
“You can stop right there, Becca,” he cut in tersely, his amusement gone now. “I’ve heard enough to recognize that your confusing tactics are in full swing, so let me warn you I no longer have any patience where you’re concerned. Spit it out or get out.
That’s
the only option you have right now.”
She glared at him. “Do you treat your family in this abominable manner, too?”
He was momentarily caught off guard to go by his expression. “My family? Where the deuce did that come from? Never mind.
That’s
none of your business.”
“Actually it is. And if you can’t answer that one simple question for me, then I have nothing further to say to you.”
“Good,” he said in a satisfied tone, and turned to open the door wide for her.
She drew in her breath sharply. He was serious! He wanted her to leave without even finding out what had brought her here. Had she really thought she could deal with him again as nasty as he’d become
after
he’d bedded her? It hadn’t occurred to her until now that this might be how he treated all of the women that he seduced and then discarded. All sweetness and
charm beforehand, then the veriest cad afterward. It certainly was an effective way of making sure that they wanted nothing more to do with him.
He didn’t even deserve a final retort. She couldn’t help the look of contempt she gave him as she marched past him. She was halfway up the steep steps to the deck when he yanked her down them and dragged her back to his room. He even slammed the door shut behind them this time before he let go of her.
“You’ve got two minutes to explain yourself,” he growled at her.
“You’ve got two seconds to get out of my way,” she snapped back.
“Or what?” And now he actually smirked. “D’you really think you can get past me?”
His absolute confidence tipped the scale on her anger. She flew at him with her nails bared. The hard kiss he gave her in return so surprised both of them that it took a good ten seconds before they realized it shouldn’t be happening and pushed away at the same moment. Rebecca was left panting and horrified by her slow reaction. She didn’t hesitate though to wipe the taste of him off her lips.
Rupert’s pale blue eyes gazed at her hotly. “Oh, that hurts. ’Deed it does.”
“Spare me your sarcasm and just move aside. The decision I came here to discuss with you is no longer yours to make, it’s mine, and thank you for helping me make it. So you see, we have nothing further to say to each other.”
He raked an angry hand through his hair. “I suppose you know that’s one of the oldest tactics around? I’ve even used it myself on occasion. Good God, did Sarah actually take you under
her wing? She’s personally teaching you duplicity now? You were good before, but you’ve definitely graduated to much better.”
“Sarah be damned.
You
be damned. But my baby isn’t going to be damned to your care now,” Rebecca cried furiously, “
That’s
why I came here, to find out if you might want to raise the child yourself instead of seeing it go to strangers. But giving it up is my last resort. My mother might be able to buy me a perfectly acceptable husband and then I won’t have to give it up a’tall. So you see, your answer in either case wasn’t really important. I was merely advised to consult you before apprising my mother of my condition, since her first reaction will probably be to demand you marry me, which you’ll agree is out of the question.”
His immediate response was to clap his hands—slowly. “Bravo. You’ve really mastered the knack of manipulation, haven’t you? Gad, you almost had me buying it. It was almost like standing back and watching myself in action. Fascinating—until you blew it with the mention of marriage. You should never put your ultimate goal on the table, luv. You must let your mark think that the idea is his own, or it just doesn’t work.”
She almost laughed at that point. He really thought she’d made all that up to get a proposal out of him? He couldn’t be more wrong, but it would be a waste of her breath to say so.
“Good-bye, St. John,” she said with as much contempt as she could muster, and headed for the door again.
But the ship chose that horrible moment to dip dramatically in the water, and Rebecca swayed both ways with it. It wasn’t a movement her delicate condition could come even close to handling. Eyes widening with dread, she started to gag.