Authors: Hannah Howell
was skipping up to greet them “Humph. Where have you been hiding him?” Lady Marston demanded of Julian. “By-blow, eh? Wel , your mother wil never
agree to hiding the lad away like some dirty secret. She wil be giving you the sharp side of her tongue, and you deserve it.”
“Not a by-blow, m’lady,” Julian said as he picked Anthony up in his arms. “My son by Lady Kenwood. Legitimate. Al the officials that are needed,
and then some, have reviewed the papers I have and have heartily agreed. This is Anthony Peter Chadwick Kenwood, my heir and my miracle. The notice
wil be in the paper on the morrow.”
“Who is buried in the family plot, then?”
“Someone else.”
Lady Marston stared at Anthony for a moment and then, in a surprisingly gentle move, stroked Anthony’s cheek with her finger. “A handsome lad.”
“I have pretty hair,” said Anthony and grinned when Lady Marston laughed.
“That you do, laddie. That you do.” She looked at Julian again. “Letting the world know, eh? What tale are you putting about? The truth or a hint of
it?”
Julian put Anthony back down on the ground and the boy ran back to Leo. “I have given the truth to the authorities, although I have little proof. It is
stil but my word, and although that is accepted, there is more needed before any punishment can be meted out. Everyone treads cautiously when the
gentry are involved.”
“Annoying. There are far too many who should have been hanged or tossed into the gaol just running about the country.”
Deciding there was no need to remark upon that opinion, Julian continued, “The world wil also be told the truth—that my son was stolen from me
and I have only just gotten him back through the aid and the kindness of the Wherlockes.”
“Wel said.” She stared toward Anthony, who was kicking a bal around. “Keep him close. Keep al the heirs close.”
“Do you know something, Lady Marston?” asked Chloe.
“I just know what I know. Keep the heirs close together. Safety in numbers.” Lady Marston started walking away, her fat little dog wheezing and
panting as it struggled to keep up with her long strides. “And keep that boy’s hair cut. It is too damned pretty.”
Chloe laughed. Both Leo and Julian glared after the rapidly disappearing Lady Marston as if she had just uttered the foulest of blasphemies.
Chloe had no doubt that Lady Marston had known exactly how the two men would react to her parting words.
“Do you think Lady Marston knows something?” Chloe asked Julian as they al walked back to Leo’s home. “She keeps speaking as if she does.
Mayhap she has Wherlocke blood.”
“You could always check your bloodlines, but the fact is that Lady Marston is from a long line of military men,” he replied. “I think she would have
been an excel ent officer if she had been born a son. I believe she simply sees the plot against us quickly and clearly, that she has a true skil for deducing who the enemy is.”
“Military,” Chloe murmured and then nodded. “That explains a lot.”
“Such as how she speaks her mind so bluntly?”
“Aye, and especial y why no one seems to argue with her when she does.”
“Beatrice tried once.” Julian grinned when Leo laughed and shook his head in disbelief. “Fortunately that confrontation occurred after I had already
begun to see the truth about Beatrice, or I might have tried to defend her and made myself a very bad enemy.”
Chloe thought about that for a moment. “Nay, I do not think that would have happened. It would have been the loyal thing to do, and Lady Marston
admires loyalty. Lady Marston would have simply and bluntly told you to open your eyes and then walked away.”
“That is probably exactly what she would have done.”
“Did we accomplish what you intended to today?” she asked as they stepped inside, where Dilys waited for Anthony and quickly took the boy off
to be cleaned up for his tea.
“The word of my son’s tragic disappearance and miraculous return to home and hearth wil be spreading far and wide as fast as people can move
from one event to another. I doubt there wil be many left who have not heard the tale by dinnertime.”
“Oh, Leo?” she cal ed out to her cousin, who was headed to his office.
Leo turned and gave her an absent smile, revealing that his mind was already on other things. “Something I can do for you, cousin?”
“You told Julian that you had men who could attest to the fact that Beatrice was, wel , not pure when she married him and that that would al ow him
make his marriage nul and void? Correct?” She knew it was, for Julian himself had told her, but spoke more to spark Leo’s memory than to question what
had been said.
“Aye. It would be embarrassing for Julian, but it would work.”
“I think it might be more than embarrassing. I think that if the marriage is annul ed, then Anthony’s legitimacy is gone as wel . I could be wrong, but it
might be wise to look into that.”
Julian cursed and ran his hand through his hair, nearly undoing his queue. “He does not need to look into it. You are right. I cannot get an
annulment without making Anthony a bastard. After al , if my marriage is no longer valid, is said to have never been valid, then Anthony’s legitimacy is also no longer valid.”
“I wonder how I did not know that?” muttered Leo.
“You probably do not know anyone who has had it done or even considered it. I happen to know a few men who are trapped in abysmal
marriages, and they once said that they wil stay trapped, for divorce is almost impossible to get and is a scandal one rarely overcomes and annulments
make your children bastards. I cannot get an annulment.”
“How do you know about that?” Leo asked Chloe.
“Overheard something about it in the lady’s retiring room last evening at the Hinkleys’.”
“Ah, of course, the place where al the most important information is uncovered.”
“Do not be so contemptuous.” Chloe started toward the stairs. “You would be surprised what is spoken of in those rooms. A good female spy
could find out al sorts of interesting things.”
Julian watched the way Leo scowled at his cousin until she was out of his sight. “I believe she may be right about that, too. As for the annulment, I
suspect whatever solicitor I chose would have quickly informed me of the risk to Anthony.”
“I do not like not knowing things. Especial y things that are such common knowledge they are spoken of in the ladies’ retiring rooms. Meet me in
my office in two hours?”
Julian barely finished nodding before Leo had turned and continued on his way to his office. It was tempting to fol ow the man and demand to know
what was weighing so heavily on his mind, but he suspected Leo would not tel him unless it was directly related to his own troubles. The man was a very
good spy for England. He was also as good a friend to Julian as Edgar was, so he decided to just leave the man to his work and not pester to know
things he was not supposed to know.
Instead, he thought, and grinned, he was going to go and pester Chloe. Now that Anthony’s survival had been revealed to the world, life could grow
very hectic. And very dangerous, Julian thought, his good humor fading a little.
For a moment Julian’s confidence in the plan he and Leo had contrived wavered badly. Had he put his son in danger? Far more than the boy was
in already? He quickly shook that doubt away. There was no choice. As a secret Anthony was a lot easier to dispose of than if the whole world knew of his
existence. What he had told Chloe, that being widely known about and of great interest because of the tales being told, it would be very hard for Arthur or Beatrice to do anything to the boy without attracting suspicion to themselves, was absolutely true. At least that was the plan, and it was a good one, he
told himself firmly as he entered Chloe’s bedchamber.
He grinned when he found Chloe had already stripped to her shift and let down her hair. Even as she eyed him with suspicion, he shut the door
behind him and latched it. They had just spent several hours in each other’s company without being able to even touch in any way other than the most
fleeting and proper. He had risked gossip when he had simply held her hand for a moment and kissed it. Julian realized that he now ached to make up for
the enforced distance.
“Julian, it is the middle of the day,” she said as he approached her with an easily recognizable gleam in his eye.
“Passion knows no time restrictions,” he said as he pul ed her into his arms.
“How very convenient for you.”
“It is, is it not?” He laughed and carried her to their bed.
Our bed.
Julian found he savored the words, that they felt right in his mouth. For the first time he understood some of what his parents had shared.
As he had grown into an adolescent, he had realized that his parents slept together al the time. He had suffered the occasional twinge of embarrassment
over the fact that his parents shared a bedchamber, as if there were not enough rooms in Colinsmoor to house al of them. He had even worried that his
friends would find out. Then, as a man, when Beatrice stoutly demanded her own bedchamber, he had accepted that, assuming his parents had just been
a little eccentric.
Now he understood them. Sharing a bed with your spouse ensured a continued closeness, and not just the one that came from a shared passion.
They talked, were completely private for perhaps the only time during the day, and could share memories or news or even secrets. Waking to your spouse
every morning only strengthened the bond. This time, he thought as he lowered Chloe to the bed, he would have a real marriage, a strong one, one where
he and his wife actual y shared a life.
“You suddenly look very serious,” Chloe said as he dropped down beside her and pul ed her into his arms. “Changed your mind?”
“Not at al .” He proved his words by kissing her with al the desire that was already rushing through him. “I was just wondering on the sleeping
habits of married couples.”
“Ah, so it is a nap you are after. Wel , I am feeling a mite tired myself.”
“You can take a nap—after.”
Chloe soon lost herself to the passion he could stir within her. She even forgot that it was the middle of the day and the sun was shining brightly
into the bedchamber. Julian’s kisses and caresses wiped al rational thought from her mind and made her a creature of need, of heat, of blind desire. She
cried out in welcome when he entered her. Their lovemaking became fast and furious after that, both of them greedily reaching for that sublime
culmination. She cal ed out his name when her release swept over her with such force she bowed up in his arms. Julian quickly joined her, thrusting home
so hard that she bumped her head against the carved headboard of the bed. When he slumped into her arms with a groan, she closed her eyes and
savored the weight of his body for a few moments.
As her mind began to clear of the haze of spent passion, Chloe opened her eyes and gasped. The bed was aglow with the rays of the sun shining
through the window. She shoved a stil limp Julian off her and yanked up the blanket to cover herself. When she looked at him, at how he was sprawled on
his back unabashedly naked, she threw part of the blanket over his groin. It was a very handsome groin, even with his manhood lying as limp as its master
in a thatch of curls stil damp from their lovemaking, but she stil covered it up. It was too distracting and she had no intention of spending the rest of the day in bed.
Julian glanced down at the blanket draped over his groin and then looked at Chloe. She was clutching the blanket to her as if she feared some
crowd would walk by at any moment and peer in the window. Her face was covered in a blush. It might have been too soon to make love in the broad light
of the afternoon. Chloe was stil very modest. Then he turned on his side and kissed her on the cheek. She would lose some of that modesty as time
passed, but he decided he liked it. It never interfered with their lovemaking or dimmed her passion.
“I feel much better now,” he said. “Thank you.”
Chloe frowned at him. “You were feeling badly?” Although she was concerned about him, Chloe was deeply flattered that making love with her
could make him feel better no matter what was troubling him. A little voice in her head whispered that it could be that any man would feel better after
making love to a woman, but she ignored it.
“I was doubting my plans.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her against his chest. “I fear for Anthony. I am furious that Arthur and
Beatrice are stil walking about free, that my word is not enough to bring them to justice simply because they are of the gentry. Leo’s people could grab
Arthur simply on his word alone and question him hard, but they do not wish the taint of treason to touch the Kenwoods. It is frustrating.”
“Very.” She lightly kissed his chest and then rested her cheek against it, listening contentedly to the sound of his heart beating.
“The event at Mother’s on the morrow should finish spreading the news of Anthony’s existence.” He smiled when Chloe groaned. “There is
something else I must consider.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “You sound so serious. What is it?”
“Divorce.”
Chloe winced. Divorce was rare. It was difficult to get, and the scandal it caused could result in near banishment from society. The gossip
surrounding the discovery of an heir to Colinsmoor would seem like no more than irritating whispers compared to what a divorce would stir up.
“You probably have more than enough to get that. It is not an easy thing to get and you might find that marrying again is difficult.”
“I wil look into that. I cannot remain married to Beatrice, and I want to marry you. The only other choice to gain freedom from her is her death, and