If the Viscount Falls (14 page)

Betrayal sliced through him. “When were you going to tell me?” With leaden legs, he walked to the window to look out over the bustling innyard below. “When did you first find out?”

“Only a short while ago,” Jane said hastily. “And Nancy was by no means certain. She said she
might
be pregnant. If I'd been sure I would have told you at once, but I didn't think it wise to stir it all up if it came to naught.”

“No, much better to imply that this disappearance was some fey whim of hers. Much better to leave out the most important part of this entire affair.” He could hardly speak for the pressure on his chest. Nancy could very well be bearing George's son. “Much better to let me go on thinking that I have a new life, when in reality it may be over before it even begins.”

“Oh, Dom, I'm so sorry—” she began in a soft voice.

“Don't.” He turned from the window to shoot her a baleful glance. “Don't you
dare
pity me.”

She flinched. “I'm not, I swear. But I doubt that it will come to anything. Nancy has conceived three times already and has never carried the babe beyond the first few months. There's no reason to believe this time will be different.”

“Isn't there?
This
time the child may not be borne of George's inadequate seed, which makes a great deal of difference. Because it could mean she has a better chance of carrying the child until birth.”

That arrested Jane. “I-I don't understand.”

“Of course you do.” He paced the room, unable to keep still. “Nancy came running right here to Samuel Barlow the moment you left Rathmoor Park. She probably wanted to tell him in person that he was going to be a father.”

Jane's mouth dropped open. “That's absurd! If she was having Samuel's baby, she would have tried to cover it up. She wouldn't have hurried off to meet him, rousing everyone's suspicions.”

There was a certain logic in that, but he couldn't think past the idea of Nancy pregnant. Nancy having a son that could be passed off as George's.

Nancy's son inheriting Rathmoor Park while Dom, once more, lost everything.

The thought fueled his mounting rage. “If she was having
George's
baby, why wouldn't she share it with the world? Why keep it a big secret?”

“I told you why! She wasn't yet sure.” Jane tipped up her chin. “And she didn't keep it
that
big a secret. I knew. Mrs. Patch knew. And Nancy's maid definitely knew.”

“Yet none of you said anything to
me
about it.”

As the bitterness in his voice registered with her, guilt flashed over her face. “We had our reasons.”

“Oh? What might those be?” When Jane turned her face from his, a ball of ice settled in his belly. “Damn it, what possible reasons could you have for—”

“We were afraid of what you might do if you knew!”

“Do!” he cried, recoiling from the knife she'd just thrust in his gut. “Like
what
? Kidnap her? Murder her?”

“No, of course not!” Her vehemence only slightly dulled the blade of her betrayal. When he just stood staring at her, her cheeks reddened. “But I know that in cases like these, it's customary to . . . have the lady in question undergo a physical exam to make sure that she is indeed bearing a possible heir.”

He stiffened. “It certainly is. So why would you wish to deprive me of that opportunity? It's my right.”

“I know, but such an exam, as well as all the uproar that news of a possible heir would cause among the family and staff, might lead her to miscarry again.” She steadied her gaze on him. “I was protecting my cousin, that's all.”

“From
me
?” He could hardly breathe for the twist of pain in his belly. “You think me that much a monster? You think that once I knew the situation, I would still force a pregnant woman to undergo an exam that might cause her to lose her child.”

“No! Well . . .” She rubbed her arms fitfully. “You might have thought you had no choice. I didn't want to put you in the position of having to decide, when there could be no reason. And I certainly didn't want to risk her losing the baby.” She dropped her gaze. “I know you'll think it awful of me, but I wanted her to have it—even if it meant you had to go back to being plain Mr. Manton.”

There, in the starkest of words, was the truth. Jane didn't care if he lost everything again, as long as her precious cousin got to bear a child. George's child.

Or perhaps not George's child.

Raw fury burned his throat. He ought to be more sympathetic toward his sister-in-law. But it was hard to be so when it could spell the end to all his hopes. Especially when it could also be part of a scheme dreamed up between Barlow and Nancy to rip the estate from him. The estate he deserved to have, damn it!

He dug his fingernails into his palms. “So, in your zeal to protect Nancy, you decided it was acceptable to overlook her many deceptions.”

Jane cast him a mutinous glance. “What deceptions? I only spoke to the servants last night—”

“Last night?”

Briefly she got the look of a hare caught in a trap. Then she smoothed her features. “When I returned to Rathmoor Park to get my things, yes.”

“You went to the estate in the middle of the night,” he said incredulously. One more thing she hadn't informed
him of. “Tell me you didn't go the two hours back alone on horseback, the way you came to Winborough.”

“Of course not. That would be reckless.” As Dom began to breathe a little easier, she added, “I went in Lady Zoe's coach and took a footman with me.”

“And that wasn't reckless at all,” he said sarcastically. The thought of her traveling for hours late at night on dark country roads with only a servant to protect her curdled his blood. “Are you mad? Anything could have happened to you, for God's sake!”

“Do not shout at me, Lord Rathmoor!” She planted her hands on her hips. “You don't have the right to command me. If I wish to take a ship to India to learn blowhunting from Bedouins, I can do so with or without your approval.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “There are no Bedouins in India; they reside in Arabia. And it's not ‘blowhunting.' I believe you're referring to blowguns, but—”

“I don't care! The point is that I don't need your permission to do anything.” She cocked her head. “Besides, Lord Olivier's footman and coachman are former soldiers. I'm sure they would be just as useful to me in a fight as any fine gentleman.”

He grimaced. She was probably right about that.

“And in any case,” Jane went on, “your sister saw no problem with it.”

“She wouldn't,” he said dryly.

Lisette would do just about anything to keep Jane happy, as long as it meant reuniting Jane with him. Yes
terday, he'd felt the same way. Their kisses, which had haunted him all night, had made him almost certain that Jane still had feelings for him.

Clearly he'd been wrong. If Jane could keep such a monumental secret from him, knowing what it could mean to his future . . .

“You ought to be glad I went,” Jane continued. “I learned quite a bit. The servants confirmed what I suspected—that they had always just assumed that Mrs. Patch accompanied Nancy for her shopping, but they never knew it for a certainty. In fact, they didn't really know how Nancy spent her time in York.”

“Which supports
my
theory as easily as yours. Nancy could have been spending that time with Barlow.”

“She came back with packages,” Jane said stoutly.

“Her maid was with her, right? Meredith could have shopped for her while Nancy joined Barlow.”

Jane's lips thinned. “You're determined to believe Nancy a harlot.”

“
You're
determined to believe her a saint.” He clasped his hands behind his back to keep from shaking some sense into her. “And what about Meredith, anyway? We can't question
her
because she has conveniently disappeared from Nancy's employ. When did that happen? After George's death? Later?”

“Shortly before I came to stay at Rathmoor Park,” Jane said sullenly. “But the present maid gave me Meredith's address in London, which means we can question her whenever you like.” Her smile was cool. “You see? I'm perfectly willing to follow this wherever it
takes us, as long as we base our conclusions on facts and not on your obvious bias against Nancy.”

“I do
not
have a bias against Nancy,” he gritted out. “But considering what's at stake, and this new information about the babe she bears—”

“
Possibly
bears. We're not even sure of that! Her new maid said that her mistress had shown signs of being with child, but they weren't so pronounced as to make it certain. And even around her, Nancy was cautious about claiming absolutely that she was pregnant.”

“That doesn't mean she wasn't.”

“No, of course not. But you'd think that if she had been sure, she would have written to her supposed lover to tell him. And according to her maid, Nancy never corresponded with any gentlemen.”

Dom shook his head. “Just because her maid didn't see such letters doesn't mean they never existed. Perhaps that's why Nancy was so familiar with the schedule for the mail coach—because she preferred to post and receive her mail in person.”

Jane lifted her gaze heavenward. “Has it occurred to you that perhaps her association with Samuel wasn't romantic? They've known each other for years. So perhaps she went off with him to London because . . . I don't know . . .”

“Because she was completely unaware of how it would appear for her to be seen traveling to London with a known rogue,” Dom said coldly.

A sigh escaped her. “I know how this looks, but you still have nothing but the words of an innkeeper and
an ostler. What if they confused the situation? Or they lied? Or—”

“Come now, Jane, you're not that credulous,” he said softly. “It wouldn't be the first time a woman decided to pass her lover's child off as her husband's so she could inherit.”

“That's not even logical! For one thing, if Nancy had . . . shared a lover's bed while also sharing George's, no one could ever know for certain whose child she bore. So why run off to London with her lover to have her baby, and draw attention to herself? She'd be better off staying at Rathmoor Park.”

“Unless she knew she'd conceived the child too long after George's death to be able to pass it off as his.”

The color drained from Jane's face. “
That
is a truly horrible assertion.”

He strode up to her. “
Think,
Jane. If she disappears for the next six or eight months, an examination is impossible. She could simply show up with a baby she claimed as George's, and none could prove otherwise, no matter what their suspicions.”

She snorted. “No doctor worth his salt would confuse a newborn for a three-month-old.”

“Ah, but it needn't be so great a difference for her to be worried. The law says that the babe must be born within forty weeks of the husband's death to be considered his, which means she can't bear the child even one week later. So why should she risk its being declared illegitimate, when she can put the matter in doubt by giving birth in secret whenever she pleases, then com
ing out of hiding to declare that the child was born before the forty weeks were done?”

Jane's stony gaze pierced him. “You don't think
someone
would witness that birth? And testify to the truth of the matter?”

“Witnesses can be bought easily enough, my dear. Trust me on that.”

“You really have become very cynical in these past few years,” Jane said in a hollow voice, “if you're asserting that my cousin, a woman gently bred, is perpetrating a deception of such grand proportions as to make her a true villain! You may believe her capable of that, but I
know
she is not.”

Dom stared her down. “A woman will do much to secure her future if she feels it's threatened. With things as they are now, Nancy inherits only her dower's portion—a third of the rents. Any illegitimate child of hers would get nothing. No monies, no land, no title. So if her child is born a bastard, he
—
”

“Or
she,
” Jane put in. “You keep forgetting that none of this is by any means certain. Even Dom the Almighty cannot predict the sex of an unborn child.”

“True,” he conceded, trying not to bristle at the term
Dom the Almighty
. Did she really consider him such a pompous twit? “But after seeing what Father's negligence wrought, George took great care to make his own will ironclad. If he had no son and couldn't prevent me from inheriting the title and entailed estate, he dictated that anything not entailed be left to a daughter.”

When Jane blinked, clearly unaware of the niceties
of George's will, he went on ruthlessly, “And if Nancy does happen to bear him a son?” He choked down his ire at the thought. “The boy will gain everything. That would be a temptation for any woman who wants the best for her child.”

Though Jane blanched, she stood firm. “Nonetheless, Nancy wouldn't do anything immoral to obtain that.”

Jane's persistence in the face of the facts was starting to chafe him raw. “No? Even
you,
as principled as you are, are willing to marry a man you don't love just to secure yourself a better future. So how much more would Nancy wish to do so, if she were—”

“Wait a minute.” Jane narrowed her gaze on him. “Why the devil would you think I don't love Edwin?”

The question startled him . . . until he realized what he'd said.

He wasn't even sure why he'd said it. Perhaps because he wanted it to be true. Because he wanted to think that despite her engagement, he still had a chance with her. Because he was a fool—a reckless, besotted fool.