‘To be the acknowledged bastard of a duke would open many doors. But—’

He broke off.

There was the hesitation again, and proof that she was right not to trust him. She braced herself for whatever might come after.

‘But would it not be better to be my heir?’

She could not help a single unladylike bark of laughter at the idea. Then she composed herself again and gave him a sarcastic smile, pretending to ponder. ‘Would it be better to be a duke than a bastard son? Next you will be asking me if it is better to be a duchess than a governess.’

The room fell silent.

‘That is precisely what I am asking.’

Don't miss this sensational Regency duet from Christine Merrill

THE SINNER AND THE SAINT

Brothers separated at birth, brought together by scandal

From the birth of a secret to the death of a lie, two brothers have been torn apart. While the Duke behaves like a saint, the Doctor believes himself a sinner. And only a scandal can bring them back together.

THE GREATEST OF SINS Already available

THE FALL OF A SAINT March 2014

The Fall

of a Saint

Christine Merrill

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTINE MERRILL lives on a farm in Wisconsin, USA, with her husband, two sons, and too many pets—all of whom would like her to get off the computer so they can check their e-mail. She has worked by turns in theatre costuming, where she was paid to play with period ballgowns, and as a librarian, where she spent the day surrounded by books. Writing historical romance combines her love of good stories and fancy dress with her ability to stare out of the window and make stuff up.

Previous novels by Christine Merrill:

THE INCONVENIENT DUCHESS

AN UNLADYLIKE OFFER

A WICKED LIAISON

MISS WINTHORPE'S ELOPEMENT

THE MISTLETOE WAGER

(part of A Yuletide Invitation) DANGEROUS LORD, INNOCENT GOVERNESS PAYING THE VIRGIN'S PRICE* TAKEN BY THE WICKED RAKE* MASTER OF PENLOWEN (part of Halloween Temptations) LADY FOLBROKE'S DELICIOUS DECEPTION† LADY DRUSILLA'S ROAD TO RUIN† LADY PRISCILLA'S SHAMEFUL SECRET† A REGENCY CHRISTMAS CAROL (part of One Snowy Regency Christmas) TWO WRONGS MAKE A MARRIAGE THE GREATEST OF SINS**

*Regency Silk & Scandal mini-series †Ladies in Disgrace trilogy ** The Sinner and the Saint duet

And in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:

SEDUCING A STRANGER

TAMING HER GYPSY LOVER* VIRGIN UNWRAPPED TO UNDO A LADY

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

AUTHOR NOTE

After you read this book, you will all ask the same question: What is Wow Wow sauce, and what does it taste like?

It was actually one of the hot recipes of 1817, published in The Cook's Oracle, by Dr William Kitchiner. My heroine would be disappointed to learn that there is no evidence he was a real doctor. But he was famous for his dinner parties and his cooking.

Here is the recipe for Wow Wow Sauce:

Chop some Parsley leaves very finely, quarter two or three pickled Cucumbers, or Walnuts, and divide them into small squares, and set them by ready; put into a saucepan a bit of Butter as big as an egg; when it is melted stir to it a tablespoonful of fine Flour, and about half a pint of the Broth in which the Beef was boiled; add a tablespoonful of Vinegar, the like quantity of Mushroom Catsup, or Port Wine, or both, and a tea-spoonful of made Mustard; let it simmer together till it is as thick as you wish it, put in the Parsley and Pickles to get warm, and pour it over the Beef—or rather send it up in a Sauce tureen.

I recommend going light on the pickles and thinking of a really small egg when adding the butter, as those were the only things I could taste. I found it rather bland. But Kitchiner recommends a variety of additions, including shallots, capers and horseradish, for those who think it is ‘not sufficiently piquant’.

DEDICATION

To George Bloczynski,

who gave me my sense of humour.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

‘I am Mrs Samuel Hastings, but you may call me Evelyn.’

Maddie Cranston looked at the woman in front of her with suspicion. Mrs Hastings was smiling in a sympathetic, comforting way. But it had been her husband who had come to Maddie on that night in Dover with apologies and lame excuses, as though any amount of money could make up for what had happened. It was possible that Evelyn Hastings was just another toady to the Duke of St Aldric and therefore not to be trusted.

The duke had said she was a midwife. It would be a relief to speak to a woman on the subject, especially one familiar with the complaints of pregnancy. Sometimes Maddie felt so wretched that she feared what was happening to her body could not quite be normal. If anyone deserved punishment for that night, it was St Aldric. But if that was true, why did God leave her to do the suffering?

This stranger insisting on familiarity of address did not look at all the way one expected a midwife would. She was not particularly old and was far too lovely to have a job of any kind, looking instead like the sort of pampered lady who would hire nurses and governess to care for her offspring, rather than seeing to them herself. What could she know of the birthing and raising of children?

When one was surrounded by enemies, it was better to appear aloof rather than terrified. Life had proven that weakness was easily exploited. She would not show it now. She would not be lulled to security by a soothing voice and a pretty face. ‘How do you do, Mrs Hastings. I am Miss Madeline Cranston.’ Maddie offered a hand to the supposed midwife, but did not return her smile.

Mrs Hastings ignored her coldness, responding with even more warmth and, if possible, a softer and more comforting tone. ‘I assume, since St Aldric sent for me, that you are with child?’

Maddie nodded, suddenly unable to trust her own voice when faced with the enormity of what she had done in coming here. She was having a bastard. There could be no comfort in that, only a finding of the best solution. She had been a fool to confront a duke, especially considering their last meeting. Suppose he had been angry enough to solve the problem with violence and not money? While she did not wish to believe that a peer would be so despicable, neither had she seen any reason to think otherwise of this one.

‘And you are experiencing nausea?’ the other woman asked, glancing at the water carafe on the table.

Maddie nodded again.

‘I will ring for some tea with ginger. It will settle your stomach.’ She summoned a servant, relayed the instructions and returned to her questioning. ‘Tenderness of the breasts? No courses for the past month?’

Maddie nodded and whispered, ‘Two months.’ She had known from the first what must have happened but had not wanted to admit it, not even to herself.

‘And you are unmarried.’ Mrs Hastings stared into her face, as though it could be read like tea leaves. ‘You did not attempt to put an end to this, when you realised what was happening?’

That was a possibility, even now. What future was there for her or the child if St Aldric turned her away? She would be a bastard with a bastard.

She stiffened her spine and ignored the doubts. If her own mother had taken the trouble to have her, she owed nothing less to her own child. The woman who bore her was conspicuously absent, now that wise counsel was needed. She did not wish to leave her baby without friend or family, to be raised by strangers as she had been. But what choice did she have? Her own presence in the child’s life would make things more difficult, for it could not be easy to have a mother who was little better than a whore in the eyes of society.

An unmarried but powerful father was another matter entirely. St Aldric had created this problem. Now he would be made to face the consequences of his actions. She returned her attentions to the midwife. ‘No. I made no attempt to rid myself of the baby.’

‘I see.’ Mrs Hastings coloured slightly and changed the subject. ‘And you are experiencing changes in mood, as though your mind and body are no longer your own?’

Now this was a question that could not be answered with a shake of the head, for it struck at the heart of her fears. She stared up at Mrs Hastings for a moment, then surrendered her courage and whispered the truth. ‘I cannot seem to keep my temper from one minute to the next. First laughter, then tears. I have vivid dreams when I sleep. And waking I have the most outlandish ideas.’ This trip was but an example. ‘Sometimes I fear that I am going mad.’

The midwife smiled and relaxed into her chair as though pleased that they had found a topic she fully understood. ‘That is all quite normal. It is nothing more than the upset of humours involved in the growing of a new life. You are not headed for the madhouse, my dear. You are simply having a baby.’ As if there was anything simple about this, even from the first. The tea arrived, along with some flavourless biscuits. Maddie sipped and nibbled hesitantly, but was surprised to find she felt marginally better for the nourishment.

‘It is a wonder that anyone does it at all,’ Maddie declared, taking another sip of tea. ‘Much less allowing it to happen more than once.’

Mrs Hastings seemed to think this was amusing, for she made no effort to hide her laugh. ‘You have nothing to fear from this point on. I will be here to take care of you.’

The woman could not possibly know what she was offering. But everything about her, from her soft-spoken words to the no-nonsense set of her body, was an assurance. Maddie risked relaxing into the cushions of the divan, if only for a moment. ‘Thank you.’

‘Before the onset of these symptoms, you had sexual congress with a man,’ Mrs Hastings reminded her gently. ‘Surely you understood what the ramifications of this behaviour might be?’

‘It was not of my choice,’ Maddie said, keeping her voice calm and level.

Mrs Hastings gave a small gasp of shock, but her smile remained as comforting as ever. ‘Do you know the identity of the man who is responsible?’

This woman was different from her husband. Perhaps she could actually help with something more than ginger tea and kindness. Maddie decided to risk the truth. ‘It was the Duke of St Aldric.’ There. She had said it out loud. Even to admit it to one other person made the burden of the knowledge lighter. ‘I was in an inn in Dover. In the night, he came into my room without invitation, and...’ She was past crying about it. But to tell the story aloud to a complete stranger had not been part of her plan.

Evelyn Hastings’s eyes opened wide again and her gentle smile turned incredulous. ‘The Saint forced his way into your room and...’

‘St Aldric,’ Maddie corrected. ‘He was inebriated. Afterwards, he claimed to have wandered into the wrong room.’ But how was she to know if that had been true? Perhaps he said the same to every woman he casually dishonoured. In Maddie’s experience, a title and a handsome face were not always an indication of good character.

Mrs Hastings seemed to think otherwise, for she was still staring in disbelief. ‘You are sure about this?’

‘Ask him yourself. He does not deny it. Or speak to Dr Hastings. He was there to witness it.’

Evelyn drew a breath, hissing it between her teeth. ‘Oh, yes. I will most certainly ask my husband what he knows of this.’ Her eyes were angry, but Maddie had no reason to think that anger was directed at her. It was more akin to righteous indignation for a fellow member of their sex. ‘And you have no family to help you in this? No one to stand at your side?’

Maddie shook her head. ‘I am alone.’ There was no chance that the school that had raised her would take her back, after seeing what she had done with the training and education that should have got her a respectable position.

‘Then you shall have me,’ Evelyn said firmly, with a matronly nod of her head that hardly suited her. She rose from her chair as majestically as a queen. ‘If you will excuse me, I must speak to my husband over this. And to the duke. It will all be settled once I am through with them.’ Mrs Hastings drew herself up even taller, looking quite formidable, not just royal, but a warrior queen heading to battle. Then she disappeared into the hall, closing the door behind her with a resolute click.

Maddie smiled and settled back into the luxurious velvet cushions of the divan, sipping her tea. Perhaps Boadicea had arrived too late to fight for her honour. But she appeared more than able to gain reparation for the loss of it. Maddie need do nothing but wait.

* * *

Michael Poole, Duke of St Aldric, stood in the hallway of his London town house, one ear to his brother and the other tuned to the conversation taking place in the salon. He could not very well open the door again and demand that the ladies inside speak louder so that he might eavesdrop on them. But he had to know the truth, and the sooner the better. If there was to be a child, perhaps a son?

It changed everything.

‘She found you?’ His half-brother, Sam Hastings, was focused almost as intently on the closed door, staring hard enough to burn through it.

‘She found me.’ Michael had expected it, but not that it would come as such a relief. In each crowd he’d passed, he had wondered if he would see a pair of accusing eyes that should be familiar but were not. Now, at least, he had a name and a face to attach to that night, which had been but a blurry memory.

‘I am sorry,’ Sam said, as though he had anything to regret in this.

‘You are sorry?’ Michael laughed. ‘What did you have to do with any of it?’

‘It should not have happened this way. I should not have let her escape. The matter could have been properly settled in Dover. When I spoke to her that night, she claimed she wanted no contact with you, then, or in the future. I promised to respect her wishes. But I could have done more.’

‘We had no right to keep her prisoner and force her to accept help,’ Michael reminded him. The evening had been enough of a disaster. She’d have thought even worse of him if they had locked her door and demanded she stay until a proper settlement could be arranged.

‘God knows, I tried without success to find her.’ Sam was practically wringing his hands over the matter. ‘England is a very large country and there are many unfortunate young women in it.’

An unfortunate young woman. Michael had never thought that his name would be connected to one who could be described thus.

‘The fault is mine, not yours,’ Michael replied. ‘If I had drunk myself to unconsciousness that night, then I would not have caused her harm and you would not have had to bother to clean up my mess.’

‘Or perhaps you could have remained sober,’ Sam said as mildly as possible. ‘No matter what you chose to do, we could not have foreseen the outcome.’

Had watching his father taught him nothing of the need for good behaviour at all times? ‘I should have known better,’ Michael insisted.

Sam gave no answer to this, which was probably proof that he agreed. Then he relented. ‘You would never have sunk to this,’ Sam reminded him, ‘had you not experienced a shock from your illness.’

‘I was upended by a sickness that would hardly bother a child.’

‘The effects of the illness are not the same when the body has an immature reproductive system.’

‘What a gentle way you put it, Dr Hastings.’ Michael had lain for three days with a raging fever and balls swollen so that he could hardly bear to look at them, much less touch them. Then the disease had left him. But not as it had found him.

Or so he had thought.

Now, for the first time in six months, he had reason to hope. ‘Miss Cranston has found me out and not because she is dissatisfied with your payment. She claims to be with child.’ He paused to allow the doctor to conceal his surprise. ‘Is that even possible?’

‘Of course it is possible,’ Sam said. ‘I told you, from the beginning, that the negative consequences of the mumps on an adult male are not guaranteed. Yet you insisted on blundering through the countryside, inebriated and trying to prove your virility.’

‘A bastard would have proven it well enough.’ It had been what Michael had hoped for. The fear that a simple fever had destroyed the St Aldric line had turned to obsession. And from thus had come the hope that an accident with a member of the muslin set would assure him a fruitful marriage.

To announce such a thing to his own illegitimate brother showed how far he had fallen. Now that he was sober, the plan seemed foolish and cowardly. Like father, like son. It had been Michael’s life goal to disprove the adage. He had failed.

‘If you wanted a by-blow, it seems you will have one now,’ Sam said, with a sad shake of his head. ‘What do you mean to do about it?’

Michael was amazed that his half-brother did not see what was quite obvious. ‘This current situation is much better than I’d hoped for.’

‘You hoped to deflower a governess?’ Sam realised how loudly he’d been speaking and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘And without her consent? Are you mad?’

‘No. Certainly not.’ Yet he had done just that. ‘I never meant to enter that room. I lost my way.’

‘Because you were too drunk to know better,’ his brother reminded him.

He deserved the rebuke. His father had, at least, entertained himself with the willing wives of friends. But he had done worse than that. ‘The woman I was seeking that night was hardly an innocent. Had there been consequences, she’d have been paid handsomely. I’d even have acknowledged the child.’

‘As I assume you mean to do with this one.’ Sam was offering the faintest warning that Michael must remember his obligations when dealing with the girl and her problem.

Sam had no reason to worry. After years of exemplary behaviour, Michael had made enough mistakes in the past few months to show him the ugliness of false pride and the lengths he must go to atone. There was no question in his mind as to what had to happen next.

The trick would be convincing the governess of it. ‘If Miss Cranston is truly carrying my child, it need not be as an acknowledged bastard,’ he said, cautiously watching for Sam’s reaction. ‘If I marry her and legitimise the heir...’

‘Marry her?’ Now Sam was staring at him with an ironic smile. ‘Now I do not know whether to laugh or send you to Bedlam.’

‘Why should I not wed her? Is there anything about the girl that appears she will be less than suitable? She is a governess and therefore educated. She is healthy.’ And not unattractive. He was obligated to her. After what had happened, he owed her more than money. He should restore her honour.

‘She probably hates you,’ Sam said.

‘She has good reason to.’ He had seen the look in her eyes as she had confronted him with the truth. He would not have given a second thought to the woman standing in the street before his house. She was tidy to the point of primness, simply dressed in dark blue, and hair bound painfully tight, as though she feared it would do her an injury if a single curl escaped from the pins. The lips that should have been soft and kissable had been set in a determined frown and her brow had furrowed above her large brown eyes as she’d recognised him. Everything about her had announced her as just what she was: a disapproving schoolteacher.

She’d stepped in front of him, blocking his path as no one else in London would dare to do, and said quietly, ‘I wish to speak to you about the consequences of your recent trip to Dover.’

The coldness in her voice still lingered with the memory of the words. But none of that mattered now. ‘I will give her reason not to hate me. A hundred reasons. A thousand. I will give her everything I have. If the succession is to continue, I must have a wife and a child, Sam. There may be no better chance than this.’

The door beside them opened suddenly and Sam’s wife, Evelyn, stepped between them, hands on hips. ‘Explain yourselves, the pair of you. Tell me what that poor girl is claiming has no basis in fact.’ She turned to her husband, growing even angrier. ‘And that you had no part in this shameful business.’

Sam held up a hand as though to deflect his wife’s wrath. ‘I went with Michael to Dover, but only in hopes of talking some sense into him. As the Duke of St Aldric’s personal physician, it is my job to keep him in good health, is it not?’

His wife responded with a frosty nod.

‘He was showing signs of what I feared was chronic inebriation and had been—’ Sam gave a delicate clearing of the throat ‘—doing things that I do not wish to discuss in mixed company.’

‘Consorting with whores,’ Evelyn said, refusing to be shocked. Then she stared at Michael. ‘That does not excuse what happened to Miss Cranston.’

‘It was all a mistake, I swear. I was on my way to visit someone else and took a wrong turning. It was dark....’ That was hardly an excuse. He should have been able to tell the difference between the buxom barmaid he’d been seeking and the diminutive Miss Cranston, even without a light. But he could have sworn, as he had come into her bed, that she was willing and expecting him....

‘When I realised that he was missing above stairs, I searched Michael out and heard cries of alarm,’ Sam finished. ‘By the time I found him, it was too late.’

Evelyn gave a noise of disgust.

‘It grows worse,’ Sam admitted. ‘Miss Cranston, who, as I understand it, was a governess, was visiting the inn to meet with a future employer. The man arrived two steps behind me and witnessed the whole thing. She was sacked without references before she could even begin.’

Michael winced. He had but the vaguest memories of the last half of that evening. What he’d thought had been a thoroughly delightful interlude had ended in shocked cries, tears and shouting. And he had stood swaying on his feet in the midst of it wearing nothing but a shirt, with Sam looking at him much as he was now, in disappointment.

‘I have been sober since that moment,’ he reminded Evelyn. ‘And I would have settled with Miss Cranston the following morning had she not fled the inn before we could speak to her again.’

‘It is too late to concern yourself with what might have been,’ Evelyn said with a shake of her head. ‘It is what you mean to do now that matters.’

‘Is what she says true?’ Michael asked, not daring to hope. ‘Is she with child?’

‘To the best of my knowledge, yes,’ Evelyn answered.

Michael took care to school his face to neutrality. It was wrong of him to be excited at the thought. Even worse, he was glad of it. To have a child.... Better yet, to have a son....

When he was gone, there would be a new St Aldric to care for the people and the land. And this boy would be raised differently from the way he had been. It was as if, despite his reprehensible behaviour, a curse had been lifted from his house.

‘I said, what do you mean to do about it?’ Apparently, in his distraction he had been ignoring his sister-in-law.

So he explained his plan.

Chapter Two

The muffled conversation in the hall droned on. Though she knew they were talking about her, Maddie felt oddly detached from the situation. In the time before Dover, she had avoided behaviours that might incite gossip. Her expectations were modest and her future predictable. She would teach the children of strangers until they grew too old to need her. Then she would find another family in want of a governess. At the end of it, she would have a small amount of savings to retire on, or stay on in a household so fond of dear, old Miss Cranston that they kept her beyond her usefulness.

But that seemed a lifetime ago. No decent family would have her after the scandal. It had been foolish of her to suggest that particular inn, but when her new employer had suggested meeting her stage in Dover, the temptation had been too great. She’d returned to the place several times as years had passed, knowing that, in her dreams at least, she would be young and free of the responsibilities of her oh, so ordinary life. She had gone to bed thinking of nothing but Richard and their last night together in the very same room.

The man who had come to her this time was no dream lover. It had begun sweetly enough, but it had ended in a waking nightmare. The drunken stranger had been hauled from her bed, while Mr Barker stood, framed in the doorway, shouting that no such woman should be in a decent inn, much less allowed near innocent children. The argument had moved into the hallway and she had slammed the door, thrown on her clothes and run as soon as she was sure of her safety. But not before hearing the name of her attacker, as he demanded, in a slurred voice, that this other common fellow stop raising a fuss over strapping a barmaid.

After two months of unemployment, she’d run through most of her tiny savings. Then there had come the growing realisation that she would share her future with another: one too small and helpless to understand the predicament they were in. So she had taken the last of the money and bought a ticket for London.

Now she was visiting the house of a peer. She glanced around her. While the decoration was as elegant as she might have expected, her presence here was beyond the limits of her imagination. Even in the parlours of the families that had employed her, she had not dared to relax. There were always children to watch and to remove to the nursery when their behaviour grew tedious.

The same strangers were once again settling her fate in a public hallway, while she drank tea. Now that she had heard the truth, there was no sign that this Mrs Hastings would be easily silenced. There was a sharp sound of exclamation from her, as though one of the men had said something particularly shocking. Their muttered explanations sounded weak in comparison.

When a settlement was offered, Evelyn Hastings might serve as a mediator. She would know that decent people did not raise a child in secret and on a few pounds a year. A bastard of a duke deserved a decent education and a chance for advancement.

Maddie thought of her own childhood. The family that had taken her in had not let her forget that her origins were clouded. And the proper schools where she was boarded made no secret that she was there at the behest of an unnamed benefactor. There had been raised eyebrows, of course, but the money provided had been sufficient to silence speculation and the education had been respectable enough to set her on the path towards a career.

Surely St Aldric could do better than that for his by-blow. There could be excellent schools, and a Season and a proper marriage for a daughter, or business connections and a respectable trade for a son. If the duke claimed his offspring, it would not be without family. One parent was better than none. Once she was sure the child’s future was secure, she might quietly disappear, change her name and begin her life anew. No one need ever know of this unfortunate incident. She might be spared the snubs and gossip of decent women and the offers of supposed gentlemen convinced that, if she had fallen once, she might give herself again to any who asked.

It was for the best, she reminded herself, fighting down the pangs of guilt. The world would forgive St Aldric, and by association the child, but such charity would not extend to her. The door opened and Doctor and Mrs Hastings entered, followed by the duke, who shut it behind them.

Dear lord, but he was handsome. Maddie did her best to smother what should have been a perfectly natural response to the presence of him, for what woman, when confronted with a man like St Aldric, did not feel the pull of his charms? Apparently, God had decided it was not enough to give such wealth and power to a single human. He had made a masterpiece. St Aldric was tall but not thin, and muscular without seeming stocky. The hose and breeches that he wore all but caressed muscles hardened by riding and sport. Blue was too common a word to describe the eyes that stared past her. Turquoise, aquamarine, cerulean... She could search a paintbox for ever and still not find a colour to do them justice. The blonde hair above his noble brow caught the last of the afternoon sun and the hand that would brush the waves of it from his eyes was long fingered and graceful. But the clean-shaven jaw was not the least bit feminine. The cleft chin was resolute without appearing stubborn. And his mouth...

She remembered his mouth. And his arms bare of his coat, the fine linen of his shirt brushing her skin as they folded around her. And his body...

Her stomach gave another nervous jump. She remembered things that no decent woman should. And what she did remember should have not pleasure for her. That night had been her undoing.

Mrs Hastings saw her start and came quickly to her side, sharing the sofa and taking her hand. She was glaring at her husband, and at the duke as well, utterly fearless of retribution. ‘Well, Sam, what do you have to say for yourself?’

A dark look passed between the couple, as though to prove an argument still in progress. But the doctor turned to her with the same sympathetic look he had given her in the inn as he’d led his friend away. ‘Miss Cranston, we both owe you more apologies than can be offered in this lifetime. And once again, let me assure you that you are in no danger.’

But Maddie noticed the blocked door and lack of other exits. And the nearness of the fireplace poker, should Mrs Hastings prove unable to help her.

The duke saw her glance to it and made a careful, calming gesture with his hands. ‘Miss Cranston,’ he said, searching for words, ‘you have nothing to fear.’

‘Nothing more,’ she reminded him.

‘Nothing more,’ he agreed. ‘The night we met—’ he began.

She stopped him. ‘You mean, the night you entered my room uninvited, and—’

‘I was very drunk,’ he interrupted, as though afraid of what she might say in front of his friends. ‘Too drunk to find my own room, much less that of another. I swear, I thought you were someone else.’

And her own arms had betrayed her, reaching out to him, even though an innocent governess could not have been expecting a lover.

‘You called me Polly,’ she said, almost as angry at herself as she was at him.

‘I had an assignation. With the barmaid. And I was drunk,’ he repeated. ‘I had been drunk for several months at that point. What was one more day?’ For a moment, he sounded almost as bitter as she felt, shaking his head in disgust at his own behaviour. ‘And in that time, I did some terrible things. But I have never forced myself on a woman.’

‘Other than me?’ she reminded him. It was unfair of her. There had been no force.

But he must have seen it as such and counted her an innocent, for he looked truly pained by the memory. ‘When I realised my mistake, it was too late. The damage had been done.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The night in question was an unfortunate aberration.’

‘Very unfortunate,’ she agreed, giving no quarter. But why should she? It was a lame excuse.

‘Never before that,’ he said. ‘And never again. Since that day, I have moderated my behaviour. That night taught me the depths that one might fall to, the harm that one might do, when one is sunk in self-pity and concerned with nothing more than personal pleasure.’ He was looking at her with the earnest expression she sometimes saw on boys in the nursery, swearing that they would not repeat misdeeds that occurred as regularly as a chiming clock.

She returned the same governess glare she might have used on them. ‘That night taught me not to trust a door lock in a busy inn.’ She needn’t have bothered with the poker. The words and tone were enough to cow him.

‘If there was a way, I would erase it so that you had never met me. But now I will make sure it stays in the past. Your reputation will be restored. You will never feel lack. Never suffer doubt. Everything you need shall be yours.’

Success! He was offering even more than she wanted. She would have a new life and another chance. ‘For the child, as well?’ she asked. For this could not all be about her alone.

‘Of course.’ He was smiling at her, as though there could be no possibility.

‘We are in agreement, then? There will be a settlement?’ She gave a grateful smile to Mrs Hastings, who had done miracles in just a brief conversation.

‘The child will want for nothing. Neither will you. You need not concern yourself with a twenty-pound-a-year position in someone else’s household. You shall be the one to hire a governess. You shall have a house, as well. Or houses, if you wish.’ She did not need houses. He was becoming too agitated over a thing that could be settled simply. Perhaps there was madness in his family, as well as drunkenness.

Doctor Hastings saw her expression and responded in a more calming tone, ‘You will be taken care of. As will the child. If the suggestions offered here tonight are not to your liking, you will have our help in refusing them.’

Evelyn Hastings nodded in agreement and squeezed her hands.

‘Enough!’ St Aldric cut through the apology with a firmness that seemed to stun both doctor and wife.

It did not shock Maddie. What could be more shocking than what had already occurred between them? The man was an admitted wastrel. It would not surprise her if he changed his mind suddenly and refused to pay, though it was quite obvious he had the funds. She raised her chin and stared at the duke, willing herself to be brave enough to see this through. Her mute accusation would be enough to break any resistance he might feel to help his own blood.

His blue eyes sparkled as he spoke, but not from madness; the light in them was as strong as blue steel. ‘There will be no question of my acknowledging my offspring, Miss Cranston. There has been too much secrecy in my family thus far and it has caused no end of trouble. You have my word. The child you carry is mine and will have all the advantages I can offer him.’

‘Thank you.’ She had succeeded after all. Could it really be this easy?

‘But...’ he added.

Apparently not. What conditions would he manage to put on what should be simple?

‘There is a complication,’ he said.

Not as far as she was concerned. ‘I will not speak of the beginning, to the child or anyone else,’ she said, ‘as long as you admit to its existence.’

‘It is more than that,’ the duke said, distracted again and pacing the rug before the fire. ‘Six months ago. I took ill. The mumps. Had I been a child, it would have been nothing....’

‘I am well aware of that, having helped several of my charges through it,’ she snapped. ‘But what would that have to do with our business?’

He continued, unaffected by her temper. ‘As a result of the illness, I had reason to doubt that I would be able to produce issue.’

Now he was denying what had happened between them or questioning his part in the child he had given her. It was too much to bear. She used the last of her strength to draw herself up out of the velvet cushions to the unimpressive five foot four inches that she carried and stepped before him to stop his perambulation. Facing this man and being forced to look up into his face made her feel small, unimportant, weak. But she dare not appear that way, even for a moment. ‘Do you doubt the truth of my accusations?’

He held up a hand. ‘Not at all. I was surprised, of course. I spent the four months between recovery and our meeting in desperate and shameful attempts to prove to my own potency. It was on one such trip that I found you while looking for a barmaid who was to meet me in a room just above yours.’

So he was a drunken reprobate, willing to lie with any woman to prove his manhood. It did not surprise her in the least. She folded her arms and waited.

‘I do not claim to be proud of it,’ he said, unperturbed by her disapproval. ‘I merely wish you to know the truth. In six months, no other woman has come to me with the demands you are setting. I would have welcomed her, if she had. By the time I found you, I was quite beyond hope of that. I feared for the succession. Suppose I could not father a son? What would become of the title? The dukedom might return to the crown. What would become of my land and the people on it? They depend on me for their safety and livelihood. And if I could not do this one, simple thing...’ He shrugged. ‘I am the last legitimate member of my family, you see.’

She narrowed her eyes at the distinction. In her opinion, some people were too proud of their own conception, as if anyone had a choice in that matter.

‘It is no excuse for what happened,’ she said.

‘I did not say it was. I merely wish to explain. That night, I’d expected to find a woman used to the risks of such casual encounters. But you are a governess, are you not?’

‘I was,’ she corrected. ‘That is quite impossible now.’

‘I understand that,’ he said again. The sympathy in his voice sounded almost sincere. ‘I do not mean to send you away with a few coins and a promise to take the child, as if you were some whore claiming to carry my bastard.’ He took a step nearer to her and, unable to help herself, she backed away from him. Her legs hit the cushion behind her and she sat again.

Suddenly, he dropped to one knee at her feet. If it was an attempt to equalise their heights and put her at ease, it was not working. He was still too close. And though she had wished to bring the great man to his knees, it had been but a metaphor. The sight of a peer in the flesh and kneeling before her was ridiculous.

‘You deserve better than that,’ he said seriously. They were the words of a lover and her heart gave an irrational flutter. ‘I meant to give you more and would have done had you but stayed in the inn until morning. I would have seen to it that no more harm came to you.’ His voice was soft, stroking her jangling nerves. ‘I never would have left you in a position where you might have to come to me and demand justice. But you ran before we could talk.’

She fought to free herself of the romantic haze he was creating. Did he expect her to take some of the blame for this situation? She would not. How could she explain the feelings of that night? She hardly understood them herself. Anger, fear, guilt and, dare she admit it, shame? Lying with another man was a betrayal of what she had shared with her darling Richard. That had been done in love. And she would never regret it.

But Richard was long gone, lost in the war. In his honour, she had meant to keep the memory of that time pure. Now she could not manage to think of it without remembering St Aldric. ‘I could not stand to be under the same roof with you a moment longer than was necessary.’

I ran. It had been foolish of her. But what reason had she to believe he would have treated her better than he had that night?

Of course, the man before her now did not seem as imposing as she had expected. He might actually want to help her. He was no less guilty, of course. But there was a worried line in his brow that had not been there when she had arrived. ‘I understand why you did not want further dealings with me in Dover. I had given you reason to doubt me. But now I wish to make amends. You deserve more help than you received. So does the child you carry. I will not deny you, or him.’ He was smiling at her. Had she not known better, she would have smiled back.

He continued. ‘And to be the acknowledged bastard of a duke would open many doors. But...’

There was the hesitation again, proof that she was right not to trust him. She braced herself for whatever might come after.

‘But would it not be better to be my heir?’

She could not help the single, unladylike bark of laughter at the idea. Then she composed herself again and gave him a sarcastic smile, pretending to ponder. ‘Would it be better to be a duke than a bastard son? Next you will be asking me if it is better to be a duchess than a governess.’

The room fell silent. Mrs Hastings stood and went to join her husband. The pair of them looked uncomfortable.

Now the duke was smiling in relief. ‘That is precisely what I am asking.’

There was another long, awkward pause as she digested the words, repeating the conversation in her head and trying to find the point where it slipped from reality into fantasy.

‘You cannot mean it,’ she said at last. He was toying with her, waiting until the last of her courage failed, and then...the Lord knew what would happen. She would leave him this instant, running as she had before.

But her body understood what her mind could not and it refused to obey her. She tried to stand, but her legs could not seem to work properly. She made it partway to her feet, then sank back into the cushions of the couch.

St Aldric was unmoved from the place where he knelt before her. He waited until her weak struggle to escape had ended. Then he resumed. ‘There would be many advantages, would there not? You would not need to fear disgrace or discomfort.’ He was as handsome as Lucifer when he smiled, blue eyed and wonderful. His voice was low, almost seductive in its offer to remove all care. For a moment, she remembered how it had felt when he was on top of her, when it had still been a pleasant dream.

Before she’d known that what was happening was nothing more than lust.

‘I would fear you,’ she said bluntly and saw him flinch in response. The reaction, though very small, gave her a feeling of power and she smiled.

He continued, unsmiling and earnest. ‘I swear I will give you no further reason to fear. Our son would have the best of everything: education, status and, in time, my seat in Parliament and all the holdings attached to it.’

‘At this time, there is barely a child of any kind, much less a son,’ she said. Duke or no, the man was clearly deluded. ‘I am just as likely to produce a daughter.’ In fact, she would pray for a girl, out of spite.

He shook his head. ‘It was unlikely that you would have any child at all from me. I am sure this one must be a sign. It will be as it was for my father and his father before that, back very nearly to the first duke. In my family, the first child is always a male. If I have sired a child, it will be a son. And he will learn from me, as I learned, to cherish his holdings and be a better man than his father.’

That, at least, she could agree on. ‘And to take care not to lose his way when frequenting inns,’ she said.

The doctor and his wife both flinched at this, but St Aldric merely nodded. ‘The next duke will be noble in title and character. He is far too precious to slight, even during the first months of his gestation. I want no question, no stain, no rumour about him, or his mother.’

He had added her, her disgrace and her reputation, almost as an afterthought to his mad plan. ‘Am I to have no say in his future or my own?’ She heard the Hastingses shifting nervously, clearly in sympathy with her, but she could not manage to look away from those very blue eyes.

The duke thought for a moment. ‘You can refuse me, I suppose. But I will only ask again.’ He reached out for her hand and she snatched it from his grasp. ‘I need the child you carry.’

‘Then take it and raise it after it is born,’ she said firmly, sliding down the couch and looking away to break the hold he had on her. ‘Give this child the advantages of your wealth and rank. But I will not be part of the bargain. I did not wish for this. I did not seek you out in that inn. It was you who came to me.’ She could see by the shadowed look in his eyes that the truth of that still troubled him, and she took a dark, unholy pleasure in reminding him of it.

She looked up and saw the disapproving looks of both Doctor and Mrs Hastings, but their censure was not directed at her. If she refused the duke, his friends would side with her, just as they had promised. They had made the offer of help because they had tried and failed to dissuade him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘The child is yours and I will not keep you from it. But you do not own me.’ This time, it would be he who was alone to face an uncertain future.

‘A son without a wife is no use to me,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘I do not need a natural child to be held apart from his birthright, as my father did to my brother.’ He cast a glance in the direction of Dr Hastings, and Maddie noticed the resemblance between them that should have been obvious to her before.

The duke looked back to her. ‘I need an heir. And I cannot marry another in good conscience after what I have done to you.’ He reached out a hand to her again. ‘Miss Cranston, you are not some common barmaid or London lightskirt. You were raised as a lady and are carrying my child. How could I offer less than marriage and still think myself a gentleman, much less St Aldric?’

He said it as if St Aldric were some superior being far above common manners and not simply the title he had been born with. She’d seen nothing saintly about him when they met. But suppose it had been a mistake? Perhaps he meant to do right by her after all. She felt a moment of relief, then counted it as weakness and batted the hand away. She must never forget who it was that offered and how long it had taken for him to find such remorse. This was not the time to be swayed by blue eyes and soft touches.

His hand dropped to his side, then rose again in supplication. ‘I would ask nothing more from you than I have already taken. There would not be any intimacy between us. Once the child is born, you could leave if you wished. I would not stop you. I would not seek you out or force you to return to me.’ He was still smiling. But there was a tightness in his face that made her think he would almost prefer it this way, so that he need never be reminded of how they had met. ‘Let me give you the reparation I should have when we were still in Dover. I’d have married you then, had you but remained. Only when your honour is restored to you can this matter be settled.’

Since she had not stayed to talk with him, there was no telling if his words were true, or only a convenient afterthought that supported his current offer. But if he told the truth now, a single affirmative and she would be rich beyond care and she need do nothing more than she had already done. Her child would be safe and she would regain her reputation.

It was more than she had hoped for. And the offer was based on his assumptions that she had virtue to save other than the tissue of lies that her innocence had been, when he’d come to her. But she did not owe him details of something that had happened long before they’d met.

He noticed her hesitation and renewed his offer. ‘I know I have no right to ask for it, but in exchange for your help, I would give you everything. Money. Jewels. Gowns. My name and title, and all the freedom that comes with it. If you wish it, it shall be yours.’ His head dipped slightly, like a knight waiting to receive his lady’s favour.

When she had set out for London, had she not wanted to see him humbled? In one day, she had achieved her goal. But her victory had come too easy. The duke might appear to be a penitent, but he was still one of the most powerful men in England.

His modesty was an illusion, meant to put her at ease and win her cooperation. In a moment of carelessness, he had changed the course of her life. Now he thought that, in casually changing it again, he was doing her a service. But her true past would be lost to her: her job, her honour...and her Richard. This duke, handsome and kind as he might seem now, had ruined everything.

And no matter what she chose, his precious reputation remained untarnished. As he reminded her, even if he deserved punishment for his swinish behaviour, he was the legitimate son of a duke. The law could not touch him. Beside his power, the wishes of a governess who had been born on the wrong side of the blanket were as nothing.

But at least if she married him, he would not escape the past. She could be a continual reminder of his mistake. It was an appealing idea. And now he was offering her everything.

It was almost enough.

But suppose he found reason to change his mind? ‘And what will happen if the child is not a boy?’ she asked.

‘It must be,’ he muttered. ‘Daughters in my family are few and far between. Why should it be different for me?’

Perhaps because he did not deserve such luck. He had done nothing to earn it. ‘Enough of your problems and what you need,’ she said. ‘What if I bear you a daughter? Will you force your way into my room, as you did the last time?’

He flinched as if she had raised a whip to him and taken a strip of flesh from his back. Was it the reminder of their meeting? Or the possibility that she might carry a girl? Was the female sex completely valueless to him? His past actions certainly made it appear so.

He composed himself and raised his head to look at her. Then he continued. ‘If you bear me a daughter, my promise would stand. All I ask is that you marry me. I can expect no more of you beyond that. In the event that the child is a girl—’ he paused as though offering a prayer that it would not be ‘—I will explain all to the Regent and beg that he allows the title to pass through my daughter to her son. But I will not demand an act from you that you must certainly find abhorrent.’ He was staring deep into her soul, willing her to give in.

If trust of strangers had come easy to her, she would have trusted this one. With eyes like that, so clear and blue, was it even possible to lie? And with the trust came the niggling desire to forgive him, to sympathise with him and to forget that she was the one who had been wronged. She could marry him and see that beautiful face each day for the rest of her life, those eyes gazing at her as though he cared.

Was she really so weak as that? He did not care. It was an illusion. ‘You are banking on a male heir from a daughter who is not even born? That event, at a minimum, might be some twenty years hence. What guarantee do you have that you would be alive to see it? Or that the Regent will agree to any of this?’

‘I will live,’ he said. ‘I will live because I must. I will have a son, or a grandson. I will not pass until I see the line established and know that there will be another St Aldric to take up the responsibilities of the holdings and the people who depend upon him.’ With shoulders squared and jaw set in a way that displayed his noble profile, he stared past her as though looking into the future.

Was the title really so important to him? A man with such an extreme sense of his own importance might do anything to see success, even if it required him to destroy those around him.

It was a danger for her. But in him, it would be a weakness that might be exploited. ‘You would not touch me,’ she said cautiously, still searching for the trap in the words. ‘And in exchange, you would give me...everything.’

‘Anything you desire,’ he said. He was holding his breath, waiting for her answer.

His friends looked alarmed. Perhaps they could see further than he did and realise the power he was giving her over his life. But Dr Hastings stepped forward and spoke. ‘I can speak for my wife in this, I am certain. What he says is the truth, for though he might be guilty of other things, I have never known St Aldric to lie. If you feel, now or in the future, that he cannot hold to this bargain, we will take you in and I myself will call him out and defend your honour.’

The man was trying to make amends. And he was right in that it would be easier for the child, and for her as well, if they married.

But then she thought of Richard. She had loved, once in her life. It was a week that must last for ever, now that he was gone. She had long ago reconciled herself to the fact that there would be no children, no husband, no love for another until she found him again.

Was she willing to give herself, if not in body, then at least in law, to another man for the sake of convenience? It would render the past meaningless.

And here was the man who had put her plans for ever out of reach. She had not thought herself particularly spiteful. At least, not until she’d met St Aldric. Now he was giving her unlimited wealth and the power to set friend against friend. For a change, she held all the cards, to play or discard at leisure. Revenge was hers if she wished to take it.

But did she wish it?

The duke’s hand still hovered before her and she reached out to clasp it. Had she expected the smell of brimstone when she touched him? A burn? A chill? This was nothing more than flesh and bone. He might be as handsome as Lucifer, but he was a mere mortal. And perhaps he was a fool.

His palm was warm and dry. As he rose and helped her to her feet, his strength made her feel safer than she’d felt since... She stopped the thought incomplete, for this man had nothing in common with Richard. She must never forget that, though the Duke of St Aldric might seem like a gallant rescuer, he was the cause of her current problems, not the solution. She forced a smile, imagining that she was strong enough to be his equal and not just a governess who had run out of options. ‘Very well, then. I will marry you.’

And I will make you pay for what you have done.

Chapter Three

Was he sorry he’d asked? Not really, Michael reminded himself. If there was even the remotest chance that he might gain a son from it, he was content to be married. The identity of the bride hardly mattered.

Of course, it had not mattered before. Evelyn had been suitable and he had liked her well enough. But he did not think that what he’d felt for her could be called love. He was not even sure he’d have recognised that feeling, had it come to him.

He was quite sure, however, that he did not feel that particular emotion for Madeline Cranston. But marriage to her was the right thing to do. He could not choose another woman, knowing that this one existed and he had been the ruin of her.

He had made his bed with the unmaking of hers.

Of course, she had not asked for this situation either. She had looked horrified when he’d first suggested the plan. It proved she was not some empty-headed fortune hunter. But she was a lady and in this predicament because of him. He owed her. He must content himself with the fact that she was educated and not unattractive.

In fact, she was quite fetching when he could admire her unnoticed. She was more delicate than the women he normally favoured. The locks of chestnut hair that were not concealed by her bonnet formed lazy spirals, as though begging to entwine a man’s finger. The brown eyes and gentle smile were just as lovely as he’d have hoped to see from a woman waiting for him at the altar.

It was only when she looked at him that the softness in her eyes became stony and the warmth of her smile turned glacial. It worried him that in the two weeks that he’d known her, the mother of his child had made no effort to be likeable.

A fortnight was no time at all. Soon she would see that he was not the beast she thought him. And then they might forge some truce for the sake of their child.

But suppose she did not mean to forgive him? To be tied to a woman who hated him for an indefinite future was as final as a trip to Tyburn. Worse yet, it was a repetition of his parents’ marriage and the path he had vowed to avoid.

Even to the last steps, in the courtyard of St George’s, Sam was questioning his plan. ‘Are you sure, Michael, that there is no other way?’

‘Are you suggesting again that I buy her off?’ He stared steadily back at his brother, hoping that it would silence him.

‘Of course not. The incident in Dover was badly handled by both of us. And now that you have found her again, you are not attempting to shirk responsibility. But she did not ask for marriage, Michael. Only that you care for the child. A settlement would have been sufficient.’

Damn Sam for offering such a reasonable solution. He could have given her what she sought, adequate funds to keep herself and raise his natural child. They’d never need see each other again.

Then he imagined his firstborn separated from him by a barrier of illegitimacy. His error might stand between the boy and his birthright. How naive he had been three months ago to think that a bastard would be nothing more than a demonstration of his virility with his half-brother as proof of how much trouble that might cause.

If there was to be a child, he could not imagine it anywhere but under his own roof. ‘There is no other way that I wish to go,’ he said, knowing it for the truth. ‘I mean to marry the girl and protect the child.’

If his own childhood had taught him nothing, then Miss Madeline Cranston, soon to be her Grace the Duchess of St Aldric, would stand as a fresh reminder to him of what happened to those who strayed too far from the path of virtue. One might end up in a church, exchanging cursory vows with a stranger. But it was also a chance to start fresh. He would find a way to make peace with his wife. He would have the son he hoped for. The boy would be raised in an environment that was as far from his own childhood as humanly possible. That thought lightened his spirit as nothing else could.

Sam did not share his grand vision. His concerns were firmly grounded in the present. ‘Was it really necessary to make such a public display of the wedding?’ he asked. ‘Pomp and circumstance will create more problems than they solve. Too many people have come to me already, asking about the woman and how you met her. How am I to answer them?’

‘Ignore them. Soon there will be another scandal to attract the attention of the ton gossips and this will be quite forgotten.’ Or so he hoped. When he’d offered for Miss Cranston, he’d imagined a quick ceremony in the family chapel would suit, and had pulled strings to get the special licence in record time. But that did not please his betrothed. Only the best church would do. And new wedding clothes, along with a full trousseau.

When he had reminded her that such things took time to arrange, she had responded, without a smile, that what was needed was money. She’d smoothed a hand over her still-flat belly and reminded him that time was of the essence. And since he had promised her whatever she wanted...

It had taken bribes, bonuses and additional fees all around. But the wedding and the pomp surrounding it had been ready within a week.

It was the first step towards a brighter future, he reminded himself, and fixed his face in the distant smile that would block even his only blood relation from prying further. ‘If others ask about the circumstances of our meeting, our marriage or our future, you may tell them that it is none of their business. If they do not respect that, then tell them to come to me with their questions.’

‘They wouldn’t dare,’ said Sam with a shake of his head.

‘Exactly.’ His brother was still too new to the family to understand how best to use the power of name and rank. ‘The matter is closed.’

As long as they did not go to the duchess for the story. She might reveal the truth out of spite. She was waiting for him at the altar, watching him with a smile and a gracious nod.

Hypocrite, he wanted to shout. The loathing looks she gave him when they were alone were nothing like this one, which would seem to a bystander to be quite innocent.

In turn, he smiled back at her, playing the part of the eager bridegroom that society expected to see. He continued to smile as the bishop droned on about the sanctity of marriage and the need to procreate. The man had no idea what he was talking about. In Michael’s experience, there was nothing particularly sacred about the unions he had seen. If his father had been a faithful man, he would not have left Sam as an unacknowledged, bastard son. Mother might have been quite different, as well. Michael had often imagined what it would be like to have an actual brother. But considering the chill silence that separated his parents when they were forced into company with each other, the lack of a sibling was not so very surprising.

Did his new bride have family? He had not thought to enquire. They were not here, at any rate. Nor were there friends. Perhaps she was as alone as he, the poor thing.

His mood softened. Then she turned slightly to look up at him. From a distance, the lavender gown she wore and the flowers in her hands reminded him of a petit four: small and sweet. But as he looked closer, the image faded. Though the colour suited her, the eyes staring up into his were dark, bottomless and intimidating.

She must have been a fine governess, he thought, for she was using her quelling stare upon him. He was far too old for that trick to work. The fierceness of her was an interesting counterpoint to her delicacy. He normally favoured fair women, but this one might have changed his mind. For all her dark looks, she had a sweet face and eyes that would melt him if she tried entreaty instead of demand. The child would not be unattractive, but possibly not tall. She was slight, fine boned and, thankfully, still slim. No one would suspect a pregnancy.

For a while. He felt another possessive thrill at the thought. It would not do to advertise her condition just yet. With Parliament out of session, they could retire to the country, finishing out the term of gestation in privacy. He had no desire to visit Aldric House, for the place held nothing but bad memories. Perhaps the future there could be different. The thought of the months ahead and the reward at the end of it had him feeling as giddy as a child waiting for Christmas.

‘Your Grace.’ The bishop’s whisper hissed through the quiet of the church.

The vows. He had not been listening. Madeline glared all the more, as though he were the stupidest child in the nursery.

He smiled apologetically. ‘If you would repeat the question, your Eminence?’

The bishop did as requested and Michael turned his attention to the business at hand, answering and repeating as charged with what he hoped was a confident voice.

Madeline Rosemary Cranston’s voice was quieter, but no less steady.

Rosemary. Another omitted detail about his new wife. He would pay attention from now on. She might not enjoy his company, but he would give her no reason to fault it. When the bishop called for it, he offered the ring of braided gold that his mother had worn, watched as it was blessed, then took it back, slipped it onto her finger and promised to endow her with all his worldly goods.

There. The job was done, the knot was tied. They knelt and were prayed over.

* * *

Maddie seethed. He was the one who had wanted this wedding and he had not even been listening to the vows. To fumble over a simple ‘I do’ was a slight almost too great to bear. It was proof that he did not care about her at all. The marriage was just one more step that stood between him and his precious heir.

She calmed herself again, for it could not be good for the baby to always be so angry. The child had given her no reason for such bitterness. Its father had. But she would not blame an innocent.

The bishop was going on and on about fruitfulness and praying that God would endow her with a large family.

Her stomach twisted. One child with this man was more than she wanted. She had accepted that she was to live and die alone. The love she’d saved for the family she would not have with Richard would be doled out, a little at a time, to the charges she educated, for there would be no children of her own.

It seemed the baby she’d wanted would come after all, in a sham marriage to the stranger who had ruined her. It is not too late to stop this. The bishop had not finished the ceremony. Doctor Hastings had sworn to help her. He and Evelyn were there as witnesses. She had but to announce that she could not go on and they would take her in.

But what good would it do her to be alone to raise a bastard? The duke had made his feelings clear. He would persist until she surrendered and legitimised the child.

Now the bishop was speaking of submission, which was even worse than children. If St Aldric’s goal was to have a woman in his bed, who had promised at an altar that she would not refuse, then she had played right into his hands.

A promise given under duress was no promise at all, she reminded herself. But all the same, her thoughts wandered back to that night, to awakening with a stranger.

She had been asleep and dreaming. It had been her favourite sort of dream. Richard had returned to her, just as he had said he would so long ago. Everything would be right at last. There was no job ahead of her, no more difficult children to teach. No more sour-faced parents expecting Miss Cranston to tend to the education of offspring that they could not be bothered to spend time with. After years without hope, she would be a bride.

And yet she had hesitated. ‘I thought you dead,’ she had whispered to him. ‘In the Battle of New Orleans. There was no word of you after.’

‘I am not dead,’ he assured her. ‘Just sleeping, as you are now. I am coming back to you. We will marry, just as I always promised. But tonight, it will be as it was before I left.’

She smiled and let her phantom lover ease her back onto the mattress. There was no pain, as there had been that first time. She was ready for him. She had been waiting for so long, for the long, slow glide of his body in hers. He was lying on top of her, his warmth taking the last of the chill from the winter air.

She wrapped her arms around him, feeling the warm solidness of a man, whole and undamaged by battle. Two arms held her. Two legs tangled with hers. The lips on her throat were full and hot, the tongue tracing designs to the open neck of her nightshirt until it found her breast. If only for a little while, she was young again and happy. She sighed in relief as he entered her. She had been so lonely for so long....

She had given herself freely to him, returned his kisses and stroked his body, encouraging him to do as he would with her. She had climaxed with him, even as she realised that the voice crying out in triumph with hers was unfamiliar.

Then she had opened her eyes.

She was shaking again, with shame and self-disgust. She could pretend that the fault was all his, but that was not the whole truth. She had lain with a stranger. Worse yet, she had enjoyed it. She was everything she feared, a woman of no virtue and loose morals, no better than her mother had been.

Not now. She was in a church in London. Dover was as much a dream as Richard had been. She ordered her body to be still, but it would not obey, any more than it had on the night she had met the duke. She had been a fool to search out St Aldric and an even greater fool in marrying to spite him. If she was not careful, she would fall into his bed again, though there was no real feeling between them.

This could not go on. There must be some way to turn back the clock and return to the life she’d had. It had not been happy, but at least it had been predictable. She had but to open her mouth now, before the bishop pronounced the final words, and tell them it had all been a terrible mistake. But she could not bring herself to speak. She was trembling so hard she was surprised that the whole church did not see it.

Now she was swaying on her knees, very close to a full swoon. She gripped the communion rail before her, watching her knuckles go white with strain. Her vision narrowed as though she was at the end of a tunnel, looking down at the finger wearing the heavy gold ring.

The man at her side had noticed. He reached out and laid a hand over hers, as though he sought to comfort her.

She froze. If she put a stop to this, all of London would hear of the mad girl who had left St Aldric at the altar. She would be left with a bastard and a reputation not just tattered, but notorious. And he would grow in estimation to a tragic figure, undeserving of such horrible treatment. Beside her, St Aldric smiled and withdrew his hand. He thought he had quelled the shaking with his reassurance.

The man was insufferable. He had despoiled her memories of Richard and made her doubt her own heart. Then he’d left her in a delicate condition. He had trampled her life into dust. And now, though he cared less about her than he did the baby she carried, he thought all could be made right between them with a sham ceremony and a pat on the hand.

No matter what might lie in her future, she would waste no more time in fear and trembling over the likes of St Aldric. And in marrying him, she would teach him the lesson he should have learned in the schoolroom: to do unto others as you would have others do to you.

Chapter Four

Michael stared into the glass before him, wishing that it held gin instead of champagne. It was far too early, in both the day and the marriage, to seek alcoholic remedy to the problems before him. If his current surroundings were a reflection of his future with Madeline, a strong drink at breakfast might not go amiss.

A church ceremony had cured the creeping sense of guilt he’d felt since the night in Dover. He had thought the worst was finally over and his life could return to normality.

But when Michael glanced out over the decoration of the feast she had arranged to celebrate their nuptials, he could find nothing normal in it. He must thank God for her good taste, he supposed. It could have been worse, had the surroundings been ugly. Of course, the level of excess was totally inappropriate for a wedding breakfast, which, in his opinion, should be small, tasteful and over quickly.

This had all the trappings of a masquerade ball. She had thrown wide the doors and cleared half the rooms in his town house to hold the crowd she had invited. Then she’d had the servants set every table in the place for guests. Every surface was decked with mountains of flowers, tropical orchids drooping on long stems from the midst of profusions of greenery. The walls were hung with ribbons and gold cages containing pairs of annoying, but beautiful, parrots.

Everywhere he turned little red faces looked down at him with beady black eyes. And whistled and chirped.

‘Could we not have had doves?’ he blurted, unable to contain his annoyance. Then, at least, the sounds would have been soothing.

‘But, darling, doves are so common.’ She gave him a pout worthy of a courtesan. ‘And you said I could have anything. The guests are quite envious of it.’

The females, perhaps. All around him he heard awed whispers.

Lovebirds.... Very rare.... Straight from Abyssinia.... She bought every one on the boat....

The males looked as he felt, as though they were longing for a stiff drink to dull the effects of the squawking on their nerves. At least they did not have to pay for the damn things.

‘It is a pity there was not time to teach them to speak,’ she said.

He hid the flinch. With the evil smile she wore, he could imagine what she wished them to say. She wanted choruses of high-pitched voices accusing him of actions he could not defend. And doing it in front of what seemed to be half of London.

‘A pity,’ he agreed through clenched teeth. He could not shake the feeling, when he looked into his wife’s triumphant eyes, that he was serving sentence for the crime. She must understand that this union was for the best. She was a duchess and not a gaoler. She had lost her position but gained a life of ease and a rank so august that no one would dare question her past.

Their lives would not be ordinary, especially not while they contained this many parrots. But they would be as far beyond reproach as any in England. That was all he had ever wanted for himself, and he had assumed by the way she lamented her lost reputation that it was what she wanted, as well.

He had meant to do little more than glance in her direction, to acknowledge her comment and prove that he was not bothered by it. But he had held the gaze too long, turning it into a battle of wills. For a moment, her confidence faltered and she looked as lost as he sometimes felt when under the scrutiny of this supposedly civilised society. Then she rallied and raised her guard again, looking as aloof as any lady of the ton.

Good for her. It had been rude of him to stare. Few men in London would have had the nerve to return such a look from a duke. But the little governess he had married weathered it well. None here would have guessed that, scant weeks earlier, she might have been a servant in their homes. She had best maintain that hauteur and let people think her proud. The more distant her treatment of society, the more desperate it would become to befriend her. If she was granted the gift of old age, she would be like those horribly intimidating dowagers that ran Almack’s, casting fear into the hearts of all, lest some mistake on their part result in a fall from grace.

For now she was young and her antics, no matter how outrageous they might seem to him, would be copied as the latest fashion. It was beginning already. This morning, Hyde Park was empty, Bond Street was quiet and ladies who would be barely out of bed had dressed and forced unfortunate husbands, sons and brothers to dress and celebrate the marriage of St Aldric.

‘It is good to see that you have found sufficient guests to share the day,’ he remarked, trying not to think of the birds just above him that seemed to be following their conversation as though they understood each word. ‘Are these people friends of yours?’

‘No, darling,’ she said with another false smile. ‘I have no family. No acquaintances in town. No one to stand by me in my time of need.’ She sighed theatrically.

It was another reminder of how low she had been when he had come to her. Despite the lack of money, family and position, Michael was beginning to suspect that he had never met a less helpless woman in his life.

She waved a hand to the assembly. ‘These are your friends. I got the names from your housekeeper.’

He was tempted to sack Mrs Card for her help in this charade. She must have gathered every guest list in the house and combined them. Although he could recite their names from memory, he barely knew half the people attending. Which meant that along with the birds, he was paying to feed total strangers.

But the woman who sat beside him at a wedding breakfast fit for royalty was picking at her food as though it was so much garbage heaped on her plate.

‘Do you not like it?’ he asked, trying to mask his annoyance.

‘You know I cannot eat,’ she said, taking a small sip of wine.

And you know why.

She would not say it aloud, but she meant to dangle the truth in front of him like this, as though, at any moment, she might choose to announce to the whole of London how they had really met.

Was it just the circumstances of their meeting that had caused this vicious streak in her nature? Or had she been like this before, sour and disagreeable? His experiences with governesses in his own youth made him suspect the latter, for those he’d had had been a mirthless bunch. If so, she was not the sort of woman he’d have wanted to share his life and bear his child. If she hated the father, she would have no reason to love the son.

It was all the more reason to win her over, if it took him a lifetime. He would do better than his parents had, in all ways. Madeline might have all the parrots she wished and gowns to match each feather. But he would abandon no son, as their father had done to Sam. Nor would he allow his home to degenerate into what his parents’ had been, a battleground full of traps for the unwary.

If he failed? He glanced at his wife, chin stubbornly set as though she feared the food on her plate might leap forward on its own and attempt to nourish her against her will.

If she would not be swayed, then he had the resources to protect their child from her disdain. But the women put in charge of the nursery would be warm, affectionate and nurturing.

He spared a thought for Evelyn, sitting beside his brother at the other end of the table. Had things been different, she’d have been his, and a fine mother she would have made. She adored everything about children, even after seeing the birthing of them. He had been too particular last Season, while waiting for Eve to come to a decision. He should have offered for the first doting virgin he saw and got a ring on her finger. It would have saved him no end of trouble.

Of course, if he’d married Eve, he’d have made her terribly unhappy, for she had never loved anyone but Sam. She was beaming at her husband as though thinking of her own wedding, still sitting under her own honeymoon.

He wondered if receiving such devotion could raise a similar response in his own heart. He had expected to be an amiable companion to any woman he married. But with so little previous experience, romantic love was quite likely beyond his ken. Without someone to show him the way, how would he find it? He looked speculatively at the woman beside him and tried to imagine her as his loving wife.

She looked back at him with annoyance.

It proved what he had often expected. If one wanted undying devotion, it would be wiser to get a dog than a wife. Madeline wished to be anywhere but near him and, at the moment, he wished to oblige her. ‘It is a pity you are not well enough to travel,’ he suggested, sipping his wine. ‘A honeymoon journey at this time would be unwise. But now that the war is ended, a trip to the Continent would be lovely. Italy, Spain, France...’

For a moment, her glittering eyes softened. ‘I have never been from England,’ she said wistfully.

Did she have a weakness for travel? That was easily remedied and solved several problems at once. ‘What a shame. I took the Grand Tour, of course. Or as much of it as was possible with Napoleon on the loose. I am sure it would be quite safe now, should you wish to visit the Continent.’

For a second, she looked positively eager. Then her eyes narrowed, her gaze piercing him like a gimlet. ‘Oh, but, your Grace, I cannot possibly think of leaving you so soon. And there will be the baby to care for, as well.’

‘He shall have wet nurses,’ he reminded her. ‘And governesses.’

‘Oh, but I could not want to leave the training of her to strangers.’ She emphasised the female pronoun ever so slightly, to remind him of the possibility that he might fail. ‘I will be quite capable of educating our child. Amo, amas, amaretto...’

‘Amat,’ he corrected, unable to stop himself.

‘I beg your pardon?’ She gave him an innocent look.

‘Amo, amas, amat. I love, you love, he loves. Amaretto is Italian. It is a bitter almond liquor.’ Was she seriously as ignorant as she pretended?

‘It does not matter, I am sure,’ she said, her eyes wide and innocent. ‘Love and bitterness are not so very far apart.’

It was a game, then. Another attempt to test his patience. ‘While I have no doubt that you were proficient enough for your previous job, I thought you would not be interested in the education of our child,’ he said, shooting her a triumphant smile over the rim of his wine glass. ‘You mentioned you wished to leave me soon after the birth, did you not?’

Apparently, there was something in what he’d said that upset her. For a moment, all pretence disappeared and her composure cracked. She looked confused and frightened. Worse yet, she looked ready to cry.

He held his breath and prayed the mood would pass. People around him were supposed to be happy and at ease. He made sure of it. He knew even less about womanly tears than he did of love. Perhaps Madeline sensed it and was resorting to tactics far more upsetting than tropical birds and bungled Latin.

Then the moment passed and she made a little pitying click with her tongue. ‘You agreed that I could do just as I pleased. If it pleases me to leave you, I shall. But not because you are bribing me with trips abroad. Suppose I wish to stay?’ She gave a feminine shrug. ‘Perhaps you could send me away against my will. I know what you are capable of. I am sure your friends would be interested in hearing it.’

At last he was on familiar ground. He smiled back at her. ‘Why, my dear, one might think that you married me for no other reason than to await a chance to tell that story.’ Let her deny it, or admit.

‘It will be a nice change for you. When we met, you seemed most eager to ruin your own reputation. I simply mean to be the helpmate you deserve.’

It was a pity that her plan would not work. Men of his rank would be better, were it possible to shame them into good behaviour. He took a sip of wine. ‘Then let me avail you of the sad truth, Madeline. You are as ignorant of the ton as you pretend to be of Latin. The reason for our marriage does not matter to them. Not really. They will gossip for a time. But they would not dare cast me off for my piggish behaviour. Men and matrons will applaud me for marrying you and not leaving you to your unfortunate fate. And women of a certain, liberal-minded sort will find me dangerously appealing. Do your worst. Tell your story, here, now, before the cake is cut and your audience departs. And then we will get on with our lives.’

He took another sip of wine, enjoying her shocked silence and waited for the farce to end.

* * *

When the door closed on the last of the guests, Maddie could not help the feeling of relief. It was foolish and spiteful of her to attempt to goad a reaction from St Aldric in full view of the ton. Other than the few tart remarks he’d made to her, he’d taken it all with amazing sangfroid, as though it were perfectly natural to have his house and his life turned upside down by a stranger.

She had almost got to him when she had bungled the Latin. He had been marched through conjugations and declinations by a governess at least as strict as she was and had been unable to keep from correcting her. But it went too far against her grain to perpetuate such deliberate ignorance.

Perhaps that was what had upset her so. The knowledge that the only child she was likely to have would be raised by others. It was the best thing for the baby, of course. St Aldric could provide more than legitimacy to the little one. But to know that there would finally be someone who she could honestly claim as family and love as her own, only to walk away....

It was too soon to think about any of this. Much could happen between now and the birth. Her head was not clear enough to imagine the future. The servants had begun to clear away the mess. As the orchids disappeared towards the kitchen, she could take her first free breath. The cloying perfume had very nearly sickened her at the table and she had managed only a few bites of ham and the thinnest slice of wedding cake. And her head still rang from the sound of the birds.

That had not worked either. He had ignored the chirping and whistling. But judging by the murmurs of the guests, the ton would declare this the event of the Season. By tomorrow, matrons all over London would be stalking the docks in search of imported birds.

She was the only one who had suffered by this day. As she always did on visits to the town house, she felt small, insignificant and very much alone.

It had been easier in the past week, staying with Evelyn and Dr Hastings. Their house was elegant, but nothing so large as this. She felt almost at home there, after she got used to the novelty of sleeping in a room decorated for a guest and not a servant. Evelyn was both wise and helpful, putting her mind at rest on the subject of pregnancy and delivery. Doctor Hastings was quite different from what she had expected him to be, after Dover. He’d made it clear that his home was at her disposal for as long as she might wish it.

She had dared to imagine, just for a moment, that they were her family. To be so welcome and not obligated to work for her place was a novelty. Nor did she think St Aldric had paid them for their hospitality to her, as her absent father did the family that raised her. They took her in willingly, expecting nothing in return.

Then Dr Hastings had hinted, very diplomatically, that if she had a change of heart about the marriage or anything else, she was to come to him and he would help her.

It made her uneasy. Did he think her not good enough for the duke? Was he hoping, in the guise of kindness, to dissuade her from marrying his brother? Or did he know facts that had not yet been revealed to her and meant this as a rescue? It could be that St Aldric was just as dangerous as she expected him to be and that marriage to him would be a fresh misery.

But it was too late to worry now. She had chosen to marry him. Despite what a villain her husband might be, she was a duchess and she meant to behave as capriciously as the worst of them.

When she had demanded that a modiste must drop everything and provide a wardrobe fit for the wife of a peer, St Aldric had hardly blinked. Instead, he’d added, ‘You will need a maid, as well. Do you wish Mrs Card to arrange suitable candidates for you to interview?’

A devilish part of her had decided that enlisting the housekeeper was the way to cause the most difficulty. But it left her in the embarrassing position of interviewing servants, using a tone that had been used upon her scant months ago. In the end, she chose one of the housemaids who had some experience with dressing and hoped for the best.

That girl, as the others had, accepted her as her future mistress with eager enthusiasm. She seemed to think any woman that might suit his Grace was near to perfection.

How could they all be so wrong about him? Was he truly able to hide the darker side of his nature to all but her? The servants seemed to view him not so much as a saint but almost as a God, rushing to do his bidding as though it was an honour to serve here.

Such misguided loyalty chilled her blood. And with it went any desire to upset the household instead of the master. These poor unfortunate souls had done nothing to deserve her punishment. She knew from experience what it was like to have employers with no sympathy for the servants and the difficulty their outlandish requests might make. She could make their lives hell with unreasonable demands. Or she could set the whole house into chaos by her inaction.

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