Lady Unveiled (Daughters of Sin 5)

He felt rock solid, and he was in so many other ways, too. But he would not be there in the way she needed him to be; not if she were to escape the miserable cycle into which she’d been born. She wanted children. Children born within wedlock. Granted, Lord Silverton would be a more constant and loving parent than her own father, Lord Partington, had been. However, while her children by Silverton would enjoy their father’s protection and affection, they’d not have his name and, in this world, one’s name was everything.

And so she must leave him but dear Lord, making that break would be the most painful thing she would ever do.

Kitty reached across to stroke his face and murmured, “Your conscience must smite you,” then gave a gentle, ironic laugh as she felt him stiffen, the only indication that her words had found a mark.

“It’s not as I would wish.” He spoke with difficulty as he stared at the ceiling, one hand resting behind his head, the other tightening over her fingers as he turned to face her. “I love you, Kitty, but I am duty bound to Miss Mandelton.”

“And to the rest of your family. I understand.” A searing pain ripped through her, but she showed no emotion as she stared into his eyes, mirroring the flickering candle that sat on a low table beside the bed. “I thought I could accept it, too. Your arrangement, I mean. I thought I only wanted your heart…that I didn’t need more than that.” She swallowed, trying to keep at bay the rising tide of emotion. “But I know, now, that it’s not enough. If I were to sacrifice my hopes of children, it would be different, but that’s too much of a risk and too much for me to accept.”

He rose onto his elbows and turned to clasp her shoulders. “What are you saying, Kitty?” There was a hint of panic in his voice.

“That I will never risk having a child who would be branded a bastard. I have endured that burden my whole life. And if I cannot be your wife, I cannot risk such a possibility as your mistress.”

“You would leave me?”

Her sigh felt as if it were dragged from her very depths. “I am leaving you, Silverton.” She felt like weeping but knew she must be strong. This was the only future for her. Gently she

stroked his beloved features, both to comfort him and to commit them to memory as she tried to strengthen her argument.

“It’s not just the children we might have together…out of wedlock. It’s what I’d be doing to Miss Mandelton, too. After my performance at The Grange, I chanced upon a woman who confided to me the pain she’d endured as an unloved, legally wedded wife. I would not do that to anyone, and I would not repeat the situation my mother has endured for the past twenty years.”

“We can make it work, Kitty,” he whispered as he pulled her into his arms, but Kitty shook her head as she stared over his shoulder at the wall.

She repeated dully, “I want marriage, Silverton. I told you from the start, when we were simply friends, only it was such a strange and dramatic set of circumstances by which I became your mistress with you on the way to meeting the wife your family had chosen for you. I always felt confident of your love, but when you marry, your first obligation would be toward your wife and—when they start arriving—your children. You would soon be out of my reach. I can’t do it.”

“I would always be within your reach. You have my heart, Kitty. You will always have my heart.”

“But at what cost, Silverton? I’ve met Miss Mandelton. She deserves better than what she’d have to make do with if you remained true to me.” She brushed away a tear, adding, “What we have together is pure and true. I know you don’t love her, and I understand the duty that compels you to follow through on an obligation made a long time ago, but that’s not compensation enough for me.”

Gently but firmly she pulled out of his arms, finishing her speech from the safety of the carpet as she draped her discarded shawl over her nakedness. “Miss Mandelton’s life would be barren and miserable if she learned your heart belonged to another. Believe me, I know what that feels like from experience, and I could not live with myself for thrusting it upon someone else. Certainly not someone as good and deserving as Miss Mandelton.”

Lady Julia was magnificent in Pomona green. Debenham followed her with his eyes as she danced the minuet which, he was amused to see, included a clearly reluctant Stephen Cranborne in the set. The woman appeared to have no shame after the terrible drowning that had occurred two years earlier. Terrible tragedy, of course, but Stephen Cranborne could thank Lady Julia for the fact that he was now Lord Partington’s heir. Her drunken revelry two years ago had led Partington’s bacon-brained nephew Edgar to a premature death, and everyone knew Cranborne would be a much steadier man in charge.

That didn’t make Debenham like him any more. In fact, it enraged him to think that the fertile valleys of Cranborne’s lands yielded so much more than Debenham’s sparse and rocky dominions further to the north. No wonder Araminta had chosen to stage her celebration here when they were so comfortably accommodated a little more than two hours from London. She detested his country seat as much as he did, though there were times when he would’ve liked to have banished her there for a few months at a time.

That said, since she’d done her duty and given birth to young William of whom he was ridiculously fond—far fonder, it would appear, than his wife was—and she had regained the luscious curves which, with her pride and beauty had most attracted him, there were compensations to having her near.

His reverie was disturbed by the intrusion of an old acquaintance of whom he was not terribly fond. Debenham raised his laconic gaze to the Earl of Barston’s heir whose gaze was fixed upon Lady Julia.

“She could be mistaken for any one of the debutantes about, eh? Experience to burn, though. Three children in the nursery and a roving eye.”

It occurred to him that Barston could have been referring to Araminta in a couple of years. The young man went on, “Lord knows how she can get away with this fanciful charade of chaperoning Miss Martindale hither and thither when everyone knows she’s Beecham’s fancy piece.”

Barston was well known for his petulance when he didn’t get what he wanted. Perhaps he’d had his eye on Lady Julia once. Or perhaps he still did. Debenham had often gambled with him when he’d been in his cups complaining over this or that. He didn’t particularly like the fellow whom he thought a puling namby-pamby boy, so he wasn’t much inclined to continue the conversation until Barston said something that made his ears prick up.

“A good thing Sir Archie ain’t here to see his wife in the arms of Cranborne of all people.” For the pair were now in a waltz hold and galloping to the corners of their square, and Cranborne was smiling for the first time. “I’d be more than dashed grieved with matters in such a pretty pickle on the home front if I were Sir Archie.” Barston’s hangdog mouth was, as usual, turned down at the corners, his expression more than unusually sour.

Debenham looked at him inquiringly. The fellow looked like he didn’t need much encouragement to unburden himself. He sent Debenham a sly look and said, “Common knowledge that Lady Julia tricked him into marriage, though she did the right thing and produced twin boys. Seemed she could then do what she liked after that. And she did.” He chuckled. “I was there on the occasion that produced the third son.”

“Good Lord!”

Barston shook his head. “No, not with me.” He jerked his head in the direction of Cranborne who, once again, had taken Lady Julia into a waltz hold to gallop into the other corner of their set. “Reckon fate’ll play into his hands, and he’ll be the one to have fathered Sir Archie’s future heir after that awful business with the twins.”

“What awful business?”

“Didn’t you hear? They got rheumatic fever not long after the new baby—Cranborne’s, I’d wager a dozen monkeys—was born, for you only have to look at it to see Cranbourne’s nose and forehead. One twin died; the other is unlikely to live past his teens. And if that’s the case, it’s the third son who’ll inherit. Cranborne’s spawn.”

Debenham frowned, trying to dredge up the little he knew about Sir Archie, whom he detested almost as much as he detested Cranborne though he pretended otherwise. “I did hear murmurs. It was shortly afterward that Lady Julia took on her self-appointed role of music maestro to young Miss Martindale, wasn’t it?” He racked his brains. Yes, there was a buzz of scandal at the time. Not regarding the dubious parentage of Lady Julia’s third son, but the fact that Sir Archie’s wife had left within several months of the birth to go gallivanting across the country, claiming kinship with either Lord Beecham or Miss Martindale who’d recently lost her family to scarlet fever. He couldn’t quite remember.