Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress (Transformation of the Shelley Sisters 1)

Because she is Meg. Because I would trust her with my life. But why did she not tell me all this when I asked her to marry me?

‘You are saying that Meg Shelley knew of your son’s prior marriage but persuaded him to elope with her regardless of that?’ he demanded, ignoring the question.

‘Of course. His letters made reference to Meg knowing all about him, understanding his problems, wanting him anyway. James could never keep a secret,’ his mother said bitterly.

‘What, precisely, do you expect me to do with this information?’ Ross asked. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to find Meg and shake her. He wanted to lose his temper and shout at her. He wanted to drag her to his bed, use her until he was sated with her. He wanted her to feel as bad as he did. Instead he sat back, steepled his fingers and regarded the Halgates over the top.

‘Why, cast her out! Surely no decent gentleman would employ her.’

‘So you wish not only that she stop using your name, but you desire to punish her also?’ Ross found it was not only Meg he wanted to shout at.

‘Of course.’ Mrs Halgate looked taken aback that he should need to ask. ‘Her own father has disowned her, naturally.’

‘I imagine he did that when she eloped,’ Ross said, thinking of what Meg had told him of her father. ‘And what of her sisters?’

‘Vanished. Gone to the bad, all three of them. We have no idea where Celina or Arabella are.’

‘I see.’ Ross stood up and waited, silent, until the Halgates realised this was the end of their interview.

‘So what are you going to do about her?’ Mr Halgate demanded as Ross rang for Woodward.

‘I do not discuss my domestic arrangements with anyone, sir. But I will suggest to Meg that she uses another surname. I do not imagine that she would wish to retain yours once she hears of your attitude.’

‘Ha! She knows it well enough. Believe me, we made it very plain when she had the effrontery to write and condole with us on our loss. Wanting money, more like. We wrote straight back and told her that we refused to acknowledge her existence.’

‘In that case, I wish you good day. Woodward, show Mr and Mrs Halgate out.’

Meg had never been married. And she had, according to the Halgates, gone through a form of marriage with their son knowing he was already wed, however unfortunately. She had lied to him about her marriage, persisted in the lie when he thought that she would have trusted him with any secret. Pride, and the fatalistic expectation that the worst would happen just when he was happy again, nagged at him. He could feel his temper rising, and with it pain that Meg was not all he had thought her. He curbed it, hard.

‘Woodward.’ The butler stopped in his progress across the hall. ‘Kindly ask Mrs Halgate to come to the study.’ He would not tolerate being lied to. Ross fixed that thought in the forefront of his mind and clung to it. Anything rather than examine the puzzled hurt that seethed beneath his anger.

Meg tapped on the study door, then let herself in. Her stomach was fluttering with nerves, but she knew what she was going to do. She would sit down and tell Ross the story of how she had come to fall into what she had believed was love with James, the long, silent months when he was in London, the delight of finding he still cared for her, her misery at home, the elopement—everything. Then he would understand.

Her courage failed a little as Ross turned from the window to face her. His face was stony, but his eyes burned dark. Meg opened her mouth, but no words came out.

‘I have just had the dubious pleasure of entertaining Mrs Halgate,’ he remarked.

The tone was so at odds with the words that she blinked at him, failing to understand. ‘Mrs…James’s wife? She is alive?’

‘I understand that both his wife and child are dead.’

Child? Meg’s knees gave way and she sat down with a thump. ‘Then who…?’

‘The late Lieutenant Halgate’s parents. The people who, hardly surprisingly, failed to acknowledge you when Halgate was killed.’ Ross hitched his hip on one corner of the desk and studied her face. ‘They felt I should throw you out.’

‘I was going to tell you. To explain.’

‘Yes? Meg—I wish you had told me sooner. It appears to me that you were intent on deception when you boarded that ship and you have kept it up ever since. Why call yourself by a married name you had no right to?’

‘Because it was my identity for five and a half years! I was James’s wife for five and a half years and I—’

All the blood in her head seemed to have ebbed away. The room spun, the only fixed thing in it was Ross’s hard, implacable face, the only reality the pain and suspicion in his voice. ‘I did not know when I married him and I was going to tell you this afternoon.’

‘You did not tell me on the ship, or when I offered you employment. You did not tell me when I asked you to be my mistress.’ He paused and for a moment Meg thought he needed to control his breathing, but his voice as he went on was steady. ‘You did not tell me when I asked you to be my wife.’

‘I did not know how to.’ It was the truth. Even thinking about it had hurt too much.

‘Could you not trust me?’ He picked up the pen from the ink stand and began to roll it between his fingers. ‘Do you know how the Halgates found me? One of my neighbours knows them and wrote them a letter warning that you were back in England, still masquerading as their son’s wife and apparently pulling the wool over the eyes of a certain Lord Brandon. Or perhaps he thought I did know and did not care.’