Her Gilded Prison (Daughters of Sin 1)

It was rare Humphry was so moved to anger, but it was a necessary catharsis, Sybil believed, in an all-but intolerable situation for her husband. She put a comforting hand on his arm. “Humphry, Stephen takes a grave risk in bringing this into the open when we could have carried on a clandestine affair and you’d have been none the wiser regarding the two of us and the paternity of the child who might one day inherit.” She strove to sound soothing rather than combative. “You have every legal right to cast me off yet I ask you, what good would that serve? The scandal would be intolerable and if there were no child, or it were a girl, Stephen would still be your heir. For years I’ve begged you to lie with me so I might conceive another son.”

At his bluster of embarrassed outrage she held up her hand for silence. “It seems that since George’s death you’ve thrown yourself into being Lizzy Hazlett’s husband to the extent you are completely unable to perform your conjugal obligations. Yes, Humphry, conjugal obligations. Believe me, if you choose to follow the path of publicly disgraced, cuckolded husband and discard me and cut Stephen off without a penny, I will disseminate every sordid aspect of our marriage and reasons behind its dissolution to the courts and to the world.” She took a deep breath. “Do you really want that?”

Humphry’s telling silence suggested Sybil’s argument had found fertile ground, yet when he suddenly burst out, “Is Stephen a complete and utter fool that he would risk his future for love of you, Sybil?” she cringed at the denigration she was so used to, and at his anger.

Stephen drew in an outraged breath and would have spoken had Humphry not continued, “If you are not already carrying Stephen’s child further dealings with you all but ensure that he is throwing away any chance he has of inheriting the estate.” He nearly choked on the words, “Do you think you’re really worth the boy ruining his future?”

Sybil felt the tears well up behind her eyes as she shrank into herself. He spoke only the truth.

Rallying behind this new approach, Humphry’s tone became almost conciliatory. “Stephen, my boy. You’re young. Only twenty-four. You don’t know what love is.” He clapped him on the shoulder, almost fatherly. “Sybil has enticed you into what was, no doubt, a well-meaning attempt to ensure Edgar didn’t inherit and you’ve been seduced by the excitement and novelty of an older woman throwing herself at you—”

“With due respect, you misinterpret the situation, my lord.” Stephen spoke crisply as he drew back from Humphry’s touch. “I am no green boy. I understand very well the ramifications for my own future and I understand my heart and mind very well. I’m willing to take whatever risks—and precautions—necessary to secure Lady Partington’s happiness, which runs in accord with mine. All I ask is for your...understanding.”

“Understanding!”

Stephen nodded calmly, as if Lord Partington had repeated the word with approbation rather than in outrage. He went on, “I wish to pursue a career—and I believe my experience abroad equips me for distinguishing myself in the Foreign Office—at the same time as enjoying the domestic felicity with Sybil that you have enjoyed these past twenty years with Mrs. Hazlett.” He spoke with quiet authority, adding, “We are both grown men who understand what is worth fighting for, but know, too, when it is wiser to back down.”

His expression softened as he gazed at Sybil, tense with terror and expectation beside him, before confronting Lord Partington once more. “It is my understanding, my lord, that you bitterly regretted the fact you allowed yourself to be influenced by your pater in the matter of your marriage to Lady Partington when your desire was for a union with Mrs. Hazlett.” He paused before lowering his voice to add softly, “In that light, surely you can understand why I take such bold risks to secure my future happiness?”

Stephen’s closeness and his championing words were like a physical caress. Dear Lord, prayed Sybil, let Humphry show the kindness of which I know he is capable.

Tensely, she watched him battle the expected emotions he’d feel at this bolt from the blue—injured pride, incredulity, anger...

Terrified but desperate, she whispered, “You’ve never loved me, Humphry. You’ve apologized for it for years. Please,” she begged, “allow me just a little happiness. We cannot change what has happened. I may be with child or I may not. If I am, it may never be born or it may be a girl, in which case the succession remains unchanged.” She reached for Stephen’s hand, which she gripped tightly as she added, “If I am not, we have every incentive to ensure I do not become enceinte so that Stephen remains your heir—a situation, I might add, that you seemed perfectly content to accept when the idea of conjugal relations with me was clearly repugnant and against your notion of honor and fidelity toward Mrs. Hazlett.”

Humphry opened his mouth to speak, closed it again then turned away, shaking his head. “God knows it was a sorry day I bowed to my father’s dictates and wed you, Sybil,” he muttered.

Stephen stepped forward and spoke, suddenly urgent. “Then you cannot be surprised, my lord, when I tell you that if you do not condone a discreet union between Sybil and myself that we will defy you anyway, despite the scandal which will cost us all, dearly, and despite the pecuniary and other obstacles that you are in a position to throw at us.”

He pulled Sybil close to him as if to protect her, adding fiercely, “You may feel you need time to think about this, my lord, but we are not awaiting your decision—for ours is made already. Come, Sybil.”

They were almost at the door when Lord Partington ground out, “Wait!”

They turned, the expectation almost more than Sybil could bear as she watched the anguished workings of her husband’s expression. His unkempt gray hair added to his air of defeat—for that’s what she recognized, and she was almost sorry for him as she accepted the pain his twenty years at her side had caused him.

He glared at Stephen. “You are due to leave for London tomorrow. I’ve already spoken to my contacts in the Foreign Office and had prepared a letter of introduction, which I had intended giving to you before you left.”

Despair curdled in Sybil’s gut. Stephen’s bold gamble had not paid off. He was going to cast Stephen adrift and Sybil would spend the rest of her life torturing herself with self-recrimination for her role in her beloved’s fall from grace.

Stephen nodded curtly. “Then we go without your blessing, my lord. For Sybil is coming with me. She will not remain here, a prisoner.”

“A prisoner! Ha!” Lord Partington’s tone was bitter. “I’ve been a prisoner for twenty years!” He shook his head. “Sybil is not going with you, Stephen, for the scandal would ruin us all. But—”

Sybil returned Stephen’s convulsive grip on her hand as she, too, tensed for what was about to come.

“But you leave here with my support and prospective employment on one condition.”

Stephen’s inquiring look was his only response before Lord Partington finished on a sigh, “Sybil and I will continue this charade of a marriage for the sake of appearances, for to do anything else would ruin Araminta’s and Hetty’s chances, though it would appear your bold risk, Stephen, in pushing for an outcome here and now had not factored that into the equation.”

“I believed it would be a matter you’d factor into the equation, my lord,” Stephen muttered, “and fortunately it appears I was right.”

Humphry allowed himself a wry smile. “Perhaps you are a better judge of character than I thought.” He seemed to deflate. “Go to London, my boy, and make a man of yourself. You can see Sybil when she takes the girls to town to launch Hetty in two months—not before.”

He held up his hand for silence as Stephen gasped, apparently about to object. “Let us see what notions of fidelity a green boy can uphold when surrounded by the temptations of the city.” He hesitated. “You may yet thank me for my goodwill in agreeing to your terms on the proviso of this cooling-off period.”

Sybil felt her mouth drop open. She glanced at Stephen and intercepted his expression. Where she might have seen hesitation she saw only unalloyed joy before Stephen moved forward to shake Humphry’s hand. “Two months is nothing to wait if I know I retain Sybil’s heart while I impatiently bide my time until I can see her again.”

Sybil had never seem him smile so broadly.