“You have always been a hoyden,” Mirabel said, smiling wistfully. “I ought to have watched over you with greater care.”
Octavia took her sister’s hands in hers, giving them a fond squeeze. “You have your children and husband to look af
ter. I am a woman grown, and now I must accept the consequences of my actions.”
It was true. No one had forced her into seeking out Jasper Sutton. Octavia had known the risks, and she had taken them anyway. Until the devil had beat her at her own game.
“Come then,” Mirabel said. “We must get to the church.”
Jasper had suspected his past would repeatedly return to haunt him.
He just hadn’t realized it would arrive on the morning of his wedding in the form of his daughters’ mother. Nor had he been prepared for what the sight of her would do to him. She stood before him, reeking of blue ruin, her nearly transparent gown soiled, dark hair wild and matted as it trailed down her back. Her slippers were dirty and tattered, and she listed to the left like a ship in a storm.
Or like a tosspot, which was clearly what she had become, regardless of whatever she had once been. There was something familiar about her face, but the ravages of her dissipation had taken their toll upon her complexion. She was ruddy-cheeked and bloated. He recalled a wine-soaked romp with a widowed shopkeeper’s daughter. Her name had been Tess Smythe.
But the charming Tess of his memory was a far cry from the faded, sad woman who had demanded an interview with him.
“What do you want?” he bit out.
“What do you think I want?” She moved nearer to him, then stumbled and fell into his chest.
The scent of her hair made it apparent she had not bathed in some time. His stomach clenched, threatening to heave, as he took her upper arms in a gentle-but-firm grip and set her away from him.
“Tell me your name,” he said instead of answering her query.
Clearly, she forgot whose domain she had just entered and how much power he possessed.
“You don’t remember my name, lovey?” she trilled, taking a step in retreat and swaying again.
“You resemble a girl I once knew, a Tess Smythe.”
She laughed and then hiccupped. “Tess Bellington now. I’m a widow twice over.” Another hiccup. “Misfortune follows me.”
He could see why. Likely, it had something to do with the amount of gin she consumed. She wore the look of a woman who had experienced a harsh, grim life. The rookeries were not an easy place to survive.
“My sympathies,” he offered. “You’ve yet to answer my question.”
“I want my daughters back.” Her pronouncement was punctuated by another hiccup.
Her pupils were wide discs in her eyes. He found himself wondering if gin was the only poison she had consumed with reckless abandon. And then he found himself damned grateful his daughters were in his care instead of hers. She could not take care of herself—that much was apparent. How could she have been responsible for two little girls?
“No,” he told her, succinct and firm.
“They’re mine, and I want them back, damn you.” She raised a fist, as if she meant to strike him.
As if she would be capable of inflicting any damage to a man of his size, much less when she was in such a drunken state.
He shook his head. “You’ll never be seeing them again. You abandoned them at the door in the middle of the night. You can’t return and expect me to surrender my children to a woman who reeks of gin and is filthier than a chimney-sweep.”
“I’m their mother.” She swung at him, but her movements were clumsy and slow.
He stepped to the side, neatly avoiding the blow, and she lost her balance and fell to the floor in a dirty heap of gown, her stained and torn stockings on full display. The disparity between Tess and the woman he was about to marry could not be clearer.
“They have another mother now,” he told her. “One far more suited to raising them than you are.”
“Another mother?” Confusion steeped her voice. “What’s this?”
“I’m getting married,” he said, offering her a hand and helping her to stand. “In less than two hours, in fact. I thank you for bringing Anne and Elizabeth to me, but you’ll not be taking them away. They will be far better protected and taken care of by myself and my wife.”