Chapter 21

21

P hoebe waited for her revelation to sink in and the marquess’s face to crease in repulsion as he realized the true nature of the governess he’d hired. For him to utter the same words she heard when she’d first announced her condition to Harriet all those years ago. Disgraceful . Immoral . However , the marquess stayed unexpectedly stoic, displaying naught beyond a slight twitch of his jaw.

He said nothing, allowing the room to fall into silence. Indeed , he was now the one waiting for her. Not angrily. Not judgingly. Simply giving her the space to continue.

She pressed her palms into the thin cotton of her shift, trying to keep herself steady, to prevent her voice from shaking. However , each tangled emotion from the vicarage bubbled and rose within her, and when she opened her mouth, everything came out at once. “ For all the years I acted as her companion, my cousin Eugenia lied to me in the most egregious way. Ambrose , her drunkard of a brother, just let the truth slip, and?—”

She paused for air, reining herself in. The words were too fast, would make little sense to him. She needed to start again and give him the full story, right from the beginning. To let loose all the events that had been tightly concealed as a shameful secret, locked away in her heart. And then, to tell him of the startling revelation that had come to light, which was still so new, so bewildering, that she struggled to comprehend it herself.

He’d opened up to her, giving her all the scarred, hidden parts of himself. Now , her turn had come to do the same. Whatever he chose to make of her admissions.

“ Sir Ambrose Windham isn’t my betrothed. He never has been.” She started by allowing that crucial fact to land, detecting the faint rush of the marquess’s exhale. “ After Ambrose inherited my father’s baronetcy close to nine years ago, he made me an offer of marriage, purely to spite the memory of the man who’d begrudged having him as an heir. Perhaps anyone looking in from outside would have thought it a favorable arrangement, for, by accepting, I would have kept the home and position I’d always enjoyed. However , I found Ambrose so unsavory a creature that I wasn’t willing to pay that price. I declined and begged for my mother’s family, the Buxtons , to take me in instead.”

A decision she’d long questioned, frequently asking herself if she’d made a mistake and what, in her desperation, she could have done differently. But there was little purpose to pondering that now, especially when everything had changed. “ I came to Bowden , and after my mourning period was through, I …” needed some fun in my life again, wished to feel like I belonged, wanted to forget the sight of you swimming in the lake … “ I met a man.”

She peered down at the flimsy fabric covering her lap, and for a moment, she could see her eighteen-year-old self adorned in fresh white muslin—the hated bombazine at last packed into a trunk—as she stepped into the local assembly hall for the first time. She could envision the way she’d flitted about, arm in arm with Clara , giggling and drinking too much ratafia. The way she’d participated in every quadrille, and she and her cousin had spent the time in between quietly conversing about which gentlemen they found most appealing, and how Clara had motioned toward a figure across the dance floor, whispering in Phoebe’s ear: I dare you to drop your glove right in front of that dashing soldier and see if he won’t pick it up.

“ Major Berkley was handsome and charming. I liked him at once.” She’d barely gotten started, and already, Lord Rockliffe’s teeth clenched together, his hands forming tight fists at his sides. Yet she refused to shy away from the facts. If she was going to do this, she needed him to understand the whole story. Even the details she preferred to forget. “ No one knew him well, beyond that he’d been invited, by some acquaintance or another, to a nearby house party. But I got to know him. In secret, mostly, during moments when we were both able to sneak away. Enough that I developed certain … expectations and let myself get carried away with all manner of fancies. I didn’t give them up even when the time came for him to leave Bowden and he issued no proposal. After all, he promised we could write, and I told myself I needed only to be patient.”

The intensifying darkness overtaking the marquess’s features confirmed his understanding of what she implied. Yet that part of the story wasn’t the worst of it, the part that had truly twisted her heart and turned her life upside down. “ He did write to me a single time. I tried so hard to pretend it was enough, that more letters would follow, that I just had to wait a little longer. But eventually, I couldn’t wait. Not once I discovered I was increasing.”

An icy shiver ran down her spine, inundating her with the same aching fear she’d experienced all those years ago upon realizing that unless he returned and did right by her, the seemingly innocuous dare she’d accepted—the drop of a glove—would lead to her ruin. “ I wrote to him. I wrote so many letters, and time went on, and not once did I receive a reply. I had no choice but to tell my aunt Harriet what had happened.” Because I’ve always placed far too much faith in Harriet’s willingness to support me, haven’t I ?

“ I knew I’d been foolish, and I always suspected she’d be angry with me, but I couldn’t have imagined …” Phoebe pressed a hand to her forehead, as if the gesture could rid her of the echo of Harriet’s horrified exclamations and angry reproofs. Of the revelation that had delivered a sickening blow to Phoebe’s heart. “ Major Berkley elicited curiosity during his appearances at the assembly hall, and Harriet loves nothing better than gossip. That’s how, unbeknownst to me, she’d come to discover the man had a wife back in London .”

Lord Rockliffe made a low, feral sound in his throat, and the quiet that followed felt unsettled, as if it might explode into turmoil at any moment.

“ I didn’t know! I swear, I never would have done such a thing willingly.” She took a minute to squeeze her eyelids closed, refusing to let tears come to the surface again and get her off course.

“ You are not the one at fault.” The sharpness of his tone made her peer at him again, and the dark glint in his eyes made them look downright murderous. “ This double-dealing bastard of a soldier, on the other hand?—”

“ There is little purpose in speaking of him now. Several years ago, I happened upon his name in The Times with the news he’d been killed at Alexandria .” She studied the marquess’s face, looking for a trace of grim satisfaction, but he remained as still and unyielding as stone. Which she supposed wasn’t so different from her own reaction to learning the news, when she’d experienced neither gratification nor sorrow, only numbness.

She stiffened her shoulders, making herself unyielding, too. Strong enough to keep going. “ I’m not certain where he spent the years in the interim or if he ever came back to Bowden . Whatever the case, I was no longer here, for upon learning of what I’d done, Harriet and Martin sent me straight back to my former home at Birchby Park in Essex , telling me I could prevail upon Sir Ambrose’s mercy.”

Her stomach churned, still able to feel the swaying of that long carriage ride as she’d cradled her swelling abdomen, grappling with nausea that refused to abate. When she’d sat for hours with nothing to do but contemplate her desperation and helplessness. “ I had no choice. My condition was beginning to show, and I didn’t know where else to turn. Not surprisingly, Ambrose also found me disgraceful and put all thoughts of a union between us out of his head. He had an older sister, though. A widowed, childless sister. Eugenia .”

Her throat tightened at the name. Eugenia . The woman who was part tormentor, part protector, and apparently, part deceiver. “ She was also ashamed of me and wasted no opportunity to remind me of my misdeeds. All the same, she didn’t cast me out as the others did. Rather , she appointed me as her companion, and then, she made arrangements. A secluded cottage in Suffolk where I could disappear for several months. She accompanied me. Stayed with me. Not happily, but she was always there. She was the one who went for help on the night the baby came.”

The unsettledness in her stomach spread, creating a deep, turbulent ache in her chest. She’d never spoken of that night, had tried so hard to put the details out of her mind, although they always came back to her no matter how much time passed, continuing to startle her awake at night in a cold sweat. “ There were complications. The labor went on too long, and …”

She folded her arms together, giving herself a light pinch. A reminder that she was here, safe, in Lord Rockliffe’s bedchamber and not back in the cottage, her body ready to break from the unrelenting waves of agony, her voice worn out after hours of screaming. Not looking down and seeing blood upon the sheets, and hearing, in the newfound quiet, the worried murmurs exchanged between Eugenia and the midwife. “ I didn’t think I would live,” she managed at last, hugging her arms a little tighter to her chest. “ There was pain and exhaustion, and then, nothing. Only blackness that I didn’t have the strength to fight.”

She took a breath, bracing herself against the scraping in her chest as each tiny, hidden piece of her past broke free. “ I’m still not certain for how many days I lay there. Only that when I opened my eyes in the cottage again, everything felt different, somehow. Empty . And then, Eugenia appeared above my bed, assuring me that I’d come through the ordeal, but that the baby …”

She shook her head silently, knowing that repeating Eugenia’s words would break her.

He understood. He had to, for his hand came out to touch her shoulder, and then, his arm went back around her in a protective embrace. A silent gesture of comfort that gave her the strength not to back away from the pain wrenching her heart.

“ Eugenia provided so few details, insisted that my questions could serve no purpose. In the end, I gleaned only one small scrap of information: that the infant was a girl. But I never got to hold her or even see her. As soon as my health permitted, we relocated to Bath so Eugenia could take the waters, and I had to carry on as if everything that happened in the cottage had never existed. Even though my heart has always known otherwise.”

She shifted in his arms, pressing a palm to her chest as it clenched with more painful memories that threatened to take her breath away. “ I stayed with her for years, fighting back grief I couldn’t speak of, because when she labeled me immoral and said a woman like me would never find a position elsewhere, I believed her. When she led me to think that by proving my loyalty and obedience to her for as long as she lived, I would someday receive an inheritance, I believed her, too. I held an absurd idea that I’d be well-provided for, and that I’d take the funds to establish myself back in Suffolk , because that’s the only way I could be close to what I’d lost …”

She trailed off, the moroseness of her secret plan becoming especially apparent now that she’d spoken it aloud. However , if anyone could understand the desire to confront the location of one’s deepest sorrow, perhaps it was Lord Rockliffe . The thought gave her a momentary pang of comfort, although it quickly dissipated as more memories pushed upward, wrestling themselves free.

She let her weight sink against his chest, her body suddenly becoming too taut, too heavy, to hold upright. “ That was my failing. I was so ashamed of what I’d done that I put my head down and never asked questions, and when Eugenia told me things, I believed them. I always believed them.”

Her voice was becoming shaky and rapid again, the shock she’d tamped down to a simmer flaring, ready to burst into emotions too powerful to name. “ Why didn’t I ask more questions? I knew Eugenia wanted to send the infant to another family. I knew she didn’t like it when I tried to find out who that family was. I have so many missing hours following the birth, and I should have pushed harder in my questioning about them, but I didn’t. I suppose I couldn’t fathom anyone keeping a secret, telling a falsehood so grievous. But she did. She lied .

“ I would have had no idea, would have gone my whole life without realizing”—her voice broke at the horrifying thought—“only for Ambrose coming back, thinking me sufficiently chastened that he would renew his offer of marriage. He was as abhorrent as ever. As callous and drunk, and when I refused him, his anger made him careless enough to reveal the truth. My daughter did survive, and Eugenia sent her somewhere, and for all these years, I never knew.”

His body tensed, his arms tightening around her the instant she let out the shuddering words. The tight embrace was the only thing preventing her from dissolving into a mass of despair.

“ Phoebe .” His fingers cupped her chin. Lightly tilted it until she was looking up at him, peering into blue eyes that were gentle but simultaneously invited no protest. “ You told me in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t to place blame upon myself for things that happened in the past. Now , I’m demanding the same of you. This wasn’t your fault.”

Her chin quivered beneath his touch. “ Please . I need to find her. Ambrose said that Eugenia had provided for her, but what if …” She broke off, her hazy sense of unease expanding into inescapable fear. “ What if, now that Eugenia’s gone, the arrangement she made is no longer in place? If there’s a chance my daughter is no longer being provided for, then what will become of her? Ambrose claims to know none of the details, and he’s so unreliable, so inebriated .”

Her hands shook in her lap, her loathing for the repugnant man making her throat thicken with bitterness. Except now, she couldn’t even wish him out of existence, for had he not shown up, intoxicated, at the vicarage, she never would have discovered the truth.

“ Please ,” she repeated. “ I don’t know where to begin. How to find her. I just know that I cannot rest until I’m certain she’s safe.”

“ Of course.” He pulled out of the embrace, his rigid body rising from the bed, coming to stand above her. “ I’m going to take care of this. Immediately .”

Her eyes darted up to him as he straightened his wrinkled coat, his features unusually calm. Unsettlingly calm.

“ There is little purpose in trying to force information out of Ambrose ,” she said, her stomach turning at the thought of Lord Rockliffe seeking out the detestable drunkard at the vicarage—or wherever he’d gone—and spending more aggravating moments talking in circles, getting nowhere. “ What if he really does know nothing? Or if he leads us astray?”

He set his mouth in a hard line. “ As much as I would take great pleasure in tearing Ambrose Windham limb from limb until he felt inclined to cooperate, I have no interest in reasoning with a man in his cups. There are other ways to procure the information you seek. We don’t need him. Not now, at any rate.”

Her anxiousness must have shown upon her face, for he reached out to cradle her jawline, his touch impeccably light. “ Phoebe .” He said her name commandingly. Reverently . That way of his that was soft but authoritative at the same time. “ I’m going to make a few arrangements with my secretary. In the meantime, I need you to stay here and write down every detail you can think of regarding what you just told me.” He motioned toward his small desk in the corner, atop which rested a stack of blank paper, along with an inkwell and quill. “ Dates . Locations . Everything , no matter how small. Do you think you can do that?”

She gave a brisk nod, reaching for the hand that cupped her face and using it to pull herself upright. She’d managed to speak the whole story aloud, regardless of how much it hurt. Surely , she could put it on paper, too. Especially if it had the potential to help.

“ Good .” He set his hands—his strong, scarred, perfect hands—upon her shoulders. “ I don’t want to leave you alone, but it’s imperative that I see to this as quickly as possible. Will you be all right until I return?”

“ Yes .” She nodded again, giving herself a final second to savor his touch before pulling away and stumbling to his desk, ready to pour the past out once more.

She sank onto the leather seat. Took the quill between her fingertips. “ Please .” She glanced over her shoulder as his steady footfalls began hitting the carpet, her voice little beyond a whisper. So quiet but filled with all the emotions she couldn’t put into words. “ Please , just?—”

“ I know.” He paused in the doorway, peering over his shoulder, too, so their eyes connected. He didn’t speak loudly, either, but his words contained certainty. Promise . Something she could trust. “ I’m going to find her for you.”