The Fall of a Saint. Christine Merrill

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СКАЧАТЬ think this was amusing, for she made no effort to hide her laugh. ‘You have nothing to fear from this point on. I will be here to take care of you.’

      The woman could not possibly know what she was offering. But everything about her, from her soft-spoken words to the no-nonsense set of her body, was an assurance. Maddie risked relaxing into the cushions of the divan, if only for a moment. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Before the onset of these symptoms, you had sexual congress with a man,’ Mrs Hastings reminded her gently. ‘Surely you understood what the ramifications of this behaviour might be?’

      ‘It was not of my choice,’ Maddie said, keeping her voice calm and level.

      Mrs Hastings gave a small gasp of shock, but her smile remained as comforting as ever. ‘Do you know the identity of the man who is responsible?’

      This woman was different from her husband. Perhaps she could actually help with something more than ginger tea and kindness. Maddie decided to risk the truth. ‘It was the Duke of St Aldric.’ There. She had said it out loud. Even to admit it to one other person made the burden of the knowledge lighter. ‘I was in an inn in Dover. In the night, he came into my room without invitation, and...’ She was past crying about it. But to tell the story aloud to a complete stranger had not been part of her plan.

      Evelyn Hastings’s eyes opened wide again and her gentle smile turned incredulous. ‘The Saint forced his way into your room and...’

      ‘St Aldric,’ Maddie corrected. ‘He was inebriated. Afterwards, he claimed to have wandered into the wrong room.’ But how was she to know if that had been true? Perhaps he said the same to every woman he casually dishonoured. In Maddie’s experience, a title and a handsome face were not always an indication of good character.

      Mrs Hastings seemed to think otherwise, for she was still staring in disbelief. ‘You are sure about this?’

      ‘Ask him yourself. He does not deny it. Or speak to Dr Hastings. He was there to witness it.’

      Evelyn drew a breath, hissing it between her teeth. ‘Oh, yes. I will most certainly ask my husband what he knows of this.’ Her eyes were angry, but Maddie had no reason to think that anger was directed at her. It was more akin to righteous indignation for a fellow member of their sex. ‘And you have no family to help you in this? No one to stand at your side?’

      Maddie shook her head. ‘I am alone.’ There was no chance that the school that had raised her would take her back, after seeing what she had done with the training and education that should have got her a respectable position.

      ‘Then you shall have me,’ Evelyn said firmly, with a matronly nod of her head that hardly suited her. She rose from her chair as majestically as a queen. ‘If you will excuse me, I must speak to my husband over this. And to the duke. It will all be settled once I am through with them.’ Mrs Hastings drew herself up even taller, looking quite formidable, not just royal, but a warrior queen heading to battle. Then she disappeared into the hall, closing the door behind her with a resolute click.

      Maddie smiled and settled back into the luxurious velvet cushions of the divan, sipping her tea. Perhaps Boadicea had arrived too late to fight for her honour. But she appeared more than able to gain reparation for the loss of it. Maddie need do nothing but wait.

      * * *

      Michael Poole, Duke of St Aldric, stood in the hallway of his London town house, one ear to his brother and the other tuned to the conversation taking place in the salon. He could not very well open the door again and demand that the ladies inside speak louder so that he might eavesdrop on them. But he had to know the truth, and the sooner the better. If there was to be a child, perhaps a son?

      It changed everything.

      ‘She found you?’ His half-brother, Sam Hastings, was focused almost as intently on the closed door, staring hard enough to burn through it.

      ‘She found me.’ Michael had expected it, but not that it would come as such a relief. In each crowd he’d passed, he had wondered if he would see a pair of accusing eyes that should be familiar but were not. Now, at least, he had a name and a face to attach to that night, which had been but a blurry memory.

      ‘I am sorry,’ Sam said, as though he had anything to regret in this.

      ‘You are sorry?’ Michael laughed. ‘What did you have to do with any of it?’

      ‘It should not have happened this way. I should not have let her escape. The matter could have been properly settled in Dover. When I spoke to her that night, she claimed she wanted no contact with you, then, or in the future. I promised to respect her wishes. But I could have done more.’

      ‘We had no right to keep her prisoner and force her to accept help,’ Michael reminded him. The evening had been enough of a disaster. She’d have thought even worse of him if they had locked her door and demanded she stay until a proper settlement could be arranged.

      ‘God knows, I tried without success to find her.’ Sam was practically wringing his hands over the matter. ‘England is a very large country and there are many unfortunate young women in it.’

      An unfortunate young woman. Michael had never thought that his name would be connected to one who could be described thus.

      ‘The fault is mine, not yours,’ Michael replied. ‘If I had drunk myself to unconsciousness that night, then I would not have caused her harm and you would not have had to bother to clean up my mess.’

      ‘Or perhaps you could have remained sober,’ Sam said as mildly as possible. ‘No matter what you chose to do, we could not have foreseen the outcome.’

      Had watching his father taught him nothing of the need for good behaviour at all times? ‘I should have known better,’ Michael insisted.

      Sam gave no answer to this, which was probably proof that he agreed. Then he relented. ‘You would never have sunk to this,’ Sam reminded him, ‘had you not experienced a shock from your illness.’

      ‘I was upended by a sickness that would hardly bother a child.’

      ‘The effects of the illness are not the same when the body has an immature reproductive system.’

      ‘What a gentle way you put it, Dr Hastings.’ Michael had lain for three days with a raging fever and balls swollen so that he could hardly bear to look at them, much less touch them. Then the disease had left him. But not as it had found him.

      Or so he had thought.

      Now, for the first time in six months, he had reason to hope. ‘Miss Cranston has found me out and not because she is dissatisfied with your payment. She claims to be with child.’ He paused to allow the doctor to conceal his surprise. ‘Is that even possible?’

      ‘Of course it is possible,’ Sam said. ‘I told you, from the beginning, that the negative consequences of the mumps on an adult male are not guaranteed. Yet you insisted on blundering through the countryside, inebriated and trying to prove your virility.’

      ‘A bastard would have proven it well enough.’ It had been what Michael had hoped for. The fear that a simple fever had destroyed the St Aldric line had turned to obsession. And from thus had come the hope that an accident with a member of the muslin set would assure him a fruitful marriage.

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