The Fall of a Saint. Christine Merrill

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СКАЧАТЬ like son. It had been Michael’s life goal to disprove the adage. He had failed.

      ‘If you wanted a by-blow, it seems you will have one now,’ Sam said, with a sad shake of his head. ‘What do you mean to do about it?’

      Michael was amazed that his half-brother did not see what was quite obvious. ‘This current situation is much better than I’d hoped for.’

      ‘You hoped to deflower a governess?’ Sam realised how loudly he’d been speaking and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘And without her consent? Are you mad?’

      ‘No. Certainly not.’ Yet he had done just that. ‘I never meant to enter that room. I lost my way.’

      ‘Because you were too drunk to know better,’ his brother reminded him.

      He deserved the rebuke. His father had, at least, entertained himself with the willing wives of friends. But he had done worse than that. ‘The woman I was seeking that night was hardly an innocent. Had there been consequences, she’d have been paid handsomely. I’d even have acknowledged the child.’

      ‘As I assume you mean to do with this one.’ Sam was offering the faintest warning that Michael must remember his obligations when dealing with the girl and her problem.

      Sam had no reason to worry. After years of exemplary behaviour, Michael had made enough mistakes in the past few months to show him the ugliness of false pride and the lengths he must go to atone. There was no question in his mind as to what had to happen next.

      The trick would be convincing the governess of it. ‘If Miss Cranston is truly carrying my child, it need not be as an acknowledged bastard,’ he said, cautiously watching for Sam’s reaction. ‘If I marry her and legitimise the heir...’

      ‘Marry her?’ Now Sam was staring at him with an ironic smile. ‘Now I do not know whether to laugh or send you to Bedlam.’

      ‘Why should I not wed her? Is there anything about the girl that appears she will be less than suitable? She is a governess and therefore educated. She is healthy.’ And not unattractive. He was obligated to her. After what had happened, he owed her more than money. He should restore her honour.

      ‘She probably hates you,’ Sam said.

      ‘She has good reason to.’ He had seen the look in her eyes as she had confronted him with the truth. He would not have given a second thought to the woman standing in the street before his house. She was tidy to the point of primness, simply dressed in dark blue, and hair bound painfully tight, as though she feared it would do her an injury if a single curl escaped from the pins. The lips that should have been soft and kissable had been set in a determined frown and her brow had furrowed above her large brown eyes as she’d recognised him. Everything about her had announced her as just what she was: a disapproving schoolteacher.

      She’d stepped in front of him, blocking his path as no one else in London would dare to do, and said quietly, ‘I wish to speak to you about the consequences of your recent trip to Dover.’

      The coldness in her voice still lingered with the memory of the words. But none of that mattered now. ‘I will give her reason not to hate me. A hundred reasons. A thousand. I will give her everything I have. If the succession is to continue, I must have a wife and a child, Sam. There may be no better chance than this.’

      The door beside them opened suddenly and Sam’s wife, Evelyn, stepped between them, hands on hips. ‘Explain yourselves, the pair of you. Tell me what that poor girl is claiming has no basis in fact.’ She turned to her husband, growing even angrier. ‘And that you had no part in this shameful business.’

      Sam held up a hand as though to deflect his wife’s wrath. ‘I went with Michael to Dover, but only in hopes of talking some sense into him. As the Duke of St Aldric’s personal physician, it is my job to keep him in good health, is it not?’

      His wife responded with a frosty nod.

      ‘He was showing signs of what I feared was chronic inebriation and had been—’ Sam gave a delicate clearing of the throat ‘—doing things that I do not wish to discuss in mixed company.’

      ‘Consorting with whores,’ Evelyn said, refusing to be shocked. Then she stared at Michael. ‘That does not excuse what happened to Miss Cranston.’

      ‘It was all a mistake, I swear. I was on my way to visit someone else and took a wrong turning. It was dark....’ That was hardly an excuse. He should have been able to tell the difference between the buxom barmaid he’d been seeking and the diminutive Miss Cranston, even without a light. But he could have sworn, as he had come into her bed, that she was willing and expecting him....

      ‘When I realised that he was missing above stairs, I searched Michael out and heard cries of alarm,’ Sam finished. ‘By the time I found him, it was too late.’

      Evelyn gave a noise of disgust.

      ‘It grows worse,’ Sam admitted. ‘Miss Cranston, who, as I understand it, was a governess, was visiting the inn to meet with a future employer. The man arrived two steps behind me and witnessed the whole thing. She was sacked without references before she could even begin.’

      Michael winced. He had but the vaguest memories of the last half of that evening. What he’d thought had been a thoroughly delightful interlude had ended in shocked cries, tears and shouting. And he had stood swaying on his feet in the midst of it wearing nothing but a shirt, with Sam looking at him much as he was now, in disappointment.

      ‘I have been sober since that moment,’ he reminded Evelyn. ‘And I would have settled with Miss Cranston the following morning had she not fled the inn before we could speak to her again.’

      ‘It is too late to concern yourself with what might have been,’ Evelyn said with a shake of her head. ‘It is what you mean to do now that matters.’

      ‘Is what she says true?’ Michael asked, not daring to hope. ‘Is she with child?’

      ‘To the best of my knowledge, yes,’ Evelyn answered.

      Michael took care to school his face to neutrality. It was wrong of him to be excited at the thought. Even worse, he was glad of it. To have a child.... Better yet, to have a son....

      When he was gone, there would be a new St Aldric to care for the people and the land. And this boy would be raised differently from the way he had been. It was as if, despite his reprehensible behaviour, a curse had been lifted from his house.

      ‘I said, what do you mean to do about it?’ Apparently, in his distraction he had been ignoring his sister-in-law.

      So he explained his plan.

      Chapter Two

      The muffled conversation in the hall droned on. Though she knew they were talking about her, Maddie felt oddly detached from the situation. In the time before Dover, she had avoided behaviours that might incite gossip. Her expectations were modest and her future predictable. She would teach the children of strangers until they grew too old to need her. Then she would find another family in want of a governess. At the end of it, she would have a small amount of savings to retire on, or stay on in a household so fond of dear, old Miss Cranston that they kept her beyond her usefulness.

      But that seemed a lifetime ago. No СКАЧАТЬ