slap across the face. Twice he’d beaten her so severely that she’d required the whole of the next month to recover.
Twice she’d conceived, a short-term protection from his aggression. She closed her eyes on a shudder. Even now, she could not bear to remember the terrible outcome of those pregnancies.
Once she’d watched the stable boys with a mouse they’d found in a grain bin. They’d teased it with a stick, pushing it this way and that, while the small creature, hemmed in between the probing stick and the tall straight walls of the bin, ran frantically this way and that.
She knew now what that mouse must have felt.
“Your character will be impugned and your standing in the neighborhood will suffer,” she recalled the vicar warning. Simple speculation could cause that much harm. But to bear a fatherless child nine months after the earl’s departure? She’d have no reputation left—and no livelihood, either.
How to preserve both? Swiftly she ruled out both accepting the vicar’s offer and remaining in Merriville. She wouldn’t serve Reverend Blackthorne such a turn, even if such a marriage would be legal, and to face down her neighbor’s scorn would simply condemn herself and the child to slow starvation. No, if time confirmed that she was with child, she mustn’t remain here.
Instinctively her hands slipped down to cradle her still-flat belly. Despite the risk, despite the fear that uncoiled thick in her veins at the mere thought of relocating, she couldn’t regret that night. Nor could she regret the child who might have been conceived from it. A child to cherish and protect, tangible reminder that a love encompassing heart and body was not a fanciful imagining, but for one wondrous night, had truly been hers.
A child to protect as she’d failed to protect Jennie. That stark thought instantly refocused her thoughts.
For time was critical. If she wished to preserve her reputation—and the possibility of returning to her livelihood in Merriville—she’d have to leave before her condition became apparent. And if she wished to be assured of getting away, she’d best depart before full winter and the possibility of ice or blizzards that might strand her here for weeks.
Too agitated now to sit, she jumped up to pace the length of the porch. Inventing a plausible pretext to depart was no problem; as a healer, she could always say she’d been called away to assist some distant relative. But where to go?
A flurry of pacing merely confirmed the stark truth. When she’d made the decision to come here, she’d deliberately broken all ties to her former life, to family, friends and any acquaintances who might have come to her aid. Only one individual remained who knew her true identity, and she was the one link by which Charleton might yet trace Laura.
Her former governess, Miss Hollins, whose sister “Aunt Mary” had secretly conveyed back to Merriville a battered, dying runaway wife. Having initially come to Miss Hollins’s home to tend a young governess, incapacitated by influenza at the local inn while journeying to her new post, Aunt Mary arrived to find at her sister’s cottage both that unfortunate—and Laura. After the poor woman died, the two sisters had buried her in a grave bearing Laura’s name. If Charle ton retained any suspicions about the identity of the remains beneath the simple granite marker he’d been shown when he finally tracked Laura to Miss Hollins’s cottage three months later, he’d still be watching that house—and Miss Hollins.
Another five minutes of pacing left her with the same worrying conclusion. She simply didn’t have funds enough to support herself unassisted in some faraway community for nearly a year. If she were going to relocate for a time, she must have some assistance. Miss Hollins was the only person she could both trust with the truth and ask for help. She would have to risk contacting her again.
She hugged herself, fighting the bitterly familiar spiral of fear that clogged her veins and tightened her stomach. I will protect us, Jennie, she vowed.
There is one other option, a small voice argued. You could seek out the earl.
The thought brought back the image of his face, the echo of his voice, the dearly remembered touch of his gentle fingers. Longing rippled through her. Ah, how good it would be to make her way to London, to relax her constant vigil in the comforting warmth of his powerful presence, to cast this dilemma into his capable hands!
She smiled wryly. Given the circumstances, at least he’d know she wasn’t trying to trick him into marriage.
The smile faded. But as she’d told him that night, powerful as he was, he was not above the law. If she risked going to London and Charleton discovered her, Lord Beaulieu could not prevent her husband from seizing her.
An even bleaker realization dawned, so awful the lingering desire to run to his lordship evaporated on the instant. As she was still legally Charlton’s wife, any child she bore was also his. Were Charleton to find her, he could claim the child. Their child. Beau’s son.
And he would do it, finding the act a fitting revenge. No, she resolved, let her flee to the ends of England, but should she be discovered, let Charleton believe the child she carried the by-blow of some farmer or curate, not worthy of being claimed as his own. Let him never discover the babe’s true father.
Her resolve established, the fear retreated to a grim, ever-present shadow. She’d spread word of her intended departure to the squire and several of the neighborhood ladies. Briefly she considered sending a note to Lady Elspeth, who’d borne her much-recovered brother back home with her the previous week, and swiftly decided against it. The fewer who had definite knowledge of her plans, the better. She’d not even send a note ahead to warn Miss Hollins.
Misfit rubbed against her hand, whining for attention. Absently she leaned down to scratch his head, already aching with regret to leave behind the peace of her cottage, her garden, the kind solicitude of the squire and the families of their small neighborhood. Resolutely she put aside the grief, focusing her mind on beginning the necessary planning. She would leave within the week.
She couldn’t risk even the smallest possibility that Charleton might get his hands on Beau’s child.
Chapter Sixteen
A few days later Beau sat at the desk in his study, reviewing the nearly completed dossier on Lord Wolverton. Over the past three weeks the investigation had picked up speed, all the meticulous details painstakingly gathered by his operatives finally coming together to create a clear picture of the embezzler’s web. Once Beau received the last overseas reports for which he still waited, he’d have sufficient evidence to present the dossier to Lord Riverton.
Normally by this point he’d be experiencing the deep satisfaction of another puzzle solved, tempered by the sadness of confirming once again human nature’s frailty. But he’d had to exert all his self-control to keep his mind focused on business. For his private investigation of Laura Martin had not proceeded nearly as well.
Initially he’d expected to uncover her identity so he might return to Merriville before Ellie transported the recovering Kit from Everett Hall. But once his lungs cleared, Kit had improved more quickly than anticipated, a fact of which Beau could only be glad, and Ellie decided to move her brother the shorter distance to her country estate rather than trespass upon Squire Everett’s hospitality until Kit was fit enough for the longer journey to London.
Beau could not now cloak a visit to Mrs. Martin under the guise of checking on his brother. To journey to Merriville
