feed properly.’
Caroline heaved a deep, shuddering sigh as she recalled the shrill, angry shrieks of that tiny creature, his face a raw mottled red. The grave, accusing looks of the doctors still haunted her, as they’d shaken their heads and whispered together. She’d felt like such a terrible mother—rejected by her own child when he was barely out of her womb.
Though Bennett hadn’t said so, she sensed he was disappointed in her inability to succeed at something so simple and natural. He’d engaged Mrs McGregor and a wet nurse for her baby, who’d immediately begun to thrive in their care.
The gaiety and admiration of society had helped ease the sting of her failure. But her evening engagements often lasted late into the night, making her sleep the next morning until nearly noon.
‘I visited the nursery as often as I could.’ Her heart ached with the memory. ‘But I was afraid to pick you up in case I dropped you or made you cry.’
His nurse, a brusque Scotswoman who intimidated Caroline no end, had made it clear she wished the mistress would not come to the nursery too often and disrupt the young master’s routine. To her shame, she had allowed herself to be pushed out of her son’s life.
She could not let his father banish her entirely!
Wave after hot wave of anger seared through her. Anger at Bennett, who had stubbornly refused to believe her. His accusations that Wyn would be better off without such a mother had hurt far more than his charges of infidelity. Anger at the law, which punished a wife’s infidelity so harshly while letting a husband take a dozen mistresses with impunity. That same unjust law decreed that children belonged to their fathers—sons especially. A divorced mother was considered an immoral influence, unfit to raise the offspring she had borne. Bitterest of all was Caroline’s anger at herself for not realising how much her harmless flirtations and one moment of heedless impropriety could cost her.
Just then her little son stirred in his sleep, making Caroline fear he might wake and take fright at her presence. Instead he snuggled closer to her, with a murmur of the sweetest contentment. A warm, brooding ache spread through her chest, cooling the fierce fire of her anger.
‘It is not too late,’ she vowed to her sleeping son, and to herself. ‘It cannot be. I will become the kind of mother I always wanted to be.’
After a pensive moment she added in a whisper so soft she could barely hear it herself, ‘At least for as long as your father will let me.’
Chapter Two
The next day, when he judged it late enough that his wife must be on the road to Cornwall, Bennett returned home. He looked forward to a sound sleep in his own bed, having scarcely got a wink the night before.
Every time he’d closed his eyes, the memory of his wife in the arms of his enemy had risen to taunt him. He’d also been besieged by his allies in the Abolition Movement. When word of the scandal reached them with disgusting rapidity, they’d flocked to the club, anxious to advise him. To a man, they looked forward to seeing Astley dragged through the mud. They also agreed it was imperative for Bennett to seek a divorce as quickly as possible. He had assured them that was his intention. But now doubts began to gnaw at his resolve.
Not doubt of her guilt, of course. He was convinced of that, in spite of her desperate protests to the contrary. He had long known Caroline to be a naturally passionate woman. For a time it had been the saving grace of their marriage. Now it had become the rock on which their faltering union would wreck at last.
And yet, seeing her in the arms of another man made him realise how much he missed their often-tempestuous physical relations. It had been the one area of his life where he’d been able to escape his own rigid self-control. He’d sometimes thought of it as performing the function of a safety valve on a steam engine. Without that occasional release, he could not work at optimal capacity without a dangerous build-up of pressure.
But after everything involved with the birth of their longed-for son had gone so disastrously wrong, he’d been reluctant to risk getting his wife with child again too soon. By the time he might have considered it, they had grown so far apart that it would have been like bedding a perfect stranger.
Mortified and furious as he was over Caroline’s betrayal, Bennett could not pretend she was entirely responsible for the failure of their marriage. He was every bit as much to blame for having pursued her so relentlessly and rushed her into marriage before their infatuation had had an opportunity to cool. If he had not let desire overcome his reason, he would have seen they were far too different in far too many ways to be compatible outside the bedchamber.
At the time those differences had only added fuel to the overwhelming passion that had possessed him. Too late he’d realised that something so combustible was apt to burn out just as quickly. Now he knew he should have married a woman with whom he had more in common, one he might have been better able to understand.
Glimpsing the stately turrets of Sterling House in the distance, rising behind a screen of majestic elm trees, Bennett looked forward to seeing his young son. Wyn was the main reason for his doubts about seeking a divorce. He’d experienced first-hand the bitterness of a shattered family. He did not want that for his son.
Not that Wyn was apt to pine for Caroline as some children might for an absent mother. According to Mrs McGregor, his stylish countess spent more time each day resting from the previous late night or grooming for some approaching engagement than she did in the nursery. The odd hours she did spend there only served to disrupt the child’s sensible, healthy routine, spoiling him with gifts and sweets, making him overexcited from romping about. And when she’d amused herself and grown tired of his company, or when the little fellow grew fretful, she would simply hand him back to the long-suffering Mrs McGregor.
As long as Wyn had his faithful nurse and one responsible parent, surely the child would manage well enough.
That meant he would have to be an even more constant presence in his young son’s life, Bennett reminded himself. From the time Wyn was very young, he had made certain to visit the nursery as often as possible to enquire if the child had slept well, if his appetite was satisfactory, if he was in good health and spirits. When Wyn was old enough, Bennett began to make a point of reading to him or taking him for walks around the estate, both of which Mrs McGregor heartily approved.
One fatherly duty he dreaded was the task of explaining Caroline’s departure and the breakdown of their marriage in a way his young son could understand, while sparing him the worst of it. Though Bennett had no idea how he would find the right words, he knew he must try. He would not see the little fellow confused and anxious, left to piece together the shameful truth from the tattle of servants, as he’d once done.
The moment he entered Sterling House, Bennett headed immediately for the nursery to check on his son. He hoped Caroline had not been so thoughtless as to subject the child to an overwrought farewell.
When he entered the large, sunny room on the second floor of the east range, all was quiet apart from the soft click of knitting needles and the faint squeak of the rocking chair. Bennett’s gaze skipped over the familiar figure of Mrs McGregor, seeking his son.
‘Where is Wyn?’ He pitched his voice low in case the boy was sleeping. ‘This is not his usual nap time.’
‘No, my lord.’ The nurse’s long knitting needles froze in mid-stitch. ‘If he were here, he’d be awake by now. But he’s gone away on that wee holiday with the countess. Were you hoping to bid them farewell before they left?’
