inn, but when her new employer had suggested meeting her stage in Dover, the temptation had been too great. She’d returned to the place several times as years had passed, knowing that, in her dreams at least, she would be young and free of the responsibilities of her oh, so ordinary life. She had gone to bed thinking of nothing but Richard and their last night together in the very same room.
The man who had come to her this time was no dream lover. It had begun sweetly enough, but it had ended in a waking nightmare. The drunken stranger had been hauled from her bed, while Mr Barker stood, framed in the doorway, shouting that no such woman should be in a decent inn, much less allowed near innocent children. The argument had moved into the hallway and she had slammed the door, thrown on her clothes and run as soon as she was sure of her safety. But not before hearing the name of her attacker, as he demanded, in a slurred voice, that this other common fellow stop raising a fuss over strapping a barmaid.
After two months of unemployment, she’d run through most of her tiny savings. Then there had come the growing realisation that she would share her future with another: one too small and helpless to understand the predicament they were in. So she had taken the last of the money and bought a ticket for London.
Now she was visiting the house of a peer. She glanced around her. While the decoration was as elegant as she might have expected, her presence here was beyond the limits of her imagination. Even in the parlours of the families that had employed her, she had not dared to relax. There were always children to watch and to remove to the nursery when their behaviour grew tedious.
The same strangers were once again settling her fate in a public hallway, while she drank tea. Now that she had heard the truth, there was no sign that this Mrs Hastings would be easily silenced. There was a sharp sound of exclamation from her, as though one of the men had said something particularly shocking. Their muttered explanations sounded weak in comparison.
When a settlement was offered, Evelyn Hastings might serve as a mediator. She would know that decent people did not raise a child in secret and on a few pounds a year. A bastard of a duke deserved a decent education and a chance for advancement.
Maddie thought of her own childhood. The family that had taken her in had not let her forget that her origins were clouded. And the proper schools where she was boarded made no secret that she was there at the behest of an unnamed benefactor. There had been raised eyebrows, of course, but the money provided had been sufficient to silence speculation and the education had been respectable enough to set her on the path towards a career.
Surely St Aldric could do better than that for his by-blow. There could be excellent schools, and a Season and a proper marriage for a daughter, or business connections and a respectable trade for a son. If the duke claimed his offspring, it would not be without family. One parent was better than none. Once she was sure the child’s future was secure, she might quietly disappear, change her name and begin her life anew. No one need ever know of this unfortunate incident. She might be spared the snubs and gossip of decent women and the offers of supposed gentlemen convinced that, if she had fallen once, she might give herself again to any who asked.
It was for the best, she reminded herself, fighting down the pangs of guilt. The world would forgive St Aldric, and by association the child, but such charity would not extend to her. The door opened and Doctor and Mrs Hastings entered, followed by the duke, who shut it behind them.
Dear lord, but he was handsome. Maddie did her best to smother what should have been a perfectly natural response to the presence of him, for what woman, when confronted with a man like St Aldric, did not feel the pull of his charms? Apparently, God had decided it was not enough to give such wealth and power to a single human. He had made a masterpiece. St Aldric was tall but not thin, and muscular without seeming stocky. The hose and breeches that he wore all but caressed muscles hardened by riding and sport. Blue was too common a word to describe the eyes that stared past her. Turquoise, aquamarine, cerulean... She could search a paintbox for ever and still not find a colour to do them justice. The blonde hair above his noble brow caught the last of the afternoon sun and the hand that would brush the waves of it from his eyes was long fingered and graceful. But the clean-shaven jaw was not the least bit feminine. The cleft chin was resolute without appearing stubborn. And his mouth...
She remembered his mouth. And his arms bare of his coat, the fine linen of his shirt brushing her skin as they folded around her. And his body...
Her stomach gave another nervous jump. She remembered things that no decent woman should. And what she did remember should have not pleasure for her. That night had been her undoing.
Mrs Hastings saw her start and came quickly to her side, sharing the sofa and taking her hand. She was glaring at her husband, and at the duke as well, utterly fearless of retribution. ‘Well, Sam, what do you have to say for yourself?’
A dark look passed between the couple, as though to prove an argument still in progress. But the doctor turned to her with the same sympathetic look he had given her in the inn as he’d led his friend away. ‘Miss Cranston, we both owe you more apologies than can be offered in this lifetime. And once again, let me assure you that you are in no danger.’
But Maddie noticed the blocked door and lack of other exits. And the nearness of the fireplace poker, should Mrs Hastings prove unable to help her.
The duke saw her glance to it and made a careful, calming gesture with his hands. ‘Miss Cranston,’ he said, searching for words, ‘you have nothing to fear.’
‘Nothing more,’ she reminded him.
‘Nothing more,’ he agreed. ‘The night we met—’ he began.
She stopped him. ‘You mean, the night you entered my room uninvited, and—’
‘I was very drunk,’ he interrupted, as though afraid of what she might say in front of his friends. ‘Too drunk to find my own room, much less that of another. I swear, I thought you were someone else.’
And her own arms had betrayed her, reaching out to him, even though an innocent governess could not have been expecting a lover.
‘You called me Polly,’ she said, almost as angry at herself as she was at him.
‘I had an assignation. With the barmaid. And I was drunk,’ he repeated. ‘I had been drunk for several months at that point. What was one more day?’ For a moment, he sounded almost as bitter as she felt, shaking his head in disgust at his own behaviour. ‘And in that time, I did some terrible things. But I have never forced myself on a woman.’
‘Other than me?’ she reminded him. It was unfair of her. There had been no force.
But he must have seen it as such and counted her an innocent, for he looked truly pained by the memory. ‘When I realised my mistake, it was too late. The damage had been done.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The night in question was an unfortunate aberration.’
‘Very unfortunate,’ she agreed, giving no quarter. But why should she? It was a lame excuse.
‘Never before that,’ he said. ‘And never again. Since that day, I have moderated my behaviour. That night taught me the depths that one might fall to, the harm that one might do, when one is sunk in self-pity and concerned with nothing more than personal pleasure.’ He was looking at her with the earnest expression she sometimes saw on boys in the nursery, swearing that they would not repeat misdeeds that occurred as regularly as a chiming clock.
She returned the same governess glare she might have used on them. ‘That night taught me not to trust a door lock in a busy inn.’ She needn’t have bothered with
