Grace Burrowes - The Duke and His Duchess

“Collect up your things, my dear. I’m taking you away from this house.”

“We’re going on an outing?”

“Something like that. Bring your doll and your soldiers and anything else that matters to you.”

She disappeared into a cupboard and emerged with Percival’s coat. “Burton said we could sell it for coal, but I didn’t want to. I like how it smells, and the buttons have a unicorn on them.”

Maggie held still while Percival fastened the frogs of a wool cloak under her chin, and she said nothing when he stuffed her doll and soldiers into his pockets. As they stole back down through the house—making only one brief stop in the parlor—Percival wondered if there was a greater comment on Maggie’s situation than that all she really knew of her father was the scent of his cologne.

Esther had wanted to leave for Morelands an hour ago, but the children were being recalcitrant, and the nursery maids—one of whom was enamored of the porter—were abetting them.

And while Esther waited for this favorite pair of boots to be found and an indispensable storybook to be tucked into the coach, she thought of her husband and of the solemn, dark-haired boy who bore her husband’s eyebrows.

A man who was going to keep a mistress for all of London to see could afford to quietly support his son at some decent school in the Midlands. Winter was barely under way, and the boy’s mother had already been reduced to begging. This was perhaps the inevitable fate of a woman plying the harlot’s trade, except…

Except if Esther had been that boy’s mother, she’d do much worse than beg if it would see him fed. Thinking not as a wife, but as a mother, Esther could not leave Town without making at least a short call on Kathleen St. Just, whose direction she’d obtained at their last encounter. Knowing that the traveling coach would still take at least an hour to pack, Esther called for the town coach and dressed in her plainest cloak and boots.

Kathleen St. Just opened the door to a perfectly nondescript little house on a perfectly nondescript street. “My lady, I am surprised to see you.”

Surprised was a euphemism, likely covering shock and humiliation, as well a quantity of resentment, though Esther did not quibble over it. The freezing house, the stink of tallow rather than beeswax in the foyer, and the fact that Mrs. St. Just had opened her own door announced the situation plainly enough.

Esther swept past her hostess rather than linger on the stoop. “I will not take up much of your time, Mrs. St. Just. Is your son on the premises?”

Fear, or something close to it, flitted through Mrs. St. Just’s eyes. “He is.”

“Shall we repair to a parlor, then? What I have to say affects the boy.”

It would affect Esther’s marriage too, though she brushed that thought aside and followed Mrs. St. Just to a parlor that surely had never been used for company. Had it been warmer, the room would have been cozy. An entire flower garden was embroidered and framed on one wall, species by species, in exquisite needlework. A teacup and saucer sat on a low table near a workbasket, the saucer chipped but still serviceable.

“My lady, you will forgive the clutter, but this is the smallest parlor and the easiest to heat.”

“You need not build up the fire for me,” Esther said, and that was true, because she hadn’t surrendered her cloak at the door, and Mrs. St. Just—who was wearing two shawls herself—hadn’t offered to take it. “I will be blunt, Mrs. St. Just. My husband has banished me back to the countryside, the better to disport as a young man is wont to when in the capital. I have not informed him that you’re raising his son, but I think some provision should be made for the boy sooner rather than later.”

“You’re leaving London?”

This did seem to occasion surprise. “My husband has asked it of me, so yes.”

A shaft of anger accompanied those words, and yet, Percival had asked it of her, he hadn’t ordered her to go.

Mrs. St. Just squared her shoulders, which let Esther realize she and this woman were the same height—and what metaphor did that speak to? “Then you can take Devlin with you.”

And this was cause for surprise all around, because Mrs. St. Just seemed as startled by her own pronouncement as Esther was.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You either take him with you, or I’ll approach his lordship in public and make the same request. I’ll demand money. I’ll let all and sundry know Moreland’s spare has a son on the wrong side of the blanket.”

The woman was daring herself to do these things. Esther heard that in her tone and saw it in the wild uncertainty in her eyes.

“Sit down, Mrs. St. Just.” Esther managed to settle onto a sofa with no little dignity, which was at complete variance with the wobbling of her knees. “What are you saying? That you’d expose your son to avoidable scandal? That you’d disgrace yourself and embarrass my husband over a bit of coin?”

The woman got herself to a chair, but half fell onto it, as if blind with drink or great emotion. “I’m saying that, yes. Devlin’s father has obligations to him. Nobody would argue that.”

No they would not, though despite those obligations, despite the cold hearth and her obvious need, Mrs. St. Just had yet to inform Devlin’s father he even had a son.

“When was the last time you ate, Mrs. St. Just?”

She shook her head.

“I gave you a bracelet, and that bracelet should have bought a load of coal and put food in your pantry.” Esther let a bit of ire—ire for the boy—infuse her tone.

“That money is for Devlin. Where he sleeps, we keep a fire, and there’s food enough for him. I bought him a coat too, because he’s growing so quickly…”

She closed her eyes and stopped speaking. Esther watched in horror as a tear trickled down the woman’s cheek.

“Here.” Esther reached into her reticule and withdrew a shiny red apple, one of the many weapons a mother would arm herself with prior to a coach journey with children. “Eat this. Eat it right now, and we will talk about your son… about Devlin.”

And they talked, mostly about the boy. Esther let Kathleen be the one to fetch him, the one to explain that he’d be staying “for a time” with the chocolate lady and that he was to be a good boy when he met his papa.

“Papa has the horses.” To the little fellow, this was a point in Papa’s favor.

“He does,” Esther said, “and we’ve a cat too, though I’m not supposed to know she sleeps in the nursery when she’s done hunting in the mews.”

From his perch on his mother’s lap, young Devlin assayed a charming and all-too-familiar smile. “I like cats. Cats like to play.”

“They do. Tomcats in particular are fond of their diversions.” Esther rose, wanting abruptly to get on with her day and all the drama it was likely to hold. She did not doubt that she had made the right decision, though it would by no means be an easy decision to live with—for any of them. “Shall we be on our way?”

She did not reach for the child. Mrs. Just hugged him, whispered something in his ear, and let him scramble to his feet. He parted from his mother easily, secure the way every child should be secure in the idea that his mama would always be a part of his life.

Mrs. St Just rose slowly. “Fetch your new coat, Devlin, and then come right back here.”

He pelted off, his footsteps sounding to Esther exactly like Bart’s and Gayle’s… like his brothers’.

“Your ladyship is wrong about something.”

Esther regarded the other woman, seeing weariness and sadness but also peace in her gaze. “I think you are making the best decision for your son,” Esther began. “And I will of course write to you, as promised, though I wish you’d agree to write back to him.”

“A clean break is better. I don’t want him to miss me. That’s not what you’re wrong about.”

“You will enlighten me?” The defensive note was unbecoming, if understandable.

“Your husband, his lordship… he loves you. He is not disporting with anybody, though I’ll grant you the man is an accomplished flirt.”

This, from Percival’s former mistress?

Esther jerked her mittens out of her pockets. “Mrs. St. Just, a certain sympathy of feeling between us as mothers of small boys is not an invitation for you to presume in any manner—”

A thin, cold hand touched Esther’s knuckles. “He loves you. He told me so in the king’s English when he came here to ask me about your ailments. He was beside himself with worry, risking all manner of talk just to be seen stabling his horse in the mews. He said you were stubborn, but he said it like he admired you for it, and he did not want to be asking the physicians, because they spread gossip.”

Esther abruptly sat back down. “Percival was here?”

“Just the once, and he went no farther than the parlor. He offered help before he left, and I did not… I did not want to take it, but then I realized my pride would not keep Devlin in boots, which was why you found me in your mews.”

The child came banging back into the parlor. “I’m ready. We can pet the horses, right?”

“We can pet every one,” Esther said, wondering where the ability to speak had come from. “Your papa can tell you their names.”

A few beats of silence went by, while Mrs. St. Just hugged her son again. He wiggled free, clearly anxious to make the acquaintance of his papa’s horses.

As they walked with him to the front hallway, Esther had to ask one more question. “What did you tell him—tell his lordship, I mean?”

The question apparently required no explanation. “I told him you were worn out from childbed and pregnancy. You needed red meat and rest, also light activity and a time to repair your health before you carried again. I trust you’re feeling somewhat better?”