by Diana Quincy
An ache stirred in the recesses of Bella’s belly. “You must be mistaken.”
“There is a young maid in the Marquess of Camryn’s home. They say she is a beauty that he got with child. She is just six and ten.”
A young servant in Camryn’s house. The image of the lovely young serving girl in Sebastian’s arms rushed back in a powerful burst of memory, stealing the strength from her body. She sank back down on the bench with quivering legs, feeling numb, foolish, and betrayed all over again. “How can you know this?”
He sat beside her. “I make it my business to protect you. I’ve made discreet inquiries. They say Stanhope came and departed with the young girl.”
“Took her away?” Bella fought to breathe. “To where?”
“There is apparently a place he takes them when he is done enjoying their favors.” He took her hand. “I am so sorry, darling.”
“Them.” Flicks of light danced in her vision. “There are many of them?”
“He is said to have taken several bastards there.”
Bella pushed to her feet, trying to firm her trembling legs. “I must return home.”
“You mean to confront him?” Concern creased his forehead. “There is nothing to be gained from it.”
“Perhaps not. Are you coming?”
“Of course, dear.” He offered his arm and his unrelenting support. Summoning Tabby and Josette, he signaled it was time to depart. Bella set a brisk pace for the walk home. Her husband had asked her to come to him with any concerns about his fidelity and she fully intended to. She herself had witnessed his instances of inappropriate intimacy with servant girls, as well as the mysterious robustness of his bank account. It could not all be happenstance. The time had come for her to face the reality of her circumstances.
She returned home to find Sebastian in the ballroom with his fencing instructor. She watched for a moment, both fuming and aching. He moved swiftly—not quite with grace, for his powerful physique did not have the lean elegance for that—but with relentless assuredness, as though he had no doubt of the outcome. He’d removed his shirt and wore only black breeches.
His eyes warmed when he spotted her and called the action to a stop. Chatting in French with the instructor, he cut the lesson short.
“Do not let me intrude,” she said stiffly.
“It is no intrusion. Pierre was preparing to take his leave in a matter of minutes any way.”
The fencing instructor acknowledged her as he gathered his things. “Indeed, my lady, I have another appointment.” He hurried from the room, closing the door behind him.
Sebastian moved toward a towel on a nearby bench and toweled off his face, neck, and chest. Bella swallowed. Even now, she found him physically arresting. To her, he was all that was beautiful in a man. He guzzled his lemon water, the sinews of his throat moving as he swallowed. He watched her watching him. Putting the glass down, his clear eyes flickered with intent. “May I be of service?”
“No, not in that way.” The words escaped in a harsher tone than she’d intended.
“Have I displeased you in some way?”
“I don’t know. Have you?”
He walked toward her, slow and deliberate, his eyes assessing. He came to a stop behind her. “You haven’t even removed your pelisse.” His soft breath brushed her ear. “Allow me.”
She acquiesced, allowing him relieve her of her outer garment. “I was anxious to see you.”
He nuzzled her ear. “I am gratified.”
She shivered. “But not for this.” When his hands moved to the back closures of her dress, she made no move to stop him.
“How disappointing,” he murmured, his lips brushing the back of her neck. “I shall endeavor to convince you otherwise.”
Her dress loosened, and she could feel him working on her stays. A cool rush of air caressed her skin as the bodice drooped open in front. He pushed it down her arms in a slow, deliberate motion, the warmth of his strong hands skimming the sensitive bare skin. The gown picked up momentum and rushed to the floor, as though it too couldn’t resist doing Sebastian’s bidding.
She swallowed. “You said I should come directly to you if I had any questions.”
“Yes.” Moving around until he faced her, he loosened her stays and pulled them off, leaving her clad in only her shift, stockings, and slippers.
“You say you have been faithful.”
Kneeling before her, his hands did a sensual slide around her hips to caress her bottom. He nuzzled her womanhood through her thin shift. A clenching heat scorched her insides.
“Most assuredly.” He pulled away and raised her foot to slip off her shoe. His hands slid with slow purpose up her stocking, coming to a stop when his fingers brushed the bare skin of her thigh. He rolled the stocking down.
She lifted her foot to allow him to pull the stocking off, the silk whispered down her leg. “You claim there are no ladybirds.”
He repeated the same motions on her other leg. “None.”
“Not even servants.”
He rose to his feet. “Of course not.” He looked around. “The floor will not do. It will cause you too much discomfort. Come.” He led her to a bench at the side of the cavernous room. She went, hungry for the truth but at the same time famished for him. Facing her, he lifted the hem of her shift.
She raised her arms to allow him to pull it off over her head. “I have heard otherwise.”
His eyes gleamed with appreciation at the sight of her bare body. He ran his hands over her shoulders, down to her breasts. He cupped the tender globes with warm, enticing hands, his thumbs caressing the points. “Have you? From whom, may I ask?”
Her eyes shuttered as her head fell back. It was as if the sun’s strongest rays pulsated inside of her. She hated herself for being a slave to the explosive sensations he incited in her. Struggling for sanity, she forced hers eyes open. “Does it matter who informed me?”
His hands left her breasts. He removed his breeches in quick, efficient movements. His member emerged pointing, swollen and demanding. He sat on the bench and tried to turn Bella to face him. She resisted, anxious to hold on to her anger. Chuckling, and with her back still facing him, Sebastian eased her down onto his lap, slipping inside her from behind.
“If I am to be impugned, I should know my accuser.” His large hands wrapped around her hips. He eased her up and down his hardened flesh, showing her the motion.
She caught the rhythm almost immediately and began to move of her own accord. Up and down, caught up in the delicious slide of sensation. She struggled to follow the conversation. “Orford says there is a servant girl in Camryn’s household who is with child.”
“Susan. Yes, I know of her situation.” His breathing quickened as he worked inside of her. “The question is, how does Orford know of it?”
“What does that matter?” Jealous anger sparked in her again. She moved faster and harder. “I saw you with her.”
His hands massaged her shoulders as he stroked in and out of her. “Did you?
She groaned from his ministrations and with frustration. And came down harder on him. “Yes, you were embracing her.”
His hands crept around to her breasts. He kneaded them with a gentle touch. “And from this you deduce I am the father of her bastard?”
She yanked up off him and stood up, turning around to face him. “Do you deny it?”
He gazed over her body with eyes the color of a turbulent ocean before a mammoth storm. “Yes, I do deny it. On my honor, I am not the father of Susan’s child.” His hand slipped around her waist, warm and certain. He eased her back onto his engorged, glistening flesh. Her body leached onto his, clenching around his hard heat. This time she straddled him so they faced each other. Perspiration trickling down her back, she picked up the primal movements again. Massaging her bottom, he helped her move. “But you took her away.”
He slid his long fingers to the sensitive place between her legs. Her body trembled as waves of exquisite
sensation peaked and surged. “Yes, I helped her. She and her bastard need assistance.” He watched her face, his eyes intent on hers, his voice rough with exertion. “Otherwise, she’ll end up selling her body and the babe could end up in an even more dire situation.”
“And there are others?” she asked panting, accelerating her movements atop him.
A primordial sound escaped him. He arched into her and held for a moment, as if trying to regain some semblance of control over his body. “Yes,” he rasped. “I help those who are in need of my assistance.”
She gave him a moment, savoring the fullness inside of her, and then began to move with more urgency—back-and-forth movements that became increasingly demanding and insistent. She could barely manage any words. “And they are nothing to you?”
His answer was almost a groan as he moved with her. “Not in the way you mean, no.”
“Why do you help them?” Before he could answer, sensation rushed in and she spiraled away on a blinding swell of pleasure. She felt him follow her and they peaked together. He convulsed and stilled for a final time, pouring himself into her.
She realized she’d wrapped her arms tight around him. His cheek pressed against the swell of her breast. They were bound together.
“I help them because they are bastards,” he said. “As am I.”
Chapter Fourteen
Bella froze, unsure she’d heard him correctly. Drawing back, she searched his face.
He returned her gaze, unwavering. “Surely you will have heard the rumors.”
“I didn’t credit it.”
His hands smoothed over her back in gentle motions. They were still intimately connected. “Even though I look completely different from my brothers?”
She cupped his strong face. “You have the same eyes.”
“True. Come now, you’ve asked for the truth. Are you not stouthearted enough to hear it? Have you changed your mind?”
“I have not changed my mind.”
“I first heard the term bastard at the age of nine from some children at a harvest celebration.” A reluctant smile curved his lips. “When Cam and Edward learned of it, they taught those boys a lesson they did not soon forget. But I asked my father afterward and he became very angry. He said I was a cross the Lord had sent for him to bear. Matilda came to my rescue. She took me away before he could beat me.”
Her heart stung for him. She longed to hold him close, to comfort the child he had been. “Did your mother always protect you from his temper?”
His hand slid from her back around to caress one of her breasts. “Always. Cyrus was not a warm man with any of his sons, but he saved a special disdain for me. I cannot remember a time when I did not feel his blatant disregard.” He toyed with the tip of her breast in an almost absentminded fashion, his unseeing gaze locked on the faraway place of his childhood. “But Matilda favored me. Even my brothers understood I maintained a special place in her affections. And when I was older, I realized why.”
Running her hands through his mass of sable curls, she leaned forward to place a tender kiss on his temple. “Why?”
“It became obvious to me”— pain tinged the clear green of his eyes— “that I must be the product of a love affair with a man who was not her husband, a dark-skinned man of average height such as I, not a tall, fair-haired man like Cyrus.”
“Perhaps your mother sought some warmth. You say your father…Cyrus…was a cold man.”
“Not with Matilda. He adored her.” His hand moved to her other breast, weighing it, shaping it. “That’s the irony of it. He was entirely devoted to her. I’ll never understand how she could betray him.”
She ran her hands over the smooth musculature of his brawny shoulders. “One never knows what really occurs in a marriage. Perhaps he strayed.”
He snorted. “Not Cyrus Stanhope. You could not have met a more pious, upstanding gentleman.”
“He gamed with my father. He could not have been perfect.”
“It was the only lapse I can remember.” He leaned forward to kiss her breast. “And thank God for that, for it brought you to me.”
“I must say that explains why you avoid your mother.”
He exhaled, toying with a stand of her hair. “I find I cannot look at her without thinking of her dishonorable behavior. And she always gave the appearance of being completely devoted to my father. People would scoff at the notion she could stray. But here I sit, living proof of her deceit.”
She thought of Sebastian’s mother, a woman who emanated kindness, generosity and, above all, decency. “I cannot imagine your mother cuckolding her husband. She does not appear the type.”
“Would you like to see where I take them?”
“Hmm?” she said absently, distracted by the way the sun glinted across his dark curls. “I’m very grateful to your true father, whoever he is, because he is the reason you are here.”
He smiled, running his hands up her bare flanks. “Have you forgotten the reason for your anger? The servants.”
She had forgotten. She leaned forward to give him a lingering, openmouthed kiss, savoring his masculine taste with its lemony tang. “I am still quite angry about all of your servant girls.” He remained inside of her and she moved experimentally just for the fun of it, and in an effort to draw him away from the dark memories of his parents.
He laughed, his eyes shining with appreciation. “You minx.” Kissing her with firm finality, he lifted her gingerly off his softened male flesh and bent to retrieve her shift before standing. “Get dressed. I have something to show you.”
She flashed him a deliberately naughty look. “I can’t wait.”
Pushing to his feet in one powerful motion, he laughed again and helped her pull her shift over her head. “It’s nothing like that, but it will answer all of your questions.”
…
They took the carriage to Bloomsbury in Central London, an area unfamiliar to her.
“What is that?” she asked pointing to a large building off the main square.
“That’s the Gray’s Inn Society. It was originally built as a place for barristers to live.” He looked beyond Gray’s Inn. “But that is what we are here to see.”
Their carriage came to a halt inside a large circular enclosure, which contained three sizable buildings. The generous courtyard in the middle was brimming with children laughing and running. Some older children were in an organized line walking into one of the structures. They all dressed in similar clothing, a uniform of sorts.
“What is this place?” Bella asked, stepping down from the carriage. Sebastian waved the footman away to help her down himself.
“Its official name is the Stanhope-Wentworth Home for Foundlings. People here call it the foundling home.”
“Foundlings?” She stopped abruptly, the amazement plain in her voice. “It bears our name. Do you finance it?”
He offered his arm and urged her forward. “We do. Hence the name.”
“You use Traherne funds here?” Hope flowered in her heart. Perhaps this explained the monies he’d taken from ducal coffers.
“In a manner of speaking. I use the allowance the estate grants me as your husband. It had accumulated since we married.” Disappointment stabbed at her. These children, then, were not the reason Sebastian was withdrawing a thousand pounds from estate accounts each month.
Walking across the courtyard, they were waylaid by an urchin. “Mr. Sebastian, Mr. Sebastian. Will you come and play cricket with us?”
He smiled at the red-haired boy, kindness shone in his face. “I will, Billy, but it must be later. For now, my lady desires a tour of the home. Can you offer a bow for Lady Mirabella?”
The boy dipped awkwardly. “How do, my lady.”
Bella smiled. “It is lovely to know you, Willie.”
He grinned back. “Enjoy your tour,” he called running back to join his friends.
“They know you.”
“I try to visit weekly. We have almost two hundred chi
ldren residing here at present. Many more, the youngest babes, are sent to live with wet nurses in the country until they reach the age of four or five.”
“But this must cost a fortune.”
“I do have my own funds, my dear. I’ve partnered with Cam in a number of factories. I have other business ventures that have returned handsome rewards.”
Such as the properties he’d purchased from the duchy for a scandalously low price.
He gestured to the two buildings on either side of the courtyards. “The children are housed in these two buildings. Boys in one, girls in the other.”
“How do they come to be here?”
“They are almost all baseborn. Sometimes the parent brings them; sometimes it is other family members. We don’t ask any questions of them. We record the date of arrival. If a parent leaves a token or special remembrance for the child, we catalog it. We also note what they were wearing when presented to us.”
“How long do they stay?”
“At fourteen, the boys are sent to apprentice in various trades so they will be able to make their own way. Some who show an aptitude for learning are sent to school.”
“And the girls?”
“At age sixteen, they are sent to apprentice as servants for at least four years. Most stay on with their employers once the apprenticeship comes to an end.”
“My maid, Louisa, she is one of your foundlings?”
“Yes, Louisa came to us older than most, at age eight, but she was a quick learner and anxious to please. She apprenticed with Charlotte’s lady’s maid. Afterward, I placed her in our household to serve you.”
“And the footmen?”
“Foundlings all, as are most of the staff except for Davison and Mrs. Nagle.”
“That explains their extreme devotion to you.” It took a singular man to save so many from a wretched life on the streets. She pointed to the third structure at the far end of the courtyard. “And that?”
“That holds the rest of the answers you seek. Come,” he said steering her toward the far building.
They entered to a large open room. While not exactly spartan, the chamber’s furnishings were practical and unembellished giving the room an air of clean simplicity. There were no children present, only young women, although some still looked like girls, appearing no more than thirteen or fourteen years of age. It did not appear obvious at first glance, but both girls contained the round figures of impending motherhood. Bella’s eyes went to a sewing circle where the women appeared to be working on uniforms she’d seen the children in the courtyard wearing. All of their bodies were ripe and rounded, showing obvious signs of what had brought them here.