She glanced at Finn. “Neville gave Robin a banknote, so we need to take him to the bank.”
“We’ll do it tomorrow.”
“I’m rich, guv,” the lad crowed.
“Five hundred quid is a lot of blunt. Don’t go boasting about it. You don’t want someone trying to steal it.”
“Right-o. Won’t breathe a word of it to a soul.”
Still, Finn held out his hand. “Why don’t you let me have it for safekeeping?”
He could see the boy thinking about it, but finally he brought it out of his jacket pocket, slightly wrinkled and a little worse for wear, and gave it to him. He winked at the lad. “You come see me tomorrow, and we’ll get this matter sorted out.”
With a nod, Robin turned his attention to the passing scenery, and Finn wondered if he was contemplating all the things he could do with his newfound wealth. Or if he simply wasn’t comfortable staring at a saddened Vivi.
They had the driver stop at the Mermaid and Unicorn first, where young Robin disembarked. Then they carried on. Vivi slumped against him.
“Just a bit longer,” he assured her.
She nodded. “It’s hard.”
“I know, love.”
Somehow, she managed to keep herself together until they entered her rooms, and then she lost her way, sinking down onto the floor, no strength left to her. “I didn’t think I’d ever see it or find it, but I’d always thought that at least it lived.”
Great, gulping sobs broke free of her, bringing with her such pain that she didn’t know how she’d survive it.
She was aware of him lifting her into his arms and carrying her across the room into the bedchamber. Gently, he placed her on the bed, and she curled into a ball of anguish.
“I hate her. I hate what she did. How could she be so uncaring?”
He didn’t answer. She didn’t expect him to, because there was no answer that would suffice. Instead he removed her shoes, rubbed his hands over her feet, then moved up to the head of the bed and began removing the pins from her hair. When the strands were combed out over her pillow, he stretched out on the bed and cocooned her within the warmth of his embrace, holding her tightly while she wept, all the while knowing that he had to be hurting as well.
“Horrid woman,” she blurted. “I don’t know a strong enough word to describe the ugliness of her.”
“Bitch comes to mind.”
Rolling over, she faced him and gazed into those brown eyes. “I should have stopped her. I should have fought harder.”
“Vivi, you were a young woman, nearly a child yourself. You’d just gone through childbirth.” Tenderly he combed his fingers through her hair. “Do not take responsibility for what she did. You are not to blame. If I’d kept my cock in my trousers—”
“No.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “You can’t take the blame either. I just wonder if it will always hurt like this.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never hurt like this.”
The sobs broke free again, and she wept for dreams lost and a life unlived. She cried for a child she’d never held, never rocked to sleep. A child to whom she’d never whispered, I love you.
She cried until there were no tears left, no strength remaining. Then against all odds, she drifted off to sleep.
When she awoke, he was still holding her close, his gaze on her face, his hand roaming over her hair. The room was not as bright as it had been. The late-afternoon sun was allowing the shadows to creep from the corners.
“You need to eat something,” Finn said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Try, for me, lest I worry about you all the more.”
A knock sounded on the door, and she rolled her eyes. “Seems you already sent for supper.”
“No, wait here. I’ll see who it is.”
He rolled into a sitting position. She placed her hand on his broad back. “No, I will. What will people think to find you here?”
As she clambered out of bed, she nearly laughed at the thought of worrying over her reputation now. What did it matter when she’d never return to Society? She was done with it for good.
He didn’t object, but he did follow her as though he expected her to collapse on the floor again. So much for worrying what the staff might think to find him in her chambers.
She opened the door to find Meg standing there. She bobbed a quick curtsy. “Sorry to bother you, miss, but there’s a gent here looking for a Lady Lavinia. I don’t know who that could be, and I can’t find Mr. Trewlove to ask him about it, but he’s rather insistent that this is where she lives. Mayhaps he’s mad.”
Finn stepped up behind her. “Have him brought to our office.”
Meg’s eyes widened, but she had the good sense not to comment on his being there while Lavinia’s hair was cascading down her back and her feet were bare. “Yes, sir.”
She bobbed another quick curtsy and hurried down the hallway.
Closing the door, Lavinia sighed and faced Finn. “Maybe it’s someone who saw the handbill.”
He furrowed his brow. “Perhaps, although I’d have thought he’d have just snatched you when you stepped out. Whoever it is, I’ll dispatch him quickly enough.”
In no mood for visitors, she merely nodded. Tucking his finger beneath her chin, he lifted her mouth to his and placed a gentle kiss there. “Think about what you’d like to eat while I’m gone. Perhaps I’ll even cook it for you myself.”
“Will it be edible?”
“No promises.”
She could hardly fathom that her lips sought to create a smile. As he closed the door behind him, she pressed a hand to the wood. Perhaps he was right, and she would feel better after she ate. Perhaps they both would.
Returning to the bedchamber, she grabbed a brush and began sliding it through her hair. She would wear it loose tonight. She wanted to feel young and free. She wanted—
She heard the door open, and Finn call out, “Vivi!”
She dashed into the front room to find him standing beside a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties.
“He says he serves as a footman in your family’s residence and needs to have a word with you.”
Cautiously, she approached, trying to remember. Ah, yes, setting plates before her during dinner, carrying packages, stirring a fire. A footman. Tall and dark, matching each one who served within the Collinsworth household. It would not do at all not to be perfect. “James, isn’t it?”
He gave her a sad smile. “Yes, m’lady.”
“How can I help you?”
“I’m the one to whom your mum gave the babe.”
Chapter 23
She staggered back two steps as though a blow had been delivered, might have crumpled to the floor if Finn hadn’t immediately reached her, taking her in his arms and steadying her. Her heart was pounding so ferociously that she feared the footman might hear it. But then what did she care what he heard, what he thought of her?
“The one who was tasked with delivering it to a baby farmer?” she asked.
He gave a quick nod and clutched his hat in his hands. “Yes, m’lady.”
She wanted to rail at him, to call him all manner of unkind names, but he was a servant who’d merely been following orders. “Do you know if it was a girl or a boy?” she heard herself ask through a roaring in her ears.
“A girl. The prettiest thing you’ll ever see.”
Only she wouldn’t see her—ever. And she wanted to scream with the reality of that.
“Do you remember exactly where you took her?” Finn asked, and for a moment she felt pity for the woman she was fairly certain he intended to confront. The baby farmer who had murdered an innocent.
“Yes, sir. That’s why I came.” He looked down at the floor, sighed, lifted his gaze to them. “My sister, you see, she tried for nearly a decade to get with child, wanted a bairn of her own so badly. When the duchess put that wee one in my arms, handed me the five quid, told me where I was to deliver her and what I was to say .
. . I thought of my sister and all the times I saw her crying . . . and I said to myself, ‘Where’s the harm? Who will ever know?’”
She felt Finn’s arms close more tightly around her. “Are you telling us that you gave the babe to your sister?” she asked, striving not to let the joy take hold until she fully understood all the ramifications of his confession.
He nodded. “Aye.” He slid his gaze to Finn, back to her. “I held my silence in the kitchens because I thought no good would come from speaking, and if the duchess discovered what I’d done, I’d lose my post. Then I saw you waiting on the steps—I’ve seen women at wakes who didn’t look as sad as you, m’lady.”
She took in a shaky breath as a spark of hope flared. “She’s alive.”
“Yes. Before I came here, I went to Watford to visit my sister, talk things over with her. Let her know you’d probably be coming, once you knew the truth.”
An earl’s daughter did not show weakness or tears or any emotion at all in front of staff—ever. But a sob, hideously loud and ugly, broke free and she burrowed her face against Finn’s chest.
“I can take you to her,” James said. “I thought tomorrow. Give my sister and her husband tonight to get used to the notion of you coming for her daughter.”
Her daughter. The words crashed into Lavinia. For seven years the woman had rocked her, sung to her, held her, loved her. Possibly. Likely. Most certainly. Nodding, she was beyond words, beyond speaking as every emotion imaginable rioted through her.
“Can you give us a moment of privacy?” Finn asked.
“Yes, sir. I’ll wait in the hallway.”
“Go downstairs. Have someone bring you a whisky, on the house.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him nod, take a step back toward the door, pause, turn the hat in his hands. “I’m sorry, m’lady, that I didn’t say something to you long ago, when you were still living in residence. But I truly thought you didn’t want her. Her being born on the wrong side of the blanket and all.”
“I don’t blame you, James,” she said.
Giving her another nod, he quit the room, and she sank onto the sofa. Kneeling before her, Finn took her hands. “She’s alive, Finn. We’ll get her back. She’ll be ours.”
“She doesn’t know us, Vivi.”
“Not now, of course, but tomorrow, tomorrow she will.”
“She’s been with these people for seven years.”
“But she’s mine. Ours. She should have never been taken from me.”
“Stop and think about this, Vivi. She’s their daughter. She calls them ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad.’ They love her, and she loves them.”
“They don’t love her as much as I will! And she doesn’t love them as much as she’ll love me, love us.”
He squeezed her hands. “We can’t regain what we’ve lost.”
“You don’t understand, Finn. You can’t understand because you weren’t there.” Shoving him aside, she stood and began to pace. “You didn’t carry her for nine months. You didn’t feel her moving within you. You didn’t talk to her because there was no one else to talk with. You didn’t share your hopes and dreams.”
The memories were cascading through her like a rushing waterfall after heavy rains.
“I was prepared to keep her with me, was planning to do so. I was willing to face being ostracized, gossiped about. I knew no man would have me with an illegitimate child hanging on to my skirts, but I didn’t care.” She swung around, faced him, her breathing harsh and heavy, her fists balled, while he stood there looking at her as though he didn’t know her. “You cannot feel the love I feel for her. You cannot want her as I want her. She doesn’t mean to you what she does to me. I’ve had seven years of thinking about her, wondering—”
“And they’ve had seven years of loving her,” he repeated.
She wanted to beat her fists against his chest, wanted him to know how much she despised him at that moment. She shook her head fiercely. “You simply don’t understand.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Vivi. I was once just like that little girl.”
If the daggers she’d been shooting at him with her glares had been real, he’d be dead. But his final words seemed to take some of the fight out of her.
“I doubt they’ve told her that she wasn’t born to them,” he said.
“We’ll explain it kindly and gently.”
“No matter what words you use, it will be neither kind nor gentle. We were eight, Gillie seven, when we found out that Ettie Trewlove hadn’t given birth to us, that we were brought to her door by someone who didn’t want us.”
She stepped forward, her hand reaching out imploringly. “But I want her. That’s the difference, don’t you see? I’ve always wanted her.”
“Maybe my mother wanted me. I don’t know. My father was the one who delivered me. But my point is that for eight years Ettie Trewlove was my mum. I loved her as my mum. When I learned she didn’t give birth to me, my first thought wasn’t that I wanted to be with the woman who had. My first thought was that it didn’t make a difference. Ettie Trewlove was still my mum. I couldn’t love her more if she had brought me into this world. And I’m standing here trying to imagine how I would have felt if someone had knocked on the door and taken me away from her.”
“You can’t know, Finn. You can assume or speculate or imagine, but you can’t know.”
“But I can know, Vivi, because I was taken from her. I was twenty-three, old enough to comprehend I was being taken and why I was being taken, but it didn’t ease the hurt. It didn’t ease my missing of her. I was a young man, capable of dealing with the loss, to understand, yet still it was difficult and saddening and devastating. I wasn’t a child who had to learn how to cope with life’s harshness. Robin can’t be much older than her, and he still believes in fairies.”
“And he still wants his mother to come for him.”
“Our daughter doesn’t know her mother isn’t there.”
This beautiful, brave woman looked as though she wanted to scratch out his eyes. “Fine. On this matter we will disagree. I’m going to get my daughter tomorrow. I shall take her to the Sisters of Mercy, and we shall reside there until I can make arrangements for other accommodations. This partnership between us has come to an end. I shall meet with Beckwith and see that the contracts are voided.”
“This isn’t what I want.”
“We don’t always get what we want. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to let James know when to be here tomorrow, so we can depart.”
With her feet bare and her hair a tangled mess, she walked out, and he let her go because his love could not compete with a dream he feared she’d soon discover was not to be had.
Finn sat at a back table in a shadowed corner at Gillie’s pub drinking his beer. He hadn’t been in the mood to remain at his club, to chance running into Vivi. Indeed, his mood was foul, as foul as it had ever been. His disappointment great.
He’d thought she’d changed, but tonight she’d been the spoiled daughter of an earl who always got what she wanted—no matter who was hurt in the process. He found himself glad they’d not married years ago, because he wasn’t certain they’d have managed to keep each other happy for long.
Aiden was correct. It was folly to love her, but even knowing that, he seemed incapable of shedding her from his heart completely.
“You look like someone kicked your dog.”
Glancing up, he couldn’t find the strength to work up a smile for his brother Beast. He was the tallest and broadest among them, someone Finn wanted on his side in a fight. Not that he’d be doing any fighting tonight. Or maybe he would. Throwing a few good punches might make him feel better. “I don’t have a dog.”
Beast nodded toward the chair opposite Finn. Unlike Aiden, he wasn’t one to assume his company would be welcome. Finn considered shaking his head, knowing his brother wouldn’t take offense. Instead he waved his hand, palm up, over the table in invitation.
Beast dropped into t
he chair. “Want to talk about it?”
Finn shook his head, then heard himself say, “I just learned today that I have a daughter.”
“Christ. You’re a father,” Beast said slowly as though the words made no sense. “Mum know?”
“You’re the first. Keep it to yourself for now.”
“I’m not one to blab.” Then he grinned. “I’m an uncle. Imagine that. Never thought you’d be the first though. You weren’t one for going around poking your stick in the honey pot.”
He sighed. “The irony is not lost on me.”
“Who’s the mum?”
“Vivi.”
Beast nodded as though it all made sense, then shook his head as though it didn’t. “Aiden told me she was back in your life. But that’s only recent.” His eyes widened. “Are you telling me this little one is from before?”
Finn took a long swallow of his beer, draining the mug. Didn’t object when Beast signaled for two more to be brought over. “Yeah. She’s seven, being raised by a family in Watford. I’m to meet her tomorrow.” He would go with Vivi because he did want to see the little one.
“That’s gotta be hard.”
Placing his elbows on the table, he leaned toward his brother. “I’ve got all these feelings, Beast, and I don’t know what to do with them. Like you said, I’m a father. I have a little girl. I haven’t even met her yet, but my heart has expanded to fill my entire chest. I love her that much already. And I’m terrified. I don’t know how to ensure I do right by her. How to be the father she needs me to be. God knows none of us had a good example.”
“You’re a fine man, Finn. You’ll know what to do.”
“But that’s the thing. I don’t know. Vivi wants to take her. We had a row about it. She’s convinced it’s the best thing for her. We don’t even know her name, and she’s going to take her.”
“You don’t think she should?”
“This couple—they’ve loved her for seven years, Beast. They’re all she’s known. How would you have felt if someone had taken you from Mum when you were seven?”
“I’d have run back to her.”
The Scoundrel in Her Bed Page 28