He stroked her hair, drawing in a deep breath of the sweet scent she used. The scent eased a smidge of his concern before the worries crowded in again. Why had Fallbright deceived him? Why had he been attacked so?
When he awoke early this morning in a dim backstreet alley—his conscience panged, much like he’d left Benson—it had taken some moments before his throbbing head had permitted him to move, much less given him the capacity for rational thought. He’d been dumped like a piece of refuse! But why had Wheeler done so?
He would return to demand answers, but he sensed he’d only be met with more prevarication, and that Julia had waited for his explanations long enough. So, after tidying himself as best he could, he had returned to Portman Square, where his first attempt to enter the house had been met with swift refusal and a door closed with a bang, like he was a common hawker. His second attempt to visit had met with more success. The butler had somehow recognized him beneath his veneer of grimy injury and allowed him admittance. But so many explanations—from so many different people—still remained. Why hadn’t McKinley given Julia the money like he’d promised? He would have to return to Scotland to find out. He tried to stifle a groan; realized he had been unsuccessful when Julia shifted in his arms and glanced at him with a questioning look.
“What is it?”
“I just realized I shall have to return to Edinburgh to find out why McKinley lied to me.”
“Oh, but not yet.” She nestled close again. “Don’t leave me, not when we’ve just found each other again.”
He pressed a kiss to her brow in reply.
But still the swirling anger refused to dissipate, only hardening instead. He’d given McKinley fifty pounds, fifty pounds Julia had well needed. How much had she needed that? And he’d spent it on—what? New coats and whiskey? He muttered a curse under his breath.
“Darling?” Julia looked up at him worriedly. “Please don’t let that man bother you anymore. I don’t want to think about him, about any of that time.” She shuddered. “I cannot bear to think what your life must have been like in that horrid, filthy prison.”
He’d painted his words earlier carefully, giving enough truth to gain her sympathy, but not so much as to incur her wrath.
She snuggled against him, eliciting a curl of heat within. “I’m just so glad you’re back here, back home and safe.”
“Julia,” he gently removed her from his side, before continuing slowly, “you do know this is not our home.”
“Well, it is mine. Or at least my mother’s.”
“But not mine.” His lips twisted wryly. “Your mother has made that very clear.”
She shrugged. “So, we’ll live somewhere else. I don’t mind. I don’t need such fancy dresses.” As if to emphasize her point she pinched her silken skirts. They slid back with the soft hush he recognized as expensive.
“Julia, darling, we need to think about more than just clothes. There are things like food, and rent.”
“Well, we need not eat much. And we can grow things. I can always learn to be a farmer’s wife. I daresay I’d enjoy picking vegetables and collecting eggs.”
He drew in a sigh. Did she not realize this was not a game? “Darling, I know that sounds easy, but I’m afraid it won’t pay for other expenses.”
“Like what?”
“Like rent.”
“But I’d be content to live in a cottage. Surely we could afford that.”
How he wished he could give her the answer she craved. But he could say nothing.
Her brow furrowed, and he was conscious of having pricked the idyllic bubble she’d been forming within. “Have you no money?”
Not anymore. “Not much,” he prevaricated.
“Well, I have my dowry,” she said, sitting up, her smile reappearing, sunshine after night. “I’m sure Mother will not mind—”
“I am equally sure she will. As will your brother.” He continued gently, “The release of such funds was dependent on their approval of your marriage.”
“That is ridiculous!”
“That is the way things are.”
“But it’s not fair!” Her eyes snapped. “Do they think I’m nothing but a piece of chattel?”
Again, he could say nothing, for in the eyes of the law, she was.
“What are we going to do?”
He could offer only a strained smile. God, help me. Where had the self-made man gone, the one who had left his fractured family in order to slowly work his way up through the ranks of the armed forces, eventually exulting in the reception of their commendation and society’s smiles?
The door opened and Julia’s mother and brother reentered the room, their hard gazes suggesting recent battles were not nearly done. The dim throb in his head thudded louder.
“So, what have you got to say for yourself?”
He tried not to take offense, willed his voice not to sound defensive, as he briefly explained something of the past few days and months.
“You expect us to believe you?” Lady Harkness snapped.
“I only offer the truth.”
“Hmph!”
Thomas dared glance at his former friend, whose frown had deepened with every line of his explanation. Jon met his gaze with a long assessing look. Thomas waited, his chest thumping loudly with the hope Jon would somehow believe him, as his sister had. If he only had an ally, someone who might help him extricate himself from this giant knot of mischief and mischance, then perhaps he might feel his way forward to something approximating the future he’d once envisaged with Julia.
“Mother,” Jon finally said. “I wish to speak with Hale in the study.”
He gave Thomas a look that almost bordered on a challenge, which he accepted with the slightest of nods. Something eased within his chest. He squeezed Julia’s hand. Perhaps there was a chance, after all.
Ignoring his mother’s protests, Jon gestured for Thomas to follow him across the hall to a paneled room that was far more masculine than any chamber he’d visited prior. Thomas knew Lady Harkness’s husband had died a number of years ago, but it seemed strange to see a room decorated in such somber tones, according to a taste unlike the rest of the house’s décor.
Jon took the chair behind the desk, gestured Thomas to the seat opposite. Still that clear look appraised him, inducing a shiver of apprehension lest he not be believed. But if that were the case, surely he would have been turned out on his ear, and not invited to converse inside?
Jon cleared his throat. “I cannot like any of this. I do not like how you have treated my sister. I do not like your abandoning her. And I certainly can’t help but think you ran off with her as some revenge against me.”
“You? My marrying Julia was not about you.”
“No?” Jon leaned forward. “You would have run off to Gretna Green even if she hadn’t been my sister?”
“I wouldn’t have needed to,” Thomas said quietly.
Jon blinked.
Thomas pressed his advantage. “I understand you thought me less than suitable for your sister; I imagine you’d feel that way about any man who offered for her. But just because I was only an army officer, and do not possess the wealth or lineage you do does not make me less able to love her.”
“Except you abandoned her. That is not love. A husband is supposed to protect his wife, not let her nearly starve!”
Thomas sucked in a breath. “She nearly starved?”
“You did not see Julia when she first returned, but Carmichael did. He and Serena took her in—thank God they were here in London—Julia was nearly skin and bone!”
No wonder Jon viewed Thomas as less than a cur. He swallowed. “I thought I had made provision.” He explained about McKinley, absurdly grateful he could speak his piece without interruption.
“So why did McKinley lie?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did, but …” He shook his head, studying his near-threadbare trousers, yet another thing he would need to attend to, if he was ever to find his way to
finances again. Was it any wonder Julia’s family held him in contempt, dressed as he was like a near savage? Despair roiled within. “I cannot believe I ever trusted the man.”
“Indeed.”
The word was said with no trace of sarcasm, permitting Thomas to raise his gaze to meet the puzzled frown of Julia’s brother.
“And your bruises?” He gestured to Thomas’s face. “How did you say they came about?”
Thomas briefly explained, relief sifting through his apprehension as Jon’s head tilted, his expression grave.
“I cannot understand why you would be treated so.”
“Neither can I.” He swallowed. “I know I am not what you wished as Julia’s husband, but please believe I would never willingly cause your sister pain.”
Perhaps he said the wrong thing, for the blue-gray eyes studying him narrowed fractionally, before a wry laugh escaped. “I suppose I cannot hate a man my sister professes to love.”
A tiny flame of hope lit his heart. “Carlew”—the old name slipped out—“I’m so sorry for this bad blood that has arisen between us. I wish you could believe my love for Julia is genuine, and that I could prove myself worthy in some way—”
“Perhaps you can.”
Surprise stole across his heart. “Anything. Tell me what I can do.”
There was another long moment as Jon eyed him, before finally nodding. “What are your plans for her? Do you intend to return to Edinburgh?”
“I only intend to return to interrogate McKinley. Beyond that, I have no wish to live there again.”
“Where will you live?”
“I—” The words drew his past back to mind, when a similar question had been posed by a very different man. His stomach twisted; he forced himself to say, “I have some connections in Norfolk, and will endeavor to provide a home for Julia there.”
Julia’s brother raised a brow. “Endeavor, or will?”
“I will,” he said firmly. Whether his father liked it or not. He couldn’t refuse to admit him now, could he? Not with such a pretty wife in tow.
“And will there be room for Charles?”
“Charles?”
Jon’s other brow rose. “You mean Julia hasn’t told you?”
“Apparently she has not.”
He muttered something under his breath before pushing back his chair and excusing himself to find Julia. “I think this is something you should hear from her, not from me.”
Thomas forced himself not to pace, not to fidget, though his impatience begged to escape his fingers with nervous twitches and the like. Who was this Charles person? When Julia entered the room, her cheeks aglow, her hands outstretched, it was all he could do not to clasp her to his chest, she looked so lovely.
“Julia,” Jon said, eyes fixed on Thomas. “You need to tell your husband about Charles.”
Thomas sent her a look of enquiry, which she met with a gasp, a blush, and a downward glance at her now-clasped hands. “Oh, my goodness!”
Jon sent Thomas a look that could only be described as sardonic before he settled back into his seat as though he was a spectator at a boxing match.
Thomas turned his attention to his wife. “Julia, who is Charles?”
“I’m so sorry. I should have told you sooner, but with everything else it completely slipped my mind.” She smiled, placed a finger on her lips, and with a soft, “Wait here,” slipped from the room.
The dull pain in his head sharpened. He knuckled his forehead, wishing to keep the headache at bay. He needed to think clearly, not have his thoughts shrouded in pain. What was he to do? What were they to do? Was it truly fair of him to ask her to leave this life of comfort, or should he somehow beg her to stay while he sought his fortune? Although look at where that had got him last time …
The door opened, and Julia walked in, holding a bundle of blankets, followed by her mother, whose sour expression could not contrast more severely with Julia’s sunny countenance. “Look who I found!”
She dipped her bundle forward, and he saw tiny red curls, tiny perfect features, the features of a little baby sucking his thumb—a boy if the color of blanket was any clue. “Who is this?”
“Your son,” Lady Harkness said, with narrowed eyes.
“My son?” He touched the tiny fingers, something of awe forming within. Never had he imagined how such words would make him feel. He was a father? Dear God he would do better than his own father had done. He glanced up at Julia. “We have a child?”
Her sunny features shadowed. “This is Charles.”
Hurt cramped, mingling with an emotion far darker. How could she name their son—that name—without asking him?
But wait … He frowned, doing the mathematical calculations. This baby had to be at least three months old. Julia had not been expecting when he was last home. Had she? The sliver of doubt crept in. Or had she kept such news hidden because the child was not his own? He looked at her sharply.
Her cheeks had paled. “I will tell you later,” she whispered.
“You should tell me now,” he said in a low voice. “Who is this?” She gave him a look that could only be regarded as pleading, and he forced himself to relax, to not question. It was obvious she wished to speak with him outside of her mother’s hearing. “He is very …” What was he supposed to say? His experience with small children was naught. “Very sweet.”
Julia sighed with what he imagined was relief. Her mother drew close, caressed the small boy’s crop of gingery curls, before her green eyes—cat’s eyes, he’d always thought—pierced him.
“I cannot like anything you have done, but I will admit that your son has something of beauty about him.”
His lips twitched despite himself. Was that because she believed the red hair an inheritance of her own making?
“What?” She peered at him. “I demand to know what is so amusing.”
He’d rather die than expose Julia’s charade to her. “Forgive me, madam. I am just so pleased to learn that at last you believe me responsible for something that has met with your approval.”
“Believe you responsible?” Her brow lowered with suspicion. “Do you not claim Charles as your son?”
Her daughter may not have inherited her mother’s hair color, but nobody need doubt where Julia got her sharp wits from.
“How dare you?”
Lady Harkness’s slap across his cheek did not splinter him inside as much as the look of horror Julia gave him. She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “Mother, please don’t!”
Jon’s staying hand on his mother’s wrist forced her returning hand to still.
Julia hugged the child to her breast and looked down, but not before he saw the glisten of tears. His heart wrenched further. He was supposed to be bringing her peace, not further pain.
Jon whispered something to his mother, after which she sniffed and left the room, the door closing with an emphatic thump. “I apologize,” Jon said with a sigh. “She is not quite herself these days.”
Guilt gnawed anew. No guesses why that might be.
Thomas glanced at his wife. She was biting her lip. “Julia?”
She shook her head. “I should have told you. I’m so sorry.”
“Whose child is this?”
Behind him he heard Jon’s gasp. He kept his eyes on his wife. Surely she had not betrayed him?
She finally lifted a tear-stained face to him. “Do … do you remember poor Meggie from the flat below us?”
Meggie? When had he heard that name recently? He strained his memory. Came up empty. “Barely.”
“She was sick, so sick, and her husband had but recently died.” Water-filled blue eyes turned to him. “Before she died she begged me to bring little Charles up as my—our—son. I couldn’t leave him there, not in that godforsaken place.” She shuddered.
Her eyes owned truth, silencing the whisper of doubt within, even as he stared at her in something akin to horror. “But surely this Meggie”—why could he not remember her?—
“or her husband must have had family who could have taken in a young relative. I cannot believe this would be regarded as quite legal.”
She uttered a broken laugh, and fire flashed in her eyes. “Now you want to talk about what is lawful? I never thought to see the day.”
Thomas fought the swell of anger at her sneered aspersions. He could not refute such a comment. For too long he had skirted certain niceties of the law, in an attempt to achieve results more expeditiously. He glanced at Jon, but his frowning attention was firmly riveted on his sister.
“Julia,” Jon warned from his corner. “Hale is correct. Unless there is some written proof, I’m afraid the law might consider that you have kidnapped the child.”
“Kidnapped?” She clutched the tiny child closer to her chest. “I only did what I could to help.”
Thomas drew a step nearer to her. “I am sure you did, but I cannot think—”
She shook her head, taking a pace back, as if she feared he might snatch the child from her grasp. “Do you know how hard it was to bring him here? He was but four weeks old, crying for his mama, and always so hungry for food which I could not provide.” She made a noise like a sob and took another step back. “I won’t let you take him. I’m the only mother he knows now, and it would be too cruel to pluck him away and leave him stranded in some orphanage or home for the indigent.”
“Nobody is suggesting we do that,” he tried to reassure. “It’s just that we cannot keep pretending he is our child when he is not.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Because …” Sometimes the subtleties of morality were a mystery to him. “Because it is wrong.”
“I cannot think it so, when he is being protected and nurtured, and in a situation far better than any of Meggie’s relatives could offer.”
Yes, but whether Thomas himself could afford to offer such a degree of comfort … He shook his head. He could not.
Julia’s bottom lip trembled, and he caught a glimpse of the pretty child she had been, the one disappointed when her will was thwarted, the one who had known herself to be in the wrong but determined to fight for every inch she could maintain. Her spirit was one of the things he loved about her so.
The Making of Mrs. Hale Page 14