Page 52 of My Deceitful Duchess
“Not onetoeover the threshold,” the guard grunted, his hand going to the holstered gun at his waist.
Sebastian glowered in the direction of the guard. “Get your hand off your damned weapon. If you point that at her even for a moment, I swear you will regret it.”
In a voice entirely devoid of patience and imbued with a sort of terrible, venomous sweetness, Jenny said, “Mr. Knight, perhaps you have forgotten, but Isleepduring the day.”
“I am aware. But Ambrosia has limited closing hours. I thought it prudent to take advantage of them.” He jammed the toe of his boot in the gap of the opening lest she try to snap the door closed. “I have some questions for you.”
“Alas, I have neither answers nor time for you in which to ask your questions. If you will kindly remove your foot.” If not for her tart tone, he’d have suspected she was entirely unaffected. But there were new hollows in her cheeks, and her color was…not good. He could not tell if this was due to the morning malady that seemed to afflict pregnant women or if it was the stress of her situation.
Had she eaten the profiteroles at least? She did not have the look of a woman who had been doing anything more than nibbling at her food.
“Jenny,” he said. “I am not asking your forgiveness—”
“Good, for that would be an exercise in futility.”
“—but time is limited. I need answers only you can provide.” The door crushed his toes, and he stifled a wince. “Please. I need your help to clear your name.”
She drew an incensed breath. “SonowI am worthy of your faith? How perfectly convenient for you. To what do I owe this crisis of conscience?”
“If you must know, to my mother.” He wrapped his hand around the side of the door and tugged to relieve the pressure on his toes.
“Your mother!” A shocked laugh. “Poor woman, to be saddled with such a fool for a son.”
“Yes, well, perhaps she didn’t say as much in so many words, but I assure you, that was the meaning I was meant to take. She’s not a woman given to lecturing, but—shelectured.Jenny,stop,” he insisted as she redoubled her efforts to close the door in his face. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
She hadnotliked the vaguely condescending tone of his voice. “Sir,” she called to the guard. “If you would be so kind as to remove this gentleman—”
“He’s here to keep youin, not meout,” Sebastian said. “Jenny, it was my intention to do this quietly and discreetly. But if you won’t have discretion, then I swear to you, I will go round the front and raise hell before God and everyone.”
An aggravated sound through the crack in the door, sounding as if it had been produced at the very back of her throat. “Have you no shame?”
“None of which to speak,” he said. “As you well know. Furthermore, I have a healthy respect for your life—”
“Hah!”
There was such a wealth of feeling in that little sound, so rife with disbelief, with scorn, that it curdled his stomach. Shetrulydid not believe he held her in any esteem whatsoever. How could she? He had stolen a month of her life, put her through hell—gotten her with child.
And now she was staring down a path which would inevitably lead to a noose, unless he could place it around Venbrough’s neck instead.Thiswas why she had never trusted him with her past. At the very first opportunity that had presented itself, he had betrayed her.
“Please,” he said, and the word came out shaky, with a sharp, humiliating squeak at the end. “Please let me help you. Please, Jenny. I had you jailed—now let me set you free.”
∞∞∞
Jenny hadn’t let him in. But that mattered little, because Lottie and Harriethad, and Jenny had been struggling with her sense of betrayal for the last hour. While they poured teaand produced biscuitsand other culinary delights forhim—as if he were merely a caller who had come visiting.
As if she would have received him even if hehad.
And yet they had allowed him here, where men were forbidden to tread—a privilege previously granted only to Lord Clybourne, under strict secrecy. She supposed there was a part of her that ought to have been touched by it, given that their motivation to do so was largely benign. They wanted only to clear her name—and she wanted that, too, if she were honest with herself.
But thecost.
To watch the man she had once loved dissect bits of her life, like a body upon a table. To be forced to reveal to him every intimate thing she had hidden away inside of her, so that this man—thisfaithlessman—could twist it to whichever advantage he chose?
He’d stripped her of her dignity already. Her freedom. Her safety. Hername. What else was there left for him to take? Reflexively, her hand pressed to her stomach. She hadn’t wanted to think about it beyond the plans she would have to make for the child’s future, because presently her choices would be to surrender it to someone else on her way to the scaffold, or to flee the country altogether—assuming, of course, that such a thing could be managed.
But what sort of future would her child have, in either case? The bastard child of a notorious murderess? The world was unkind enough already. If there was a chance, even theslightestchance, that she could give her child a better future than the one that loomed large before her now—didn’t shehaveto take it? Didn’t sheoweit to her child?
It was with a heavy heart—and a nauseated stomach—that she at last convinced herself to shove her fury, her fear, to the back of her mind, and descend the stairs. A sacrifice, she thought. The first she would make as a mother—to put her child’s future above her own feelings.
