Page 63 of My Deceitful Duchess
“With child,” Lady Clybourne snapped, with significantly less grace than he knew her to be capable of.
“But is shewell? May I see her?” A single step toward the door was all it took to bring a glower to Lady Clybourne’s face, her hand lifting in a vague threat of more punishment.
“No,” they said in unison.
Sebastian ground his teeth together. “I owe her an apology,” he said. “Severalapologies. I would like to make them.”
Lady Livingston shook her head, her dark curls bobbing. “She isresting,” she repeated. “She is not to be disturbed. By anyone, for any reason.” A brief hesitation followed. “She does not wish to see youspecifically,” she added, rather unnecessarily, in Sebastian's estimation.
“She does not want your apologies,” Lady Clybourne said, all curt impatience, shooing him further down the hall. “Why is it that men expect every transgression, no matterhowterrible, to be solved with nothing more than an apology? As if there were some string of words, which, when strung together, could magically erase every wrong committed! And yours, Mr. Knight, have beenespeciallyegregious.”
Of course she was right. “I only want to tell her how very sorry I am,” he said. “That she did not deserve my suspicion, or—”
“She knows that,” Lady Livingston said. “Jenny hasalwaysknown she was innocent of those crimes of which she had been accused. So what is your purpose, then, in telling her? Do you think she requires yourconfirmationof her innocence?”
“No, I—”
“Then what is your purpose, Mr. Knight?” Lady Clybourne repeated sharply. “Would you apologize for Jenny’s sake—or for your own?” And the fire in her eyes, the venom with which the words had been laced told him that their unlikely alliance was at an end. She had been willing to suffer one only so long as it would have served Jenny. Now that service was done; his role complete. She would suffer his presence not a moment longer.
As they urged him back toward the stairs, crowding the hall, he said desperately, “I want to make amends. However I must do it. I don’t want to be responsible for taking more from her than I already have.” He braced one hand upon the newel post at the top of the stairs, planting his feet firmly.
The ladies shared a look between themselves. “What do you mean?” Lady Livingston asked at last.
“She’s with child,” he said, as if any of them needed the reminder. “She’ll start showing soon enough. She’s got to have a husband before then. Youknowwhat will happen if she does not.” She couldn’t stay at Ambrosia; couldn’t even remain in London. She was too well-known, too notorious. And she didnotneed the additional complications that bearing an illegitimate child would bring. “I want to marry her,” he said. “I had planned for it, before—”
“Plan something else,” Lady Clybourne invited acidly, jabbing one finger toward the stairs. “It’s true that Jenny needs a husband. But it doesn’thaveto beyou.”
∞∞∞
Jenny slept for nearly two days, waking only briefly to eat the meals that were delivered to her room. It seemed her appetite had recovered itself, at least—which was good, as she suspected that there had been several more meals delivered than one could reasonably expect to receive in two days’ time. But then Lottie and Harriethadtattled to the doctor about her pregnancy, and that they suspected she had not been eating appropriately for her condition.
In the evening on the second day, she emerged from her room, ready to begin her nightly routine as usual. She’d made quite the stir the last time she had appeared below, and doubtless there would be several dozen ladies eager to speak with her.
She expected Ambrosia to be a crush, given that the news had spread far and wide. Several copies of various papers had been delivered since yesterday, all bearing some version of ‘Duchess Exonerated!’ in bold type across the front page.
One would think there was no other news to be had in London.
And she would have beenpleased, if there hadn’t been some small, aching part of her that could not let go of her righteous fury. That she had been subjected to such humiliation; that very private parts of her life had been so openly aired and bandied about.
That she had had the utter misfortune to fall in love with a man who had killed a part of her soul that her late husband had never been able to touch. That he had given her a child, but taken everything else she had held dear in the process.
And still, she found her hand straying to her stomach, pressing there—over that tiny little life that grew inside her. The one she had not wanted to acknowledge, because it had meant only one more life she had ruined, one more precious thing to be snatched away from her.
But now—now it wasreal, and it seared her straight to the very bottom of her soul. Every stray thought she’d shoved aside, certain of the futility of it, every blasted emotion she had not let herself feel for the baby she carried.
She wasn’t going to die.
She would not have to lay her child into someone else’s arms and say a very permanent farewell.
She would not leave that tiny, fragile,precioussoul alone to a world who would shun it simply for being flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood.
Every terrible thing she had imagined, every vile future that had stretched out before her, waiting to seize her child in cruel, vindictive arms—they faded away like morning mist, insubstantial. It was such a queer thing to realize, so strange that for the first time in so many years—toomany years—she did not have to look over her shoulder. The clawing fear that had lived like a scuttling creature deep inside her chest was just…gone.
The next breath that filled her lungs felt unencumbered and fresh. She could step out Ambrosia’s doors, and there would be no guard, no one waiting to drag her back to prison. She could use her true name, if she chose, and there would be no one to cast accusations at her, nor aspersions upon her character.
Shewasfree, as she never had been before. Notever. And it was such a strange, heady sensation that for a moment she pressed her back to the wall and simply marveled at the feeling.
Regrettably, she supposed she hadSebastianto thank.
