Chapter 35
Almost three weeks had passed since William had stormed into the gallery, seen the truth with his own eyes, and claimed her with a voice harsh with judgment. He had said she was his. That she would not marry. That no other man would have her. And then—nothing. Nothing but silence.
Her condition was no longer a matter of clever tailoring.
At nearly seven months, no gown could hide the swell of her belly.
So she remained where Charlotte had placed her: out of sight, under the excuse of poor health.
Only one trusted maid attended her—a quiet girl who had been with the family for years, and who could be trusted to say nothing.
Jane took her meals in her room, and seldom ventured into the corridors.
The doors to her chamber remained closed.
Outside those doors, the world went on. But in here, she waited.
She neither cried nor complained. She poured herself into her writing, her reading, her work with Margaret—who still came daily for lessons.
The child had not been told the truth. But she knew something was wrong.
That Miss Ansley was ill, and would not be with her forever.
She sensed it in the careful way Charlotte hovered nearby, in the hush that fell when she asked questions, and perhaps in the way her beloved governess now winced when rising from a chair.
Jane never answered her questions directly. But she never lied either.
It was late afternoon when Charlotte came.
A fire had been lit, and the soft murmur of London rain tapped at the windows behind the curtains.
Jane was seated at the escritoire, a cup of tea cooling beside her, pen in hand, a half-finished essay laid out before her in careful script.
She looked up when Charlotte entered, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
Charlotte stood near the doorway, glancing over the quiet scene: the tidy writing desk, the unwrinkled bed, the familiar posture of a woman who ought to be resting but was, as ever, working.
“You should be in bed,” Charlotte said finally, closing the door behind her.
Jane set down her pen. “I am not truly ill, my lady. Or do you believe your own invention?”
“You look tired. Not sleeping, I imagine.”
“Sleeping doesn’t help.” She gave a small, not unkind smile. “But working does.”
Charlotte crossed to the hearth, warming her gloved hands. She looked at Jane sidelong, her brows drawn.
“You’ve lost weight in your face,” she said.
“I’ve gained it elsewhere,” Jane replied, deadpan.
The corner of Charlotte’s mouth twitched. “The staff believes your illness has worsened. I think the housekeeper prays for you three times a day.”
Jane folded her hands in her lap. “She always seemed devout.”
A beat of silence passed.
“I could find someone else for Margaret,” Charlotte offered at last. “You needn’t teach her in this state.”
“She is the only reason I remain sane.”
“Still—”
Jane cut in, gently. “You’ll need to find her someone new, Lady Charlotte. Sooner than later.”
Charlotte turned to her. “You still have some weeks.”
“Yes. But the moment my condition becomes known, it won’t be helped.” She spoke it plainly. No bitterness. Just truth.
Charlotte sat down, watching her closely. She wasn’t pale, not exactly—but thinner, and quieter. Her hands were never idle, always turning over papers or smoothing the edge of her skirt. It wasn’t strength born of stubbornness. It was simply the only way she knew how to go on.
“You don’t ask about him,” Charlotte said suddenly.
“No.”
“You don’t ask what he plans to do.”
Jane looked down at her hands. “What would be the point?”
Charlotte hesitated. Then, softly: “I admire you, you know.” Jane raised her head. “I don’t think I could bear it. Not with the whole house watching. The servants guessing. And no word from the man who put me in this position.”
Jane’s expression did not change. “It is not their gaze I fear.”
“No,” Charlotte agreed. “It’s his silence.”
A pause. Then, Jane said quietly, “Whatever he decides, I’ll accept it.”
Charlotte’s brow furrowed. “Even if he does nothing?”
Jane met her eyes, calm and steady. “Then I’ll raise the child myself. In some corner of the country where no one knows my name. With or without his support.”
Charlotte smiled faintly. “No. You’ll always have my support.”
Outside, the rain eased. A coal cracked in the grate.
“Do you think he’ll do nothing?” Jane asked, barely above a whisper.
Charlotte didn’t answer right away. “He won’t marry anyone else.” Jane’s throat worked. “That’s all I can say for certain,” she added.
“Just hope he doesn’t fancy himself another Prince William and demand an army of little FitzClarences from you,” Charlotte said dryly as she crossed the room and touched Jane’s shoulder gently. “Rest. Please. If not for your sake—for the child’s.”
Jane inclined her head. “Thank you, my lady.”
Charlotte left her seated at the escritoire, the pen poised again above the page—like a woman who refused to stop building a future, even as her own hung suspended.
* * *
It was nearly noon when Lady Charlotte entered her brother’s study without knocking. The door clicked shut behind her, soft but firm. William stood by the window, arms folded, staring into the pale, gray light beyond the glass. He didn’t turn.
“If you’re here to ask after Margaret,” he said coolly, “I believe a new governess needs to be hired soon.”
Charlotte’s voice was measured. “Margaret is fine. When Miss Ansley is not with her, she’s teaching herself mythology and declaring Diana a fierce protector of women. One wonders why she thinks the need is so great.”
He said nothing. A log cracked in the grate, loud and sudden.
“I’ve just come from Miss Ansley’s room,” Charlotte added. “She was writing. Again.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“She gets up, she eats, she teaches Margaret. She writes essays on Byron and translates bloody Juvenal when she cannot sleep. She is calm. Composed. Serene, even.” Charlotte stepped forward. “But it is not strength, William. It’s stillness. Like ice before it cracks.”
At that, William turned. He looked haggard. There were shadows under his eyes, tension in the set of his jaw. He had shaved, but poorly. The buttons of his cuffs were misaligned.
“She has made no demands of you,” Charlotte said. “She hasn’t wept. She hasn’t begged. She hasn’t said your name to me once. But you must know that every day she wakes in that room is a day closer to the truth being visible to everyone.”
“I know that,” he said curtly.
“Do you?” Charlotte shot back. “Because she is six months gone, nearly seven, William. The dresses don’t hide it anymore. The staff are not fools, and the longer you let this linger, the worse it becomes.”
“I told you,” he said, voice sharp, “she is to stay where she is.”
“And for how long?” Charlotte’s tone rose, but not in shrillness—only in suppressed outrage. “Until she delivers your child in the guest room of our townhouse? With the undermaids whispering behind the door and the entire ton ready to tear her apart the moment she steps out?”
William raked a hand through his hair. “And your solution is what? Take her back to Norfolk? Hide her in the stables? Or marry her off to another man the moment I turn my back?”
She flinched but didn’t deny it.
His tone darkened. “No. She stays. She is ill. That is the story. Find someone else to take Margaret’s lessons. Let Jane rest.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “You do realize you sound like Father? That same brand of jovial empathy.”
That landed like a slap. William’s jaw locked.
“You’re paralyzed,” she went on, more softly now. “You know exactly what the right thing is, but you’re trying to find a version of it that costs you nothing.”
He turned his back on her again.
Charlotte watched him for a moment longer, then said, almost gently, “If you love her, William, then do not leave her there like a prisoner. She is not made of stone. And this… silence… is cruelty.”
She left him, motionless in front of the window, the dull London light casting his reflection in the glass—hollow, blurred, and still.
* * *
Charlotte’s footsteps had long faded, but William still hadn’t moved.
He stood at the window, watching the gray sky as if it might break open and offer him an answer.
But nothing came. Only the faint hiss of the fire and the echo of Charlotte’s final words ringing in his skull: If you love her, then do not leave her there like a prisoner.
He didn’t pour the drink. He hurled it. The cut-crystal decanter cracked against the fireplace tiles, the shatter echoing like musket shot.
Amber liquid splashed the hearth, the scent of scotch clinging to the air like defeat.
He stood staring at the shards, breathing hard, knuckles tight and white at his sides.
Then he reached for another bottle. By nightfall, he was drunk.
Not in the messy, rambling way of young men at clubs, but in the old soldier’s quiet way—steady hand, steady glass, unsteady thoughts.
The room was dark now, firelight throwing shadows across the bookshelves, his coat flung across the back of a chair.
He sat alone in the study, as he had done so many times before. Only now the war was inside him.
The obvious answer hung before him like a noose. Marry her. There was no better protection. No better solution. The scandal was already there, swelling beneath Jane’s gown. The child would be born within weeks. What else could he do?
But then—God, then—came the weight of everything he had ever been taught.
A Duke’s wife. The very phrase summoned a hundred silent expectations.
She must be composed, unassailable, descended from good blood, capable of navigating court, not a whisper of scandal to her name.
Someone like Philomena, gliding through drawing rooms with unparalleled taste and glacial poise. Someone like his mother.
His mother, who had never once stroked his hair when he was ill. Who had never let him cry in her presence. Who had told him at nine years old that weakness in a titled man meant ridicule, that it was worse than death.
He poured another drink and stared into the flames. Jane was nothing like her. Jane—who had taught Margaret about William the Conqueror and Odysseus, who had played with her, entertained her fantasies of becoming a general. Who had once let her smear jam on her apron just to make her laugh.
Jane, who had offered herself without shame, who had begged for him, who had fought him, who… Had she loved him—without ever saying the word aloud? Perhaps. But she hadn’t trusted him. She had been ready to marry another. Wasn’t that proof enough?
She wasn’t what a duchess ought to be—not by any measure. But perhaps the child growing in her didn’t need one. It needed a mother. And Jane would be a good one.
He exhaled roughly, forehead pressing into his palm.
The fault was his. Entirely his. She had not seduced him for gain.
She had not once sought his favor. She had come to him honestly, and he had known—God help him, he had known—what could happen.
But he had taken her anyway. Again and again.
Without a single thought for the consequences.
Drunk on his own pleasure. Drunk on her defiance, her sweetness, her fire.
And now she waited. Waited in silence. In isolation. In a room not her own, where the truth swelled visibly beneath her gown. She waited for his word. And he had given her none.
He looked down at his hands. A general. A peer of the realm. A future duke. And utterly powerless. No. Not powerless. Just paralyzed. Charlotte was right.
His father would rage, of course. Perhaps object to the marriage, threaten to cut him off. But what of it? The old man spent more time at Court than in his own house. He had no other heir. His anger would pass. His opinions—his approval—never truly mattered.
It was not his father he had to overcome. It was himself. The image in his mind of who he was meant to be. Who he had fought to become. A man who married a great lady, who secured alliances. A man who was respected and revered.
And now… He wanted neither the lady, nor the alliances. He wanted Jane. Not just for the child. Not just to shield her from ruin. For herself. He wanted her.
The mere thought of another man touching her—claiming her—made something feral stir in his chest. She had said nothing for six months, yet still carried his child with dignity and grace. Because she looked at him and saw him without fear.
Tomorrow. He would speak to his father tomorrow. The wedding would be discreet. Kept secret. Only announced long after the birth. The timing could be obscured. The scandal minimized.
But she would be his wife. There would be no more uncertainty. No more silence. And if the world sneered—if London whispered that the Duke of Westford’s only son had married their governess—then let them. She was perhaps worth it.
He drained the glass, set it down, and closed his eyes against the burn in his throat. Tomorrow.