Chapter Ten #2
“Not yet,” he said stubbornly. “Tell me, my dear. That little boy…” He turned to look back at Sean, who had stopped to pile up a little hill of sand and kick it into fine sprays. “Is he your son?”
She stared at him. The blood left her face, leaving her cold. “My… what?”
“Your son. He looks like you. I know you have a child.”
“Who told you such a thing?”
“Walk with me.” He tucked her hand in his elbow again. Stunned, she walked beside him, her heart slamming in fear.
“I met a man not long ago,” he said. “A pleasant fellow, especially when he was in his cups. A doctor, and he told me over some fine whisky, that he had attended Lady Strathlin when she first inherited her fortune. A very nice fellow,” he said, smiling.
“But he ran into some problems with his finances, poor man. He said the lady fell ill, and he had attended her several times. Do you know what he told me, Margaret?” He stopped again and turned to look down at her, her hand imprisoned in his arm.
She could feel the hard, stringy muscle beneath his coat.
“Wha-what?” But she knew. She remembered the doctor that her friend Angela Shaw had insisted she see when her stomach did not agree with her and she had felt faint and nauseated daily for the first few months of the pregnancy she had tried valiantly to hide.
This doctor, an older man with a mild manner, told her that she was suffering from a common female condition—she already knew she was pregnant—and that his advice was to take care of herself, and take care to hide her condition.
He had warned her to avoid becoming overwrought by her new responsibilities, and told her to take a long holiday among close family for several months on the excuse of her health.
He had looked at her pointedly before leaving.
You are about to have a child, madam, as an unmarried lady in a prominent position. So it is my opinion that you should retreat and keep this quiet until you are married.
Somehow, Roderick Matheson had coaxed the truth out of that doctor years later.
She faced him. “What did he say?” she repeated. She had to know.
“That Lady Strathlin would have a child by now, probably a healthy child, and would have had that child in the months following her inheritance of her grandfather’s fortune. He guessed that when she became Baroness Strathlin, she was already with child. And not married.” He gazed down at her.
The sudden pounding in her head was so fierce that she thought she might faint.
She watched Sean play on the beach, watched, far in the distance, the harbor where a few men stood in a cluster and talked.
She saw Dougal Stewart standing tall among the other men.
She wanted to run to the safety of his arms.
But she stood still, frozen in place. He was too far away to hear or to help. And he must never learn about this conversation.
“Well, my dear?” Roderick murmured. “You cannot deny it.”
“That doctor was a drunken fool.”
“And that spring, as I recall hearing,” he went on, his voice smooth and his grip tight, “a little boy was born and welcomed into the MacNeill family. The child’s parentage is somewhat obscure, from what my sources say.
I have asked around. I sent someone here a while ago to ask about Lady Strathlin and the family—most would not talk. But some did.”
Some did. Her heart pounded.
“They say you were married to a sailor, but he drowned. They say no one knew him, so it was a mysterious wedding. If it existed,” he added.
“They know, of course, that you are Lady Strathlin, and they say you return often to Caransay and spend a great deal of time with one child in particular, your child from that—supposed marriage.” He glanced again at Sean, his smile benign, yet flat.
She wanted to slap him, shake him until the evil in him showed. But he only smiled, smug and unbending. And she saw what he wanted—his advantage. Marriage, and his silence.
“He looks like you. So blond, with that charming smile. But I think his eyes are not yours, his chin is not yours. Those came from his…father.” He glanced down at her. “This news would be of great interest in certain circles in the city, don’t you agree, Margaret?”
“You would not tell—” Oh, God, she had admitted it. “Nor would I care.”
“I would not tell. A man never betrays his wife. Her secrets are his.”
“Wife,” she repeated dully.
“Now, he may wish to betray a friend, a cousin, a woman who falsely represents herself as having good moral character and has inherited a position of some merit. It might be a service to others if her story were known to the public. A moral lesson. Something humbling. Though I wonder if investments might fail. The board members would be so disappointed. And that poor boy, growing up knowing he was born out of wedlock. A bastard. Could he even inherit, hmm?”
“What do you want, Roderick?” She yanked back, and this time, he let her hand go.
He bowed his head. “Autumn weddings are so lovely. Kiss me, Margaret.” He leaned down.
Meg tipped her face up, but as he lowered to set his mouth to hers, she turned her cheek.
“How can you deny me, sweet Margaret,” he murmured against her cheek, “when my heart beats only for you?” He took her hard by the shoulders and kissed her soundly on the mouth. His lips were sticky, pressing too hard, bone to bone instead of cushioning. Meg broke free. “I need time to think.”
“Of course. Until the soiree, then, in Edinburgh. You will be back by then.” He caressed her cheek with a gloved finger. “That night, we will make our announcement.”
Leaning away from his touch, she whirled, leaving him standing, proper and out of place, in the sand. He did not follow, and she hoped he would leave soon, smug in his cruel victory. But she would not let it be his victory. She could not.
Yet she trembled, feeling as if her whole world rocked beneath her feet, about to collapse.
She glanced back to see Dougal Stewart standing with his men. He looked in her direction. Had he watched the exchange, wondered what it was? She turned away, walking quickly back toward Sean, away from Roderick, away from Dougal.
Yet she felt Dougal’s gaze on her, felt an awareness of him all through her, steady as sunshine on her shoulder, and sharp as a crack of lightning.