Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Andrew was shown into Lord Ravenshaw’s drawing room at three o’clock precisely.
The butler who admitted him was a solemn man with powdered hair and the wary eyes of a servant accustomed to the unpleasant business of pretending not to know his master’s sins.
He took Andrew’s card, bowed with great correctness, and led him through a hall arranged with all the polished elegance of a house determined to appear respectable.
Respectability, Andrew thought, had seldom looked so guilty.
The drawing room was cold despite the fire. Pale blue silk covered the walls. A marble clock ticked upon the mantel. On a table near the window, a vase of hothouse flowers gave off a faint, overripe sweetness that seemed entirely unsuited to the day.
Andrew did not sit. He stood in the center of the room and waited.
He had waited all through the journey back to London.
He had waited while the carriage fought its way through traffic.
He had waited while the Ravenshaw butler took his card upstairs with a face carefully emptied of curiosity. Now, he was done waiting.
The door opened and Lord Ravenshaw entered first.
“Sinclair,” the man greeted him. “This is unexpected.”
Andrew looked at him. “I imagine it is.”
Ravenshaw was a handsome man, that much could not be denied.
Even Andrew, who disliked him on sight and despised him by evidence, could understand the reputation.
Ravenshaw had the dark hair, fine features, and careless elegance which foolish women had likely mistaken for depth and foolish men for charm.
There was a sternness about his mouth now, but sternness improved him rather than diminished him. It gave his beauty consequence.
A rake with the face of a martyr… how convenient.
Lady Ravenshaw followed half a step behind him. She was pale, though not so pale that concern could not have been carefully arranged. Her gaze moved to Andrew’s face, then down to his hand, as if she already guessed why he had come.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of her shawl as she spoke. “Your Grace.”
He gave her no bow.
Ravenshaw’s expression hardened at the omission. “If this concerns some matter of business–”
“It concerns Mary Collins.”
The name struck the room like a thrown glass. Lady Ravenshaw went still. Her husband did not. He merely lifted one brow, as though boredom might serve him better than alarm.
“I do not believe I know the name.”
“You know it.”
“I assure you–”
“You seduced her,” Andrew continued without hesitation. “You abandoned her when she was with child. You threatened her into silence. Then, when scandal came too near your door, you spread a lie that made the child mine.”
For one moment, even the clock seemed to stop.
Then Ravenshaw laughed. It was a cold, handsome sound, practiced and useless.
“My dear Sinclair,” he mocked, “you arrive uninvited, insult my wife beneath my roof, and accuse me of crimes against a woman I have never heard of. Either grief has impaired your reason, or marriage has made you theatrical.”
Andrew reached into his coat and withdrew the folded letter.
Ravenshaw’s laugh died before the paper had fully opened.
That was enough. Andrew saw the minute contraction about the eyes, the sudden stillness of a man who had recognized the shape of his own ruin.
Lady Ravenshaw saw it, too. Her face lost every trace of color.
Andrew held up the letter, not near enough for either of them to snatch. “Your seal.”
Ravenshaw recovered quickly, but not quickly enough. “A seal can be imitated.”
“Your hand.”
“Also imitated.”
“Your threat.”
This time, the man said nothing.
Andrew’s voice remained low. That was the only restraint he allowed himself.
“You wrote to her. You told her to be silent. You told her not to speak your name to me, my servants, or any other living soul. You told her that if she forced your hand, the child would not live long enough to trouble either of you.”
Lady Ravenshaw made a small sound.
Ravenshaw turned on her. “Caroline.”
“Do not look at her,” Andrew snarled. “Look at me.”
Ravenshaw’s gaze snapped back. There was hatred in it now.
Good.
Andrew preferred hatred to lies.
“You cannot prove the child is mine,” Carrington scoffed.
“No?” Andrew asked.
“No.”
Andrew folded the letter once with deliberate care.
“Then you will not object when I place this before every man in White’s by tomorrow evening.
Nor when I send copies to your wife’s family, to your creditors, to the bishops who dine with you, to every hostess still foolish enough to receive you.
Society may forgive a seduction. It may even forgive a child.
But threatening an infant?” He took one step nearer.
“That, Ravenshaw, has a less elegant sound.”
The man’s face darkened.
Lady Ravenshaw whispered. “Daniel, stop.”
Andrew’s eyes moved to her. “You knew.”
Her lips parted.
“You knew,” he repeated. “And instead of protecting the woman your husband had ruined, instead of protecting the child, you protected him.”
Her composure cracked then. Women like Caroline Ravenshaw had spent years learning how to break attractively and never too far, but enough.
“I did what I had to do.”
Her husband hissed. “Caroline.”
“No.” Her voice shook. “No, Daniel. He has the letter.”
Andrew watched her without pity.
Lady Ravenshaw pressed a hand to her mouth, then lowered it slowly. “Yes. I knew. Not at first, not until Mary was already gone. I found enough to understand. I knew what would happen if it came out.”
“To him?” Andrew asked. “Or to you?”
Her eyes flashed. “Do you know what becomes of a wife when her husband’s disgrace is made public? Do you know how many doors close to her for sins she did not commit?”
“I know what becomes of a maid without protection,” Andrew said coldly. “I know what becomes of a frightened young woman carrying a child while a man with rank threatens her life. I know what becomes of an infant when cowards find her inconvenient.”
Lady Ravenshaw flinched.
Ravenshaw’s mouth tightened. “This is absurd. Caroline acted rashly, perhaps. That is all.”
Andrew turned to him. “The child is yours.”
The silence that followed held no pretense. Ravenshaw looked away first. It was not a confession in words. It did not need to be. Andrew’s hand closed around the letter.
“Say it.”
Ravenshaw’s gaze returned furiously. “Why should I satisfy your–”
“Say it.”
The command filled the room.
Lady Ravenshaw whispered her husband’s name. “Daniel.”
The man’s nostrils flared. For a moment, Andrew thought he might still deny it, might cling to the ruins of his lie simply because men like him mistook stubbornness for strength. Then, his shoulders shifted.
“Yes,” he said through his teeth. “The child is mine.”
Lady Ravenshaw closed her eyes. Andrew felt no triumph, only a cold, clean rage that had nowhere sufficient to go.
“And the scandal?” he asked her this time.
Caroline opened her eyes slowly.
“I sent the first whisper,” she confessed. “I ensured the right people heard enough. His Grace of Sinclair, a maid, a child hidden in the country.” She swallowed. “It did not require much. Society was eager.”
“And Frances?”
Her gaze flickered.
Andrew’s voice dropped. “My wife.”
Lady Ravenshaw looked ashamed then. Whether of the act or of being caught, Andrew could not tell.
“I thought if she doubted you, she would leave,” she continued. “And if she left, the matter would collapse back upon your household, not mine.”
Andrew stared at her. His anger, which had burned hot since entering the house, became something much colder.
“You placed a forged letter in my wife’s hands.”
“It was not entirely forged.”
“No,” he supplied. “Worse. You used a dead woman’s fear and bent it toward your purpose.”
Lady Ravenshaw had no answer.
Ravenshaw stepped forward. “Enough. You have your confession. What do you want?”
Andrew looked at him for a long moment. There were many answers to that question.
He wanted to strike him. He wanted to drag him through every drawing room in London and make him repeat the truth before every whispering fool who had feasted upon Frances’s humiliation.
He wanted Mary alive long enough to see this man brought low.
He wanted the child never to have been threatened, never to have been born into fear, never to have needed Andrew’s protection at all.
But wanting had to serve the living.
“The two of you will leave society,” Andrew ordered.
Ravenshaw stared. “You cannot be serious.”
“At once.”
Lady Ravenshaw whispered. “Leave?”
“London. Almack’s. Balls. Dinners. Clubs. Every drawing room where either of you might speak a word, exchange a glance, or start another lie.” Andrew looked from one to the other. “You will withdraw.”
Ravenshaw laughed again, but this time there was strain beneath it. “And if we do not?”
Andrew lifted the letter. “Then I reveal everything.”
“You would expose the child.”
“No,” Andrew corrected. “I would expose you. There is a difference, and I promise you I have the influence to make society understand it.”
Ravenshaw’s jaw worked. Andrew stepped closer, near enough now that the other man could no longer pretend this was merely unpleasant conversation.
“You will not approach my wife. You will not speak her name. You will not seek out the child. You will not send messages through servants, friends, clergy, or fools. If I hear so much as a whisper connecting either of you to my household again, I will not content myself with society’s judgment.
I will ruin you in every way available to me. ”
Lady Ravenshaw pressed a shaking hand to the back of a chair.
Her husband’s eyes had gone hard. “You speak boldly for a man hiding another man’s bastard beneath his roof.”
Andrew moved before Ravenshaw could take another breath.
He did not strike him, although he wanted to.
Instead, he seized the front of Carrington’s coat and drove him back one step.
It wasn’t enough to brawl, but enough to make the truth of violence enter the room.
Ravenshaw’s shoulder struck the edge of the mantle. Lady Ravenshaw gasped.
Andrew’s voice was very quiet. “That child is under my protection. Speak of her with disrespect again, and I will forget we are gentlemen.”
Ravenshaw’s face had gone pale beneath the anger. Andrew released him with visible disgust and stepped back.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Lady Ravenshaw whispered. “We will go.”
Ravenshaw turned on her. “Caroline.”
“We will go,” she repeated, and this time her voice did not tremble. “Daniel, we have no choice.”
Andrew looked at her. “You will leave within the week.”
She nodded once. Ravenshaw said nothing, but his silence was no longer denial. It was calculation. Andrew recognized it and despised it.
“And remember,” Andrew pointed out.
Both of them looked at him.
“If I ever see either of you again, if you cross my path, my wife’s path, or the child’s, you will discover how little mercy remains in me.”
He folded the letter and placed it back inside his coat. Lady Ravenshaw’s eyes followed the movement as though watching a blade disappear into a sheath.
Andrew turned toward the door. The butler appeared almost at once when summoned, his face carefully blank, though Andrew wondered how much he had heard and how long he had waited outside.
Enough, perhaps. Servants always knew the truth before society did.
At the threshold, Andrew paused and looked back. Ravenshaw was standing by the mantel. His mask had cracked at last. Lady Ravenshaw had sunk into the chair behind her, with one hand pressed to her brow.
They looked small. Andrew felt no pity.
“Begin packing,” he snarled.
Then he left them to the ruins they had made.