Chapter 2
“Leave us, Godfrey.” Evander did not take his eyes off the woman in the wedding dress.
She stood in the center of his parlor as though she had every right to be there, her chin lifted, her gaze fixed on the basket behind him.
Godfrey bowed and slipped through the door without a word. The latch clicked shut.
Evander folded his arms. “Who are you, and why are you in my house?”
The woman did not answer him. Her eyes looked at the basket on the sofa, and she moved toward it with a certainty that made Evander step into her path. She pulled up short, close enough that he could see the pins loosening in her hair and the flush that ran from her throat to her cheekbones.
“Is this really Charlotte’s baby?” she asked.
“I asked you a question.”
Her gaze snapped to his. Honey-brown eyes, bright with something fiercer than tears. “My name is Mary Gillies. I am Charlotte Gillies’s sister, and I wish to confirm that the child in that basket is my blood.”
Her eyes moved past him to the basket, and Evander watched the moment she saw the ring. The engagement ring, tied to the handle with its strip of blue ribbon.
Her lips parted. Her cheeks drained of color.
“It is Charlotte’s ring,” she whispered.
Evander studied her. The shock on her face was genuine, and it told him more than her words had.
“You mentioned you wished to confirm you are the aunt of this child.” He tilted his head. “Does such an occasion typically merit a wedding dress?”
Her eyes cut back to him. The grief vanished, replaced by something with teeth. “Do you truly have no idea what is happening in society this morning?”
“I have far more serious matters to attend to than gossip.”
“Of course you do.” Mary took a step closer. “Serious matters. Like dishonoring marriage contracts and leaving others to the mercy of the ton.”
The words landed. Evander’s jaw tightened.
He knew what she meant. When Richard and Charlotte had vanished, the marriage contract between the two families remained unfulfilled.
Lord Langham had written to Evander, suggesting that the contract might still be honored if Evander himself were to step in as the groom for one of his remaining daughters.
Evander had declined in a letter so brief it could have fit on a calling card.
“Finding my brother,” Evander said, “was far more important to me than a piece of paper. It still is.”
“That piece of paper was my family’s future.”
“And my brother is mine.”
They stared at each other. The fire popped in the grate. The baby stirred in his basket, and Mary’s attention shifted to the sound.
“I want to see my sister’s child,” she said.
“Your sister should have been here to show him to you.” Evander’s voice was low and even. “She chose not to be. And I will allow no one from your family near my nephew until I understand why.”
Mary’s eyes widened. “Irresponsible. That is what you think of us.”
“I think your sister vanished four months ago with my brother, left a baby on my doorstep this morning, and has yet to show her face. Draw your own conclusions.”
“How dare you.” She scoffed. “Charlotte has always been the picture of propriety. Of duty. And your brother was the one who convinced her to run.” Mary tilted her chin.
“All of London knows Lord Richard’s reputation.
The gambling. The late nights. The women.
Half the drawing rooms in Mayfair had a story about him before the betrothal ink was dry.
Charlotte was the steady one in that match, Your Grace, and if you believe otherwise, you are the only person in England who does. ”
“You have no proof of that.”
“And you have no proof of the alternative, yet here you stand, blaming a girl who is not here to defend herself.” Mary stepped forward.
“Do you want to know why I am wearing this dress, Your Grace? Because my groom abandoned me at the altar this morning. The moment news of this child reached the church, Lord Grentport walked out. He shoved my father to the ground on his way.” Her voice did not waver.
“So, I climbed into a carriage in my wedding gown and came here. Because while every person in London is whispering about this baby, and I, his own aunt, have not even had the chance to see him.”
Evander held her gaze. He could feel the heat of her anger from where he stood. She was close now, close enough that he could count the seed pearls stitched along the neckline of her gown and see the way her pulse beat in her throat. Her chin was raised. Her hands were fists at her sides.
She did not blink.
The baby cried.
The sound split the silence between them, thin, reedy, and sharp enough to make them both turn. Tommy’s face had scrunched into a knot of fury, his fists waving above the edge of the basket, his wail building.
The parlor door opened. His housekeeper, Mrs. Cahill, swept in with a warmed bottle in one hand and a cloth draped over her shoulder. Two maids followed.
“Let me hold him,” Mary said.
“Absolutely not.” Evander turned to Mrs. Cahill and gestured toward the basket. “I will not hand my nephew to a woman who arrived uninvited in a wedding dress five minutes ago.”
Mary flinched. Something crossed her face that was not anger. It was there and gone before Evander could name it.
Mrs. Cahill gathered Tommy from the basket and held him against her shoulder, rocking with the ease of a woman who had raised children of her own. She murmured to him and offered the bottle.
Tommy screamed louder. His face turned red, then purple. The wail rose to a pitch that rattled the teacups on the sideboard.
Mrs. Cahill gathered him closer against her shoulder and bounced. “Hush now, little one. Hush, hush.” She shifted him to the other arm and tried the bottle again, pressing the cloth teat gently to his lips.
Tommy turned his face away and screamed harder.
She walked a small circuit near the hearth, patting his back with a practiced rhythm. “Come now, my lord. There we are. Settle down.”
Tommy did not settle down. The screaming built to a crescendo that made Mrs. Cahill wince, and the bottle dripped unheeded onto the carpet.
Mrs. Cahill looked at Evander with the expression of a servant who had reached the limit of her expertise and needed permission to say so.
Mary stepped forward. “Please. Let me try. Just this once.” She held Evander’s gaze. “I will help him.”
Evander’s fists clenched at his sides. The baby’s screams filled the room, bouncing off the walls, and every second of it felt like a failure he could not afford. He looked at Tommy and then at Mary.
He nodded.
Mrs. Cahill moved to transfer the wailing bundle, but Evander stayed close enough to intervene.
Lady Mary cradled the baby against her chest. She shifted her hold, tucking him into the crook of her arm with a sureness that surprised Evander. She did not bounce or murmur. She held Tommy close and rocked him with a motion so slight it was almost invisible, and she smiled.
Then, she breathed. Slow and even, her chest rising and falling beneath his small body, as though she were teaching him the rhythm by giving him her own.
“You are safe,” she murmured. “I have you. You are safe.”
Tommy’s cries hitched. Stuttered. His fists unclenched. The wail thinned to a whimper, then to a series of shuddering breaths, and then to nothing.
The parlor went still.
Mrs. Cahill’s hand drifted to her chest. The two maids exchanged glances. Evander stared at the woman in the wedding dress, holding his nephew as though she had been born to do it, and felt something catch inside of him that he did not want to examine.
Tommy’s eyes fluttered closed. Within seconds, his breathing evened, and he slept.
Mary looked up at Evander. Her eyes were bright.
“He has Charlotte’s eyes,” she said.
Mrs. Cahill stepped forward, and together they lowered Tommy into the basket. The baby’s lips moved once, twice, and then he settled into the wool lining with a sigh. Mrs. Cahill tucked the blanket around him and lifted the basket with both hands.
“We’ll take him to the room upstairs, Your Grace,” she said. “The one we’ve been preparing.”
Evander nodded. The housekeeper carried Tommy out, the maids trailing behind her, and the door closed, and the parlor was quiet.
Mary wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her gloved hand. She did it quickly, as though hoping he would not notice.
He noticed.
“Was there a note?” she asked. Her voice was rough at the edges. “With the baby. Was there a note left behind?”
Evander reached into his coat and withdrew the folded paper. He held it out to her. Mary took it and opened it, and he watched her eyes move across Richard’s handwriting.
Her lips pressed together. She blinked twice.
“Tommy,” she murmured. A small, fragile smile crossed her face. “It suits him.”
She folded the note and held it out. Their fingers brushed as Evander took it back.
Something passed between them. A jolt. Brief and sharp, like touching a door handle in winter. Evander pulled his hand away and pocketed the note in a single motion. He turned toward the window.
“What do you intend to do?” Mary asked behind him.
“Find Richard and Charlotte.” He kept his back to her. “Ensure they marry. Make Tommy their legitimate child. That is the beginning and the end of it.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, I will raise him.”
“Alone?”
“With a full staff and a nursery maid I am hiring this afternoon.”
Mary was quiet for a moment. “Charlotte’s belly would have been showing. That is why they disappeared before the wedding. She could not have walked down the aisle without all of London seeing.”
Evander turned. He had not considered that. He filed it away and resented her for being the one to think of it.
“That still does not explain why they vanished rather than confide in their families,” he said.
“No. It does not.” Mary crossed her arms. “But it explains the timing. And it means they planned this. Both of them. Together.”
Evander remained silent. She was right, and he knew it, and the knowing made the anger worse.
“You cannot raise Tommy alone,” Mary said. “You cannot shut my family out and pretend Charlotte played no part in bringing this child into the world. He is as much ours as he is yours.”
“The child is in my home. Under my roof. My brother left him to me.”
“Your brother left him on a doorstep.” Mary’s voice sharpened. “That is not the same thing.”
They faced each other across the parlor. Evander opened his mouth to respond, but the door swung open.
Harding cleared his throat. “Your Grace. Lord Langham has arrived.”
Lord Langham did not so much enter the parlor as collapse into it.
He was sweating through his coat. His cravat, which had been askew at the church, was now missing entirely.
He crossed the room in three uneven strides, bowed to Evander with mechanical precision, and pressed both palms flat against his thighs.
“Your Grace, I must apologize for—for all of this. The disruption. My daughter’s presence here is uninvited. The entire—” He swallowed. “Is it true? The child?”
“It is true,” Evander said. “The baby is sleeping upstairs.”
Lord Langham’s face went the color of old parchment. He swayed. Mary caught his arm and guided him to a chair.
“My daughters,” he said. His voice had gone thin. “My daughters will be the death of me. Both of them. First Charlotte, now—” He pressed a trembling hand to his forehead. “We are ruined. Grentport will tell everyone. The ton will tear us apart. This family is finished, Mary. Finished!”
“Papa, breathe.” Mary crouched beside his chair and took his hand. “We are not finished. We will find a way through this.”
“How?” Lord Langham looked up at her with the eyes of a man who had already surrendered. “How, Mary? Tell me how!”
Mary did not answer. She held her father’s hand and pressed her lips together, and Evander saw the weight settle on her shoulders.
It was familiar. He recognized it the way a man recognizes his own reflection.
He thought of the baby upstairs. The way Tommy’s cries had stopped the instant she held him. The sureness in her hands. The tears she had wiped away when she thought no one was watching.
He thought of Godfrey’s words.
A child needs a mother. A wedding would divert the public’s attention.
He thought of Lord Langham, crumpled in the chair, saying we are ruined.
He thought of the vow he had made in a dark corridor fourteen years ago, and how easy it had been to keep when the only thing at stake was himself.
Evander exhaled.
He stepped forward.
“Lady Mary.”
She looked up at him from the floor beside her father’s chair. Her hair had come loose on one side. Her wedding dress was creased and dusty at the hem. Her eyes were red but steady.
“We will marry,” he said.
Lord Langham’s mouth fell open. Mary stared at Evander as though he had spoken in a language she did not recognize while sprouting a second head.
“I beg your pardon?” she said.
“You heard me.” Evander clasped his hands behind his back.
His voice was level, but his pulse was not.
“Tommy needs a mother. Your family needs a name. I need an heir and a way to contain this scandal before it buries us all.” He held her gaze.
“We will marry. It is the only solution that serves everyone in this room.”