Chapter 19 #3
“You love me as a friend,” he reminded her, chucking her on the chin. He probably meant it to be affectionate, but she found it patronizing. Audrey forced her knees to lock as she stood and skirted around him, needing the open air of her bedroom.
She stalked toward the window and opened the sash an inch. It helped to clear her head. “So, I am to be a widow.” She then huffed mirthlessly. “A counterfeit widow.”
“No one will be wise to it. And as a widow, you can remarry, this time for legitimate reasons.”
“There will be nothing legitimate about it!” Audrey whirled to face him. Saw the remorse in his eyes. “Any marriage will be illegal. Any future children will be illegitimate.”
How could Philip honestly believe this to be to her benefit?
Her heart might long for Hugh, but she could never lie to him.
And once he knew Philip was alive and well somewhere in the Mediterranean, he would never agree to the risk, not after spending his whole life as by-blow.
How could she bring any child into the world knowing that they would be born on the other side of the blanket?
The child’s future would be in constant jeopardy.
Audrey was not a mother, but she felt a sudden, fierce pang of obligation.
Of compulsion. To protect them from any disgrace.
“They would never be that,” Philip said, an edge of impatience limning his words.
This conversation was not progressing as he thought it might, apparently.
Audrey reveled in that, at least. She didn’t want to make any of this easy for him.
“Even if I were to be discovered—which I won’t be—whatever children you bear would be mine. ”
“What good would that do? You would be a criminal for falsifying your death. We would all be tainted by scandal.”
Philip, lost for words perhaps, threw up his hands and walked away, toward the door.
She wanted him to leave, to give her room to breathe and think.
Far too many thoughts cluttered her mind, though not just concerning Philip’s plot.
The question of scandal for any future children drew parallels to what Lord and Lady Neatham would go through, should it come to light that Hugh was the true heir.
Their young children, while legitimate, would be ruined.
Their secure futures, ripped away from them.
Surely, the viscountess would feel the same motherly pang of obligation, that same compulsion to protect her children.
What would a mother not do to safeguard her children from such devastation?
“Audrey?” Philip’s voice came to her as if muffled. “Are you listening to me?”
She realized she was staring at the carpet. Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “The viscountess.”
He knit his brow. “What?”
Audrey paced forward, her mind spinning. Lady Reed. She had been privy to the Joanna Neatham’s worry that Barty was illegitimate…and she was also the current viscountess’s great aunt.
The connection pulled taut in Audrey’s mind, like a slack string suddenly yanked tight. Even though she knew not what it meant, she trusted it.
“I’m sorry, I must get some air,” she said breathlessly to Philip. Without waiting for him to respond, she rushed to her boudoir, tore down her cloak from the wardrobe, and then hurried from the bedroom.
Her feet moved as if of their own accord. Where she was going, she wasn’t certain, but she knew she had to follow that taut string. It brought her to the kitchens and to the sudden knowledge that she had to summon Carrigan.
To her surprise, and perhaps serendipity, she came to a halt when she saw Sir lounging at the servant’s long table, a plate of food before him. Mrs. Comstock jumped to and bobbed her head toward Audrey.
“Your Grace, may I help you? Is there something you needed?”
Greer, who’d been seated across from Sir, stood quickly with a look of alarm and contrition. Sir, meanwhile, finished his forkful of mash.
“I need to speak to the boy,” Audrey said, causing almost the entire kitchen staff to come to a halt. They were in the middle of preparing dinner for her and the duke, and her appearance was more than irregular.
“Young man,” the cook hissed at Sir, who was quickly spearing his long beans and shoving them into his mouth. “The duchess is speaking to you. Get up. My apologies, Your Grace, the lad is an errand boy of sorts, and it seems he is in wont of manners.”
Sir scrubbed his nose and stood. “What can I do for you, duchess?”
Audrey started for the back door, and being wise, Sir followed. Once they stood upon the backstep, alone, she spoke. “Is Mr. Marsden back in London yet?”
The boy lifted a bony shoulder. “Don’t know. Why?”
“I need to speak to Lady Neatham. Her children…” She gulped a calming breath as heart began to pound. “I might have thought of something.”
“I’ll come with you,” the boy said.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Mister Hugh told me to keep my blinkers on you,” Sir said.
“I’ll have Carrigan,” she said, warming at the idea of Hugh posting his trusted associate at Violet House to keep watch over her. “It’s more important for you to stay here and tell Mr. Marsden where I’ve gone, if he arrives.”
“He won’t return the horse himself,” Sir said as Audrey started for the mews lane and the stables.
“I’m sorry, I must go,” she called back.
She didn’t care in the least about the horse.
Though she didn’t yet know what she would say to Lady Neatham, Audrey couldn’t stay in her room, drowning in Philip’s revelation and in her questions about the viscountess.
She would just have to devise a plan on the way to Neatham House.