Chapter 19
Mrs. Holt sat before them fifteen minutes later. Helena had taken both David and little Molly outside and was playing with them in the grass. Julian had seen them from the window.
“Mrs. Holt,” he began, “there are some questions to which we shall require answers.”
The woman sat before him with her shoulders pulled back and her spine completely straight, as though she were in church and about to make a confession. Whatever that confession might be, he hoped with some fervency that it would not turn the world upside down once more.
Clara sat down across from Mrs. Holt, and instinctively, Julian sat beside her.
They were close enough that their legs touched, and he knew that to Mrs. Holt this had to look entirely natural.
The curious thing was that it also felt natural.
Having Clara beside him gave him a certain steadiness that he required in this moment although somewhere at the back of his mind, he wasn’t entirely sure whether that was a good thing or not.
Perhaps he was growing too reliant upon her. He looked at her then reminded himself that they were not here to analyze his inner conflicts but to find out what Mrs. Holt knew, if anything.
“Mrs. Holt,” Clara began, “how did you hear about the position available here? That we were in need of a wet nurse?”
The woman looked at her feet for a moment then looked up again. “On dit. You know how the ton likes to talk. I heard that there was a young woman who had trouble feeding her child, and I—”
“That is not the truth,” Julian said. “Please do not waste our time, or indeed your own, by telling us Canterbury Tales.”
The woman inhaled.
“You must tell us the truth,” Clara said, her voice gentle but firm. “I think we all know that there are things which have been left unsaid and which must be brought to light. Please, Mrs. Holt, share with us what you know.”
“Was it my cousin who sent you here?” Julian asked, and he hated how unsteady his voice sounded as he spoke. “Arabella Ashland?”
At the sound of the name, Mrs. Holt’s rigid posture crumbled. Her shoulders rolled inward, and her head dropped slightly towards her chest.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Clara asked. “How did you know her? How did she send you here?”
Mrs. Holt pressed her lips together repeatedly then looked up at Clara.
“It was Miss Arabella who sent me here. It is true. She came to me to tell me that she was leaving and that she had to leave little Horatio in your care and that he would be in need of a wet nurse. She knew that I was still feeding Molly.”
“How did she know that?” Julian demanded. “And where did she come to see you?”
“I let a room in Islington in a house with other women who are in my position.”
“Women without fathers for their children,” Clara concluded.
Mrs. Holt nodded, and her blue eyes filled with tears she did not shed. “That is right.”
“Does your daughter share the same father as Horatio?” Clara asked.
“No, not at all,” Mrs. Holt said at once. “That is not what this is. It is… Lady Arabella took me into her confidence…”
“How do you know my cousin?” Julian asked, setting aside the woman’s evident moral conflict entirely. “Tell us everything and from the beginning.”
Mrs. Holt took a deep breath. “We met about a year ago. She had just returned from Scotland—from visiting you, My Lady.” She glanced at Clara.
“It was in Dover. She was staying at an inn where I lived and worked with Molly. She was just two months old then. Miss Arabella was waiting for her gentleman friend to arrange passage across the Channel to Italy. She was there for about five weeks. She could see that I was struggling, and she was always very kind to me. I was working in the tavern, serving. She would always pay me generously.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “One day, after she had been there about a week or so, she overheard Molly’s father and me quarrelling.
He had left before Molly was born and would return infrequently—sometimes bringing money but more often asking me for it.
We got into a rather dreadful row, and Lady Arabella intervened on my behalf. She was quite valiant.”
The woman smiled at the memory, and Julian found, despite everything, that he smiled too because he could believe it entirely. Arabella had always been valiant.
“She gave him a thorough set-down and told him in no uncertain terms what would befall him should he ever return. I have not seen him since.” Mrs. Holt paused.
“In any case, I was rather a wreck and cried on her shoulder for quite some time. I had been foolish enough to fall into any sort of arrangement with him, but she was kind and understanding. She helped me financially and arranged for me to go to Islington from Dover so that Molly’s father, should he try to find me, could not.
I stayed in Dover until it was time for her to leave, and in those weeks, the two of us became quite close.
She spoke of you both very often and very highly. ”
Julian glanced at Clara, whose expression had grown pained. He moved a little closer and placed his hand over hers. Instantly, she relaxed beside him.
“She loves you both very much,” Mrs. Holt continued.
“Do you know where she is?” Clara asked, and the trembling in her voice tore at Julian’s heart.
“No. She wrote to me once or twice from Italy, and I could tell from her letters that something was not right. Then she appeared at my rooms in Islington about five weeks ago. She had Horatio with her. She told me everything—that she had run away from his father and that she was fearful he might come after her. That he had kept her against her will.” She looked between them. “Do you know of this?”
They both nodded.
“She told me that she had gone with this man to Italy, believing they were to be married, and that in the end it all went terribly wrong, and she had to escape with the help of two of the man’s servants, who came with her.
He was treating them quite badly, too. She was frightened that he would come after her.
I told her to come home to you, that you would protect her because she always told me that you were like an older brother to her, but she did not wish to involve you. ”
“Well,” he said quietly, “that appears to have changed.”
“Not entirely.”
A silence settled over the room.
“Mrs. Holt,” Clara said, “what else do you know? And how did you come to our doorstep?”
She took a breath. “Lady Arabella sent me. She told me she planned to have the baby baptized and then find a safe place to hide with some financial assistance from you,” she hesitated.
“She had decided to hide away somewhere in Southampton with Horatio until she could be sure the father did not follow her, but she thought he had found her. She was sure of it. Oh, she was so frightened when she came to see me.”
“When was this?” Julian pushed.
“About a fortnight ago, she appeared one night at my rooms in Islington. She told me that he had found her and that she had already sent Horatio away. She had sent her Italian friend to bring him to Lady Clara. But somebody would need to feed him. She knew I was still feeding Molly and thus asked if I would come here and find a way to be of use.”
She glanced at Julian. “She told me she had never meant to involve you, Your Grace. She had intended to give the child to Lady Clara alone. But through some circumstances beyond her control, the two of you ended up in your current position. So, I did the only thing I could. I came here and contrived to make myself available as a wet nurse. I was purposely obtuse when I announced myself, stating I was sent for by the child’s mother.
I did not think anyone would question it and…
well, I truly did not have much of a plan at all.
Due to the general confusion of the day, I was successful.
” She paused. “I do apologize for the deception.”
“You need not apologize,” Clara said. “You only did what Arabella asked of you.”
“Please do not send me away,” Mrs. Holt said quickly. “I had to abandon my situation in Islington, and if I leave here, there is nowhere for Molly and me to go.”
“We will not send you away,” Julian said. “Of course not. But there can be no more deception. No more half-truths.” He leaned forward. “There is something else you must tell us. Who is the man—the one who fathered the child, who lured her to Italy and kept her there?”
She shook her head. “She never told me his full name. When we were at Dover together, she referred to him only by a sort of nickname. At first, she called him Mr. X, but occasionally she would call him Bash.”
“Bash,” Clara repeated. “That does not sound familiar to me at all. Nor does it sound Italian.”
“No, it does not. And he did not look very Italian to me either when he came to collect her from Dover.” She hesitated. “Although—”
Julian was on his feet before she could finish. “You saw him?”
Mrs. Holt looked up. “Yes but only once. He had arrived that morning, and they were preparing to leave for the boat. She brought me to the carriage to say farewell as I was to be taken on to London. I saw him only briefly.”
“Do you remember anything about him? Anything at all that was distinct?”
Julian glanced towards the corner of the room where Helena had apparently returned at some point and was sitting so quietly, he had almost entirely forgotten she was there.
“He was a tall man,” Mrs. Holt said, “almost as tall as Your Grace. He had a gingery sort of color to his hair which I thought curious given that he was supposed to be Italian. A large nose that looked as though it had been broken at some point. He was handsome—very handsome. Very well dressed.” She paused. “Horatio does not look much like him.”
Julian felt a wave of relief at that. It would have pained him to know that his sweet little nephew bore any resemblance to the man who had treated his mother so wretchedly.
“You remember nothing else?”
“If I saw him again, I would know him instantly—of that I am certain—but I have not seen him since. And Arabella never spoke of him at great length. At first, she did. She spoke of how cultured he was, how well-read, how widely traveled, that he had undertaken the Grand Tour but nothing that would make him stand out. Nothing particular, except—” she paused, and her cheeks colored.
“What is it?” Clara asked in that gentle tone that always, Julian had noticed, made people want to tell her everything.
“Well—when she left Dover, she already suspected she was with child. She told me she felt dreadfully guilty and did not know how she would ever explain it. I think, in truth, that is partly why she did not wish to involve either of you. She was very ashamed.” Mrs. Holt folded her hands in her lap.
“She told me that one of the reasons they were going to Italy was so that they might be married there quietly and then return to England as though they had already been wed for some time so that nobody would be any the wiser about the child’s arrival.
” She glanced between them. “The timeline would be sufficiently blurred, she thought, that nobody would suspect a thing.”
Julian looked at Clara, whose eyebrows had risen considerably. It struck him that this sort of scheme—of quietly arranging things so the world saw only what one wished it to see—came rather naturally to members of their family.
“Thank you, Mrs. Holt,” he said. “Please return to your duties and do not distress yourself. You will be looked after and compensated properly. You need not return to Islington. We will see that you and Molly are properly settled.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said and made her way out.
When it was just the two of them, Clara and Julian sat side by side. His hand was still resting on her arm. She had not moved.
“She was too ashamed to come to me,” he said.
“She was too ashamed to come to me either.” Clara was quiet for a moment.
“Who knows what this man put into her head. What thoughts he planted there that were not there before. Because the Arabella I knew would not have been ashamed to tell either of us anything. He must have made her feel wretched and foolish. I can understand what that is like.” Her voice was low.
“If she believed that she loved him and trusted that he would marry her, only to discover that he wanted nothing but the child growing inside her, she must have felt such a fool.”
He looked at her and recognized the words for what they were. She had felt that same shame herself—after the man she had trusted had cast her aside for a better prospect.
“I hope you feel no shame on your own account,” he said.
“There is nothing shameful in what happened to you nor in what happened to her. You were both deceived by men to whom you gave your trust and your hearts, and there are those of my sex, I am sorry to say, who are a great deal less than gentlemanly.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I am grateful that you are here. That you have been at my side through all of this.” She turned to look at him and placed her hand over his, where it still rested on her arm.
For a moment, they sat there together, and the feeling that surrounded them was almost beyond description.
It was warm and safe and quietly devastating.
And yet, at the back of Julian’s mind, a warning bell rang with some persistence.
For as warm and safe as it felt, he also knew that he could not allow it.
He could not allow this feeling to take root—not in his head and certainly not in his heart.
She was not his true wife. She was not his future.
She was the means by which he was keeping his cousin and her child safe, and he was the same to her.
He had to stop permitting foolish fancies to encroach upon that reality.
Even though, if he were being entirely honest with himself—which he was finding increasingly difficult to be—the illusion of what they might be to one another had already taken root in his heart, long before his head had thought to object.