was to remain in her bed for the morning, she felt something considerably more like alarm.
She did not wish General Balantyne to know anything about it-he would be entirely useless if indeed there were such a crisis as her worst fears framed, and if there were not, there was no purpose in alarming him. They were at the breakfast table when she was informed, and after a moment’s silent panic, she thanked the woman civilly and bade her return to Christina and care for her, then she requested the general to pass her the orange conserve to spread upon her toast.
“Pity,” the general said quietly, passing across the jar. “Poor girl. Hope it’s nothing serious. Want to send for the doctor? Always ask Freddie to slip over, if she doesn’t want a fuss.”
“Nothing he can do for a chill on the stomach,” she replied smoothly. Heavens above, the last thing she wanted now was a doctor! “Charming as he is, he can’t change the weather. Lots of pestilence of one sort or another in the autumn. I shall have cook make her an herbal tea. That will do as much good as anything. No doubt it will cure itself in a day or two.”
He looked at her with slight surprise, but rather than argue, continued with his deviled kidneys, bacon, eggs, and toast.
When she had finished her meal, so as not to appear in a hurry and give the matter undue importance, she excused herself and went upstairs. If there were no reason for alarm, so much the better, but if her worst fears were valid-and she remembered with a cold shiver through her flesh the familiarity of that touch in the stillroom pantry, the ease with which the hands had caressed the silk bodice under the breasts-and it was indeed true, then she must think now what to do about it. If there were any hope at all of saving the situation, it lay in immediate action. Every additional day would make it harder.
And if she did not succeed-a lesser woman would have flinched even from the thought, but even her enemies, and she had several, would never have denied that Augusta had courage-there lay ahead for Christina little but endless unhappiness. To have an illegitimate child was a sin never completely forgiven by the society in which Christina moved, in which she had been brought up, and in which were all her friends, indeed the society which would enable her to have the only life for which she was fitted. It might be possible, with care and money dispersed in appropriate places, to create some fiction to take her away from London for the necessary period of time, have the child brought up on the country estate, adopted by some good serving woman. It would take skill, but it was not impossible: it had surely been done by others! Christina was not the first, nor would she be the last in this predicament.
If only that were all!
But there was Max: an ambitious and ruthless man. Of course she had realized from the day she had employed him that he was intent, above all things, on bettering himself. And she had thought that that would make him an excellent footman. Ambitious men were good employees; and so he had proved, in respect of his job; he was always immaculate, always punctual, always more than civil; indeed she had received many compliments as to his quality. But she blamed herself now for not realizing that his ambition would lead him to use any means that offered to advance himself, even to lying with his employer’s daughter. She did not delude herself for a moment that there was any affection involved-on either side. And she should also have known her daughter better, she should have seen the weakness in her, and protected her from it. What else were mothers for?
Max had forged himself a weapon. If he chose to use it, to spread gossip, gently, like slow poison, Christina would be ruined. No man of her own class would marry her, no matter what her dowry. There was always a surfeit of personable young women in the marriage market, and Christina possessed no special advantage; at least none that would outweigh the reputation of a trollop. To be high-spirited was one thing, to be a whore and to have borne a child to a footman was quite another. The only world she knew, or could cope with, would be as closed to her as the Bank of England.
Max must be silenced: not by bribery of any sort. Give in to him even once, and they would be hostage to him for the rest of their lives. It must be a counterthreat of equal magnitude. Not only for Christina’s sake, but for the whole family, for the general, and for young Brandy, as well as herself. If Brandy should fall in love, or even find agreeable some well-connected girl, what parents would allow their daughter to marry into a family whose blood bred such as Christina?
She was on the landing with her hand raised to Christina’s door when the worst thought of all came to her. She nearly fainted from the sheer horror of it. Max had been in their employ for six years. She sincerely believed that if such an appalling thing had happened before she would have known it-but what if she had not? And would the police believe it? Could they even afford to? Unless she was very much mistaken, that young man Pitt was of uncommon intelligence. He would pursue the matter, question Christina, perhaps even discover that it was Max, and draw from him all the sordid truth. What would he believe of the bodies in the square then? What did she herself believe?
She let her hand fall to the wood, and before Christina replied, she pushed the door open.
Christina was lying on the bed, looking pale and peaked, her features unusually sharp, her dark hair spread on the pillow around her.
Augusta felt a moment’s pity for her, then it passed and she forced her attention to preventing the far worse pain that threatened.
“Sick?” she asked simply.
Christina nodded her head.
Augusta came in and shut the door. There was no point in mincing words. She sat on the end of the bed and looked at her daughter.
“Is it an illness you have caught from Max?” she said, looking at Christina’s eyes.
Christina tried to look away, and failed. She was used to getting her own way, to charming or dominating everyone, but never since childhood had she succeeded with her mother.
“What-what do you mean, Mama?” she said stiltedly.
“There is no point in prevaricating, Christina. If you are with child, there is a great deal we have to do. I have no wish to frighten you unnecessarily, but I don’t think you have realized the seriousness of our predicament, if it is so.”
Christina opened her mouth, and closed it again.
Augusta waited.
“I don’t know,” Christina said very quietly. There was a shiver in her voice and she was having to struggle hard not to cry. It was only pride that prevented her, and the knowledge that her mother would not have cried.
Augusta asked the question she dreaded, but she would shirk nothing. She needed to know.
“Is this the first time?”
Christina stared, eyes enormous with indignant disbelief, and then horror as she realized what Augusta meant, what she was thinking. Her face was as bleached as the sheet.
“Oh, Mother! You can’t think I would-oh no!”
“Good. I did not think you would. But it is not what I think that matters, it is what the police think, or have enough cause to consider that they raise the possibility-”
“Mother-!”
“I shall deal with it. You will not see Max again. Until I have secured his silence, you will remain in bed. You have a chill. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mama,” she was too shocked and too frightened to argue. “Do you think-the police-I mean-?”
“I intend that they shall not know anything to think one way or the other. And you will do exactly as I tell you, to that end.”
Christina nodded silently, and Augusta looked at her pale face, remembering how she had felt for the first few weeks when she had been with child, with Christina herself. What a lifetime ago that seemed. Brandy had been a small boy, still in skirts: and his father had been younger, his face less lean, his body a few pounds slimmer, but just as straight, shoulders as broad and stiff. How could a man change so little? His voice, his manners, even his thoughts seemed all the same.
“It will pass,” she said gently. “It will not be more than a few weeks, then you will feel better. I shall have cook make you a beef tea.”
“Thank you, Mama,” Christina whispered, and closed her eyes.
Augusta racked her brains and her imagination for a way to make sure of Max’s silence, without at the same time giving him a weapon for future use. But by the following morning she had achieved no more than the
