home after an execrable evening at the theater, Esther had been abed, and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to wake her. His hesitance hadn’t stemmed from consideration for a woman who’d be trapped in a freezing coach with her children all day but rather from guilt.
All evening long he’d fielded curious glances and raised eyebrows from men who would no doubt tell their wives that Lord Percy Windham had been in the company of an old flame. And those wives would talk to each other, and eventually…
“I’m off to a meeting,” Percival said. “His Majesty has some notion Wales ought to be kept informed of the committee’s doings, though Wales is far more interested in chasing skirts than requisitioning uniforms.”
“Then I’ll bid you farewell. I’ve final packing to see to.”
She did not. Percival knew his wife well enough to know that her own effects had likely been packed before she’d found her bed the previous night. Esther pushed her chair back, and Percival covered her hand with his own. “I’ve said my good-byes to the boys, but…”
She gazed at him, her expression so solemn that guilt and frustration coalesced into shame. The damned beefsteak he’d been choking down threatened to rebel, and a life of such moments—ashamed, awkward, silent— rolled past in Percival’s mind.
“Esther, I love you. I wouldn’t be asking you to leave if I did not love you.”
If she asked him why her departure was necessary, he would have no answer for her: Because a vicious woman was going to use a small child to wreak vengeance on an entire family; because a randy young officer had made foolish choices.
Because he could not bear to see Esther hurt.
He kissed her cheek. “Will you finish my steak for me? One doesn’t want to be late, even if Wales will be more drunk than sober at such an early hour.”
Something shifted in Esther’s green-eyed gaze, something cooled and reassessed. “I don’t care for beef at breakfast, Percival. Perhaps you’ll serve yourself smaller portions in future rather than expect me to finish your meal.”
Her tone was so perfectly bland, Percival had to wonder if she hadn’t already heard with whom he’d been seen the previous evening. “I will try to recall your preferences when next we’re dining at the same table.”
He rose, held her chair for her, and hated what his life was about to become. Hated it so much in fact, that when he’d managed to take his leave of his lady wife without shouting, breaking things, and rampaging through the house, he did not go to his meeting. Percival instead took himself to that address he most loathed in all of London.
“Good morning, your lordship.” The same footman who’d listened at Cecily’s keyhole was now minding her front door. “Madam has not yet come down, though if you’ll follow me to the parlor, the kitchen will send up a tray.”
The words were right and the tone was deferential and brisk, but the fellow’s gaze was shifty, more shifty than it had been even when he’d been eavesdropping. Percival handed him his cloak, and noticed another gentleman’s coat hanging from a hook in the foyer. The garment was well made, a soft, dark wool with crested buttons that suggested both wealth and good taste.
Also a complete lack of common sense on some poor fellow’s part. Percival did not stare at the coat, lest the footman catch him at it, but the presence of that coat spoke volumes.
Percival took himself down the hallway toward the foyer, addressing the footman over his shoulder. “A tray would be appreciated, with chocolate and none of that damned tea.”
Chocolate would take longer to prepare, and for what Percival intended, every moment counted.
“Very good, my lord.”
The footman scampered toward the back stairs, while Percival kept right on going past the parlor. The plan he’d formed was daring and precipitous, but an eternity of nights toadying to Cecily O’Donnell was unthinkable. And as for Esther…
He pushed thoughts of his wife aside, knowing that dear lady was already on her way to the countryside. If the gods smiled upon a well-intended husband, then Esther need never know of what was about to transpire.
Cecily’s bedroom door was closed, thank God, probably the better to hog the heat from the only fire outside the kitchen. When he gained the nursery, Percival paused.
What he was about to do was in some way selfish, and in some way proper—it was also right.
“Maggie.”
His daughter glanced up from the same pile of damaged toys he’d found her with previously.
“Papa.” She scrambled to her feet but then checked herself, making a painful contrast to the way Percival’s sons had greeted him in the park—to the way they always greeted him.
“Collect up your things, my dear. I’m taking you away from this house.”
“We’re going on an outing?”
“Something like that. Bring your doll and your soldiers and anything else that matters to you.”
She disappeared into a cupboard and emerged with Percival’s coat. “Burton said we could sell it for coal, but I didn’t want to. I like how it smells, and the buttons have a unicorn on them.”
Maggie held still while Percival fastened the frogs of a wool cloak under her chin, and she said nothing when he stuffed her doll and soldiers into his pockets. As they stole back down through the house—making only one brief stop in the parlor—Percival wondered if there was a greater comment on Maggie’s situation than that all she really knew of her father was the scent of his cologne.
Esther had wanted to leave for Morelands an hour ago, but the children were being recalcitrant, and the nursery maids—one of whom was enamored of the porter—were abetting them.
And while Esther waited for this favorite pair of boots to be found and an indispensable storybook to be tucked into the coach, she thought of her husband and of the solemn, dark-haired boy who bore her husband’s eyebrows.
A man who was going to keep a mistress for all of London to see could afford to quietly support his son at some decent school in the Midlands. Winter was barely under way, and the boy’s mother had already been reduced to begging. This was perhaps the inevitable fate of a woman plying the harlot’s trade, except…
Except if Esther had been that boy’s mother, she’d do much worse than beg if it would see him fed. Thinking not as a wife, but as a mother, Esther could not leave Town without making at least a short call on Kathleen St. Just, whose direction she’d obtained at their last encounter. Knowing that the traveling coach would still take at least an hour to pack, Esther called for the town coach and dressed in her plainest cloak and boots.
Kathleen St. Just opened the door to a perfectly nondescript little house on a perfectly nondescript street. “My lady, I am surprised to see you.”
Surprised was a euphemism, likely covering shock and humiliation, as well a quantity of resentment, though Esther did not quibble over it. The freezing house, the stink of tallow rather than beeswax in the foyer, and the fact that Mrs. St. Just had opened her own door announced the situation plainly enough.
Esther swept past her hostess rather than linger on the stoop. “I will not take up much of your time, Mrs. St. Just. Is your son on the premises?”
Fear, or something close to it, flitted through Mrs. St. Just’s eyes. “He is.”
“Shall we repair to a parlor, then? What I have to say affects the boy.”
It would affect Esther’s marriage too, though she brushed that thought aside and followed Mrs. St. Just to a parlor that surely had never been used for company. Had it been warmer, the room would have been cozy. An entire flower garden was embroidered and framed on one wall, species by species, in exquisite needlework. A teacup and saucer sat on a low table near a workbasket, the saucer chipped but still serviceable.
“My lady, you will forgive the clutter, but this is the smallest parlor and the easiest to heat.”
“You need not build up the fire for me,” Esther said, and that was true, because she hadn’t surrendered her cloak at the door, and Mrs. St. Just—who was wearing two shawls herself—hadn’t offered to take it. “I will be blunt, Mrs. St. Just. My husband has banished me back to the countryside, the better to disport as a young man is wont to
