Yet Darlington had heretofore considered himself a man who took risks. He came from a line of men who defied convention, who marched to their own fife and drum. The second earl had departed for distant parts to indulge his passion for antiquities after he had indulged his parallel passion for an uncommon, and fallen, woman. However, his lengthy absences from Delamere had been the cause of the estate’s demise, insisted Augusta Oliver. The father’s abrogation of responsibility now rendered the son a slave to it. Now the third earl must preserve both his family home and name. There was no alternative, his aunt decreed.
Darlington’s guilt was unspeakable. And propriety dictated that he honor the formal betrothal that had just been announced publicly to the ton. Yet, that did not prohibit him from continuing to care deeply for the welfare of Miss Welles. He did not expect her to ever grant him forgiveness. She had been humiliated beyond—
My God! The full force of Miss Welles’s accusation struck him. The young woman had announced right in the middle of the ballroom that she was carrying his child. Could it possibly be true? Possibly, of course. In the one afternoon they had made such magical love, Cassandra could have conceived a child. Miss Welles had never struck him as being a deceitful sort. Quite the contrary, her frankness often astounded him. In fact, Miss Welles was the most honest young woman the earl had ever met.
If her outburst had not been a fiction born of anger, had she been speaking the truth, the girl was exposing herself to the utmost censure as well. Lady Dalrymple’s eccentricities were not always understood by the ton; if her niece was with child, both women would certainly be cut by society.
And where did that leave him? the earl wondered. Would Lady Charlotte wed him after all, whether or not Miss Welles’s pronouncement was true? It would make the young heiress appear a fool. Her parents would no doubt wish to extricate her from impending disaster before further ruin ensued. They would claim damages against him and demand a large financial settlement. And he would be responsible as well for Miss Welles’s bastard. His bastard. Their bastard. Another dark stain on the Percival escutcheon.
He noticed a huddled form by the base of the tree at the center of the Circus and, approaching it, found the object of his search, sobbing, bleeding, and half clad, gazing at the façade of his town house. “Take this, Miss Welles.” Darlington unfastened his cloak and draped it over C.J.’s shoulders, gently fastening the garment about her so it would remain closed. He drew away with extreme formality and extended his hand. “Come. I will escort you home.”
C.J.’s face was wet with tears. “Is that all? I allow I am not familiar with the ways of the ton, nor may I ever comprehend your rules of protocol. But I believed that we had an understanding. I took—and still take—tremendous risks to enjoy your company.” She placed a trembling hand on her still-flat belly. “I carry your child, Percy!”
He bore the look of a bewildered parent. Now that they were alone, it should have been the time to take this woman in his arms and murmur sweet promises of a glorious future together. But he could not. And not for lack of desire, but for having made the decision to adhere to those damn codified societal dictates after decades of throwing them to the dogs. “I . . . realize that anything I say will make me appear a fool, Cassandra—”
“The game still confounds me. Forgive me,” C.J. replied bitterly. “I was under the impression that you were no longer permitted to address me by my Christian name now that you have promised to wed another.”
It was true, of course. He couldn’t even handle that simple convention properly. Darlington hated himself for the necessity of forcing this remarkable woman to comprehend his dilemma. “I love you, Miss Welles. I beg of you not to question my regard for you. And were it still in my power to make you my wife, as I intended, I would do so with alacrity. It pains me enormously to be so cruelly frank, but at present I do not possess the capital to restore Delamere to a fully functioning estate. If the property must be sold, who knows what might happen to those who live and work upon my lands, who depend on my stewardship for their livelihood? Crops must be grown; fields must be worked. The tenant farmers live off a portion of what they sow and reap. The shops in the nearest village are dependent upon the tenants possessing the financial means to make their purchases there, or the emporia must close, leaving the shopkeepers destitute as well. The same is true for the tanner, the farrier, the saddler, even the taverns.”
He regarded C.J.’s devastated expression and cursed the years of mismanagement and neglect, even assigning blame to his beloved father for bringing his son to this miserable crossroads that compelled him to be so cruel to Miss Welles—the first woman he’d loved since he’d lost Marguerite—and to subject her and their child—if indeed there was one—to the horrors of censure and ostracism. Darlington gave C.J. a desperate, tormented look. “Would that this very minute I could take you to Delamere so that you could meet for yourself the hardworking men and women and the rosy-cheeked children whose faces, even as we speak, grow pale from malnourishment.”
“Then why, at the very least, could you not have responded to my letters?”
“Because I was fighting like the very devil to do my duty, Miss Welles. It would not be considered seemly for me to correspond with a former lover when I have promised my hand to another. But the stringently prescribed rules of society make no allowances for
