The poor man. He must have been beside himself with grief. Any wonder he wanted to leave when I questioned him.
“Did you know Sir Stephen’s father?” she asked. It seemed the polite thing to do to inquire about the man.
Naomi shook her head. “Not really. He didn’t have time for people like us. Us being anyone who was important in his son’s life. Sir Robert Moore was what my father would politely call a bit of a rake. My brother, Harry, has used someverychoice words about Stephen’s father over the years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sir Robert was more interested in bedding other men’s wives than he was in being any sort of father to Stephen. And don’t ask me about his mother. She apparently disappeared back to Scotland not long after his birth. He was basically discarded by both his parents.”
Thetonhad its fair share of unhappy marriages, but few people actually abandoned their spouses and children. It must have been a terrible union for Lady Moore to have done such a thing. No woman would willingly give up her child without good cause.
And to think, all I have ever wanted is a child of my own.
“What about Sir Stephen? Is he cut from the same cloth as his sire?” He had captured her interest at their first meeting. If things went smoothly with solving her blackmail problem, perhaps Stephen might be someone she could become friends with or possibly something more.
Her fingers bunched up the fabric under her hand.
“Bridget are you thinking what I think you might be about Stephen?” replied Naomi.
The heat burning on her cheeks was all the reply Bridget needed. When she lifted her head and met Naomi’s gaze, her face felt ready to burst into flames. “You said I needed to get back on the horse. If Stephen is someone who loves and leaves women, then why not? I wouldn’t be risking my heart over him.”
She had no plans to ever marry again. In his will Rupert had left Bridget the use of the house for the rest of her life. There was nothing to stop her taking on a lover, and when she tired of him, finding another.
Naomi leaned in and smiled. “Well, he is a giant of a man, and I suspect that is in all manner of things. So, if you are planning on riding Sir Stephen, just make sure you hold on tight.”
A laughing Bridget buried her burning face in her hands.
I have to do something to help Naomi and Monsale finally get together. This girl is badly in need of a lusty husband and a marital bed. And she would make an excellent duchess.
“He has also openly stated that he never intends to marry, so you and he might be a perfect match,” added Naomi.
Bridget stilled. Stephen was a devilishly handsome specimen of the male species. And if he was indeed a rake, they could both approach a discreet liaison without any expectations.
Hurry back to London, Sir Stephen.
Chapter Nine
Afew days later
After dropping Toby off at Harry and Alice’s house that morning, Stephen made his way over to see Lady Bridget Dyson. The clock was ticking on the blackmailer’s demands.
Any fears of his about asking Alice to help with his new ward had been quickly swept aside the minute she and Toby met. The youngster and the heavily pregnant Lady Alice had taken to one another in an instant. From the moment he opened his eyes in the morning, it was clear that Toby was concerned with one thing only, and that was getting over to number 16 Grosvenor Street.
Stephen suspected that a great deal of the appeal was due to Harry and Alice’s piglet, Milton, running around the house. He hadn’t the heart to explain to the boy that Milton wasn’t a pet, but rather the eleventh of his name in a long line of breeding pigs raised by Harry for the Duchy of Redditch.
If Stephen had been honest about it, he was feeling just a tad jealous. Even Harry appeared to have established himself higher in Toby’s world than his big brother.
Yes, well he doesn’t know you are his brother. As far as he is concerned, you are just the man who took him from the only home he has ever known and made him come and live in a couple of rooms of a coaching company.
Once this job with Lady Bridget was done and dusted, he had to do something about sorting out a proper home for Toby and himself.
He was still making plans to engage the services of an agent to find a suitable house when the front door of Bridget’s home opened, and the butler ushered him inside.
Stephen followed the man into the drawing room where he and Bridget had first met. Bridget rose from the sofa as Stephen was announced. “Thank you, Taylor. That will be all.”
He was halfway through a bow when she hurried over and took a hold of his hand.
“I am so, so sorry,” she said.
