She turned back to the window. “When I told him my suspicions about a pregnancy, he went to my father. Being the fool that I am, I thought he was asking for my hand in marriage.”
“What did he do?” Callum growled the words.
She pulled in a breath and exhaled slowly. “He wanted money to keep our affair and my pregnancy a secret and was ready to tell everyone—the scandal sheets, anyone who would pay—that I was a loose woman. He never offered to marry me. In fact, when my father pressed, he laughed at him and doubled the demand of payment to stay silent. He took off as soon as he received the bank draft. I haven’t heard from him since.”
Callum hissed, and the knowledge that he was incensed on her behalf was a balm to her seared soul, the relief that she’d craved without being able to name it. His feet moved until he was standing close behind her, a silent sentry as she released her demons for his judgment.
“And the child,” he whispered. “What happened to the child?”
She shook her head as her throat tightened. “The baby came far too early. I do not remember much, but the bleeding nearly took me, too. The doctor said it was unlikely I’d be able to carry children in the future, after…”
She remembered the night in nightmarish flashes, the debilitating pain in her abdomen, the fear on her mother’s face as Violet collapsed in her bedroom. Broken pieces of conversation that stuck in her mind like shards of glass.
If we don’t call a doctor, she’ll die.
If we do call a doctor, everyone will know.
Her life put up against her reputation, that of her family. She did not know how long they debated, but the doctor doubtless saved her from death, even if he couldn’t save her child. Even if he demanded another payment from her father to protect her secret. Between Gregory Townsend’s avarice and the buying the doctor’s silence, the family’s accounts had dwindled to practically nothing.
“His name.”
Violet whipped her head around to meet his eyes. Callum’s jaw was set, a muscle ticking as his hands flexed and fisted at his sides. “What was that?”
“His. Name.”
A thrill ran through her, and the resulting shudder cast off a few of the tendrils of pain still clinging to her skin. After her loss, her family, aside from Rose, had kept her at a distance, as though her downfall would poison them as well. To have someone so violently angry over her suffering was affirming in a way she hadn’t expected.
Damn him for upsetting all her expectations.
“There’s no point. Once I’m ruined, he’ll have no power over my family anymore.”
He pulled a card and pen from the inside of his jacket and stepped closer. At this distance, she could see his fingers tremble. “Give me his name and I’ll track him down.”
“Why would you—”
“Hisname, Violet!” He barked the words vehemently enough that she stepped back, and his eyelids dropped shut. Callumstabbed at his hair with his hand and shook his head. “A man shouldnae get away with something like tha’.”
“Gregory Townsend, but I never intend to see him again.” She lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I want nothing to do with him.”
He caught her hand, laced his fingers with hers, and spoke through clenched teeth. “A man who’d do tha’—” He growled low in his throat. “Ye didnae deserve to be treated so poorly.”
Her fingers burned where they pressed against his, and the inhospitable places in her chest warmed at the edges. Something in his touch centered her, pushed the shattered pieces together until they almost resembled the whole. “I know I didn’t, but that changes nothing.”
He looked down at their joined hands and pulled away, and she felt the loss of his warmth instantly. “I understand why ye want to be ruined.” His voice rasped as he spoke. “I didnae entirely understand before, but now I do.”
“Good,” she said as she smoothed her damp palms over her skirt. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”
He huffed as he shook his head. “We both have a confidence to keep.”
Her heart twisted as she stared at him. Their secrets bound them together, their unusual pact carrying additional weight. “We do,” she said. “I don’t want to be powerless anymore. I won’t let another man take my agency away like he did.”
His face worked before he stepped back from her and cleared his throat. “Let’s get ye ruined, then. Let ye start the life ye want.”
Right, the life she wanted. Far from Callum and his strength, the reticent fortress of protection that he already was building around her. She liked that part of him too much. He’d proven he wasn’t the silent brute she’d thought him to be. She’d tried to push him away, but, as with so many of her relationships with men, it backfired; her revelation only seemed to pull him closer. But whatever budding affection she held for him had to be pruned, immediately, before it could grow into something that would strangle her.
He nodded, his lips still pulled up, and words fell from her mouth without her planning them. “I’d like to take you up on the offer of a dance tonight.” He cringed, and, fool that she was, she pressed on. “If you want to, that is—”
“Violet…” He stepped back, and the look in his eyes extinguished whatever had warmed in her chest a moment ago. “I have to be in York for a meeting, and—”
