The command filled the room.
Lady Ravenshaw whispered her husband’s name. “Daniel.”
The man’s nostrils flared. For a moment, Andrew thought he might still deny it, might cling to the ruins of his lie simply because men like him mistook stubbornness for strength. Then, his shoulders shifted.
“Yes,” he said through his teeth. “The child is mine.”
Lady Ravenshaw closed her eyes. Andrew felt no triumph, only a cold, clean rage that had nowhere sufficient to go.
“And the scandal?” he asked her this time.
Caroline opened her eyes slowly.
“I sent the first whisper,” she confessed. “I ensured the right people heard enough. His Grace of Sinclair, a maid, a child hidden in the country.” She swallowed. “It did not require much. Society was eager.”
“And Frances?”
Her gaze flickered.
Andrew’s voice dropped. “My wife.”
Lady Ravenshaw looked ashamed then. Whether of the act or of being caught, Andrew could not tell.
“I thought if she doubted you, she would leave,” she continued. “And if she left, the matter would collapse back upon your household, not mine.”
Andrew stared at her. His anger, which had burned hot since entering the house, became something much colder.
“You placed a forged letter in my wife’s hands.”
“It was not entirely forged.”
“No,” he supplied. “Worse. You used a dead woman’s fear and bent it toward your purpose.”
Lady Ravenshaw had no answer.
Ravenshaw stepped forward. “Enough. You have your confession. What do you want?”
Andrew looked at him for a long moment. There were many answers to that question. He wanted to strike him. He wanted to drag him through every drawing room in London and make him repeat the truth before every whispering fool who had feasted upon Frances’s humiliation. He wanted Mary alive long enough to see this man brought low. He wanted the child never to have been threatened, never to have been born into fear, never to have needed Andrew’s protection at all.
But wanting had to serve the living.
“The two of you will leave society,” Andrew ordered.
Ravenshaw stared. “You cannot be serious.”
“At once.”
Lady Ravenshaw whispered. “Leave?”
“London. Almack’s. Balls. Dinners. Clubs. Every drawing room where either of you might speak a word, exchange a glance, or start another lie.” Andrew looked from one to the other. “You will withdraw.”
Ravenshaw laughed again, but this time there was strain beneath it. “And if we do not?”
Andrew lifted the letter. “Then I reveal everything.”
“You would expose the child.”
“No,” Andrew corrected. “I would exposeyou. There is a difference, and I promise you I have the influence to make society understand it.”
