Page 69 of A Sham Engagement

A few minutes later, his dirty boots discarded, Jack started up the wide staircase in his stockinged feet, each step an effort now tiredness was pouring over him in wave after wave. He needed to check Edward was sleeping soundly, so he kept on going to the nursery floor, where a single light burned on the wide landing.

Crossing to the night nursery door, he turned the handle with caution lest it squeak, and pushed the door open a crack. A candle flickered on the table beside the bed, throwing its warm light across the figures snuggled together in the bed, a book lying open beside them. For a moment his heart gave an ungainly leap—was that Mary cradling the child she’d never known? Then he saw that the figure he’d taken for a ghost had blonde hair and could not be Mary. Edward lay sleeping sweetly in Elenora’s arms, his head against her shoulder, his dark curls spread upon the pillow beside her blonde ones.

Jack stared, his heart still pounding from the shock. Was he glad it wasn’t Mary there with his child? A child she’d never wanted. The woman who’d lied to him throughout their relationship. He’d been a fool where she’d been concerned. In his heart, he’d known she was using him, but loving her had made him easy for her to manipulate. And manipulate him she had. But she’d left him with the best thing in the world—Edward.

His gaze lingered on the woman in the bed. What was Elenora wearing? Not the clothes she’d run through the slums in. She’d snuck beneath the quilts of Edward’s bed perhaps to comfort him, but he could see the silk of a peignoir he knew all too well. Someone had offered her a change of clothes, and the clothes were Mary’s. His heart did a further leap, although he couldn’t have said why. Was he angry she was wearing Mary’s night attire? And what was she still doing here? The impropriety of the situation settled on him heavily. Someone should have taken her home rather than allow her to spend the night looking after his child. Not that her reputation wasn’t already in tatters.

He frowned. He could hardly wake her now and take her home. That would be just as bad. He looked at his fob watch. Gone one. His only hope for her reputation would be if he wasn’t here in the morning, and could deny having been present overnight, but that was a faint hope indeed. He’d go to White’s and sleep there, in a chair if he had to.

He closed the door as quietly as he could and padded to his room to find clean clothes. Without the help of Briggs it would take him longer than he was used to, but he forbore from calling on his sleeping valet at this hour. All around him the house lay silent and peaceful. The servants would all be in bed, sleeping until they had to rise at five to lay the fires in all the rooms. He’d best be gone before they woke.

Once in his room, he stripped off all his dirty clothes, longing to be able to take a bath and rid himself of the stink of the gutter. No time. Leaving his things in a heap on the floor, he pulled on clean breeches, boots, and shirt and hurriedly fastened his cravat about his neck. Briggs would be horrified at the mess he made of it in his haste, but he was too tired to take trouble with it. Then, having put on a clean coat, swordstick still in hand, he descended to the front hall and let himself out. Let everyone believe he’d never been here. Alcock would swear to it, he knew.

The door closed with a soft click behind him, and he set off toward St James’s Street. It wasn’t much over a mile so wouldn’t take him long. His energy returned, he swung his cane as he walked, his clean boots tapping on the pavement. Elenora had not gone home. She’d stayed. That had to mean something, surely?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

White’s proved a singularly inhospitable place to sleep. Jack found a chair near the fireplace and settled into it, but sleep would not come. One of the discreet waiters, on duty all night long, brought him a brandy, but even that didn’t help. As the sun was just trying to pierce its way through the fog that hung perpetually over London in the winter months, he gave up all pretense of trying to sleep and set off along St James’s Street in the direction of Amberley House. Fresh advice from his mother was required in the light of his discovery of Elenora sleeping in his house.

He found his mother, not unnaturally, still in bed. “Go and tell her I need to see her. Again,” he said to his parents’ elderly butler. “It’s a matter of urgency, and I can’t wait.”

Westfield started up the stairs with Jack in hot pursuit, and knocked with diffidence on her ladyship’s bedroom door. A minute later Jack was inside and Westfield had departed, muttering under his breath at the way young people behaved nowadays and that no one would have dared to call before eleven when he’d been a young man.

Lady Amberley had been given scant time to adorn herself with a warm knitted shawl and was sitting up in bed looking irritated at being disturbed. One of the maids must have crept in earlier, before she woke, because a good fire was burning in the grate. Jack strode to the windows and pulled back the curtains, letting in what little light a February morning was forced to share.

“Mother.”

“Jack.” She sounded tetchy. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this extremely early visit? So soon after your last one. I’m not used to such frequency.” She eyed him with asperity. “Should I assume that you are worried I’m about to depart this mortal coil? What wouldn’t wait until this afternoon?” Her tone was frostier than it had been last night. Or was that early this morning?

Jack grabbed the chair from her dressing table and set it beside the bed. “You look charming, as usual, Mother.” He sat down.

She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Flattery will get you nowhere. Get to the point, because now you’ve woken me, I need tea and toast, which Westfield has gone to tell my maid to bring and, once that arrives, I expect you to leave. I am not at all used to being disturbed at this hour and you have put me right out for the rest of the day. Now, what is it you want?”

“I am in a little bit of a fix.”

“When are you ever not?”

“Frequently. My life has run with excellent regularity since Edward’s mother died. When have I ever come to you for help?”

“About eight hours ago.”

“I wasn’t counting that.”

“Well, I was. Whatever it is, do hurry up and get it off your chest. Are you off to speak to the girl now?”

Jack swallowed. “I need more of your advice.”

She tutted. “Go on. I suppose you’d better tell me.”

Jack swallowed. “You recall our conversation about Miss Wetherby.”

“Of course, I do. I’m not senile.”

“Well, things have rather moved on.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Jack wriggled in a discomfort he wasn’t used to. “After I left you last night, I returned home to Portland Place and went up to check on Edward after his ordeal.”