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“No, I am not.” A wave of disappointment shot through her. She wanted to have Will’s child and watch his face as he held their baby for the first time.
“Then why did you say such a thing?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I thought it was the surest way to keep them apart. I acted horribly, Sophie.”
Sophie drew her hand away and back to her lap. “Did it work?”
“I have no idea. Will dismissed me to my room like a child.”
“Was he angry?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “He is now.”
Sophie rubbed her temples. “Then why are you here?”
“Sophie, I lied to him.”
“And did you tell him the truth after Abigail left?”
Elizabeth nodded. “But there is more.”
“How much more?”
“We found my mother’s diary last night,” Elizabeth said quietly.
“Elizabeth, you are talking in circles. What does finding your mother’s diary have to do with you being here instead of at home?”
“Everything,” Elizabeth whispered, sensing Sophie’s frustration. “It was awful, Sophie. The things my mother did.”
Elizabeth related the events in the journal, including the section regarding the wager and the red-headed footman.
Sophie hugged her again. “I am sorry, Elizabeth. I know how much you had wanted to know the truth. And how you expected your father would turn out to be a peer.”
Elizabeth sat back and stared at the rug. “I would be able to accept what she’d done if she loved him. But she did not love him. She only wanted to win the wager and buy a bonnet.”
Elizabeth buried her face in her hands as tears tracked down her cheeks. “He watched,” she whispered.
“Who? The footman? That isn’t very unusual, Elizabeth. Most men like to watch as they make love.”
“Not the footman. My father watched them. There was a peephole, and he watched them have sexual congress.”
“Oh, my,” Sophie muttered. “But how did you end up here because of that?”
Elizabeth explained how she realized that she had been manipulating Will with her wiles. Then she told Sophie about her conversation with Will in the study.
“You told him you only made love with him in order to get him to stay in England?” Sophie almost shouted. “Have you lost your mind?”
“I think I have,” Elizabeth replied. “What am I to do?”
“I am not really certain,” Sophie admitted. “Stay here tonight, and we will figure what to do in the morning.”
Caroline sighed as she walked to the salon. Whoever could be calling at this dreadful hour of the morning? Anyone with sense knows calls begin in the afternoon. She had been at the Howards’ party until one in the morning. With a baby due in a few months, she needed her sleep.
“Who is in the salon, Rogers?”
The handsome footman turned with a smile that made her knees go weak. This baby had better be a boy because she wanted to get that man in her bed and couldn’t until Richard had his heir.
“A Mr. Mason and his daughter Abigail. They are recently from America.”
