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Chapter Ten
“You look like someone just threatened to cut your bollocks off, Ashford.”
“Damn close,” Sebastian muttered over the rim off his glass. He’d been stewing in a corner table at The White Heather for good long while, glowering at anyone who passed and waiting impatiently for Barrow to make an appearance, his conflicted feelings only worsening with each hour that ticked by. “Where have you been skulking about?” It was nearly midnight, and Barrow had only just shown his face on the floor.
“If you must know,” the man replied as he took the chair opposite without asking, “I was making some inquiries regarding that little blackmail business you asked me to look into.”
The reminder of Kitty Highbridge only soured his mood further, even if his entire purpose in coming here was to contemplate his current predicament regarding the woman. “You found the errand boy, then?”
“More than that. I’ve discovered the details in their entirety. It’s quite the sordid tale. Not to cast any aspersions on your lady—”
“She’s not my lady,” Sebastian snapped irritably.
Barrow only looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Sure, my good fellow. Anyhow, as I was saying. I have a hard time believing she knew nothing of the information that the mystery blackmailer held.”
“I thought you said you discovered everything?”
“I discovered the secret, not the purveyor of it. Now stop interrupting me. You are in quite the testy mood today.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Please, continue. I have vested interest in this information.” The fact that Kitty might have been lying about even this unnerved him. Perhaps this story, whatever it was, was the reason for a potential scheme to trap him in the first place.
“Mayhap this information should only be shared with Miss Highbridge? It’s quite delicate, and I am not sure who she would want to know about it.”
“Considering my marital state may be in jeopardy thanks to certain actions on her part, I think I have the right to know.”
“Finally swived her, did you?” Barrow replied with a short, teasing grin that fell when Sebastian didn’t return the gesture.
“I was prevented from pulling out in time,” he replied with another moody sip from his drink.
Barrow narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “On purpose, you think?”
“The fact that you immediately jumped to such a conclusion tells me this information is essential, indeed. I fear she may be trying to trap me into marriage.” His heart sank at the thought, not wanting to truly believe it of her yet knowing that the mounting evidence could not be ignored.
“If she knows the story that I am about to share, then I fear you may be correct.”
“Alright then,” Sebastian swallowed his trepidation with a small grimace. “Tell me what you have discovered.”
**
It’d been exactly four weeks, five days, and thirteen hours since Vauxhall, and Sebastian had yet to call on her. Not even once. Kitty anxiously picked at her embroidery, letting out a curse as she pricked her finger with the needle.
“Are you quite alright.” Sophie said from her seat in a wingback chair, her own needlework poised delicately between her hands. She had come to Kitty’s home on a morning social call with her husband, who was quite kindly assisting her frail butler with assessing some window repairs. “That’s the third time in the past hour that you’ve pricked yourself. I fear you may bleed all over that handkerchief you’ve been so lovingly working on.”
No, she was not alright. Not at all. There was no news form the blackmailer, she still had no idea what the big secret was despite the deadline being less than two days away, and the man she was falling in love with had all but abandoned her after she gave herself to him. And there was the last, most concerning matter…
“Sophie?” She asked quietly, putting down the project and trying to appear casually curious. “May I ask you something?”
“Ask away.”
“How does one get with child?” Kitty waved her hands at Sophie’s dumbfounded expression. “I mean, I know about the, um, you know…the physics of it thanks to what little you told me. I’m just curious about the particulars.”
Sophie opened and shut her mouth. “Well…” she began with a deep flush. “You already know a little about a man’s…er…organ.”
“Yes, yes,” Kitty prompted impatiently.
“Well, at some point, a sort of…fluid comes—” Sophie buried her face into her hands with a groan. “This is so embarrassing. Why are you doing this to me?”
Kitty thought back to her night with Sebastian, remembering his rather alarmed words before he’d groaned into her neck. Her heart quickened with anxiety. “That’s enough information. Thank you, Sophie.” She paused, picking at the edge of her fraying sofa. “Another question, if I may?”
