Danger Wears White (21 page)

No gentle courtly kiss this. He opened his mouth over hers and she responded by letting him in. She leaned against his shoulder, knowing she could do this whenever she pleased, her tension melting away as he showed her how much he wanted her. Cupping her cheek, he deepened the kiss, holding her the way he wanted her, his tongue a delicious invasion in her mouth. She moaned, the small sound urging him on. She tasted him, his flavor both familiar and unexplored in a way she couldn’t explain, except that this kiss was the start of something, not the end.

When they’d parted in Lancashire, she hadn’t known if she’d ever see him again alive. In London, she thought him capable of the most devious behavior. Now, she didn’t care. She just wanted him to carry on kissing her.

He lifted his mouth from hers. His lips were reddened, as hers must be, and his eyes slumberous, the lids half-closed. “Sweetheart, you’ve made me the happiest man alive.”

She laughed, happier than she’d been for a long time. “I doubt that.”

“I can’t imagine anyone happier.”

She daren’t speculate on what that meant. Because he wanted her, or maybe something else? And she still hadn’t told him her news. She didn’t know how he’d feel about that. “How do you feel about children?”

“I don’t mind children.” He laughed down at her. “In our situation they are probably inevitable.” Before she could say any more, he kissed her again, and she lost herself in him, gladly giving up sense and reason for this. She could wallow in his kisses all afternoon. But she had to talk to him. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she eased him away.

He gazed down at her, a question in his eyes. “There’s something else?”

How did she tell him? She had no experience in conveying news that was so personal to someone of the opposite sex. Before now, men to were either servants or visitors, both to be held at a distance. No father, no brothers to ease her way. She settled for the beginning. “This month—my courses—” She hung her head, rested her forehead against the soft fabric of his coat.

“Sweetheart? Imogen?” His tones grew urgent. “My God!” Carefully, as if she were made of porcelain, he took her to the sofa and eased her down on to it, sitting by her side and slipping his arm around her shoulders. “Are you telling me that you’re pregnant?”

Tears misting her vision she lifted her chin. “It’s only one month, and so much has happened that it could be something else. It’s just that I’m usually so regular—“

“Then we marry sooner rather than later. I was about to suggest that we waited until Julius returned from Lancashire, but in the circumstances, I won’t wait.”

“I don’t want to—“

“I will ask the princess to release you from her service early. We will marry in days.” He gazed down at her, his expression inscrutable. “I’ll visit Doctor’s Commons tomorrow and obtain a special license, and then we may marry. I won’t wait, Imogen.” His voice grew sterner. “It’s my duty and privilege to care for you, never more than at a time like this.”

“I-It’s not certain,” she said. Sometimes women could be mistaken in the first month, or even the second.

“But you said you’d marry me anyway. Do you wish for something grander? Because I will not have people look askance at my child.”

“They will anyway.”

“They will not dare!” he said so vehemently that he made her laugh. As if he’d take on everyone in London who gave her a speaking glance. From his expression, he might well do that. His blue eyes sparked pure steel.

“If we go into the country they would not.” Home. The very notion filled her with happiness. Nothing else mattered, that she could have the man she wanted and the house. “But it will be your house now.” Her heart sank. That part of her cherished dream must leave her. Once she married him, her belongings would be his.

“No.” He cupped her shoulder, and turned her to face him. “I will take measures to ensure the house is still yours. I’ll see a lawyer tomorrow and have that drawn up.”

“But I want to live there,” she said.

“So do I.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “It’s a fascinating place, totally unlike anywhere I’ve ever visited. To live there would be constant fascination. I can’t imagine ever tiring of the place. I have a house, and an estate, somewhat larger than yours, but I’ve never felt like that about it. It was a convenience. My father bought it for me.” His mouth kicked up at the left side. “Will you object to marrying below you?”

She frowned. “What on earth do you mean?” She was gentry, no title, no significant fortune. A daughter of a disgraced peer, nothing more.

“My father is a Cit. Some look down on him, even though he married a viscountess.”

“What nonsense!”

He laughed and hugged her. “I agree, particularly since he’s richer than Croesus. But he earned his money and continues to work in the City. To some that means he gets his hands dirty.”

“I’ll wager I get my hands dirtier. It’s lambing time now, and I’d be in the thick of it if I were home.”

“Do I detect a note of wistfulness? I believe I do.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll take you home as soon as I can. Especially with your news. Although the best child care is in London, and I wouldn’t have you put in danger for anything.”

That consideration made her hesitate, too. Most women who could afford it came to London for their confinement, especially the first, because the best midwives and physicians were here. But enough women had babies in the country for her to be comfortable with that. And she’d be at home. Surely that would ease her concerns. However, she was her mother’s only child.

His laughter rang around the room. He didn’t seem the least concerned about her news. She’d thought he’d be displeased, especially since he took precautions not to get her pregnant. “You don’t mind?”

“Mind? About what? The baby? No, my sweet, my only concern is for your safety at this time. I am ridiculously happy.”

* * * *

She was worried. She’d really been concerned that he wouldn’t want the baby. If she’d told him before he proposed, he’d probably have abducted her to ensure her compliance. No child of his would be reared by anyone else.

But what they were making here was more than that. Slow warmth kindled in his belly when he recalled that for the next eight months she’d be carrying part of him around with her. Did she know how much that meant to him? How he’d longed for a family of his own, an irrational feeling that he had no way of explaining?

Their trysts in the little secret room had obviously had more results than they’d intended. As he held her, he made plans. They’d marry the day after tomorrow. Today was Tuesday, and ah— “Even the date works in our favor. It’s Lent, so we can’t marry with ceremony in a church. We must do it quietly and without undue celebration.”

“Can we marry at all?” She remembered couples who waited.

“We can and we will,” he said firmly. “We’ll do it at my house, that is, the house I share with my family when we’re in London. We’re not allowed to celebrate the occasion with flowers and singing, but we will damned well have flowers and sing if we want to later. In fact, you might get to discover that I have a passable baritone.”

He smiled when she did. She had a particularly winsome smile, and she used it far too infrequently. He made a vow to himself to get her to smile more. To make her happier.

But not now. What he had to tell her might mean she lost the happiness from this occasion, but he couldn’t keep the secret from her any longer. He had so far respected Julius’s request for him to keep the information to himself, but with the wedding brought forward he couldn’t in all conscience marry her while she was in ignorance. He had tried to approach the subject a moment ago, but she’d deflected it.

He must steel himself to broach it now. “You are reconciled to this?”

“Yes. I have thought hard and long, and yes.”

A pang of sorrow hit him in the solar plexus. He preferred that she accepted him impulsively, because she wanted to, not as the result of long deliberation. However he had her now and he wouldn’t let her go. “I promised to tell you something, and it might change your mind. I won’t hold you to the acceptance if that is the case. My unpardonable impatience made me demand your answer sooner than I should have done.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “What could possibly do that?”

“I’m hoping it will not. But you’re not in possession of all the facts.”

“What?”

Still holding her, but loosely in case she wanted to draw away, he leaned back on the admittedly comfortable sofa, although the coral color made him feel mildly bilious. He found a cushion and pushed it behind her back. He’d heard pregnant women sometimes had back problems, although he imagined that happened later, when their weight changed. No harm starting now. No, he was putting off telling her. He’d start at the beginning.

She laughed. “Why, can it be that you’re flustered?”

He laughed with her, confusion a strange thing to him. “It’s you.” He trailed his fingers over her shoulder. A shame fabric covered it. Needing to touch her, skin to skin, he took her hand. “Very well. To the meat of the matter.” He took a breath and plunged in. “We discovered that the Old Pretender had more children than we had previously supposed.”

“What?” Her startled exclamation cut him short. “He—what?”

“You know he married Maria Sobieska in ’nineteen?”

She nodded.

“She left him soon after their second son was born and moved to a convent. She died in thirty-five.”

“I know that.”

She must have heard that most of her life, but he needed to get the dates sorted out for her. Because she would most certainly not know the next part. “The Old Pretender is a melancholic. He used women to help him with his moods, or so he claimed. So he had other children, legitimate and illegitimate. A monarch has the power to legitimize their children, with the help of Parliament.”

“But he isn’t a monarch.”

“That is a matter of opinion. Of course I agree with you, but others do not. And politics can prove expedient at times. He had one particular mistress, by whom he had a number of children. I say ‘a number’ because we’re not sure exactly how many. His mistress was Maria Rubiero. Have you heard of her?”

Imogen shook her head.

“Not many people have. His counsellors considered it best they didn’t. But he was particularly attached to Maria, and it might have been when she discovered this that Maria Sobieska decided to leave him. There were other considerations, of course. They had never particularly liked each other. Maria Rubiero was a beautiful Italian girl who obsessed the Old Pretender. She grew into a clever woman, but she had nobody powerful to work for her. She came from humble origins, but the Old Pretender loved her truly and would have married her had someone not spirited her away until he agreed to the marriage to Maria Sobieska.”

She gazed at him in wonder. “Why have I not heard this before?”

“Not many people knew before last year. He had other mistresses, but none as long-lasting as Maria Rubiero. We do not know why he kept her existence secret. Perhaps it was because his wife hated her.”

He stroked her hand, caressing her palm with his thumb, as much for his comfort as for hers. “Maria Rubiero kept careful records. She noted the births of her children carefully. She had them as regularly as Barbara Castlemaine did to Charles the Second. She didn’t keep the babies because they’d be the center of plotting and intrigue. The Old Pretender never gave her enough money to live in the style she expected. Until he married Maria Sobieska, he didn’t have that kind of money. After, he was pouring money into the Cause. Whatever the reason, Maria Rubiero always felt aggrieved and concerned for her babies. There is no evidence that she was a maternally-minded woman, so sending them away may also have been a way of keeping her lover close.”

Here it came. He braced himself for her shock. “So she sent her children away with people she could trust, together with copies of their birth certificates and a letter detailing the circumstances of their births. Presumably she intended to use them as pawns. After all the Old Pretender only had two sons by his wife. Daughters are an asset, too, especially to a man as devious as the Pretender.”

“Why?” Her voice was thin and quiet.

He squeezed her hand and gave her a reassuring smile. “Because they can be married off to suitable candidates. Allies. And they can strengthen claims, urge causes. Married to a Hanover, they could reinforce the Hanoverian claim to the throne. You see?”

Yes, she saw. Comprehension darkened her eyes. “And the heir to the throne is a boy. An unmarried boy.”

“Yes.”

Her grip on his hand tightened. Instead of yelping with pain when his bones ground together, he bore it stoically and kept his voice quiet and unthreatening. “So it’s good for these children, wherever they are, to be married to other people?”

He hadn’t thought of it that way. Too bound up with his own ambitions, he hadn’t even considered it, fool that he was. “Yes, I suppose so. Maria Rubiero died in a fire in 1740. As far as we know, all her records perished with her, but she might have kept copies somewhere. Nobody has found them. So the number of her children and where she sent them is lost.” He caught a breath.

“I was born in 1730.” She had realized the significance of the story and what it had to do with her, then.

Her grip slackened, and she released his hand. He forced himself to lean back and let her go. Never had she appeared more beautiful than she did now, her expression bleak, her eyes sparkling with intelligence and understanding, but her lips still reddened from his kisses. He ached when he realized he might never taste those lips again.

“Yes you were. Imogen, we believe you might be one of those daughters.”

“And my parents?”

“Foster parents.”

She nodded, her face a picture of regal impassivity. “That explains why my mother has never behaved particularly fondly toward me but insisted on remaining in this country and ensuring I received a proper education. She rarely touches me, you know.”

His heart went out to her. His mother had never withheld her affection from either of her sons. Whatever problems the siblings had, they never lacked parental love.