Page 29 of The Scottish Duke
But the servants were people, not tiles.
“She draws,” he said.
“She does?”
“Quite well, too.”
“Does she?”
He glanced at her. There was a note in her voice he couldn’t identify.
“I found her to be a woman of good character,” she said, picking up her embroidery once again.
She didn’t speak for a moment and he didn’t rush to fill the silence with words.
“Why is a woman considered fallen while the man is exempt from any responsibility?” she finally said. “Women who have children out of wedlock are treated badly, Alex. They’re rebuffed and reviled, seen as creatures of sin. They can’t work if they have a baby to care for.”
She frowned at one offending flower and sent her needle like a sword into the fabric.
“Perhaps that’s why there are so many baby farmers.”
“Baby farmers?” he asked.
She nodded. “Mary told me about them. An article she read in the newspaper. They’re women who advertise that they’ll care for the infant for a small fee. Most poor girls in Lorna’s situation have no choice. They have to go back to work and they have no one to care for their children. Unfortunately, most of those babies die of starvation or neglect.”
She sighed, shook her head at her needlework, then glanced up at him.
“I do hope that Lorna is not forced to do such a thing. Does she have any resources?”
He shook his head.
She lived in a hovel. He didn’t like remembering her small dark lodgings. The room was cold, the air stagnant with unpleasant smells.
Why had there been mud on her face?
She was sticking to his mind in a way that most women didn’t. A series of vignettes replayed themselves in a loop: Lorna with her dress twisted around her waist, her voluptuous breasts revealed in the dim light. Lorna, held captive by laughter as her wig disappeared into the storm. Lorna, her hand on the door latch, wanting to escape the ball. Lorna, heavily pregnant. And one that he remembered too well: Lorna, glancing up at him with contempt in her gaze, as if he were the most loathsome creature on earth.
He was most assuredly not a prancing mouse.
To the best of his knowledge, he’d never fathered another child. He’d always had his wits about him, not to mention discretion. That night, that infamous night—for which he would pay dearly for the rest of his life—was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Whiskey was partly to blame, but lust was responsible for the rest of it.
He’d had to have her. If it had been up against a wall, he would’ve done that, too. If Mary had succeeded in interrupting them, he would have turned his head and growled at her, “Go the hell away.” Nothing could have come between him and Lorna. Nothing, and he’d never felt that way about another woman.
He should go to his office and concentrate on the treatise he was about to submit to the society. He’d come up with a way of classifying the fingerprints he’d obtained in Inverness. He was separating each fingerprint into quadrants and labeling them by the predominance of each sworl and curve. That way, he could more easily identify a subject than if he had to scan through hundreds and, hopefully—as time progressed—thousands of cards.
He glanced over at his mother. She was smiling as she stared at the embroidery pattern, but he knew that smile was for him.
“I think the child is mine,” he said. “Even though she wouldn’t admit it.”
His child. The knowledge was like a blow to his chest.
Lorna hadn’t tried to convince him. She hadn’t charmed him or even smiled at him. All she wanted was his absence.
At his comment, his mother’s right eyebrow arched toward her forehead. She had the most expressive brows of anyone he’d ever seen. Without a word spoken, she could castigate, ridicule, or question.
He didn’t doubt that she was doing all three right now.
“I’ll send for Edmonds,” he said, “and provide for her and the child. She won’t have to worry. She certainly won’t need the services of a baby farmer.”
