At Last Comes Love

23

SHE had not missed it, then. If Toby was four and a half years old, if he had been born just after Christmas, then he must have been conceived during the previous spring – before Laura left London.

It was inevitable that she discover the truth sooner or later, of course. It was foolish of him to have delayed, to have waited until his hand was forced, until she was upset and bewildered and had undoubtedly jumped to all sorts of seemingly obvious conclusions.

She was still subdued when he went down to the drawing room after tucking Toby into bed for the night. She had avoided his company until now, and he half expected to find the room empty. Perhaps he had half /hoped/ to find it empty. Would he have gone in search of her or put off the confrontation until tomorrow? It did not matter. She was sitting beside the empty fireplace, bent over her embroidery.

She did not look up or stop stitching.

She did not look like a woman waiting for the daily hours of courtship.

He knew beyond all doubt that he had not misunderstood this afternoon. "Were you lovers before you ran away together?" she asked, drawing her needle out of the cloth, trailing green silk behind. "No," he said. "Maggie – " "It was his child she was bearing, then," she said. She attempted another stitch, but her hand was shaking. She rested it on the cloth, the needle pointed upward. "Randolph Turner's." "No," he said. "Maggie – " She looked up then and her eyes were swimming in tears. "It has to be one or the other, Duncan," she said. "It cannot be both, but it cannot be neither. It is /one or the other/. Either you were lovers and fled when she discovered she was with child. Or she fled with you, taking her husband's unborn child with her – in which case you have withheld a legitimate child from his father all this time. Which is it, Duncan?" He stared at her, grim-faced. "Neither," he said.

She moved her embroidery frame to one side and stood up. Her hands closed into fists at her sides, and she took one step toward him, her face pale. "You cannot tell the truth even when you are cornered, can you?" she said. "I try to tell myself that at least there is a noble motive behind your lies – that you love Toby and cannot bear the thought of relinquishing him to his real father. But there is no real excuse. I wish it were the other – that you and she were lovers and ran off together and then concocted the story of violence and abuse to excuse yourselves.

It would still be despicable, but God help me, I wish it were that.

Which /is/ it?" He had brought this upon himself. He understood that. Even so, he could feel the stirrings of anger in himself. Her face was only inches from his own. "It is /neither/," he said curtly. "I suppose," she said, "she had another lover and /he/ would not run off with her. How very noble of you! And the dead cannot defend themselves, can they?" "Let me explain," he said.

But she was angry herself now and horribly upset – that was quite clear to him. She clapped both hands over her ears in quite un-Maggie-like fashion. "I am /sick/ of your explanations," she said. "I am /sick/ of your lies.

I will not listen to any more. And I /hate/ you for one thing more than all else, Duncan. You brought me here without telling me the truth, and now I have grown to love Toby too. And I too feel the temptation to hide the truth forever so that he can remain part of our /happy/ family. I will never forgive you for that." And, without removing her hands from over her ears except to use one to open the door when she reached it, she hurried out of the room.

God damn it, he thought. /God damn it/!

She would not listen to him, and he could hardly blame her. But if /she/ would not listen, would the rest of the world? Had he always been right to fear as much as Laura ever had that it would not?

And what would Maggie do now? Keep her mouth shut? Speak out?

Should he /force/ her to listen?

They had been falling in love – or so he had thought. They had been learning to trust life again, to trust love again, to trust each other.

But her trust in him had been jolted because he had not been frank with her. And he had only himself to blame for that. He had been afraid to tell her everything, afraid of what she would advise, what she would perhaps try to force upon him, what he knew in his heart he must do.

He sighed deeply and left the room. But rather than follow his wife upstairs, where he assumed she had gone, he headed outdoors and strode in the direction of the stables. He was going for a ride.

For the next week Margaret kept herself busy, learning more about the running of the house, making tentative plans for dinners and parties to which to invite the neighbors, making calls upon the laborers' wives, bearing baked goods with her, exploring the park on foot, often taking Toby with her in the mornings while Duncan was busy, writing letters to family and friends, working on her embroidery.

She did nothing about the new knowledge she had acquired. Actually, it was only /suspicions/ that she had acquired, and it was unwise to act upon suspicion alone. Or so she told herself. He had refused to answer her question, but he had wanted to /explain/ to her – the eternal plea of the guilty. Perhaps she should have listened anyway.

Oh, /undoubtedly/ she ought to have listened. She had asked questions and answered them herself, because it had seemed to her – and still did – that they could be answered in only one of two ways. Neither of them pleasant. /Was/ there another explanation?

She did not believe it was possible. But surely she ought to listen. She had always prided herself upon being a reasonable being, upon giving everyone the benefit of any doubt there might be of guilt.

But it was incredibly difficult to raise the matter again now that they had quarreled. She procrastinated. Which, she admitted to herself sometimes, was a kind way of saying she had become a coward. It was almost as if she believed that by keeping herself busy and by avoiding any private conversation with Duncan, the world could be kept from exploding into a billion pieces.

He in the meantime had become cold and distant, almost arrogant in manner – except when he was with Toby. He slept in a bedchamber next to the suite they had shared for a week.

There was no more courtship or romance.

Or marital relations.

Margaret's love for Toby, recent though it was, became something of an agony. He was careless, and carefree, in his affection for her much of the time, but sometimes he made her heart ache more than ever. One morning, for example, she was sitting on the riverbank while Toby darted about, playing some solitary game in which he did not need her participation. After a while he came skipping toward her, a posy of daisies and buttercups and clover clutched in one hand. "For you, Aunt Meg," he said, thrusting them at her and pecking her cheek with puckered lips.

And he went skipping off back to play before she could thank him properly.

There was something else that weighed heavily on her mind. She had been married for almost a month, and she had not had her courses since her wedding. She was three days late. /Only/ three days, it was true. But she was usually very regular indeed.

She did not know if she hoped or dreaded that her lateness had some significance.

And then, in the middle of an afternoon eight days after her quarrel with Duncan, Margaret was coming up from the flower garden, her arms laden with flowers that she had cut for the drawing room. Duncan, she could see, was walking up from the stables with Toby, who was holding his hand and prattling on about something. They had been out riding.

Margaret turned to go into the house without waiting for them.

She turned, though, when her foot was still on the bottom step, and looked down the driveway. Duncan too had stopped and was doing the same.

A horse and horseman were approaching, though the man was still too far distant to identify.

And then more horses appeared behind him – four of them pulling an elegant traveling carriage, which Margaret recognized despite the distance.

It was Elliott's.

Elliott and Vanessa were coming here? And Stephen? She recognized the horseman suddenly. "Look, Aunt Meg," Toby cried, flying up beside her, his arm pointing. "Some people are coming. Who can they be? Papa says it is no one from near here." "My brother," she said, smiling. "And my sister and brother-in-law, I believe." Oh, she /hoped/ Nessie was in that carriage. And the children too. She ignored the absurd urge to race down the driveway toward them. She stood clutching her flowers instead and glanced briefly at Duncan when he came to stand beside her. "It is Stephen," she said, unnecessarily, as he was close enough to recognize. "And Elliott's carriage." "Stephen," she cried as his horse's hooves clattered onto the terrace.

She set the flowers down on a step and held up her arms to him, smiling and tearing up at the same time.

He dismounted in one fluid motion and wrapped her in his arms. He held her tightly and wordlessly. "Meg," he murmured as he released her, and they both stepped aside to allow the carriage to come up and stop at the foot of the steps.

And then in no time at all Margaret was hugging her sister joyfully and turning to hug Elliott too.

And only gradually noticing something.

Nobody was smiling. Nobody was talking either except to say her name.

Something was wrong.

Kate! One of the children. The children were not with Nessie and Elliott. They never went anywhere without the children.

Margaret stepped back and looked fearfully from one to the other of them. She could feel the color draining from her face. "We had to come as fast as we could to warn you," Stephen said, looking from her to Duncan. "Tur – " "Stephen!" Vanessa said sharply. "The child!" "Oh," Margaret said, looking down at Toby, who was clinging to one of Duncan's legs, half hidden behind it. Oh, of course. She had not told them about him. Although Duncan had reluctantly agreed to let their neighbors know who he was, he had not wanted the rest of the world to know – including their families. "This is Tobias," she said, smiling at him. "Toby. He is … He is Duncan's son." "Hello, Toby," Vanessa said, smiling at him. "I am very pleased to meet you." Toby stayed half hidden. "I think," Duncan said, his hand on the child's head, "we had better step into the house. Maggie will take you all up to the drawing room while rooms are being prepared for you. I will join you after I have settled Toby in the nursery." He looked grim.

They all looked grim.

Margaret gathered up her flowers again and led the way up the steps. She handed them to a footman in the hall and led the way up to the drawing room. And incredibly, when they were there, they all conversed politely for ten minutes, until Duncan came to join them. Margaret asked about the children and Vanessa answered. Margaret asked about the journey and Elliott answered. She asked about Stephen's plans for the summer and he answered.

Just as if they were not all perfectly well aware that disaster loomed.

It was not about Kate, Margaret realized, or about any of the children.

They would have told her immediately.

She was pouring the tea when Duncan came into the drawing room and the door closed quietly behind him.

Margaret set down the teapot though she still had one more cup to pour.

Nobody got up to hand around the cups that had already been poured. "We came to warn you," Stephen said after a few moments of silence. "Fortunately we three were still in London, though Monty and Kate had already gone back to the country. Word is going around, Sheringford, that you are harboring a child here." "My son is living with me here, yes," Duncan said, advancing a little farther into the room, though he did not sit down. None of the men were sitting, in fact. Elliott was standing by the sideboard, Stephen by the window. "Maggie knew about him before we married and refused to allow him to be hidden away somewhere." "I love him," Margaret said, "as if he were my own." There was a slight buzzing in her ears. "Oh, Meg," Vanessa said in a rush, "it is being said that Toby is not Duncan's child but Randolph Turner's. And indeed he seems to be the right age, and he does have the look of Mr. Turner." "Laura was blond and delicate," Duncan said, his voice curiously flat. "I never knew her," Vanessa said. "But of course you are right. You would not have run off with another man's son. I know you would not, Duncan. But – " "But Turner himself believes that the child is his," Elliott said, one hand playing with the brandy decanter though he did not pour himself a glass. "So does Mrs. Pennethorne. Norman Pennethorne is beside himself with fury. It is being said that they are all coming here, Sheringford.

To take the child away." "Toby is mine," Duncan said. "No one is taking him anywhere." "Perhaps he /is/ yours, Sheringford," Stephen said. "I would not call you a liar, and I cannot think why you would want to keep the child if indeed he were not yours. Not now that the mother is dead, anyway." "Oh, Stephen," Vanessa cried, "you know nothing about parental feelings.

Just you wait." "That is all beside the point, Vanessa," Elliott said. "The point is that the child, whoever his father actually is, was born to Turner's wife – within nine months of her elopement with Sheringford. The boy is legally his. No court of law in England would rule against him." "No one," Duncan said again, "is taking Toby away from this house. I invite anyone to try." Margaret sat mute, her hands cupped in her lap.

It had happened, then. It was happening. She had no decision to make. It had been taken out of her hands. Toby was going to be taken away from them. As was only right.

She thought for a moment that she was going to faint. Or vomit.

She understood something suddenly – something that perhaps her mind had deliberately blocked during the past week. She understood those elusive flashes of recognition she had felt sometimes when looking at Toby. It had not been a likeness to Duncan she had been seeing, but a likeness to Randolph Turner. /His father/.

Her question was answered now. There could be no more doubt.

Toby was a legitimate child. He was the only son – and heir – of a wealthy, prominent member of the /ton/. Who had very possibly never beaten his wife in his life. Who had possibly loved her and been cruelly cuckolded.

Duncan had robbed a man of his son for almost five years.

He had robbed – or tried to rob – Toby of his birthright.

Why he had eloped with Laura Turner she did not know. Perhaps there /had/ been some abuse. But it all did not matter now. Toby was Randolph Turner's. "Excuse me," she said, and she got to her feet, pushing the tea tray back as she did so, and hurried from the room and down the stairs and out of the house. She was halfway along the avenue to the summer house before she slowed her steps. No one was coming after her.

Her family must know that for the moment there was no comfort they could offer.

And Duncan would not come.

She did not want him to come.

She never wanted to see him again.

That child. Oh, that poor child.

Duncan would have wasted considerable time going to the lake, but fortunately he had the presence of mind to ask a groom, who was in the stable yard rubbing down Merton's horse, if Lady Sheringford had passed that way.

She had not.

Duncan's second guess was the summer house, and he saw as he approached it along the avenue that he was right. She was sitting inside, not watching his approach, though she must have been aware of it.

He had not wanted to come. He wanted to be at the house, his arms tight about Toby. He had asked the three members of Maggie's family to protect him – should all the forces of the law arrive on his doorstep while he was gone, he supposed. "Of course we will," the duchess had said, tears swimming in her eyes. "Yes, of course," Merton and Moreland had said, almost in unison. "Go to Meg," the duchess had added.

He did not even want to be doing this, he thought as he neared the summer house. He had been angry with her all week – and more hurt than he had been willing to admit. He had thought she was coming to love him.

Yet she had not trusted him enough even to listen to what he had to say in answer to her questions, which she had answered herself.

Of course, the fault was at least half his. He ought not to have waited so long before telling her something she had every right to know.

He stepped inside the summer house and leaned back against the doorjamb.

She did not look up at him. "It makes me feel sick to be in the same room as you," she said, her voice toneless. "And it makes me angry to be in the same room as you," he said. "You always have all the questions, Maggie, do you not? And all the answers too. How comfortable for you!" She looked up at him then, with eyes that were very direct and very hostile. "You are right," she said. "I might have saved my breath on questions to which the answers were so glaringly obvious." He folded his arms across his chest. "I have been very guilty as far as you are concerned," he said, "believing perhaps that my solemn promise to a dead woman was more binding than my duty to my own wife. Or perhaps just procrastinating out of fear of where telling the truth would all lead. Everything I have told you in the past, Maggie, is the truth. Unfortunately, I told you only a part of it, and that was very wrong of me. You had a right to know it all before agreeing to marry me." "Yes, I did," she said. "I was a fool." She leaned further back in her chair and turned her head to look out through the window. "And so," she said, "Mrs. Turner was an abused wife – if indeed you told the truth. If you also knew when you took her away that she was with child, you did very wrong to take her. If you discovered the truth later, you did very wrong to keep her. And if you really felt her life or her sanity were at risk and kept her away anyway, you did very wrong to allow her to keep the existence of his son from Mr. Turner. And even if you did so to appease her, you were very wrong to keep Toby from his real father after her death." "Good God, Maggie," he said, angry again. "Toby is not Turner's son." She turned her cold gaze back on him. "Liar!" she said. "I have /seen/ the likeness. I refused to understand it until I heard what my family had to say this afternoon. But then I did. Toby looks like Mr. Turner." He laughed, though amusement was the very furthest emotion from his mind. "You see?" she said. "You cannot deny it when the truth is staring the world in the face. You are going to have to return Toby to his father – and it will damage that child immeasurably. May God have mercy on your soul, Duncan." "Still," he said, "you have all the answers, Maggie. I lived in a fool's paradise for almost two weeks after our wedding. I thought you were a loving person." Anger flared in her eyes, her cheeks, her thinned lips. "I cannot love someone," she said, "who would steal a child from his father and deny him his legitimacy and his birthright. I cannot love someone who has perhaps destroyed that child's life for all time even after he has been taken back where he belongs. He loves you. He thinks you perfect. He does not know you are the devil incarnate. He is just an innocent child." She was sobbing and not even trying to hide her tears.

He stood against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, his eyes also filling with tears.

Punishment, it seemed, was indeed never ending when one had transgressed society's laws. He had thought there was peace to be had at last. And even happiness. But no, he had not. He had known Pandora's box to be open. He had known this would all happen.

She was swiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands and glaring at him – and then looking closer at him, perhaps seeing his tears. "Last week," she said, "I refused to listen to you when you wanted to explain. It seemed to me that there /was/ no explanation except lies.

But perhaps I ought to have listened anyway. Tell me now what you were going to say then. But tell me the truth. All of it. Don't try to cover it up or make it look pretty. I already know the worst. Pardon me, I already believe the worst. Tell me the truth." "Randolph Turner has a brother," he said. "Oh, please," she cried sharply. "Don't insult my intelligence, Duncan.

Tell me the truth!" He stared dully at her until she folded her arms. "I will not say another word," she said. "Tell your story." "Turner," he said, "has no title, but he is enormously wealthy, probably one of the wealthiest men in England. The family money was made, it is rumored, in the slave trade and has been converted into property and rock-solid investments. Like many men, he wishes to pass on his inheritance to a son of his own. It was his reason for marrying Laura." She was looking at the hands in her lap. But he believed she was listening to him. He inhaled slowly. "I think," he said, "it is altogether possible Turner prefers men to women." She looked up sharply and then down again. "Or perhaps," he said, "the problem is something else. However it is, he was … impotent with Laura. Whenever he tried, for the first year or so of their marriage, he would leave her bed in frustration and not go near her for some time. But after that first year or so, his frustrations were acted out far more violently. He blamed her for his impotence. He started to beat her." Her hands, he noticed, were clenched tightly in her lap. They were white-knuckled. "And then," he said, "after a couple of years he got rid of his valet and employed another – a man who looked so much like him that they might have been twins. I know – I saw him once, an insolent fellow with a knowing smile. He was an illegitimate brother of Turner's and caused considerable amusement in the household, though Turner did not display him a great deal to public view." Maggie's hands had crept up to cover her mouth and she was looking at him with horrified eyes. "You are not going to tell me," she said, "that Mrs. Turner had an affair with him?" "It was far more ghastly than that," he said. "The man had been brought to the house to impregnate Laura. I suppose he was being paid a small fortune. It went on for almost six months altogether. Turner supervised – he watched. And he always beat her afterward and called her a slut and accused her of enjoying it. And every time her monthly cycle came to an end and she was not with child, he beat her even more viciously. The man is insane, Maggie." Her hands covered her mouth and her eyes now. "And then, finally, she /was/ with child," he said, "and hid it for the first month, taking the beating rather than confess the truth. At the end of the second month she came to me – it was the night before my wedding to Caroline. She had confessed to the beatings before then. She did not tell me the rest until that night. I did not doubt for a moment – I had /seen/ the fellow. I took her away and hid both her and the child – Toby – after he was born. I hid them until after her death. I would have hidden him and passed him off as the Harrises' orphaned grandson for the rest of his boyhood if you had not insisted otherwise. Though I concurred with you on that. A child cannot be hidden forever. I am Toby's papa, Maggie – and he is my boy. That is the way it is and the way it will remain. There, you have it now – the whole sordid, nasty truth." She was rocking back and forth in the chair, her hands still spread over her face. "Toby," she whispered at last. "Oh, poor Toby. But Stephen was right.

Legally he is that man's. He did not divorce her. And even if he had, it would not matter. Toby was conceived while she was still with him. He can come and take Toby anytime he wishes." "Over my dead body," Duncan said softly.

She lowered her hands and looked up at him. There was no vestige of color in her face. Even her lips were white. "Duncan," she said, "forgive me. Oh, but how glib such a request is. How /can/ you forgive me? I would not even listen to your side of the story.

I did not trust you." "With perfectly good reason," he said. "The fault is mostly mine, Maggie. I would not trust you with the truth, because I had promised Laura that no one would ever know the ugliness that had been her life with Turner. And because I was afraid." "That I would not love Toby," she said. "Not that," he said. "I feared you would try to persuade me to bring the whole story into the open. But who would believe it? Who /will/ believe it? It will be Turner's word against mine. And she /was/ married to him right up to her death. Even if the truth is believed, Toby is still legally his." She said nothing. "Maggie – " he said. He rested his head against the doorjamb and closed his eyes.

She was on her feet then and taking his hands in hers and lifting them to her cheeks. "We are going to have to /think/," she said. "We are going to have to find a way of saving Toby and keeping him here. Oh, good heavens, of course we must. You are his father, and I am his … Well, his Aunt Meg.

Aunts can be formidable creatures." He withdrew his hands from hers, wrapped them about her, and drew her close. He lowered his forehead to her shoulder and surprised and embarrassed himself horribly by weeping.