The Problem with Seduction

Chapter Twenty-Five

THERE WAS A TIME not so long ago when the sound of the knocker would have caused Elizabeth to look expectantly at her door. She cuddled deeper into one corner of the sofa and rested her cheek against a cushion. For weeks, she’d come to be skeptical of the sound of the knocker. In the last few days, she’d come to despise it. Each clink against the metal plate teased her hope that her husband would come. That Prinny would have commuted Con’s sentence after all, or some other miracle had occurred and she was not doomed to spend the rest of her life without him.

Below stairs, someone was being let in. Lady Montborne—Clara, as she’d begged Elizabeth to call her, or Celeste or Trestin. Elizabeth’s callers were limited these days. She hardly had the time. When she wasn’t at Nicholas’s house begging to be let in, she could barely muster the energy to see even those she held dear. All her reserves were held for surviving the cold stone steps of the service entrance to her son’s prison.

Nicholas always knew she was there. But he didn’t care.

Mrs. Dalton appeared at the bedchamber door. A flurry of hopefulness buoyed Elizabeth enough to sit up. “What is it? Who’s come?”

The nurse’s eyes shone but her mouth pursed tightly, as if she feared she’d explode with the answer. “You must come quickly, madam. Here, this wrap will suffice.”

Elizabeth looked at the flimsy wrapper and shook her head. “I must dress first.”

Mrs. Dalton didn’t voice her obvious disapproval. She wound Elizabeth’s dark tresses into a quick bun and dusted loose powder across the bridge of her nose, then helped Elizabeth into the many layers required of a proper morning dress. “There,” Mrs. Dalton said, without pausing to look at her handiwork. “Now, go!”

Elizabeth almost tripped over her hem in her haste to get to the door. The few minutes needed to perform her ablutions had been enough time to let her imagination get ahead of her. Her heart was already skipping. She was afraid to speculate. Was it Constantine? Had he come for her?

When she saw her visitor she stopped so suddenly at the base of the stairs, she almost tripped. She caught herself on the banister. “Nicholas!” she said, then clamped her hand to her mouth. “That is, Captain Finn.” And Captain Finn’s wife.

She gaped at them. Nicholas regarded her solemnly, with a touch of pity, but his wife smiled warmly. “We shouldn’t have come, of course. Still, I could even less imagine a scenario where you were invited to our drawing room, instead.” Mrs. Finn squeezed Nicholas’s hand. “We should have, though. We ought to have let you in, and not left you to sit on the stoop like a beggar.”

Nicholas pursed his lips as if tasting something very sour. “I should have done.” His voice was almost a grumble, but there was a touch of chagrin in it, too.

No apology could have shocked Elizabeth more. She didn’t know what to say.

And then, without her baby, nothing either Finn or his wife did say truly mattered. All she wanted was Oliver.

Mrs. Finn stood close enough to Nicholas to nudge him with her shoulder. As if they were the picture of domestic tranquility, rather than a scorned woman and her lecherous husband. “Will you ask her, or should I?” she asked him.

Nicholas grunted. Then he cleared his throat. He shifted his broad shoulders in a weary shrug. “I can’t.”

Mrs. Finn’s sympathy was expressed in a manner as calm and stately as the woman herself. She slipped her hand into his. “My husband’s fleet is readying to sail for America. We don’t know how long he will be away.”

Or if he would return. Elizabeth’s gaze shot to the man she’d once thought she loved. She knew painfully how hard it was to wait for him to return. Not knowing if he’d already died. There was no requirement for the Navy to inform a mere lightskirt of an officer’s passing, and certainly she wouldn’t have expected to receive the news from his wife.

Nicholas squeezed Mrs. Finn’s hand. He looked no warmer than he had a moment ago, but it seemed he did have at least a drop of sentimental feeling for her.

She drew a restorative breath. “I almost can’t say it, myself. One of us must, however. Here it is. If little Oliver is to be left without a father, then it’s only right for you to care for him along with Lord Constantine. He quite tugged on my heart with his unwavering commitment to the boy, and then there is what my conscience tells me is right.” Her complexion waned. “Every day, I see you approach the house. I already love this little boy like my own. But I ask myself, how would I feel if I were you?”

Elizabeth blinked back a tear, moved by Mrs. Finn’s understanding. “It’s horrible,” she whispered. “Wretched.”

Mrs. Finn nodded. She pulled her hand from her husband’s and took a step toward Elizabeth. “I simply cannot be the one keeping your child from you. I’d feel selfish having him with me if Finn isn’t even here. He’s your son, though I love him very much.”

Elizabeth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’d allow me to have him for a time?” Even a few months…a year…she’d accept any length. It was more than she’d ever hoped to have again.

Nicholas’s answering scowl left no question whose doing this was. “It began that way. Then I could see I was far outgunned. I ought to have left him with a mistress, as I did before, rather than my wife—”

“Mr. Finn!” his wife hissed sharply.

Was there more? Elizabeth held her breath. She was coming to realize how much she’d underestimated the slight woman who’d always seemed her nemesis.

“Yes, woman, I know,” he said, batting her hand from his arm. “No doxies.” He faced Elizabeth and held his arms akimbo. “Beth, see for yourself: I’m a changed man. One woman from now on. I suppose that must be my wife, but God knows I can’t live with her harping. You must take Oliver or I shall never have any peace.”

“But you were so adamant,” Elizabeth said on a breath. His about-face left her disembodied. It was too much to hope she was hearing him correctly. Was this the same man who’d fought with her, pursued her, and had her husband imprisoned?

Nicholas sighed deeply. “If I were you, I wouldn’t ask too many questions. This isn’t because I want to. She has convinced me it is the thing I must do.”

Elizabeth’s faith threatened to take flight. She was still too afraid to believe this was happening. What if he had another change of heart when he returned? In two years? Or five?

“I’ll have a contract drawn up,” he said, correctly interpreting her skepticism. “She says you can be left with no cause for worry, as it isn’t healthy for my boy to have a mother who always frets.”

Elizabeth’s lips formed a small O. No sound escaped her, though she wanted to sob and laugh at the same time. She reevaluated the woman she’d never expected to have as her ally. Mrs. Finn smiled at her kindly and nodded her head slowly. She must be the best woman in the world to have sided with her husband’s former mistress.

Elizabeth battled an overpowering need to embrace her. If she were given the smallest indication her thanks would be welcomed, she would. But Mrs. Finn seemed to hold herself away, and the time to do so passed. Nevertheless, Elizabeth hoped she knew how deeply her selflessness was appreciated.

Nicholas clasped his wife’s hand again. “That’s my son, make no mistake. I don’t want you to think I’m reneging. But this is best for everyone involved.” He grimaced. “To say I hadn’t counted on how many people would be affected, whether the boy’s raised in my home or yours, is a great understatement. Your father was so bullheaded about it, for example, I almost gave up. He was exhausting in his insistence that I not. The whole deal with Lord Constantine…well, I almost couldn’t look at him. Then Lady Montborne paid me a visit—” he grimaced again, “and chewed my ear off on the subject—”

Elizabeth’s lips parted in surprise. “When?”

Mrs. Finn’s soft voice held a hint of amusement. “Yesterday.”

Nicholas shook his head woefully. “This whole ordeal has been awful. For everyone. I love my son. The truth is, I’d never allow him to be raised under…” he glanced askance at his wife, “under the conditions in which he was conceived. Now, with Lord Constantine to watch over him—and you,” he added pointedly, “for I feel you’re not the same, either, I can have no objection on that front. I’ve never encountered a more devoted man, even if his involvement has never made sense from the first.” He sighed. “If only it were simple.”

She clutched the banister. He sounded earnest. This was real. It was truly happening. Please, don’t let it be a dream. “When will I see him?”

Now, she pleaded silently. She surely couldn’t countenance waiting even one more day.

Mrs. Finn’s soft smile widened. “He’s in the carriage. With his nurse. We really didn’t think you’d object.”

Object? Elizabeth hurled herself through the foyer and out of the front door. A carriage waited on the street, its horses stamping impatiently. The steps were still set down. Elizabeth raced to the vehicle and grasped the handle. She yanked the door open and tumbled inside.

Oliver looked up from the round wooden sucker he had clasped in his hands. He saw her and his face lit up. He grinned, showing her three perfect little teeth. “Goo!”





On the fourth day of Con’s freedom, he woke shivering. His head pounded and his limbs ached. He burrowed deeper into his coverlet and trembled with fever until he could no longer pretend he wasn’t nauseated, then lifted himself enough to turn over the edge of his bed and heaved sickly yellow bile onto the floor.

When it seemed he had no more in him to give up, he groaned. Then another wave of nausea hit him. He struggled to contain what meager contents were left in his belly, but the feeling couldn’t be halted. He vomited again.

No one heard this weak moan, either. His brain pushed against his skull until his head could explode from it. He looked up carefully toward the bellpull. Too far. He’d never reach it.

His eyes closed halfway. His mouth tasted bitter. He was freezing. He looked down at his hand clenched on the edge of the mattress and a cold terror gripped him at the sight of speckled red bumps scattered across his skin.

Oh, God. Gaol fever.

He let out a wail of distress. A yell surely heard throughout the house. Then his head dropped against his pillow. Soft, cool fabric soothed his hot cheek but the embroidered coverlet pulled over his legs did nothing to quell the frigid knowledge that he was going to die. Just like his father had.

“No,” he croaked. He tried to say it again, louder, but he was seized by a petrifying torpor. His head lolled and rested listlessly to one side. His arms and his legs…God, he couldn’t feel them. His heart raced at this new symptom. It beat against the wall of his chest, but it was no use. He could see and hear, but his lips didn’t move. He was going to die, and he was never going to have the chance to tell Elizabeth that he’d forgiven her.

After what felt like years of paralysis, a maid entered. She walked toward him, hesitantly at first, mayhap confused by his unmoving eyes. Then she screamed. She spun on her heel and almost crashed into the open door as she hurried from the room, all the while screeching, “He’s dead! He’s dead!” at the top of her lungs.

He really didn’t appreciate that.

His mother ran in shortly after. He tried to smile at her, or reach for her, but he couldn’t. He was trapped. Panic overwhelmed him until he was barely aware of her touching his skin. He tried pursing his lips, blinking, anything to be able to communicate with her.

Her breath hitched. She leaned across him, peering into his face, and he blinked again. Then she clutched her hands to her breast and sobbed with relief. “He’s not dead!” she cried, much to his relief. “Find Tony. Fetch Dr. Bourne. Bring more blankets, and hot water.”

Con wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the hot water, but then, he couldn’t very well argue, could he? He could do nothing but be fussed over, and slowly lose what vitality he had left.

For days he lay helpless in his bed. His arms and legs shifted restlessly, but he had no control over them. Even lethargic as he was, he couldn’t seem to stop twitching. His head swelled until the pressure of it made him nauseated. Every limb on his body ached like the devil. He developed a dry cough that wracked pitifully from his lungs. This was nothing like the fever he’d developed from his knife wound, because he was horrifically awake for it all. He was dying, and he knew it.

He silently begged them to fetch his wife.





Finally, blessedly, Elizabeth came.

She ran to his bed and fell across him. He would have urged her not to risk herself with his contagion, but he was so very glad to see her, and then, he couldn’t tell her not to. He didn’t even want to. She smelled like heaven, like talc and spilled milk, like clean bedsheets, and he would have shed a tear of gladness if he’d been able.

She rolled slightly off of him, enough so he could breathe better, and cuddled against his shoulder into the length of his side. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and stroked his chest with her long, slender fingers. “Constantine,” she whispered against the curve of his ear, “if you can hear me, I beg you, forgive me. I never should have…” Her body shuddered. A heartbeat passed. “I treated you abominably. I am a wretched, wretched person. I don’t deserve you. But please, please don’t die. I love you. Oh, how I love you.” Her words broke as she said them. She swallowed thickly. Her fingertips grazed his face, leaving the feel of her in a cool path drawn on his skin. “I would have come sooner, but I didn’t know. I swear it. I didn’t hear about your release until yesterday, when I read it in the papers. My father didn’t tell me.”

The last came out bitterly but to him, they were the sweetest words he’d ever heard. She hadn’t forsaken him. She hadn’t known, and his family had assumed she’d known, and no one had told her because they’d thought she didn’t care. He could have kissed her.

He settled for blinking rapidly at her. She sat up sharply, nearly digging her elbow into his chest, and leaned over him. “You can hear me!” She laughed, maniacally happy at first, and then her small shoulders shook as she broke into sobs.

Her heartache and her fear overwhelmed him as if it were his own. He blinked slowly three times. I. Love. You. He tried with everything in him to move his hand toward her, or just turn his head, but it was as if his body was no longer connected to his soul. He could demand his limbs to move all he wanted to, but they had already died.

Waiting for his mind to die passed in a slower, more transcendental way. He could do nothing except think. One bit of knowledge that haunted him—and scared him witless—was remembering the long years when his father had been imprisoned, before he’d succumbed to gaol fever. Con had been considered too young to visit him, even after Tony had scraped together enough to buy him Liberty of the Rules and let a small hovel beside the prison. Did Tony blame himself for their father’s death? He shouldn’t. The marquis would as likely died within the prison walls as without.

But he must ask Tony later, after he managed to live through this.

And it seemed he would. More days went by. Interminable days made bearable only by Elizabeth’s presence beside him. Every hour, he tried lifting his head. It remained immovable. But she’d left him with little choice. He had to survive this. He couldn’t die, no more than he could walk away from his wife and live with the knowledge that she’d been right to mistrust his promises of keeping their family together. He must live so he could kiss her, and hold her to him, and make a new promise to try again.

He was reminded of his duty, every moment, it seemed, for she talked about Oliver in the present tense. How’d he’d grown, and what babble-nonsense he’d come to associate with what item. Con ate up every word, even as he didn’t understand how she knew so much about their son’s progress.

Her communication with Nicholas would have seemed absurd two months ago, but after her quasi-reconciliation with her father, it could just as well be that Elizabeth had turned over a new leaf, one more inclined toward compromise than the old Elizabeth. He didn’t ask her how she knew the things she knew, but then of course, he wasn’t able to. The answer could just as well be that it was one of those things he’d missed when he’d dozed off. He couldn’t ever seem to stay away for an entire visit.

But she’d been to see him. She’d come. Every day since the day after he’d fallen ill. Surely those were the actions of a wife who did care.

He had to live. For her.