If he took after his father, in no time, he would surpass her in height. Already, she saw the signs. His arms and legs were lanky and awkward. Even his neck seemed too long for his body, as if preparing for the frame he would one day grow into. Nothing about him resembled her at all, except for his eyes. He would become a strapping young gentleman, towering over her.
How odd to think that the babe she had carried in her womb and held lovingly in her arms would one day become a man. Would he resemble Clay even more as he aged? The thought pained her, but she could not help but to wonder.
Regardless, it would little matter, for Clayton Ludlow would be long gone from both their lives at that point. He would never be the wiser.
Why did the notion cause a pang in her breast? An ache that would not dissipate? She did not wish to think about it. Did not wish to feel. Instead, she turned all her emotions toward the thin body in her arms.
“Edward, my love.” She hugged him tightly, grateful he was not yet of an age where he did not wish to hug his mother. He was still innocent and young enough to think she could do no wrong and the world was a fair, safe, and lovely place.
Ah, innocence.
“Mama, you are squeezing me far too tightly,” he complained.
Perhaps there went her supposition he still felt she could do no wrong. Just as well, for she most assuredly could do wrong. And she had. But she had spent the last eight years doing her best to ensure none of those wrongs would come home to roost.
She released her son, smiling down at him as a surge of maternal protectiveness rose within her. Nothing could have prepared her for the love in her heart the moment she had first gazed down upon her babe in swaddling. His face had been red and wrinkled, his hair a dark tuft that had reminded her painfully of Clay, but her heart had sung. Being a mother gave her, all at once, both the greatest joys and the greatest frustrations she had ever known.
She could not resist ruffling his dark locks affectionately. “And how is my favorite gentleman today?”
“Growing weary of his studies,” he grumbled. “I wish to go outside. It feels as if we have been trapped inside these walls forever.”
Essentially, they had. Their time of mourning had stretched, each day slowly less bleak than the last. And then, just when their lives had at last begun to settle back into a semblance of normalcy, the Home Office had sent its emissaries and its dire warnings of threats against her life.
Resentment surged inside her, clawing up her throat until she longed to scream. How dare those villains murder Freddie? How dare they take a young boy’s father from him? As if their crimes were not heinous enough, they then sought to take his mother as well. The injustice of it all made her want to lash out. To smash something.
But she was not a violent person.
She was a mother, and she had to be strong and calm now for her son.
She had not yet told him about the danger facing her, and she was not sure she would. Each time the words rose on her tongue, she swallowed them down with the bile, unable to shatter his fragile world once more.
“The weather outside is unseasonably chilly,” she told him lightly, “and the fog is particularly atrocious. I should say it is not a day for the out-of-doors.”
Edward frowned, his expression looking so much like Clay’s stern visage that it took her breath. “It is almost always foggy, Mama. I do not care. I want to stretch my legs.”
“You are stretching them now, my darling boy.” She tried to keep the worry from her voice, but she feared it bled through. Her concerns were twofold now: the Fenian threat and Clayton Ludlow both. She had not realized, until Clay’s abrupt return to her life, just how uncanny the resemblance was between true father and son.
He had not met Edward yet, and now she was more certain than ever that she must keep that introduction from occurring. If he suspected the truth, she did not know what she would do. She could only hope her marriage to Freddie would vanquish any suspicion from his mind. But one had only to look at Edward and Clay to see they shared the same blood.
“I want to run, Mama,” he said. “I want to run in the gardens.”
Yet another trait he and Clay shared: a love of physical motion. Before Freddie’s death, she had smilingly sent Edward outside whenever his boisterous nature required freedom and movement. But things were different now. There could be hidden dangers lurking for him outside. Anything could happen, and she would not risk her son. He was all she had.
“You are the duke now,” she told him quietly, and though it was true she ought to encourage him to begin accustoming himself to his future duties, she hated the lie. “You must remember your position.”
“Papa is the duke, not me.” Edward’s lip trembled. “I miss him.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she gathered her son against her once more, embracing him every bit as tightly as before in spite of his earlier protest. “I miss him as well, my darling. But we must be brave together. Papa would want us to be brave. And he would be so very proud of how strong you have been. You will make an honorable and good Duke of Burghly. This I know with all my heart.”
Freddie had been their pillar. He had always been ready with a smile or a quip. His wit and his heart were unparalleled, and he had been so very generous with both. There had never been a doubt in her mind that he loved Edward as if he were his own son. When he had offered her his unconventional proposal, he had made it clear to her he would accept her babe—male or female—as his own. And he had. He had more than lived up to every promise he had made on that day.
Until his death. Even in death, he had made certain she and Edward would be protected.
“Do you think I can be as fine a man as he was?” Edward asked solemnly.
The anguish on his small countenance made her crumble inside, but she refused to allow it to show. Instead, she smiled and cupped his face. “I know you can be, for you already are.”
“Thank you, Mama,” Edward whispered. “I hope you are right. Papa always said you know better than anyone else, and I must trust you in all matters.”
