Manningham’s handwriting was easy to distinguish, and she couldn’t help but remember her father's assertions. She didn’t believe for a second that Manningham was simple. Nor, she knew, would anyone else who knew him. But why would his own father spread such a falsehood?
My lady—the message began. Not Felicity, but very polite and perfectly proper.
Please accept my most abject apologies for failing to meet you as I promised. I beg your forgiveness. Rather than make my explanations in writing, I’d be grateful if you’d meet me in the park, on the south side of the folly near the footbridge tomorrow at two in the afternoon.
Your humble servant,
Ld. Manningham-Tissinton
She drewa deep breath through her nostrils. He’d waitedhalf a weekto apologize. Had he been too busy squiring Greystone’s ward around town during that time?
But that shouldn’t matter to her.
She was well aware that he’d involved himself in Chaswick and Bethany’s most unfortunate incident. She had gone with Tabetha to visit Bethany the morning after her hurried wedding.
What a whirlwind that had been!
In Manningham’s missive, he insisted he wanted to explain. She would meet him.
She’d waited long enough.
Each morning when she awoke to the disheartening knowledge that her courses hadn’t arrived, she’d tried to ignore that time was running out.
She would meet him. Of course, she would. Because unless she was greatly mistaken, she no longer had a choice.
The next afternoon,following her by-now regular bout of retching, Felicity joined her mother in the drawing room, bringing along a new crocheting project to work on—a very feminine set of handkerchiefs.
And these she was makingfor herself.
“I’m going to call on Bethany again this morning.” But her friend was no longer simplyBethany—she wasLady Chaswick.
“Your father wasn’t pleased to hear you visited Byrd House. He doesn’t want you associating with the baroness until the scandal has settled.” Her mother waved a hand in front of her face as though the matter was too harrowing to discuss.
“But she’s my best friend, Mother, more like a sister. Father can’t expect me to stay away in her time of need.”
Her mother eyed her and then frowned. “But she isn’t going to be your sister, after all, now, is she?” She raised her brows before returning to her sewing.
Felicity’s mother’s words evoked a stubborn desire to protect her friend. Bethany had done nothing wrong and needed all the support she could get.
First, her father would take issue with Manningham, and now Bethany?
Felicity didn’t argue with her mother. It would only be for naught. But she wouldn’t allow this to go unchallenged. She was going to have to speak with her father.
And as though caught in an endless spiral, her thoughts brought her back to her present condition. Her stomach lurched and then the contents seemed to sink like a stone.
Her father was going to be livid. He had expressed his opinion where Manningham was concerned and if she was…
He was going to be livid!
She placed her hand over her abdomen, which was still relatively flat. Her father would have no choice but to give Manningham permission to marry her when he learned that she was carrying the viscount’s child.
Her situation was becoming all too real.
Carrying a child.
She tested the flesh beneath her fingers, unable to discern any noticeable difference… and yet. She was…
She was with child.There was no other reasonable explanation for the changes happening within her body—the fatigue, the tenderness in her breasts, not to mention the time she spent staring into the bottom of a chamber pot every morning.
