“It can’t be!”
“Oh, but it is, my dear. And we had an arrangement, which you have now forfeited. Go live with your mother or ask Shropshire for a set of rooms—oh, that’s right, he has no money. You certainly chose wisely.” Mark despised the cruelty in his voice, but he could not fight both his anger and the deep betrayal he felt. Or the loss of the misguided trust he had placed in this woman over the years.
The mother of his child.
His throat closed, and he coughed, fighting to regain his breath.
Stella stepped forward. “What do you mean, no money? He’s a duke!”
Mark almost laughed at her naiveté, something he would not have thought of her. “He is also an inveterate gambler. He lost most of the title’s wealth five years ago and has been selling the properties since. He has a bare set of rooms not far from here and a seat in Parliament due to his title. No heirs. The title will revert to the crown when he dies. Which will be not too long from now, if the rumors are true.”
She sank down on the bed. “What have I done?”
Mark sighed. “You have been as big a fool as I have.”
Stella looked up at him, eyes pleading. “Olivia...”
“I will take care of Olivia. And your mother, if she gets ill again. I meant it when I said you might go live with her, because at least then there will be some money, along with your wages. But our association is ended. I will give you until the end of the month to vacate this house.”
“I do not think I can live with my mother. She does not know about”—she waved a hand around the room—“this.”
“Then do what you can. But I can be no part of it.”
Her normal color returned, and she looked down at her hands, apparently resigned. “What will you do with the house?”
“I am not sure. Clean it. Rent it. Sell it. I will decide later.”
“The jewels?”
“They are yours to keep. They could help support you.”
“But my maid—”
“I will keep her on until I make a decision about the house. If the new tenant or owner does not need her services, I will provide a reference, so she does not have to say she worked for you unless she wishes to.”
Her voice turned bitter. “How thoughtful.”
Mark held his tongue. Stella could be as acrimonious as she wished, but they both knew she had created this drama, and he could have easily chucked them both out on the street this very day. After a moment of silence, he gave a sharp nod. “Very well. I will ask Matthew’s man of business to check in when you are gone. Goodbye, Stella.”
He turned and headed down the stairs, snatching his top hat from the table near the door and jamming it onto his head.
“Lord Mark?” The soft voice came from the doorway of the small parlor at the front of the house. He turned to see Stella’s maid, a wisp of a girl with brown curls peeking from beneath her cap. She clutched her hands over her stomach, fingers twisted in the cloth of her apron. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “Clara, is it?”
She bobbed her head.
“Do not fret. This will not be visited on you.”
She gave a long sigh, tears filling her eyes.
“Mark, please!” The wail echoed down the stairs and through the front hall. Clara winced.
Damn it, Stella.
“Take care of her,” he muttered to the maid, then he left, striding out the door and onto the pavement. He made his steps as long and heavy as he could, his boots pounding the hard surface beneath them. His anger, no longer a blasting flame, simmered deep within, a burning that drove him on. His cloak swirled around him as he pushed through the fog moving in off the river, and his vision tunneled, his thoughts a chaotic miasma.
Even now he could be ill with the beginnings of theton’smost dreaded illness. Many of the elite men carried the scourge of syphilis, and his own brother had warned him when Mark’s internal terrors from the war had turned him from the gentlewomen who wanted him to spend the night to paid companions—and Stella. Matthew had even reminded him of the adage so truthful in this age: “One night with Venus; a lifetime with Mercury.” But mercury, the supposed cure for the pox, often caused more damage than the disease. In France, in the rural areas that never knew medical aid, he had seen what the pox did to people over the years, the horrors it wreaked on mind, body, and spirit. The agonizing deaths.
