The room went very still. Mary felt the words land against her body before her mind caught up to them.
Another man. Not Richard. Another man’s child.
She gripped the edge of the bookshelf, stared at Richard’s face and searched for the lie.
“That is not possible,” she said.
“Charlotte had been… involved with someone before the betrothal was finalized. A man who left London before she discovered the pregnancy. She was terrified. Her belly would begin to show within weeks, and if she walked down the aisle, every person in the church would see. She begged me to help her.”
“Help her by disappearing?”
“By disappearingtogether. If we both vanished at the same time, the scandal would attach to both our families equally. Everyone would assume what you assumed. What the whole of London assumed.” Richard’s voice was steady, but his hands gripped each other hard enough that his knuckles whitened. “I hid her in a village with a midwife. I paid for everything. I stayed at a cottage nearby so I could check on her, and when the baby was born, the midwife sent word, and I went to her.”
Mary’s throat burned. She swallowed against it. “And Tommy?”
“Charlotte was in pieces after the birth. She wept for days. She said your father would never accept the child. That he would throw her out. She had no money, no way to support a baby on her own, and the man who fathered the child was gone.” Richard looked at Evander. “I offered to marry her. To give Tommy a name and a legitimate claim. But Charlotte refused. She still believed her lover would return, and she wanted to wait for him.”
“So you brought the baby here,” Evander said.
“My money was also running out. The midwife’s fees, the cottage, Charlotte’s care. I could not sustain it. So, I made a decision.” Richard’s jaw tightened. “I brought Tommy to you, Evander. I left him with my handkerchief and Charlotte’s ring because I knew you would recognize them, and I knew you would care for him. I knew you would not turn him away.”
“You left him in a basket on my doorstep,” Evander responded gravely.
“Because if I had knocked, you would have dragged me inside and demanded answers I could not yet give. Charlotte needed more time. She needed to recuperate from the birth, and she needed to decide what she wanted, and I could not take that from her.” Richard looked at Mary. “I am sorry. For the secrecy. For the pain it has caused. For the way it has upended your life, and Evander’s, and Tommy’s. I wanted to help Charlotte. I wanted to give us both a chance at being with the people we love. I handled it badly, and I know that.”
Mary stared at him. The story sat in the air between them, enormous and impossible, and she turned it over, looking for the cracks, the contradictions, the place where it would fall apart and reveal the truth she expected to find beneath it.
“I do not believe you,” she finally said.
Richard gulped, then nodded. “I understand.”
“Charlotte would have told me.” Her voice cracked, her eyes filling with tears. “If she were pregnant, if she were in trouble, she would have come to me. I am hersister. I know her better than anyone alive, and she would not have hidden this from me.”
“She was ashamed, my lady,” Richard replied softly. “And she was protecting the man she loved.”
“Who?” Mary stepped forward, willing the tears away. “Who is Tommy’s father?”
Richard hesitated. His mouth opened, then closed. “I would rather Charlotte tell you herself. It is her story, and the father’s identity is not mine to reveal.”
Mary’s eyes burned. “Where is she, then? Where is my sister?”
Richard gave them the name of the village and the midwife’s address. Evander wrote it down without comment. Mary memorized it, every syllable, and pressed her nails into her palms to stop her hands from shaking.
“I will send someone at first light,” Evander said. “Someone trusted. We will bring her to London.”
“I want to go myself,” Mary said.
“We cannot leave Tommy.”
The words stopped her. She opened her mouth to argue and realized she had no argument. Tommy was upstairs, sleeping, and the thought of leaving him, even for a day, even to bring Charlotte home, pulled at something so deep inside her chest that it ached.
“Then send someone now,” she said. “Tonight. Do not make Charlotte wait another day.”
Evander nodded. He turned to Richard. “You will sleep in the study. No room has been prepared.” His voice hardened. “And Richard? Do not leave this house.”
“No more running,” Richard said. “I promise you that.”
Mary looked at Richard one last time. She searched his face for the liar she wanted to find, the careless, reckless man who had seduced her sister and abandoned his child. A man who spun a convenient story to cover his failures. She searched, and what she found instead was a man who looked exhausted, guilty, and more like his older brother than she had ever noticed before.
