Page 13 of Only Pleasure Will Do

Chapter 5

Panic crushed Amorina from all sides, as though she were being suffocated, collapsing in upon herself. Shaking like a leaf in a high wind, she stared uncomprehending as Sir Reginald spoke to her, though she couldn’t hear the words for the roaring in her ears. The morning light began to gray into darkness and her legs would support her no longer.

No, no, no, no. Barely conscious, her mind kept repeating the refrain. This could not be happening. She’d been so very careful. He couldn’t have found Pearl.

Strong arms lifted her gently, carried her into the other room, and laid her down on the lumpy bed. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal and her head cleared. Opening her eyes, she stared at the white plastered ceiling and her stomach roiled.

“Let’s see if this makes you feel a bit better.” Sir Reginald had dipped the piece of her chemise in the water and now wiped her forehead and down around her neck. “A nasty shock, I’m sure.” He leaned over her to dab the cool cloth on her other side. “So you believe he may be looking for a child.”

She nodded and burst into tears. Why had she not thought of this in October? But then she’d been certain no one could find Pearl.

“Your child and his?”

“No!” She gasped, bolting up.

Matthews pressed her back onto the mattress. “Fainting again will not help matters. Lie still.”

His authoritative demand should’ve irked her—she disliked being told what to do more than anything—but somehow it had the opposite effect, calming her instead. She forced herself to lie back on the bed, her gaze darting to his face. “The child is mine, but not his.”

“Whose is it then, that you believe he may want it so badly?”

“I’m certain the father’s identity is of no consequence. Redmond seeks the child because he knows he will then own me body and soul.” She wiped her eyes. “Please allow me to sit up.”

“As you wish.” He tossed the rag into the bucket. Placing a hand under her arm, he helped her into a sitting position then sat beside her on the bed. “Are you certain the child’s father is not involved with this matter? Has he acknowledged the child?”

“You naturally assume she’s a by-blow?” She glared at the handsome face beside her. Men were all the same in some respects.

“It would be the obvious assumption.” His face again held no censure. Not a man to judge her then. Unusual in a world where all men were quick to fault a woman for things they’d had a hand in. “Are you saying the child is the issue of a legitimate marriage?”

She hung her head and gave it a single shake. “I’m sorry. I think of her only as mine. I wish for none of the ugliness of her circumstances to ever be known to her.”

“But she does have a father?” he asked rather brusquely then added more gently, “But not a man to whom you were wed at the time?”

“No. We could not have married had either of us wished it.” Her lips flared in disgust. “I know I did not.”

Frowning, he opened his mouth—the question he intended to ask so obvious she denied him the opportunity. “Shall I tell you the whole sordid story, Sir Reginald?” A wry smile touched her lips as he jumped. “No one alive knows it all, save me and him. And as my life is less than certain at the moment, will you stand as my confessor?”

“Are you sure you wish to lay that burden out, Madam Vestry?” He watched her carefully, his cool blue gaze fixed on her face.

“Someone should hear it if I die. Why not you?” If anyone could get justice for her child, this was the man. She was willing to trust him with her life. Therefore, he had a right to know everything.

Nodding slowly, he adjusted his position so that he could look more fully at her face.

She twined her fingers in her lap and kept her gaze on their restless movements. There was no good way to begin the tale, nor did she particularly wish to. To say the words aloud, to share her shame with another person, made the story somehow more horribly real than if she kept silent. However, it must be done. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly and began.

“My name is Aimée Madeline Forrester, and I am the daughter and only child of Baron Forrester of Rayleigh.”

Sir Reginald blinked several times, a little hiss of air escaping his mouth.

That confession alone would stun anyone who knew her only as Amorina Vestry.

Aimée Madeline Forrester. She hadn’t said her true name in so many years the sounds felt foreign to her tongue. “My mother died when I was perhaps two or three, so my father raised me by himself in the ancestral manor in Rayleigh.” She smiled as the memories of those days surfaced after their long absence. They’d been kept under lock and key for a very long time indeed, and with good reason. “It was an idyllic childhood.”

Sir Reginald looked askance at her, and she chuckled. “I’m sure many fallen women have had pleasant pasts, at least in part. Mine was quite wonderful for a very long time. I was taught manners and social graces as befit my station, and I had the run of the house and my father’s library. From the time I could make out words in a book, sitting on my father’s lap, I read voraciously. When I grew older, we would sit together in the evenings before the fire and read bits of books to one another.”

Amorina caught her breath at the memory, the moment so vivid she could believe it was spread out before her, happening as she spoke. Her father sitting in his favorite leather chair, showing her an illustration from a travelogue he’d been reading to her. Her own book had fallen to the floor as she leaned closer to see the engraving he pointed to. A moment she would give anything to return to this second.

“How old were you when your circumstances changed?” Sir Reginald’s soft voice destroyed the vision like a stone dropped from a great height shatters ice into a thousand needle-sharp shards.