Page 10 of Once a Scoundrel

This was his punishment, he supposed, for giving the order that killed Daniel.

Her shoulders sagged with obvious disbelief. “Isn’t that the same story every compromised young lady makes these days? That her husband died in the army?”

“Do you have so little trust in me?” he pressed, irritated that she refused to believe him.

Her eyes flickered in the shadows. “You forget, Stephen. I knew you from before, when nothing you said or did could be trusted. When you certainly didn’t keep company with virtuous women. Perhaps you should have been more like Daniel and stayed away from scandal.”

He clenched his jaw in quick anger. The indictment on her face and the way she measured him unfairly, damning him before he even had the chance to prove himself—

“Well, too bad we can’t all be like Daniel,” he drawled bitterly.

Her spine stiffened, and she pulled her arm away. “What do you mean?”

Damnation.“Daniel fell in love with Mary,” he admitted with a heavy breath, regretting his outburst. “Jeremy is Daniel’s son.”

*****

Faith stared at him as confusion whipped through her. What Stephen had said...Impossible.She didn’t hear him correctly,couldn’thave heard—

She repeated in a whisper, too surprised to speak any louder, “Daniel Llewellyn...is the father?”

When Stephen cursed quietly at himself, she knew it was true.

Disbelief sank through her. How could that be? True, Daniel had created quite a stir that last season, matching Stephen’s roguish behavior measure for measure. But that had only been because of Stephen’s bad influence...hadn’t it? Daniel came from a respected family. Conservative Tories, no less. He never would have been so careless...would he?

“Let me explain.” Stephen gestured toward the steps leading into the dark garden below. “Please.”

She nodded stiffly. Bewilderment churned inside her as he led her down from the terrace to a stone bench at the edge of the gravel footpath encircling the lawn. In the shadows and with the privacy of the terrace’s stone wall behind them, they remained close enough to the party not to raise any eyebrows yet far enough away that they couldn’t be overheard.

She sat and looked up at him. “Daniel and that woman...How did it happen?”

He drew in a deep breath. “We’d been in India almost two years,” he began haltingly, as if he didn’t know where to start. “A few officers from our regiment were requested to travel to Calcutta to meet with officials from the East India Company. I was selected, and Daniel came along as my aide-de-camp. One night, we were invited to a dance. They needed partners for all the Company wives and daughters.” He paused, and she half-expected him to start pacing. “And Mary was there.”

“That’s when he met her?”

“Yes. I didn’t know that something had sparked between them. He kept it secret from me for months.” Then hedidbegin to pace the short distance in front of the bench, his boots crunching on the gravel. “He planned to wed her and use her father’s influence to secure a position for himself within the Company.”

“Did they marry?” Her mind raced as she tried to remember the few letters Stephen had sent, and there had been no mention of a wedding.

“No, they didn’t,” he said quietly, stopping still. “Because a few weeks later he was killed.”

Her hands clenched the edge of the bench in grief.Thatletter she remembered all too well.

He drew a ragged breath and continued quietly, “A few months later, Mary arrived at the regiment, distraught and inconsolable.” He paused, his face grim. “She was with child.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, that poor woman,” she breathed softly through her fingers, her heart aching for her. “She must have been terrified.”

He nodded. “She was. Her family had refused to help her and cut her off, and Daniel’s family accused her of attempting to extort money from them, of smearing their dead son’s name.”

Knowing Daniel’s family as she did, Faith readily believed that. The Llewellyns would never have tolerated a scandal.

“She had no money,” he continued, racking his fingers through his already unruly hair, “nowhere to go, and no one to help her.”

“Except you,” she acknowledged softly. He’d been Mary’s only salvation, keeping her from the streets or the poorhouse and her baby from the orphanage.Thatcertainly wasn’t the Stephen she’d known before. Oh, he would have felt pity for her situation, certainly, but he wouldn’t have gone out of his way to help her.

He heaved out a hard breath. “Yes.”

“That’s why you haven’t protested any of the rumors,” she whispered, understanding dawning in her. “Because you were protecting her and Daniel.”