Page 67 of Better Off Wed

“And you,” she went on, ignoring him, “obviously care for her. Have you really known each other only a few days?”

He paused before answering. To confess to his mother that he’d given his heart away to a woman he’d known for less than a week was a humiliation he would prefer to be spared. “I saw her first last Christmastide. Lieutenant Hopkins, her brother, brought her to an officers’ dance.”

“But it was on this latest…mission, I think you called it, where you came to know her well?” she pressed.

“Yes. That is, no. I shouldn’t claim to know her well. Our supposed relationship was only—”

“Make-believe,” she finished for him, then paused to muse on the implications for a moment. “And you are sure you did not raise her hopes? For all her bravado, I do not think it was only pretend to her.”

“What makes you say that?” Damn him, but he could not keep the hopeful note from his voice.

“Women know things, my dear.” She reached for his hand and patted it. “Not everything, of course. I wish I knew what troubled you so. Why you persist in claiming that a few debts should keep you from marrying and settling down—keep you from happiness.”

“It’s more than a few debts, Mama.” He had tried his best, over the years, to hide the extent of the trouble from his mother and sister. Perhaps it was time to speak plainly. “The lease on Everham doesn’t begin to pay the mortgage. Every building on the estate is in need of repair. The farmland is worn out—sometimes I think Mr. Gilly rents it out of the goodness of his heart, for it certainly cannot do much more than repay his investment in seed and labor. An officer’s pay is not so princely as to be able to dig us out of that hole.”

Mama did not show surprise, but she was silent for a moment, as if considering how such a problem might best be surmounted. “You are handsome, personable. A viscount. You might marry a woman of some fortune,” she suggested, not for the first time.

“Yes. Wealthy merchants supply daughters and dowries enough to meet even the most penurious nobleman’s needs,” he said, repeating Laura’s sardonic observation on the way to Thornton Hall.

Mama nodded, though her expression was wary, clearly sensing that his apparent agreement was to be regarded with skepticism. “It does not sound much like recipe for a love and happiness, I suppose.”

“And that is not even to speak of the other debts,” he went on, ignoring her attempt to venture into increasingly dangerous territory. “Debts incurred in the name of Sterling.”

“Debts of honor, debts to shopkeepers,” she scoffed. “You are under no obligation to make good on another man’s, a stranger’s, promises.”

“And starve the families of other men who had no way of knowing the sort of man the late Lord Sterling was?” he objected. “If the title had come to Papa instead, would he have behaved any differently than I have?”

By the way she pressed her lips together, he could guess the answer was no.

“But your papa would also want you to be happy,” she pointed out. “He would not want you to try to go through the world alone.” Jeremy nodded, not entirely sure she was right. “Having only just met her, I will not presume to say that Miss Hopkins is the lady most likely to ensure your happiness. But I think you also know that the man who taught you about honor would not like to see you dishonor a young lady by playing with her affections or endangering her reputation.”

Unable to sit still beneath her reproachful look, he pushed to his feet and walked to the window. A dog trotted happily past the house, no sign of its master. No sign, in fact, of another human soul. He hoped he had told Laura the truth about the unseen watchmen, at least.

“It’s because of Papa that I cannot offer for her,” he said at last.

Behind him, Mama made a small noise, not exactly of surprise. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Before he died, he took me aside and told me…” He turned away from the window but did not meet her gaze, though he suspected she knew what he was about to say. “I am not his son.”

“Oh. I…see.” With nervous movements, she smoothed her skirts around her, watching her own fingers press the fabric against her legs. “I wondered if he hadn’t done as much.” For a moment, he thought she was bracing herself against harsh words from him, judgment. Then she lifted her chin and looked at him. How could he have doubted her strength? “And is it because Richard Addison’s blood does not run in your veins, that you feel this, this…guilt over the title you inherited? Do you imagine someone else would have borne the burden better?”

“I might have done,” he admitted, “when I was seventeen and knew less of the world. Now, however, I wonder whether it came to me because I deserve the burden more.” In two steps, he was at her side and dropped onto one knee by her chair. “I’m sorry, Mama. So dreadfully sorry at having been the cause, however innocently, of sorrow and pain.”

Sudden creases surrounded her eyes, and her head moved slowly side to side in confusion and disbelief. “Sorrow and pain? He loved you with a father’s heart—God willing, someday you will understand how a parent can grieve and fear and still love.” With cool fingertips, she traced the contour of his cheek, so similar to her own. “He was proud of the boy you were, and he would have been proud of the man you’ve become—glad to have had a hand in shaping the man you are.”

“But you, Mama—what of your grief? To think that every time you look on me, you must recall—” He turned away from her gentle touch. “No. It’s his blood I won’t pass on to a child. And as for Laura—she has risked her life and reputation to avenge young women mistreated and abandoned as you were. How could I ever propose that she tie herself to the son of a—?”

“Jeremy?” She sounded both stern and baffled. “What did your papa tell you?”

He pushed to his feet. “Surely, you will not wish to relive—”

“I think I must.”

The memory was with him always, as clear and sharp as if the conversation had taken place yesterday and not more than a dozen years ago. He could still feel the brilliant sunshine of a midsummer afternoon, unable to warm the chill, somber house in which a death sentence had been pronounced. He had wanted to pace but couldn’t, confined within the space of his parents’ bedchamber in the little stone rectory, Papa sitting up in bed, his face already gaunt, but his voice steady, speaking with the same unwavering certainty with which he spoke from the pulpit.

“Very well. He told me that when you were the age Julia is now, living in Philadelphia with your family, a British soldier—” He turned away, unable to face her. “You must believe, Mama, I would have done anything rather than don a uniform that must be repellant to you, but what better choice did I have? The law, the Church—every other avenue would have taken years I did not have before they yielded sufficient income for me to keep a roof over your head.”

When she spoke, his mother’s voice was quiet but even. “What exactly is it that this British soldier was to have done?”