Page 102 of A Winter Scandal

“Indeed.”

“Enough of this nonsense!” Gabriel’s voice cracked out. “I don’t care about your squabbles. I want to know what happened to my sister! Where is Jocelyn?”

“I have no idea where she is,” Emily retorted. “Nor do I care. The last time I saw her was when I pointed out to her the impossibility of her marrying Ian.”

“What did you say to her to make her leave?”

“The silly goose thought that she would run away with my fiancé!” Emily flared. “She wrote telling him that she was carrying his child. She had planned to marry Rawdon to hide her shame, and I was prepared to live with that. I knew that eventually Ian would tire of her or she would lose her heart to Rawdon or some other man. But then she wrote Ian, saying she could not marry without love and begging him to run away with her so that Ian and she and the bastard child could be a family. And I knew that Ian might very well be besotted enough to do it, however idiotic it was. So I had Jossman write her as Ian, saying he would leave with her, but I was the one who met her.”

“Dear God!” Ian stared at his wife as if he had never before seen her. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her you would never marry her. You were so thoroughly in debt you would be thrown in debtors’ prison in a matter of months if you did not wed me. I told her you had no intention of marrying her or acknowledging her bastard, and I offered, out of the kindness of my heart, to help her. I gave her money to live on. I gave her the services of Pendergraft over there to get her out of the country to Italy and establish her in a pleasant house there. I even paid her a comfortable stipend to support her and her maid and the child.”

“Yes!” Hannah cried. “So long as she never contacted any of her loved ones again! You broke her heart, you did. Not just giving up his lordship, which she was too fine a woman to have wasted her love on, anyway. But you wouldn’t let her even write her brother or her mother! Always crying her heart out, she was, missing everyone. She wouldn’ta got so sick if it wasn’t for that.”

“Sick! What are you talking about?” Gabriel strode over and pulled Hannah up from her chair. “What is the matter with Jocelyn?”

“I dunno. She was sick ever since she had the wee one.”

“Was sick?” Gabriel paled, his mouth tightening. “What do you mean? Is she … dead?”

Hannah nodded, and Thea heard the harsh intake of Lord Rawdon’s breath, the only sound that broke the utter stillness of the room. Gabriel turned blindly away, and Thea jumped up, going to him. He wrapped his arms tightly around her.

“She gave me the baby and told me to bring him here to you, my lord,” Hannah went on after a moment.

“Why, then, did you try to sell the brat to me?” Emily retorted caustically.

“I didn’t try to sell him!” Hannah retorted as Gabriel swung around to fix his sharp gaze on her.

“What exactly did you do?” he asked her.

“I was goin’ to take him and bring him up meself, that’s what. ’Twas I who’d taken care of him, anyways, ever since he was born. My lady couldn’t. It was the wet nurse and me. And I needed money, that’s all, to keep me and the baby from starvin’ to death.”

“What a bag of moonshine! It was extortion, pure and simple,” Emily told her. “You promised to keep quiet. You said you didn’t have to take the baby to Morecombe as Jocelyn told you to—with her dying breath, I might add. You said you could take the baby off and no one would have to know. And if I did not pay you, you were going to take him to Morecombe and tell everyone what I had done! You threatened to ruin me!”

“I deserved something! It was me what took care of her ladyship and the little one. I was the one who did all the work. What was I going to get if I handed him over to her brother? Nothing! A job back maybe if I was lucky, and if I wasn’t, being blamed for my lady running away in the first place! I shoulda got something!”

“Yes, well, you would have, if you had brought the baby with you!” Emily retorted, jumping to her feet. “If you hadn’t decided to stick him in the church for Miss Propriety over here to find!”

“And if I hadn’t hidden him, you’da knocked me over the head and taken him! That’s why you had that man there with you. I ain’t a fool. I knew better than to bring the babe with me. I know you been searching for me, and it weren’t to pay me. You’da killed me tonight if they hadn’t stopped you, and you’da done it back then, too. The same reason you had him try to steal the wee one away from her!”

“Enough!” Gabriel roared. “Enough of these recriminations! I don’t care which one of you is a more wicked person. Neither of you have enough humanity in you to fill a teacup.” He fixed his gaze on Emily. “The truth is out now, and Hannah was right: you are ruined in the ton. Whether you will go to jail will, I suppose, depend upon what the magistrate decides and whether Miss Bainbridge wants to press charges. I will count myself fortunate never to see you or your husband again.”

Gabriel swung to Hannah. “As for you, you should probably be locked up, as well.”

“I took care of her! I did. Miss Jocelyn depended on me.”

“So did we all, and you betrayed us. All I want from you now is to know where Jocelyn is. Where did she die?”

The girl shifted and looked down. “She’s in Oxford, sir. That was as far as we could get afore she gave out.”

“Very well.” Gabriel turned to Thea. “I must go. I have to take care of her.”

“Of course.” Thea looked up at him, her eyes welling with tears for his pain.

Lord Rawdon stepped forward. “I will go with you.”

Gabriel turned to him. “Thank you.”