Page 9 of A Landscape of Love

Hart shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I do know that if you want something, truly want something with all your heart, that you can move heaven and earth if you must.”

“I want my son,” she said, and with such conviction he did not doubt it.

“Even though you’ll be ruined, shunned by society, you’ll be neither fish nor fowl, fitting nowhere with a bastard son to raise all alone. Have you money of your own? Enough to buy a house and support yourself? Could you stand the gossip, the men who will come to your door assuming they know what kind of woman you are?”

“You don’t paint a very pretty picture,” she replied, her tone flat.

Hart held her gaze. “That’s because life isn’t pretty when there’s not enough coin, or you’re without the protection of those who love you.”

She snorted at that. “His grace does not love me. I am a bitter disappointment to him, an embarrassment.”

“Lord Alex loves you. He’s worried about you,” he added, his heart aching for her, for the knowledge that she was undoubtedly correct.

Her face softened at that. “He’s a sweet boy. Kind. Too kind to survive his grace. He needs to toughen up or he’ll never be free of him. As for the rest, no, I have no money of my own, but I’d live in a hole in the ground if it was the only way to have my son back. I care nothing for my reputation, for gossip or anything else. Not anymore.”

“Then you’d best find him.”

She glared at Hart. “Just like that. When I’m not at liberty to leave Hardacre? When the servants spy on me and report back to my father?”

“I don’t think I said anything about it being easy,” Hart replied, holding her gaze. “But if you want something—”

“You’ll move heaven and earth to get it,” she repeated, her tone flat, and then shot him a curious glance. “That’s what you did, I suppose?”

Hart shrugged. “I was lucky, but I’ve done all in my power to repay that luck, to show my gratitude. Does your father keep records? Would there be paperwork, somewhere he might have recorded the details?”

Fidelia stared at him. “Why are you helping me? Why do you care?”

Hart looked back at her with a frown. “We might be very different, but we’re both people, with hearts and minds. I know what it is to feel pain, to feel alone and desperate, and I can empathise with your situation. It would be a pretty bleak world if none of us cared for the rest of us.”

“A good man,” she whispered, almost to herself. “I have often wondered what one of those looked like.”

Hart shifted, rather uncomfortable with her words, and increasingly aware they were both naked beneath the blankets. Fidelia needed comfort and a shoulder to cry on, and he’d been more than willing to give both. She also needed to be treated carefully, with respect, and he knew how to do that too, but he wasn’t made of stone. He was a flesh and blood man and she… she was exquisite. She needed to get off his lap. Now.

“No, he isn’t keen on paperwork,” she said, returning to his question and frowning a little as she considered it. “I thought of that years ago, but he has secretaries for his records, and he certainly would not have involved them in such a scandalous event. I was sent away you see, far from everyone here so even the servants would know nothing about my shame. But… But he used to keep a private diary when I was a child,” she said, a thread of excitement behind the words. “I had not considered that. I wonder if he still does?”

Hart nodded. “Then find out. Get hold of the diary if there is one and see what he noted for the night your son was born. I know it’s not much, but it will give you a place to begin.”

“He always used to keep them in his desk, in a locked drawer. There were dozens of them, one or two for each year. I’d never get near it.”

Hart thought about this and considered what he would do in the lady’s situation.

“You need to make a plan,” he said, studying her. This woman wanted her child. That determination shone in her eyes. “You’re no fool, my lady.”

“There are few who would agree with that,” she said with a little snort of derision. “Falling for a man who seduced me, hoping to force my father’s hand into allowing him to marry me, was hardly a stroke of genius. Allowing the worthless devil to give me a child and abandon me was not the height of cleverness either, was it?”

Hart looked at her, feeling pity for the rude awakening she’d had. He could imagine just how she’d been taken in, a naive girl believing some handsome fellow’s sweet words. Anger rose in his chest on her behalf. If he ever discovered who had treated her so he’d bloody castrate them. “Everyone makes mistakes. You’ll not make such a one again.”

“It hardly matters now,” she said with a bitter laugh. “But what do you propose I do? What kind of plan do you have in mind? I’ve tried to escape this place, tried to befriend the servants in the hope someone would help me, but they are all too afraid of my father. What else can I do?”

“You need to read those diaries, find out if your father met with anyone, if he made a note of any contacts or any information that might be relevant. Watch your father’s comings and goings, notice when the desk is unattended, see where he keeps the key and discover if it is ever left lying about. In the meantime, you might try to act as you did before the child was born. Convince your father you have accepted your fate—that you’re glad, even—if you can bear to do so. Then you may be granted more freedom and not watched so closely. You have more power than you realise, I think, more opportunities to change your life than you might imagine. Keep your eyes open for them.”

“Have you ever tried pretending to like someone you loath with every particle of your being? Have you ever had to swallow your pride and submit to a man who treats you like a dog?” she demanded, the look in her eyes making Hart uncomfortable as he considered how she had lived her life.

“No, my lady,” he admitted. “And I do not know how you have endured these past years with such a man. I have enough trouble simply holding my tongue when in your father’s presence, pretending I like him might just kill me, or perhaps him,” he added with a shrug.

“Oh, to be a man,” she replied wistfully, staring at him. “Thank you, though. Thank you for rescuing me tonight, and for taking care of me, for talking with me and offering your counsel.”

“Such as it is,” Hart replied, wishing he could have asked his mother for advice. She would have known what to say. “And as for the rest, you’re welcome. I’d have done the same for anyone,” he said gruffly, knowing it was more than that, but he was damned if he’d tell her so.