Page 154 of Kathryn

He gave a mirthless laugh. “Lord Jasper owes his life to your maid. She extracted a promise from me before she would tell me your whereabouts.” Although he sounded like a man thwarted of his due, Katie could not help thinking there was a certain—if grudging—respect in his voice when he mentioned Becky. “He would not have gotten off so easily if I had not given my word.”

Katie thought about Jasper’s misshapen face and bloody mouth. If that was Dulverton’s notion of getting off easily, she did not want to see hard.

In any case, she owed her friend even more than she’d believed. And she owed her husband the truth. “I came here tonight to tell Jasper that I would not give him money even though he was threatening to expose every detail of our long-ago affair—as well as creating a few of his own. He said he would sell the story to a newspaper.”

“He would never have done so.”

Katie twisted until she could see just one side of her husband’s face. “What do you mean?”

“Lady Grimsby would cut him off if he did such a thing—even if she did not realize he was the source of the rumor.”

“He said she would never cut him off because he would take his daughter back.”

“He signed away his rights to his daughter months ago.”

“What?”

“Yes. In exchange for money, of course.”

“I never heard anything about that.”

“It is not common knowledge; I know his solicitor.”

“And he told you?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that—er, illegal?”

“Under the circumstances, no.”

“What circumstances?”

“I will tell you later. Finish your story.”

Before she could lose her nerve, she blurted, “I became pregnant that summer five years ago.”

His big body jolted, telling Katie that was not something he had expected. “I see,” he said a moment later.

“We had been, um, meeting each other for several weeks when he was called away by Lady Grimsby. He promised he was going to tell her that he was marrying me.” She snorted. “I was so stupid that I—”

“You were but six-and-ten and Staines must be a good decade older.”

“There are twelve years between us.”

He made a noise of disgust. “You were not to blame, Kathryn. He was. You were a child.”

“Many women marry at that age.”

“We are talking about manipulation and deflowering, not a marriage.”

“I suppose so. But I was not entirely without blame.”

“What did he say when you told him about the child?” he asked, ignoring her claim.

“I did not get a chance to tell him because he brought a wife with him when he returned to his father’s house.”

Dulverton muttered something under his breath.