Mary Balogh: At Last Comes Love

He stood against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, his eyes also filling with tears.

Punishment, it seemed, was indeed never ending when one had transgressed society's laws. He had thought there was peace to be had at last. And even happiness. But no, he had not. He had known Pandora's box to be open. He had known this would all happen.

She was swiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands and glaring at him – and then looking closer at him, perhaps seeing his tears. "Last week," she said, "I refused to listen to you when you wanted to explain. It seemed to me that there /was/ no explanation except lies.

But perhaps I ought to have listened anyway. Tell me now what you were going to say then. But tell me the truth. All of it. Don't try to cover it up or make it look pretty. I already know the worst. Pardon me, I already believe the worst. Tell me the truth." "Randolph Turner has a brother," he said. "Oh, please," she cried sharply. "Don't insult my intelligence, Duncan.

Tell me the truth!" He stared dully at her until she folded her arms. "I will not say another word," she said. "Tell your story." "Turner," he said, "has no title, but he is enormously wealthy, probably one of the wealthiest men in England. The family money was made, it is rumored, in the slave trade and has been converted into property and rock-solid investments. Like many men, he wishes to pass on his inheritance to a son of his own. It was his reason for marrying Laura." She was looking at the hands in her lap. But he believed she was listening to him. He inhaled slowly. "I think," he said, "it is altogether possible Turner prefers men to women." She looked up sharply and then down again. "Or perhaps," he said, "the problem is something else. However it is, he was … impotent with Laura. Whenever he tried, for the first year or so of their marriage, he would leave her bed in frustration and not go near her for some time. But after that first year or so, his frustrations were acted out far more violently. He blamed her for his impotence. He started to beat her." Her hands, he noticed, were clenched tightly in her lap. They were white-knuckled. "And then," he said, "after a couple of years he got rid of his valet and employed another – a man who looked so much like him that they might have been twins. I know – I saw him once, an insolent fellow with a knowing smile. He was an illegitimate brother of Turner's and caused considerable amusement in the household, though Turner did not display him a great deal to public view." Maggie's hands had crept up to cover her mouth and she was looking at him with horrified eyes. "You are not going to tell me," she said, "that Mrs. Turner had an affair with him?" "It was far more ghastly than that," he said. "The man had been brought to the house to impregnate Laura. I suppose he was being paid a small fortune. It went on for almost six months altogether. Turner supervised – he watched. And he always beat her afterward and called her a slut and accused her of enjoying it. And every time her monthly cycle came to an end and she was not with child, he beat her even more viciously. The man is insane, Maggie." Her hands covered her mouth and her eyes now. "And then, finally, she /was/ with child," he said, "and hid it for the first month, taking the beating rather than confess the truth. At the end of the second month she came to me – it was the night before my wedding to Caroline. She had confessed to the beatings before then. She did not tell me the rest until that night. I did not doubt for a moment – I had /seen/ the fellow. I took her away and hid both her and the child – Toby – after he was born. I hid them until after her death. I would have hidden him and passed him off as the Harrises' orphaned grandson for the rest of his boyhood if you had not insisted otherwise. Though I concurred with you on that. A child cannot be hidden forever. I am Toby's papa, Maggie – and he is my boy. That is the way it is and the way it will remain. There, you have it now – the whole sordid, nasty truth." She was rocking back and forth in the chair, her hands still spread over her face. "Toby," she whispered at last. "Oh, poor Toby. But Stephen was right.

Legally he is that man's. He did not divorce her. And even if he had, it would not matter. Toby was conceived while she was still with him. He can come and take Toby anytime he wishes." "Over my dead body," Duncan said softly.

She lowered her hands and looked up at him. There was no vestige of color in her face. Even her lips were white. "Duncan," she said, "forgive me. Oh, but how glib such a request is. How /can/ you forgive me? I would not even listen to your side of the story.

I did not trust you." "With perfectly good reason," he said. "The fault is mostly mine, Maggie. I would not trust you with the truth, because I had promised Laura that no one would ever know the ugliness that had been her life with Turner. And because I was afraid." "That I would not love Toby," she said. "Not that," he said. "I feared you would try to persuade me to bring the whole story into the open. But who would believe it? Who /will/ believe it? It will be Turner's word against mine. And she /was/ married to him right up to her death. Even if the truth is believed, Toby is still legally his." She said nothing. "Maggie – " he said. He rested his head against the doorjamb and closed his eyes.

She was on her feet then and taking his hands in hers and lifting them to her cheeks. "We are going to have to /think/," she said. "We are going to have to find a way of saving Toby and keeping him here. Oh, good heavens, of course we must. You are his father, and I am his … Well, his Aunt Meg.

Aunts can be formidable creatures." He withdrew his hands from hers, wrapped them about her, and drew her close. He lowered his forehead to her shoulder and surprised and embarrassed himself horribly by weeping.

THERE was a whole day when nothing dreadful happened and it seemed that nothing would.

Surely Randolph Turner would not dare to come, Margaret thought. And yet the stakes were high for him. The son he had wanted and schemed so desperately and fiendishly to get was actually in existence. The child had been born to his legal wife less than nine months after she left him. And it might seem unlikely to him that he would have any other children, unless he used the same method as before.

Margaret knew he would come.

They all knew it.

Duncan had told the whole story to Stephen and Elliott. Margaret had told Vanessa. The time for secrecy, for the keeping of a promise of secrecy, was long gone.

On the second day they took a picnic tea down to a secluded stretch of the river, which was nevertheless within sight of the front of the house. Elliott fished with Toby for a while, and then Stephen galloped about with the child on his back. Duncan swung him in circles until they were both dizzy, and Vanessa told him about her own children, whom she was missing dreadfully. "Your cousins," she said, ruffling his hair. "They are going to enjoy playing with you." Margaret fed him a meat pasty before it was officially teatime when he claimed to be starving. "He is going to be a horribly spoiled child," she commented to Vanessa when Toby had run back to demand more attention from the men. "Oh, don't, Meg," Vanessa said, patting her on the back. "Loving and paying attention to a child is not spoiling him but just the opposite.

All will be well. You will see." Margaret wiped away her tears, which seemed to flow so easily these days. "Yes," she said, and smiled. "It will, Nessie." And then, abruptly, "I am several days late." "Oh, Meg." Vanessa looked sharply at her. "Does Duncan know?" "No," Margaret said. "There is really nothing to know yet. Nothing at all certain, anyway. Perhaps it is nothing at all." Her sister continued to pat her back.