“Miss Hartwell?—”
“And now you need my help to raise your poor bastard child.” The cruel word hurt to say and she winced, but she forced it out anyway, forced herself to look at him without flinching. “Is that it? You thought the spinsterish Miss Hartwell might be desperate enough, dull enough, to agree to some arrangement that saves your reputation whilst?—”
“Stop.” He moved around the desk with startling speed, catching her wrist before she could retreat. Not roughly—never roughly—but firmly enough to halt her words. “Just stop. You are wrong.”
“Am I?” She tried to pull free, but he held fast, his thumb pressing against the frantic pulse at her wrist. “Then explain. Explain why there is a child in your study. Explain why you summoned me. Explain?—”
“Read this.” He released her abruptly, turning back to the desk and snatching up a folded piece of paper with hands that trembled. “Before you accuse me of fathering every nameless infant in London, read this.”
He thrust the letter at her with barely controlled violence.
Penelope took it, her fingers brushing his for one electric instant before he jerked back as though burned. The paper was of good quality, she noticed distantly, even as her vision blurred at the edges. She forced herself to focus on the words written in an elegant, feminine hand.
To those who would protect what I cannot...
Her breath stopped.
I entrust this child to the only two souls in London whose character I have witnessed beyond doubt. Miss Penelope Hartwell, whose compassion knows no boundary of propriety. And Alastair Reed, Duke of Blackmere, whose honor exists despite his reputation rather than because of it.
The words swam. Penelope blinked hard, forcing them back into focus.
I cannot keep my child. To do so would destroy them, would destroy everything. But I cannot abandon them to strangers, to an institution that would strip them of dignity before they learned their own name.
Please. I beg you both. Protect them. Love them. Give them the life I cannot.
The world will judge you for this kindness. Society will not understand. But I pray you might forgive a desperate mother who had no other choice.
The signature was not a name. Simply a single letter, written with a flourish that suggested both elegance and anguish.
M.
Penelope’s hands began to shake. She read it again. Then again. The words did not change. Her name. His name. Chosen deliberately. Trusted absolutely.
“Who...” Her voice came out as barely more than breath. She looked up, finding Alastair watching her with an expression she had never seen on his usually controlled features. Desperation.
Raw and undisguised. “Who is M?”
“I have no idea.” He dragged a hand through his already dishevelled hair. “I have spent the entire night trying to determine who might have written this. Who might know both of us well enough to—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I have nothing. No answers. No explanations. Just a child who will not stop crying and a letter that makes no sense.”
Penelope’s mind raced, sorting through every acquaintance, every conversation, every woman she knew whose name began with M. Marianne. The thought struck like lightning, electric and impossible. But Marianne had been sent away, had been absent from London for months, had written only brief, stilted letters that revealed nothing of substance.
Could it be?
No. It could not be. Marianne would have come to her directly, would have?—
But would she? If her parents had discovered something, if she had been desperate enough, frightened enough...
“Miss Hartwell?”
Alastair’s voice pulled her back. She realized she was staring at the letter without seeing it, her thoughts spiralling into territories she dared not yet explore.
“We should take the child to a foundling hospital,” Alastair said, and his tone carried the careful neutrality of a man who had already made his decision. “It is the only reasonable solution. They will find a suitable family, someone equipped to?—”
“No.”
The word was spoken before conscious thought, driven by some instinct deeper than logic.
Alastair’s brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon?”