That night, Peggy found herself lying in bed with her mind racing like a bird on a strong gale. The trio had made their rounds through the market with Peggy introducing them to the vendors, while Lady Honora and her brother, Lord Belton, spoke about the promise of the regrowth of their village. Never had she seen those of such lofty position care so deeply for those under their charge. Certainly, there were other nobility of the like, she must admit, but she had rarely encountered them. Never had they accepted her so readily. She convinced herself that what she had seen was romanticized by the dream. Nobles did not act so, well, noble. At least, not in her estimation. There must be some trick. She found herself looking for the falsehood.
Blackwell House, her previous abode, was governed by the petulant Lady Lydia and her band of miscreants. The house had been nothing short of terror, a dungeon to those trapped inside at the whim of its greedy masters. Servants and lesser folk had been seen as little more than chattel, tools to be literally bought and sold as the need might arise. She shuddered and pushed the memories aside. That part of her life was over, and she need never go back.
How different this town seemed to be, and that was due to the gentry of the area, but she must not lower her guard. To be sure, the Baron and his sister knew all of their residents by name. Moreover, they knew intimate details of their lives and held conversations that gave credence to the fact that they had invested in the wellbeing of all who fell within their range. But they were not to be trusted. Somewhere was a hidden mendacity. She just had not found it yet.
Miss Nora, willful and full of spirit, laughed and encouraged, while the young lord offered poignant and practical advice, taking his tenant’s concerns to heart and offering solutions or consideration where needed. It was so unlike anything that she had ever known, even before her London traumas, she was not sure how to react. Certainly, it looked as if they loved their people, and their people loved them in return, but appearances could be deceiving.
Hadn’t she thought a lord loved her once upon a time? Look how that transpired. She was turned out without a farthing, with a babe in her belly, and even her own father condemned her as a fool and a whore. Only the kindly sisters had taken her in with true charity. They gave her a home for a time, but even the sisters’ good will ran out eventually, and their immortal souls depended upon their sheltering the homeless and feeding the hungry.
Unlike the good sisters, who were stern with good hearts, the nobility smiled, but their smiles covered evil. Didn’t she note many a time when Lady Lydia gave the illusion of kindness when she wanted something, but at heart she was cruel. No, it would not do to trust these people. She would be on her guard. She would find Adam and move on. That was her plan, and that was best.
When Peggy had been a child, even her own father used her. She learned from him that everyone wanted something. Her father, a newly moneyed merchant, had schooled her in the art of attracting just the right man so that his daughter, with all his riches at her disposal, might wed their family into a higher class. She had been thrown about like a jewel, voiceless and soulless—like nothing more than the goods he traded. Just another offering to increase his range and wealth. Her own father did not value her. How could she expect more from strangers? Women were, for the most part, little more than chattel. She knew this. It was best she kept her head down.
Blackwell house had been the same. She had been a thing, a nothing, a cost that was only as valuable as its output, and she had labored to earn her right to do nothing more than keep her life and a roof over her head. It was only luck that allowed her to retain what little virtue she had left.
This town seemed to be a different world, a happier world, almost like a fairy tale. But like a fairy story, it was likely to dissolve into nothing. She could not trust it. She could not trust the gentry; she certainly could not trust nobility. A deep, secret part of her was torn between the desire to be a part of it and the fear—no, the certainty—that it was all a façade. She was not sure her heart could take the pain if it all came crashing down once again. No. She would guard her self-respect and her heart. No matter that Lord Belton was uncommonly good looking. His good looks undoubtedly covered a heart of stone, just like every other member of the aristocracy she had known.
The face of the handsome Baron came into her imagination, but she shoved it away. She needed to find her son and leave, but she could not fit a question into the conversation, although she wanted to ask her new friends about Mr. and Mrs. Finch. That was all that she had to go on in the search for her son, just the surname, Finch. Mr. Crowley’s resources had gleaned that her son had been sent off to live with a couple by that name in the town of Riversbend to the north. This was Riversbend, an uncommonly small town. It was more than she could have hoped for, and yet still so little.
It was only the first day, after all. That was what she kept telling herself. But it had been more than that. She had been afraid to pierce the veil of the day, the happiness that she enjoyed that she had not been truly a part of for so very long. She had been terrified to ruin it with the knowledge that her son was no longer here, or worse, that he had suffered in her absence. That, beyond all of her other sins, was one that she did not know if she could stomach. She had kept her ear to the ground lest one of the names she might recognize would be mentioned, but nothing was said so far. Still, it was a small village. Someone would certainly know the Finches. She had but to ask, but once she asked, the fantasy she had built in her mind might be shattered by cruel reality.
She was hesitant to involve her new acquaintances with her burden, though she recognized that they might be the most efficient resources on the subject. Still, they seemed to like her, despite knowing so little about her past, and she hated the thought that when they discovered how marred her history, they would banish her outright or refuse to help. She was sure of it.
Hadn’t her father told her that, “No place in England will welcome a whore. You’ll be an outcast. A wretch that even the lowest of the low won’t deign to meet the eye.” That was before she had been sold as little more than a slave. That was when she had only been ruined and not also wretched. How much worse off she was now! Now, if the people of this town knew her true history, she was sure, they would not accept her. It would be best if she took her son and left the area before anyone really knew her. She had to keep her secret. Elsewhere, she could be a widow and her son, just as she had planned—not a whore with a bastard.
The words stuck in her head, and she labored to rid herself of them. She wasn’t a whore. At least, she refused to think of herself that way. She had been in love, truly in love, or so she had thought. She had given herself to one man and one man alone. And… was ruined. As she increased with her child, a child she thought, foolishly, would be born of that love, that same man—she would not call him a gentleman, although the world would see him so—that man had abandoned her. He found instead a more reputable, more fiscally promising prospect to marry. Still, whatever lofty thoughts she managed to think of herself, they meant little in a society where the mother of a bastard child was considered tainted beyond repair. The truth of the situation be damned, she had been ruined. And he… he had gone on without a scratch. It was not fair, but life was not fair. She had seen that played over again and again in the past years. She was no longer a foolish, naïve girl.
A dalliance was a mark of pride for a man, the title of rogue an intriguing challenge to other women. Such activities were a damnation for a female even when based in love, and even worse for a child born a bastard. She would not allow that taint to touch her child.
For years, she had dwelled upon how unfair it all was. She had cursed the roles and rules of society. She had cursed her father for rejecting her when she could no longer secure the profitable marriage that he desired.
She cursed her fate and then she cursed the blackguards who kidnapped her. Finally, she cursed Lady Lydia and all the wealthy, placing them all in the same ignoble vessel.
Now, she thought differently. She was alive. She was well and free. The past could not be dwelt upon. The future was… unknowable, and the present would be whatever it must be. Perhaps, it would be whatever she would make of it. She had a strength of character that gave her life. She would not waste it. She would find her son, and she would live. She could plan no more than that.
Such a mundane outlook, and yet it was the only thing that had given her courage. Put one foot in front of the other, and keep going. She could not relive the past. She could not amend it. She could not atone for mistakes that were considered, by rule of society, unforgivable. She could only move forward. She would move forward.
What she could do was find her son and protect him. She could give him her love and, she hoped, a life and a family in which he could take pride. She could use the money of reparation paid, albeit unnecessarily, by the Duke of Manchester to give her son a life of promise greater than she had ever dreamed. If she invested well and worked hard, she could send him to the best of schools. She could make a name for him in deeds, if not in pedigree. It was too late for her, but not for her son. He could have the world. She would do all in her power to see it happened. Nothing else mattered.
On the morrow, she would have tea with Miss Nora Belton at her brother’s estate. On the morrow, Peggy promised herself, she would crush the cowardice in her heart and ask them about the Finches. She would attempt to reunite with her son for the first time in years. On the morrow, she repeated as she drifted off into sleep. It would be a new day.
The carriage that had been sent for her arrived at the inn promptly at one in the afternoon. Peggy found that the ride in the private carriage was not nearly as taxing to her mental state as the mail coach might have been. First of all, the interior was spacious and lavishly upholstered with fine buff-colored leather and blue velvet. The interior had a pleasant wood smell, which meant it was fairly new, with its frescoed ceiling and fluted columns presenting a pleasing ride.
She pulled the curtains back so that she might look out upon the countryside as she made the short jaunt to the manor. After a few turns upon country roads that offered spectacular views of the season’s changes, and a long winding drive that led through the estate grounds, she found the carriage pulling to a stop in less than half an hour’s drive from town.