"Do not lie to me." The shout rattled the thin windowpanes.
He didn't mean to yell, but the terror was clawing its way up his throat, choking him. "Do not stand there and tell me that child is not mine. The timeline, the last night before you left. I know it is mine, Josie. I feel it in my bones." Josephine lifted her chin.
The defiance was back, a fragile shield over her breaking body. "The ecclesiastical court declared our marriage unconsummated. You signed the papers agreeing to that fact. Therefore, legally, this child cannot possibly be yours. It is a bastard, a nobody." The words were a direct quote.
He recognized the cold, sterile phrasing of his mother's solicitors. The realization slammed into him. "They made you say that?" Theo whispered, the anger draining away, leaving only horror.
"My mother My mother she threatened you?" Josie turned her face away, staring out at the gray, smog-choked sky. She didn't speak. She didn't have to. The rigid set of her shoulders, the way she gripped her stomach told him everything. Theo reached out, moving slowly, deliberately.
He unbuttoned his heavy wool greatcoat. He slipped it off his shoulders and stepped closer, draping the massive, fur-lined garment over her shivering frame. She stiffened, trying to pull away. "I don't want your coat." "You are freezing," he said, pulling the lapels closed around her, wrapping her in his warmth, his scent.
"You are freezing, and you are exhausted, and you are going to put this coat on before I tear this building down with my bare hands." For a moment, she fought him. Her hands pushed against his chest, but the heavy wool was too warm, and the cold had settled too deep into her bones. Her resistance crumbled. She slumped forward slightly, the fight draining out of her. "Why are you here, Theo?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
"You let me go. You didn't even fight for me." The accusation hit him perfectly square in the chest. He closed his eyes, the guilt a physical agony. "I know," he said, his voice breaking.
"I know, Josie, and I will spend the rest of my life paying for it. You cannot stay here," Theo said. He had pulled the single, rickety wooden chair from the corner, and placed it dead center in the room. He sat down, ignoring the way the wood bowed ominously under his weight. He had no intention of moving.
Josie, swallowed by his greatcoat, sat on the edge of the narrow bed. The warmth of the wool seemed to have temporarily thawed her defenses, leaving behind a terrifying raw vulnerability. She looked impossibly small, save for the swell of her abdomen. "I cannot leave," she said softly, staring at the floorboards.
"I paid rent through the end of the month." The absurdity of the statement nearly made Theo laugh, a dark, hysterical sound that died in his throat. "Rent? You are worried about three shillings of rent when you are carrying the heir to a dukedom?" "He is not an heir," Josie snapped, a flash of her old fire returning.
"He is illegitimate. Your mother made sure of that. If I step foot out of this slum, if I try to lay claim to your name, she will destroy my family. She has the forged ledgers. She has the testimonies. My father will hang for treason, and my sisters will be left destitute."
Theo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together. "Tell me exactly what she did."
Josie hesitated.
She looked at his face, searching for the cynical detachment he always wore like armor. But the Duke of Westmore was gone. The man sitting on the broken chair was just Theo, the man who had read her poetry in the gardens, the man who had burned his own dinner trying to cook for her on a servant's holiday.
"She came to me the day the scandal broke," Josie said, her voice dropping to a hollow whisper. "Before you even returned from Parliament, she laid the ledgers on my desk. They were perfect forgeries, Theo, flawless. They implicated my father in stealing naval funds, but worse, they implicated you as his silent partner."
Theo's head snapped up. "Me?"
"She said it was the only way to ensure I complied," Josie continued, her fingers nervously picking at a loose thread on the quilt. "She said if I didn't sign the annulment, confessing that our marriage was a sham, she would hand the ledgers to the Crown. She would sacrifice you to rid the family of me."
She said a few years in the Tower would ruin you, but it would kill my father. The sheer breathtaking cruelty of it stunned him. His own mother. She had weaponized his reputation against his wife. And the money?
Theo asked, his voice deadened. The pension I tried to send you through the solicitor? I never saw it. Josie said quietly. Your mother's men watched me for the first month.
They made sure I took nothing from the estate. I had my jewelry, but the pawn shops take a steep cut when a woman is alone and desperate. I sold the last of my pearls to pay the midwife in advance. She suddenly gasped, a sharp indrawn breath, and her hand flew to her stomach. She winced, curling slightly forward.
Theo was out of the chair in a heartbeat. He dropped to his knees in front of her, his hands hovering over her, afraid to touch, afraid to break her. Josie, what is it? Is it the baby? He kicks.
She breathed out, a small pained smile touching the corners of her mouth for the first time. He does not like the cold, I think. Or perhaps he does not like you yelling. Theo stared at her hands resting on the swell of her stomach. Slowly, seeking permission with his eyes, he reached out.
Josie didn't pull away. He placed his large, warm hand over hers, pressing gently against the heavy cotton of her apron. For a second, there was nothing. Then a distinct, sharp thump struck against his palm. Life.
His child moving, fighting, living beneath his hand in this freezing, rotting room. A tear broke free, tracking hot and fast down Theo's cheek. He didn't bother to wipe it away. He kept his hand there, feeling the second, softer movement. The ice that had encased his heart for eight months shattered completely, leaving him entirely exposed.
"I am going to kill her," Theo whispered, the words a solemn, holy vow.
Josie shook her head. "Theo, you can't fight her. The forgeries—"
"I am the Duke of Westmore," Theo interrupted, his voice hardening into granite. He lifted his head, his eyes burning into hers.