A Mother’s Bargain
The travel from Ashford Manor study to Ashford Manor library consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The library clock struck eleven. Its chime sliced through the silence like a blade, each note falling into the space between them. Cassidy watched Xavier’s jaw work—no, not his jaw. The muscle beneath his ear, a subtle flutter she’d learned to read in the scant hours since she’d walked back into his world.
She had not written him a letter.
The truth of it sat between them, a third presence in the room. She could have. Should have. But she’d been eighteen, pregnant, and staring down the barrel of a scandal that would have destroyed her mother’s reputation alongside her own. And Xavier—the Xavier she remembered—had been a ghost, vanished from London without a word, leaving only the echo of a season’s worth of whispered promises.
“You disappeared first.” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “You left for the Continent without a single word. I waited three months, Xavier. Three months of watching every doorway, every carriage, hoping you’d come back.”
He turned from the window, the firelight catching the gray of his eyes. “I was called away. My father’s debts—there were arrangements to make, properties to secure before the creditors descended. I thought I’d be gone six weeks. It became six months. By the time I returned, you were gone. Your mother’s house was empty. No one would tell me where you’d gone.”
“Because no one knew.” Cassidy pressed her palm flat against the leather-bound volume on the desk beside her, grounding herself in the texture of old book spines. “My mother sent me to live with her cousin in Yorkshire. I had the baby alone. In a room no bigger than your dressing closet.”
Xavier’s hand moved toward her, then stopped. He let it fall to his side. “And you never thought to find me? To tell me I had a son?”
“I thought you’d abandoned me.” The words scraped out of her. “I thought you’d taken what you wanted and left. What was I supposed to think, Xavier? You were a duke’s heir. I was a vicar’s daughter with a compromised reputation and a swelling belly. You had everything to lose by claiming us. I assumed you’d made your choice.”
The silence stretched. Outside, a horse stamped in the stable yard. A servant’s footsteps passed in the corridor, distant and unobtrusive.
“I didn’t know.” Xavier’s voice dropped, rough as gravel. “I swear to you, on my mother’s grave, I did not know.”
Cassidy believed him. That was the cruelest part.
Reid appeared in the doorway, his silhouette blocking the candlelight from the hall. “Your Grace. A word.”
Xavier’s attention snapped to his security chief, the mask of composure sliding back into place. “What is it?”
Reid stepped inside and closed the door behind him. His eyes swept the room once, twice, cataloging exits and windows with the practiced ease of a man who saw threats in shadows. “Jasper Aldridge has hired a private investigator. London man by the name of Graves. He’s been making inquiries in Yorkshire. Asking after a girl who had a child out of wedlock eight years ago.”
Cassidy’s blood turned to ice.
“How long?” Xavier asked.
“Three days. Graves has already spoken to the midwife who attended the birth. She remembers Miss Caldwell—remembered was not inclined to forget a duke’s involvement. Apparently she’s been saving the story for a rainy day.” Reid’s expression didn’t shift. “The Aldridges have paid her a hundred pounds for her silence. And her cooperation.”
“Silas Aldridge doesn’t pay for silence unless he’s planning to use the information.” Xavier moved to the desk, his fingers brushing the edge of a letter opener. He picked it up, turned it over, set it down. “He’s building a weapon. He’ll wait until the most damaging moment to deploy it.”
“Which means the next vote in the Lords. Or the opening of the season. Or Oliver’s birthday.” Cassidy’s voice was barely a whisper. “He’ll wait until we’ve built something. Until the boy has friends, has a future. Then he’ll tear it all apart.”
Xavier looked at her. Really looked, the way he had that first night at the Thornbridge ball, when he’d crossed a crowded room to ask her to dance. “There’s another option.”
“What?”
“Marry me.”
The words hung in the air, simple and devastating.
“You’re not serious.”
“I’m entirely serious.” Xavier stepped around the desk, closing the distance between them. “If you become the Duchess of Ashford, Oliver becomes my legitimate heir. The Aldridges can spread whatever rumors they like, but they cannot touch his birthright. He will have my name, my title, my protection. And any claim they might try to press regarding his legitimacy will be buried under the weight of a marriage certificate dated before his birth.”
“That’s fraud.”
“That’s strategy.” Xavier’s voice was steel wrapped in velvet. “The church records can be amended. I have the clergyman who married my parents still living in the parish. He’s old. He’s forgetful. He’ll swear we were married in a private ceremony the summer before Oliver was born.”
“And you expect me to just—what? Walk into society as your wife? Play the happy duchess while we both know this is a transaction?” Cassidy’s hands were trembling. She pressed them flat against her skirts. “What happens when Oliver grows up and learns the truth?”
“By then, it won’t matter. He’ll be the Duke of Ashford. The title is everything. The truth is just a story that old men tell in their clubs.” Xavier’s gaze held hers, unflinching. “I’m offering you a fortress, Cassidy. Not a home. But a fortress against everyone who would hurt him. Take it.”
The door opened.
Isadora swept in without knocking, her blue eyes blazing, her bonnet askew. “Tell me everything. And don’t leave out the part where you’re considering something foolish.”
Cassidy’s composure cracked. She crossed the room and took Isadora’s hands, gripping them like lifelines. “He wants to marry me.”
“I heard.” Isadora’s gaze flicked to Xavier, sharp and assessing. “And what, precisely, does the duke want in return?”
“Oliver.” Xavier didn’t flinch. “I want my son. I want to raise him, to teach him, to watch him grow into the man he’s meant to be. I’ve missed eight years. I will not miss another day.”
“And Cassidy?”
“She will have everything she needs. Position. Security. A future for her child.” Xavier’s voice softened, barely perceptible. “I am not asking her to love me. I am asking her to let me protect them both.”
Isadora turned to Cassidy, her expression shifting from combatant to confidante. “It’s a sound offer. Tactically. But you should know what you’re walking into. The Aldridges are not the only predators in this city, and the ton has teeth. They will tear you apart if you give them an opening.”
“Then I won’t give them an opening.” Cassidy straightened her spine. “I’ve been invisible for eight years. I’ve learned how to disappear. Perhaps it’s time I learned how to be seen.”
Isadora squeezed her hands once, then released them. “I’ll stay. I can help with Oliver, run interference with the household staff. Whatever you need.”
“No.” Xavier’s voice cut through. “You’re a civilian, Miss Isadora. This is not your fight.”
“It is,” Isadora said quietly. “Cassidy is my fight. She’s been mine since we were twelve years old and she stood between me and a pair of bullies who wanted to tear my hair out. I don’t back down. Neither should you.”
Xavier studied her for a long moment. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded. “You’ll have a room in the east wing. Stay out of the way if there’s trouble.”
Isadora’s smile was thin but genuine. “I’m very good at staying out of the way. It’s one of my talents.”
Reid cleared his throat. “Your Grace, the Aldridges have made their first move. They’ll make another. We need to secure the property boundaries and ensure Oliver is never left unattended. If they take the boy, they own the future of this title.”
“Oliver doesn’t leave the manor grounds without me or Reid present.” Xavier’s voice was absolute. “And he doesn’t answer the door to anyone he doesn’t recognize.”
“He’s eight years old.” Cassidy’s protest died in her throat.
“He’s the heir to Ashford. And he’s the key to dismantling everything Silas Aldridge has spent thirty years building.” Xavier met her eyes. “We protect him together. That’s the bargain.”
Cassidy looked at the fire, at the clock, at the gilded frames lining the walls. She thought of Oliver asleep upstairs, his small hand curled beneath his pillow, his hair falling across his forehead in the same way Xavier’s did when he was thinking.
She thought of the midwife who had sold her story for a hundred pounds.
“One condition,” she said, turning back to Xavier. “You never take him from me. Not for schooling, not for society, not for any reason. If I am to be your wife in name, he stays with me. Always.”
Xavier’s eyes flickered—something raw, something wounded, something he masked before she could name it. “You have my word.”
“Then I’ll marry you.”
The words felt foreign on her tongue. A transaction. A fortress. Not a home.
Isadora stepped forward, pressing a piece of paper into Cassidy’s hand. “I had my solicitor draft a marriage contract. Standard terms. Property, inheritance, rights of access to the child. He’s an honest man. He doesn’t know the names involved.”
Xavier took the paper, scanned it, and moved to the desk. The scratch of his pen against the parchment was the only sound in the room.
Reid touched his earpiece, his posture stiffening. “Sir. The safe house tracking system just triggered. Motion sensors on the east boundary.”
“Oliver’s room overlooks the east garden,” Cassidy whispered.
Xavier’s pen stopped halfway through his signature. “Reid. Sweep the grounds. Now.”
Reid was already moving, his hand going to the pistol concealed beneath his coat. The door swung shut behind him, and the three of them stood frozen in the silence.
Footsteps. Outside the window. Slow. Deliberate. Stopping directly beneath the sill.
As Xavier signs the marriage contract, his pen pauses. “For Oliver’s sake,” he says, not meeting her eyes. “Only for his sake.”