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“Well, I suppose he requires someone to care for the children who are yet at home, but for the sake of his new wife, I hope she proves barren!”
    Raeburn watched her jerky movements with concern. “She is, I believe, a widow with three young ones of her own,” he said quietly.
    Jessica whirled on him, her pale face luminous with hatred. “You seem to be exceptionally well informed about the affairs of an unremarkable country parson,” she accused, her voice growing high and shrill. “Am I to assume that your concern is in the nature of payment for services rendered?”
    Raeburn stared. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    Through clenched teeth Jessica snarled, “You know what I mean! When the great Earl of Raeburn found he couldn’t control the encroaching country girl with the sheer force of his personality, he decided to strike at her through her family….”
    Beneath a drooping lock of fair hair, Raeburn’s face purpled with rage, and he swore viciously. Unfolding his long frame from the settee with surprising grace, he stood up, his broad shoulders and impressive bulk filling the little room as he loomed over Jessica. Suddenly apprehensive, she tried to back away, but his large hands snaked out to capture her arms, and he hauled her up against him, his gray eyes glittering like mica. “Listen to me, my girl,” he growled, his blunt fingertips digging into the softness of her flesh, “the only reason I have ever had any congress with that sycophantic father of yours was to find out if you had contacted him to let him know your whereabouts. My sole concern was and is your well-being—”
    “Liar!” Jessica shrilled. “It was because of you that he forbade me to see my own mother, denounced me from the pulpit like some—”
    In a booming voice so loud that it rattled the glass chimneys on the candlesticks, Raeburn bellowed, “ I never told him to disown you! That was his own crackbrained—”
    But Jessica never had an opportunity to hear the rest of his impassioned disavowal. In the kitchen a baby squawled.
    Jessica froze, staring up helplessly at the earl. The thin, hungry cry of infant outrage sounded again, and Raeburn’s fair head jerked around to stare at the half-open scullery door. His hands clamped bruisingly around Jessica’s arms, making her squeal with pain as he growled, “What in the name of…?”
    Jessica twisted her head to peer over her shoulder at the doorway, where suddenly Willa appeared, her rough hands cradling a squirming, swaddled bundle high on her shoulder so that the baby’s face could not be seen. Jessica could hear the smacking noise her daughter’s tiny lips made against Willa’s throat, and she felt her breasts swell at the sound, reminding her with aching insistence that it was again time for Lottie’s feeding. Beneath spiky black lashes her fearful green eyes flicked up at the ashen face of the man who held her brutally while he gaped at her maid. Oh, God, Jessica moaned with silent, impotent anguish, what would he say now, what would he do when….
    Willa said, “Miss Jess, I’m sorry my baby disturbed you. I promise it won’t happen again.”
    Raeburn’s grip relaxed slightly. His wide brow furrowed, he demanded harshly, “Your child, Willa Brown?”
    Willa lifted her chin, her dark eyes meeting his contemptuous gaze steadily from beneath the ruffle of her mobcap. For as long as she could remember, Willa had been the object of men’s lust and scorn, and at seventeen, after falling into the hands of a pack of aristocratic ruffians, she had vowed that she would die rather than suffer degradation again; but when she flung herself into the stinking waters of the Thames, Jessica had saved her, had revived her life and her soul, and since then Willa had been her eager slave. Now she said evenly, “Yes, Your Lordship, this is my baby,” and Jessica, hearing this, felt her heart flip with wary gratitude at the enormity of what her friend was trying to