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Reggie’s mother gave her a tight smile. As the lady’s emotions seemed to have settled a little, Elizabeth felt safe in asking, “Will you tell me what has happened? You don’t have to, but it would make it easier for us to help you.”

Alameda squeezed her eyes shut and took a shallow breath.

“No, I must tell you. I cannot ask for your help without telling you everything… you and Mr. Darcy may not wish to get involved.” She twisted the handkerchief into a rope.

“It’s just that I don’t have anyone else to turn to.

My parents are dead, and Uncle Alfred… Ashbourne will ruin him if he tries to help me. Oh, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Elizabeth made the obvious guess. “Lord Ashbourne has hurt you and your son.”

Alameda nodded, her eyes still closed. After a few breaths, she regained her voice. “He has always been… rough, but it became much worse in the last year.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I… I miscarried...”

Elizabeth made a sympathetic sound in her throat, but Alameda continued in a deadened tone without seeming to hear her.

“This was some months ago. Ashbourne was in my bed when the bleeding started. He said I was… disgusting… and worthless… and he left me there. My maid found me the next morning and when she could not wake me, she had the doctor summoned. He said I had fainted from the blood loss. My husband walked by just as the doctor was leaving my apartment. At first, he was furious that a physician had been called for me without his approval, but Dr. Thompson was good enough to explain to him that I was truly ill.”

Elizabeth had tears in her eyes—her own hopes for children were still so new that she could just begin to empathize with the other woman’s pain.

“Dr. Thompson told him I should still be able to bear children, but I shouldn’t… have… marital relations… for three months, just to be certain I had healed. Ashbourne was… well, he was very… angry. And he made it quite clear how useless I was.”

Elizabeth handed her guest another handkerchief. “And then?”

After dabbing at her eyes and nose, Alameda managed a watery smile. “ Oh, he stomped off and ordered his valet to pack. He left the next day for a hunting party in Scotland.”

To say that Lizzy was shocked by the woman’s story was an understatement. She had never liked Darcy’s elder cousin, and his appearance at Georgiana’s ball had certainly lowered her estimation of him even further, but even so she had never dreamt that he was as bad as this.

Having begun her story, the words now seemed to burst from Alameda.

“Until then, I’d just assumed that Ashbourne’s…

treatment… was normal. It was always… painful, but I was so innocent that I accepted it.

I focused on my parties and balls and whatever else I could think of.

In hindsight I suppose I was trying to keep as busy as possible so that I had no time to dwell on my marriage.

“I cannot regret it, because without Ashbourne I would not have Reggie.” She smiled at the thought of her son. “When I was expecting him, I went through the last months of my confinement at my father’s estate in Essex. It was the first time in a very long time that I have spent so long alone.”

Elizabeth could not help but ask, “Where was the viscount?”

“Oh, London. Brighton. Bath. Newcastle. Wherever his friends went… wherever there was a good card game or horse race. He would write the steward with directions as to where to send money. I didn’t see him for months before Reggie was born.

And I was glad about it.” The last was whispered with a mixture of bitterness and defeat.

Elizabeth found herself at a loss for words; she and Darcy had not spent a night apart since their wedding.

Eventually, Alameda continued, “I sent an express to him announcing the birth the same day I wrote to the rest of the Fitzwilliams. He arrived a few hours before the Earl and Lady Matlock. Just long enough to assure himself that his son was whole and healthy and to inform me what his name was to be.”

“He didn’t discuss your own son’s name with you?” Lizzy exclaimed before clapping a hand over her mouth, realizing that, of all the horrors that her guest had endured, a child’s name was probably the least painful.

Alameda smiled wryly. “It’s alright. I was upset—I had hoped to name him Walter.

It’s not a fashionable name right now, I know, but it is a family name for the Baron Asbury going back six generations, even longer than the title has been in the Warren family.

” She sniffed into a handkerchief, remembering the hours she had spent studying the genealogy in the family bible and the old portraits in the gallery of her childhood home, counting down the days for her own babe to be born.

“Ashbourne swept in with his family, showing off his son like it was his greatest achievement. I was bedridden for more than a month after the delivery, and by the time I was up, Ashbourne had already announced the baby’s name and godparents.”

Alameda gave a pained laugh. “Last year, when he was even more drunk than usual, he told me that he had lost a wager to Lord Westinghouse—the loser had to name his first born son after the winner’s valet.

” She smiled wanly. “I suppose I should be thankful—it could have been much, much worse than ‘Reginald.’”

Elizabeth could only shake her head in disbelief.

Alameda leaned forward and picked up her teacup.

The tea had cooled, but it soothed her throat.

She was exhausted, but after taking a few sips and carefully setting the cup down again, she looked at the other woman in the eye for the first time that afternoon.

“You have been very patient with me, Mrs. Darcy.”

As Elizabeth began to protest, Alameda only shook her head and continued.

“Ashbourne and I quarreled bitterly last year; he was always thoughtless, but now he has become vicious.” She shuddered at some memory that was too painful to be recounted.

“I tried writing to my Great Uncle Alfred—my guardian after my parents died. He is elderly but not entirely without connections, and I had hoped that he might be able to help me in some way. He came, but…”

“What happened?” By this point, there was little that Elizabeth would believe Lord Ashbourne incapable of doing.

“When he arrived, the butler took him to my husband instead of me. I only discovered Uncle Alfred had come at all because I happened to be in the hall when he was being shown back out the front door. Ashbourne saw me standing there when he turned and just smiled… it was the coldest look I’ve ever seen. ”

Alameda stopped for some moments before continuing more softly.

“Yesterday, he pushed my son—I fear Reggie’s arm may be broken—and I shouted at him…

I said something about going to my uncle.

Ashbourne just laughed at me. He said Uncle Alfred would never cross him because of what he knew…

he said that before he married me, he hired a man to investigate my family.

He said… he said that Uncle Alfred… prefers men to women—that’s why he has remained a bachelor all his life.

Ashbourne told my uncle that he would make sure that all of Society knew of him and his…

predilection… He would tell the newspapers about him and his…

friend … and they would be lucky if they were arrested and hung before the mob ripped them to bits.

I’m not close to my uncle, but he is a kind man and has done his best for me since my parents died. I couldn’t do that to him.”

“Of course not,” whispered Lizzy. After some minutes of silence, she asked quietly, “Is that why you finally left? Because Lord Ashbourne hurt your son?”

Alameda nodded, completely exhausted from her confessions.

“I had another miscarriage a week ago and Reggie came to sit with me in my bed. Ashbourne came home unexpectedly… well, I suppose he always arrives un expectedly. He burst into my rooms saying crazy things. Even in his worst drunken rages, I’ve never seen him so incoherent.

He grabbed Reggie up by the arm and flung him across the room, and then backhanded me when I tried to go to him. ”

By that point, Alameda did not even have the strength for tears.

“When I finally woke up, it was the middle of the night and I was in bed with Reggie beside me. Mrs. Hudson had locked all the doors and pushed furniture in front of them, though that did not stop her from sleeping with one eye open and the poker in her hand.”

“How did you get away?”

“After Ashbourne goes on a drinking binge, he usually sleeps for at least a day. Everyone knows not to disturb him—to tread softly, quite literally. Mrs. Hudson was my nurse, and, though she is employed to mind Reggie, she still looks after me as well, I suppose. She tried to get me to leave once before, but I wouldn’t do it.

When I saw Reggie’s arm, though… well, Hudson managed it all.

We slipped out of the house through a side door while it was still dark, walked into the village, and then took the post to Chelmsford.

From there, we were able to transfer to an express bound for London. ”

Alameda tried to breath shallowly—her entire body ached with tension and exhaustion. “I didn’t know where else to go. I’ve no money or family… Lady Matlock has never liked me, and they would never believe me over their own son…”

Elizabeth gently wrapped one arm around the distraught lady and pulled her close, just as if she were one of her own sisters. “You are welcome here for as long as you need to stay. You’ve been incredibly brave and I promise, Mr. Darcy and I will find a way to help you.”

Alameda’s throat was so tight she found it impossible to speak any words of gratitude, but the look she gave Mrs. Darcy was eloquent.