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immediately?”
    “I doubted that you would believe me. So did Leo. She was your wife, your love, and we were strangers to you. The cost of trusting in you too soon
    would have been Anthony’s life. We dared not risk it. We had to wait until we felt certain you had seen the truth about her or, at the very least, knew enough to heed what we had to tel you.”
    Julian nodded in reluctant agreement, accepting the distasteful fact that he had been so enthral ed with Beatrice he probably would have believed
    her over the Wherlockes. “I knew the child she showed me was not mine. In my heart, I knew, but I told myself many a lie until that doubt receded. The child did not have the Kenwood birthmark.”
    “Ah, aye, the little strawberry-colored mark upon the right buttock.”
    “Exactly. It was not there, but I convinced myself that its absence meant nothing. Told myself that it would have shown itself later, if he had lived.
    The boy has it?”
    “He does.” Lord Julian closed his eyes and Chloe knew he was feeling swamped with emotion again. “Anthony is such a pretty boy,” she said.
    “Leo keeps sneaking about and cutting the child’s hair. It grows into the most beautiful fat curls, you see. Just perfect for a bow or two. Green bows, of
    course, to match his lovely eyes.” She tsked and shook her head. “Leo even had his valet make some little manly clothes for Anthony, even though the
    child looked adorable in his child’s petticoats. Leo claims that, if I had my way, everyone would soon be cal ing the child Antonia. Quite sil y, of course.
    Truly, most women would kil for curls such as Anthony has. I see no harm in showing them off just a little.”
    Chloe babbled on about the exquisite lace adorning the child’s little gowns, ones Leo adamantly refused to al ow her to put on the boy. Al the
    while she talked, she watched Lord Julian. His rather beautiful mouth soon lost the faint tremor afflicting it and firmed into a frown. By the time she began to complain about how Leo would not al ow her to wash the child or his clothing in rose-scented soap, the man was glaring at her.
    “Enough,” Julian snapped. “Your ploy has worked. I am no longer feeling missish. B’God, I bloody wel hope that was al nonsense.”
    “Some of it,” she said and grinned. “He real y does have beautiful curls.”
    Julian grunted and then frowned at the door. “I think I would like to see him again now that I have composed myself.”
    “No fear of swooning again?”
    “I did not swoon. I merely succumbed, momentarily, to a lingering weakness due to my wounds.”
    “Of course you did. Actual y, I believe Leo wil be bringing Anthony by in a moment or two. He has brought the child here each hour on the hour
    since you, er, succumbed. Poor child thought you had died. Leo al ows him to watch you breathe for a moment just to reassure him. Also, Leo hopes to
    find you awake again for Anthony’s sake and so that you may begin to make further plans. The clock has just struck the hour.” She listened for a moment.
    “Indeed, I believe I hear the pitter-patter of little feet coming up the stairs. Anthony’s, of course. Leo has rather large feet.”
    “You are a very strange woman,” Julian drawled, feeling an inexplicable urge to smile at her.
    “I know. ’Tis a gift.”
    Before he could reply to that nonsense, the door opened and Leo entered with Anthony, fol owed by Edgar, who looked uncertain. Julian stared at
    the child, who skipped up to the side of the bed. He stared into those eyes that matched his to a shade and knew, without a doubt, that this boy was his
    son. A quick study of the boy’s features, his hair, and even his long-fingered hands reminded Julian strongly of the portrait of himself at that age.
    The depth of the betrayal he had suffered, stil suffered, was almost overwhelming. Beatrice had denied him his own child, and had ful y intended
    that the boy die. She had obviously not dared to kil the child herself,