“Do you think I’d just let him lock me up in here without a fight? He pulled me from my room after he found your jewelry. We were struggling with each other all the way down the stairs. I might have beaten him if he’d fought fair. Instead, when I drew back to hit him again, he lashed out at me with that blasted whip he’s always carrying. I should have expected it. After all these years, I should have known…” He raked a hand through his already disheveled hair. “But I wasn’t prepared, damn me. I fell backward into the loose box, and before I could regain my feet, he’d bolted the door.”

“The blackguard!” Maggie’s low voice trembled with fury. “The confounded coward! I shall show him what it feels like to be struck with a whip. When Papa returns from London, I’ll—” She broke off with a muttered oath. “Devil take it, there’s not even enough time for me to dress your wound. You must go, Nick. You must hide yourself from Fred and the magistrate until my father returns next week, and then, when you come back, we shall go to Papa together and explain—”

“Why should I come back?” Nicholas spat in a sudden burst of anger. “I hate this cursed place.”

Maggie shook her head, denying the truth of his words. “Don’t say that.”

“I hate everything about it. I hate Sir Roderick and I hate Fred Burton-Smythe. I hate the vicar’s wife and your Aunt Daphne. I despise working in this damned stable and—”

“What about me?” she asked.

He felt a spasm of deep anguish. “How can one good thing outweigh all of this misery?”

“Well, you can’t go away and never come back. As horrible as everything else is, Jenny’s here, and I’m here, and you have someplace to sleep, and a chance to earn your living—”

“Earn my living? As what? A groom in your father’s stable?” Nicholas laughed bitterly. “I’ll never be a gentleman if I remain here. No matter how much you teach me about books and music and dancing. Bastards and commoners can never be made into gentlefolk, by no miracle. I’ll never be anything more than a servant to you. And one day…” He looked at her, his chest constricting with torment. “One day you’ll marry Fred Burton-Smythe, and you’ll forget I ever meant anything to you.”

“I would never!”

“I can’t be here when that day comes, Maggie. I’d rather be dead. And if I remain here, I might as well be. There’s no future for me as a servant at Beasley Park. Can’t you understand that?”

“But where else can you go?”

“To Bristol. To the sea. I’ll go to find my father.”

“Your father?” Maggie repeated. “Do you mean…Gentleman Jim?”