Charlotte’s pulse pounded in her ears. The dawning realization on her husband’s face was all too clear.

“You’ve never known who your father was.” He leaned back. Away from her. “You’re…”

“A bastard,” she said beneath her breath. “Yes.”

He licked his lips. “Charlotte—”

She pushed away from the dining table before her husband could ask any more questions she didn’t want to answer. Once again, she was a spectacle. Unable to bear the other guests staring at her, she stumbled through the corridors and into their small chamber.

Anthony joined her in silence, her discarded earrings in his palm.

She couldn’t bear to look at him. Not after seeing her like this. What a fool he must think her, to follow a dream only a child’s blind faith could believe in. A fiction her mother had sold her.

The necklace she’d been proud of for years now bit into her skin like a swarm of ants. She had to get it off. Never wanted it to touch her again.

She pulled up her skirt in order to reach the binding round her ribs.

Anthony turned away to grant her privacy.

It didn’t matter. Her desperation wasn’t about him. It was about getting rid of the poisonous lie she’d been carrying next to her heart.

She yanked the necklace out from under the binding cloths and hurled the rubies onto the dressing table. She pulled the money pouches free as well and threw them next to the necklace. Their winnings couldn’t help her. She was just what she’d always been—the daughter of a prostitute. With no father and nowhere to go.

Shivering, she unwrapped the linen binding her breasts and tossed it aside. No more hiding. She was who she was. There was no sense trying to playact any longer.

She let her skirt fall to the floor, then turned toward the looking glass. The masking powder she had always added to her hair to make it dull and lifeless, the subtle face paint she had used every morning to make her complexion tired and gray and less like her mother’s… What did any of it matter?

It took very little of the icy water in the basin to wash away what she’d spent a lifetime trying to hide.

She was not her father’s daughter. She was her mother’s. They were two sides of the same coin. The same rosy cheeks and golden ringlets that had made her wide-eyed mother so irresistible to men stared right back at Charlotte in the mirror.

Her shoulders crumpled. She could run away from home, flee those who spat at her in the street—if they acknowledged her at all—but she could never escape her own reflection.

She jerked away from the looking glass and directed her wooden legs toward a wingback chair. Its cushions no longer comforted her. She was no longer on a path to adventure and approval. She was adrift at sea.

Anthony knelt by the fireplace to coax steady flames from the embers. But the warmth did not reach her.

She stared listlessly at the grate. What would become of her now? The sole hope on her horizon had been stripped away. While her father’s money was meant to save Anthony, her father’s love was meant to save Charlotte.

Her gaze inexorably traveled toward her husband. Her heart sank. It would be foolish to develop an attachment to him. He, too, would be taken from her before long.

Then she would have no one. Just like before.

He pulled the chaise longue next to her chair and settled beside her.

She said nothing. She couldn’t trust herself to. If she spoke, she might shatter.

“I’m sorry we can’t find your father,” he said quietly.

She closed her eyes. “I don’t have one.”

“You did,” he said. “Once. Everyone did. If he chose not to stay, I’d say you were better off without someone like that in your life.”

“Of course you would say that,” she said through clenched teeth. He had undoubtedly been loved and flattered all his life. “You have your parents. Both of them. You can’t possibly know what it was like for me as a child. No one does.”

“Then tell me,” he said simply.

Ah. If only it were that simple.

Charlotte stared at the dancing flames until her vision blurred orange. How was she supposed to tell him? She’d never told anyone. She’d hidden beneath makeup and layers of cloth. Lied about her name, her heritage, anytime she was somewhere she might not be recognized. Cleaved to the idea of a man who had never existed.

“Even the poorest children were better than me,” she said at last. Her voice was as unsteady as her pulse.

Anthony kept his silence.

“We didn’t live in the worst parts of London. We had too much money for that—yet not enough respectability to live anywhere fashionable. So we lived where we could. On streets where the others couldn’t be too choosy about who their neighbors were. Yet next to houses where the children didn’t just know who their parents were… They lived together. As a family.”

The crackling of the fire was the only sound.

“Charlotte the harlot,” she singsonged with a harsh laugh. “That was my name growing up. Because that’s what my mother was. A light-skirt. A fancy one.”

Anthony brushed the back of her hand with his own.

Her breath caught at the gentle touch. How could he have compassion? She was telling him he was married to a prostitute’s bastard daughter! Suddenly the words came tumbling out.

“The life of a courtesan is only glamorous while she’s out at the opera, riding in fast carriages, presiding at balls, twirling beneath the stars in a gown to rival a princess. But her home is never her home. It’s a place of negotiation. The give and take of power. Mother lost her edge because she was saddled with me.”

He frowned as if he’d never given much thought to a courtesan’s private life before. He probably hadn’t. No man ever did.

Or was he frowning because he just realized what a huge mistake he’d made by leg-shackling himself to her? Charlotte’s throat tightened.

“One of the first things I learned was that there are good clients and there are bad clients. Some would leave me a treat or a dolly. Others…” Her voice cracked. “Sometimes it was best to stay under the bed, or in a dark corner of my wardrobe.”

His eyes filled with sympathy.

She dropped her gaze so she wouldn’t have to meet his. The memories suffocated her. She’d tried so hard to forget.

“The one thing I wanted was to be respectable. To be accepted. The one thing I didn’t want was to be anything like my mother. No matter how much I love her.” Her throat rasped. “Sometimes the gowns and jewels she wore were dazzling to the eyes. At other times, her only adornment was bruises on her wrists or her face.”

He winced and reached for her.

She pulled away. If he touched her, she would not be able to stop the tears. And if she let herself fall apart, she might not be able to put herself back together.

“I don’t know how old I was when I realized I would never be respectable. That no matter how well I succeeded in my quest not to follow my mother’s footsteps, it would never be enough. I’m not just a bastard. I’m a whore’s by-blow. A mistake. No man would want me as anything other than what I’d been born to be. No ladies would lower themselves to accept my friendship, for the slightest association with me could lower their reputations as well. The only person who would ever love me was my mother.”

He made no objections to these claims. No false attempt to insist she was valuable, desirable. Respectable. They both knew she was not. She appreciated his honesty. Even if it made her shrivel inside. She had wanted Anthony to like her. Had let herself believe in the fantasy they’d created of a respectable newlywed couple. Had desperately yearned for the lie to be true.

She risked a glance up at him through her lashes. He hadn’t stormed off in disgust, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t plotting to leave. Why should he stay? They weren’t a real couple. Now they would never be.

Before, they had planned for an annulment only if he couldn’t avoid debtors’ prison. After this conversation, Anthony wouldn’t want to wait even a fortnight.

Yet he deserved to know the truth.

“At some point, I latched on to the idea of a father. The baker’s daughter, the cobbler’s daughter, the fishmonger’s daughter—they were all not only more respectable than me, but they also knew who they were. They had someone’s arms to come home to. A family. A future.” Her voice broke. “I wanted that, too. But I couldn’t have it. Not as me.”

His eyes were dark with sympathy.

She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t acknowledge his empathy. Sympathetic gazes couldn’t change her situation. Nothing could. No matter how hard she wanted it.

“I was small when my mother gave me that jewelry. The strongbox was hidden in my wardrobe, not hers. The rubies fascinated me. Once she realized her mistake, how desperate I was to find my father, she commanded me never to seek him, and then refused to speak of him ever again. I went looking for him once. She smacked me.” Charlotte tried to swallow the old hurt. Her throat stung. It never got easier. “I dreamed of him every night. Of a new life. A different me.”

His gaze was unfathomable. At least now he knew the truth.

“But I’m not different. I’m Charlotte the harlot, bastard daughter of a common courtesan. And now you’re saddled with me, too.”

He took her hand. Refused to let her jerk free. “Look at me. What are you afraid of? That I’ll reject you, too? That my association with you will ruin my pristine reputation? In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a hairsbreadth away from being tossed into debtors’ prison.” He forced her to meet his eyes. “I’m human, Charlotte. So are you. The circumstances of your birth are not your fault. How could I blame you for it?”

Hope dared to stir in her chest. Harsh reality tamped it down. She shook her head. “Others do. You can’t change society. And what about your friends and family? What will they say when they discover you’ve wed the offspring of a whore?”

“My friends and family are no strangers to scandal.” His tone was rueful, but his eyes held no trace of regret. “My sister married her husband the same week that she gave birth. One needn’t have a head for figures to realize they must have taken a few liberties with the proper order of events. Sarah certainly won’t judge you harshly. Nor do I.”

Charlotte stared at him in amazement, scarcely able to comprehend his meaning. She had told him her darkest secrets, the very things she had spent a lifetime fighting to hide, and… it didn’t change his view of her in the slightest?

She was human, he’d said without hesitation. Without realizing she’d struggled her entire life to be treated like a whole person. Her breath caught. She’d dreamed of society accepting her… but perhaps it was enough to be accepted by one man.

This man.

Still unable to believe he’d accepted her despite it all, she gave him a wobbly smile. He pulled her into his arms and just held her. Letting his strength comfort her. She hugged him tight. He would make a wonderful husband.

If only he weren’t destined for gaol.