Marchioness Divine | A Regency Romance

Chapter Nine: Bastard

A/N: As you can see by the title, this chapter uses what some would consider vulgar language. Apologies for any offence caused.

Charity Burns was born a bastard, and she was to die a bastard. She had not been involved in this decision and yet somehow it affected her and only her.

The late Lord Harper had been good enough to let Judy give birth in the warmth of his stables with the assistance of an untrained housemaid. Her mother had been forced out there after the discovery of a six-month understanding with the earl's son and her condition was not enough to protect her from the lonely outdoor labour she was given as punishment.

Charity had come out quietly and without fuss.

The Harpers hated her. They hated how much she looked like her father, more than his real children. From the age of eight, they had her fetching and carrying and cleaning their nurseries and school rooms, but never allowed to join in with them. She was the price to be paid for the eldest son's infidelity, and they made her pay it by pretending she did not exist, unless she could be useful.

She learnt to hate them right back, especially her father. She never saw the wretched man more than once a year, and on those rare occasions he would not so much as look at her. Charity quickly learned to keep her head down, knowing that one day she would get out of this purgatory. She would be accepted into the world which she had been denied.

Judy had been given the option of leaving the baby at the nearest church, most likely to be raised in a home which would treat her like a bastard. Judy could have started her life somewhere else, unattached and free. But she refused. She continued working in the stables for a pittance, she saved pennies to buy Charity a sweet on her birthday, and she used any rags she could find to wrap up her daughter warm in the winter.

"I always meant for you to happen," Judy would whisper some nights as they cradled one another in their bunk in the hayloft. "I was so jealous of my mistress' babies and I wanted one all to myself."

Charity knew she ought to hold her mother at least in part responsible for their circumstances, but she could not. Her mother was the only place in the world where she could project all the love she held in her soul and nothing would ever turn her against her. They had their fair share of arguments and grudges, but they also had a bond that nothing would ever sever.

Her mother had never approved of her larcenous habits. When Charity wasn't being watched she managed to steal books from the library: if the Harpers wished to deny her an education, Charity would educate herself. Her many half-siblings mocked all of her attempts to copy their manners, all too distracted to realise that she could imitate them almost perfectly. If she remained quiet enough, she was able to convince servants who infrequently came from the village that she was a lady of the house.

Once Judy applauded her and chuckled, as though it was all just a game. Charity knew her birth right as the daughter of an earl, even if she was not recognised – it was not a game to her. Why should she not be Lady Charity Burns?

One day she took it too far, as she always did. Charity was a quiet, obliging girl when she wanted to be, but who wanted to always be quiet and obliging? Charity taught herself to push – not all at once, but gradually, bit by bit, letting herself slowly grow stronger while wearing her challenge down.

It started with the running – she was given two free hours every Saturday, when her father's mother-in-law came to visit and Charity was not allowed to be seen. She would run as far as she could into the woods to escape the clutches of the manor before she had to run back to work. But every week, she would run a little farther and a little farther, pushing her lean muscles. Sometimes she returned late and was beaten for her tardiness, but she refused to let the sharp cracks of the housekeeper's cane break her spirit. Any fear she had of these beatings, she channelled into running faster, until her organs were violently pulsating and she was breathless. And every week she managed to reach a spot just a few steps farther away from the house than the week before.