Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

As many times as she’d been in the public room below, Kate had never visited the rooms above the Bull and Blossom.

At Fosbury’s direction, she made her way up a narrow staircase and emerged into a long, windowless corridor. She froze, struck again by that same familiar image.

She was in an endless, shadowy tunnel, and her future lay at the other end. Pianoforte music came up through the floor, tingling in the soles of her feet. She closed her eyes, and blue flashed behind her eyelids.

“Kate, is that you?” Evan’s voice carried out from the first room on the left.

“Yes.” She shook herself and smoothed a hand over the skirt of her fresh sprigged muslin before entering the room.

“Come in, come in.” Evan waved her forward. “I trust you’re feeling better this morning.”

She stepped into a small yet comfortably furnished sitting room. She knew at once it had to be the Fosburys’ private parlor. They must have vacated it to offer Evan a full suite of rooms, worthy of a marquess.

“Miss Kate Taylor, I’d like you to meet two of the family solicitors, Mr. Bartwhistle and Mr. Smythe.”

“How do you do.” Kate curtsied to the two men, who were dressed in brown coats so similar as to be nearly identical.

“And this”—Evan turned her attention to an older woman in a faded indigo day dress several years past its peak of fashion—“is Mrs. Fellows.”

Kate smiled and nodded, but was dismayed when Mrs. Fellows made no acknowledgment in return. Instead, the older woman remained seated in the tufted armchair, facing the window and staring straight ahead.

“Cataracts,” Evan whispered in her ear. “Poor old dear’s nearly blind.”

“Oh.” Understanding the remoteness of her demeanor now, Kate moved forward to take the woman’s hand. “Mrs. Fellows, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Evan closed the parlor door. “Mrs. Fellows was just telling us about her tenure as housekeeper at Ambervale, twenty years ago.”

“Ambervale?” Kate’s heart skipped an alarming number of beats. Evan had told her in Wilmington that they meant to canvass for former Ambervale servants, but he’d never mentioned it again.

He pulled up a chair for Kate, and she accepted it gratefully.

He took a seat as well. “Tell me, Mrs. Fellows. Did you keep a large house staff in my cousin’s time?”

“No, my lord. Just me and my man. Mr. Fellows is gone now, some eight years. We had a cook in those days, and a girl came in daily for scullery. We sent the laundry out. Most of the house was closed up, you see. There were never any guests. His lordship and Miss Elinor liked their privacy.”

“Yes, I would imagine.” Evan smiled at Kate. “And then Miss Haverford became pregnant, is that right?”

The frankness of the question obviously pained Mrs. Fellows. But she answered. “Yes, my lord.”

“And she gave birth to a child. Was it a son or a daughter, do you recall?”

“A baby girl.” Mrs. Fellows still faced the window, and she smiled at the dust motes whirling in the sunlight. “They named her Katherine.”

From the other side of the room, Mr. Bartwhistle cleared his throat. His keen gaze fell on Kate—or more particularly, on the birthmark at her temple. “Mrs. Fellows,” he asked, “do you recall whether the infant had any . . . distinguishing marks?”

“Oh, yes. Unfortunate little dear had a birthmark. Right on her face.”

Unfortunate little dear?For the first time in her life, Kate blessed that mark on her temple. If she could have stretched her lips like India rubber, she would have kissed it.

She leaned forward in her chair, training her ears so hard, she felt her eardrums bending under the strain.

“If you ask me,” said Mrs. Fellows, “it was the wine. If I told Miss Elinor once, I told her a hundred times—a woman shouldn’t be drinking aught of claret while she’s breeding. It’s unseemly. But she had a taste for a sip from time to time, and sure enough, when the babe came, there was a great splash of it on her temple.”

“Can you describe the mark in any further detail?” Evan asked. “I know it’s been many years.”

Mrs. Fellows shifted in her chair. “But I remember it, clear as day. It was just here.” She lifted an age-spotted hand to her own temple. “Had almost the shape of a heart. I’ll never forget that, because they laughed about it, you know.”

“They laughed about it?” Kate asked, forgetting that she wasn’t the one conducting the interview.

“Laughed with each other, yes. They were like that, always laughing with each other about everything. I heard the lady tell his lordship, ‘We know she’s yours, don’t we?’ That was on account of his having a birthmark, too. But the late Lord Drewe insisted the mark was from Miss Elinor’s side. Because she wore her heart on her face, and so the child must as well.”

On the other side of the room, Bartwhistle and Smythe were furiously scribbling, taking down every word.

Evan reached for Kate’s hand and squeezed it. “I knew it. I knew you were ours.”

“It sounds as though Simon and Elinor were very much in love,” Kate said, choked with emotion.

“Oh, yes.” The old housekeeper smiled. “Never seen a couple so madly devoted to one another.” Her smile faded. “And after his lordship died, so sudden and so soon . . . oh, she took it so hard.”

“What happened?” Evan asked.

“We never knew,” Mrs. Fellows replied. “The doctor said mayhap the midwife brought in a contagion. I always suspected the painting, myself. Can’t be healthy, staying shut up all day with those horrid vapors.” She shook her head. “However it happened, he was gone. We were all desolate, and Miss Elinor was beside herself. Alone in the world, with a newborn babe? And there was no money. None. His lordship had never kept much in the house, and we hadn’t any way to keep purchasing goods on credit.”

“What did you do?” Kate asked.

“We closed up the house. Miss Elinor took the babe and left. Said she’d go back home to Derbyshire.”

Evan leaned toward Kate and murmured, “I suppose she never made it that far, or certainly someone would have heard. If only we could know what happened between the closing of Ambervale and your arrival at Margate.”

A sense of desperate bewilderment settled on Kate. She was heartily sick of lies and deceit. She wanted to do—and say—the right thing. But she didn’t know what the right thing was.

How could she explain to Evan about “Ellie Rose” and the Southwark bawdy house—in front of two solicitors and the housekeeper who’d held her mother in such obvious regard? Did it even matter? Perhaps Thorne’s story was irrelevant. The little girl he’d known might have been someone else.

The most maddening thing of all was knowing that her own brain was holding the truth hostage. The memories were in there. She knew they were. But she could never quite reach the end of that corridor.

“I wish I could tell you,” Kate said. “I wish, more than anything, that I had some clear memory of that time.”

“The good Lord must have taken her to heaven,” Mrs. Fellows said. “I can’t imagine Miss Elinor would part with her child for anything less. I’ve six of my own at home, and I’d go to war with the devil for each of them.”

“Of course you would, Mrs. Fellows,” Evan said.

Impulsively, Kate reached forward and squeezed the aging housekeeper’s wrist. “Thank you,” she said. “For taking such care of her. And of me.”

Mrs. Fellows fumbled for Kate’s hand. “Is it you, then? Are you Katherine? You’re his lordship’s daughter?”

Kate looked to Evan, and then to the solicitors. “I . . . I think so?”

Mrs. Bartwhistle and Mr. Smythe conferred. In the end, Mr. Bartwhistle answered for them both.

“Between the parish register,” he said, “the striking physical resemblance, and the statement of Mrs. Fellows with regards to the birthmark—we feel it safe to conclude in the affirmative.”

“Yes?” Kate asked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Smythe.

Kate sank into the depths of her armchair, overwhelmed. The Gramercys had burst into her life less than a fortnight ago. Evan, Lark, Harry, Aunt Marmoset—each of them had accepted her into the family, individually. But there was something about the dry, actuarial “Yes” from the solicitors that made the brimming cup of emotion overflow. She buried her face in her hands, overcome.

She was a lost child, found. She was a Gramercy. She had been loved.

She couldn’t wait to pay another call on Miss Paringham.

Mr. Bartwhistle went on, “We will draw up a statement for your signature, Mrs. Fellows. If you will be so kind as to offer a few more details. Were you present at the birth?”

“Oh, yes,” the housekeeper said. “I was present at the birth. And at the wedding.”

The wedding?

Kate’s head whipped up. She sought Evan’s face, but his expression was unreadable. “Did she just say ‘the wedding’?”

After Mrs. Fellows and the solicitors had gone, Kate sat with Evan in the small upstairs parlor. The musty parish register lay open before her on the table, flipped to a page just two leaves prior to her birth record.

“Simon Langley Gramercy,” she read aloud in a quiet voice, “the fifth Marquess of Drewe, married to Elinor Marie Haverford, the thirtieth day of January, 1791.”

No matter how many times she read the lines, she still found them hard to believe.

Evan rubbed his jaw. “Cutting it a bit close, weren’t they? Whatever scandal they began in, it seems Simon wanted to make things proper when it counted.”

Kate looked up at her cousin. “Have you known this all along?”

He regarded her steadily. “Can you forgive me? We always meant to tell you, of course, once we’d—”

“We? So Lark and Harry and Aunt Marmoset . . . they all know, too?”

“We all saw it together, that day at St. Mary of the Martyrs.” He reached for her hand. “Kate, please try to understand. We needed to be sure of your identity first, to avoid disappointing you, or . . .”

“Or tempting me to stretch the truth.”

He nodded. “We didn’t know you at all. We had no idea what kind of person you might be.”

“I understand,” Kate said. “Caution was necessary, and not only on your side.”

“That’s why you pretended an engagement to Corporal Thorne?”

She warmed with a guilty flush. How had he guessed? “It wasn’t a pretense. Not exactly.”

“But it was a convenience. Invented on the spot, right there in the parlor of the Queen’s Ruby. He wanted to protect you.”

She nodded, unable to deny it.

“I’ve long suspected as much. Don’t feel badly, Kate. When I think of how we surprised you that night . . . It was the strangest, most unpredictable situation. For us all. Both of us held information back. But we were only guarding ourselves and our loved ones as best we could.”

His words made her think of her argument with Thorne. She’d been so furious with him for withholding what he knew—or thought he knew—about her past. Hadn’t Evan committed the same exact transgression?

But she wasn’t leaping from her chair and shouting at Evan. She wasn’t heaping insults on Evan’s character. Nor was she flouncing from the room in an airy huff of indignation, vowing to never see Evan again.

Why the distinction?she asked herself. Were the two men’s actions so fundamentally different? Perhaps smoothly spoken Evan just explained his reasons more deftly than Thorne.

Or maybe it was merely this: Evan had concealed happy news, while Thorne’s story represented a painful “truth” she’d prefer to reject. If so, she had dealt with him most unfairly.

But it was too late for regrets now.

With one long, elegant finger, Evan tapped the parish register. “You do realize what this means, don’t you?”

She swallowed hard. “It means they married before my birth. It means I’m legitimate.”

“Yes. You’re the legitimate daughter of a marquess. Which means that you are a lady. Lady Katherine Adele Gramercy.”

Lady Katherine Adele Gramercy. It was too much to be believed. The title felt like a too-large gown, borrowed from someone else.

“Your life is about to change, Kate. You will move in the highest circles of Society. You must be presented at court. And then there is an inheritance. A significant inheritance.”

She shook her head, faintly horrified. “But I don’t need all that. Being your illegitimate cousin already felt like a fairy tale come true. As for an inheritance . . . I don’t want to take anything away from you.”

He smiled. “You will not be taking anything. You will have what was rightfully yours all along. We’ve merely had it on loan, these three-and-twenty years. I still keep the title, naturally. The marquessate cannot pass to a female child.”

He patted her hand. “The solicitors will sort it all out. Of course, you’ll have a great deal to discuss with Corporal Thorne.”

“No,” she blurted out. “I can’t tell him. He’s gone to London on business. And before he left, we . . . I broke the engagement.”

Evan exhaled in a slow, controlled fashion. “I am sorry, Kate—gravely sorry—for any hurt this has caused you. But for myself and for our family, I cannot pretend to be disappointed. I’m glad it ended before today’s interview, rather than after.”

“You needn’t have worried,” she said. “He’s not mercenary. He wanted no part of marriage to me, even once he knew you were planning to claim me as a Gramercy. If he hears I’m a true lady, it will only drive him further away.”

Thorne’s words echoed back to her:

If I hadn’t spent the past year thinking of you as a lady, I promise you—things would be different between us.

“Evan, you must be relieved on all counts,” she said. “Now that the solicitors have accepted me, there’ll be no need for you to . . . devise another way of giving me the family name.”

“By marrying you, you mean?”

She nodded. It was the first time either of them had admitted the idea aloud.

“The relief should be on your side, I think.” A smile warmed his eyes. “For my part, I would not have viewed it as a hardship.”

She cringed, hoping she hadn’t caused any offense. Evan didn’t seem to love her romantically, but then . . . After yesterday, what did she know of reading men’s emotions?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to suggest that I . . . that we . . .”

He took her bumbling apology and waved it smoothly away. “Kate, you will have so many options now. Every door will be open to you. Corporal Thorne may be a fine enough fellow. He troubled himself to protect you, and that speaks well of his character.”

You’ve no idea, she thought.

He’d taken a melon for her. And a snakebite. He’d given her his dog.

“But,” Evan continued, “you can do better in your choice of a husband. You deserve better.”

She sighed. “I’m not so sure that’s true.”

“Corporal Thorne! Here you are, at last.”

Thorne made a bow. “My lady.”

Lady Rycliff herself welcomed him at the door of a new, lavish Mayfair town house.

“You know you can dispense with all that.” Stray wisps of copper floated about her smiling face as she hurried him inside. “It’s good to see you. Bram’s been so looking forward to your visit. Now that the baby’s arrived, he’s outnumbered by females again.”

The piercing wail of an infant drifted down from the upper floor.

Lady Rycliff bowed her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. When she lifted her face, her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Evidently, little Victoria is eager to meet you, too.”

“Did I wake her?” he asked, worried.

“No, no. She scarcely sleeps.” Lady Rycliff showed him into a parlor. “Will you mind waiting here for Bram? I’m so sorry to abandon you when you’ve just arrived. We’re between nursemaids.”

She disappeared, and Thorne stood awkwardly in the center of the room, surveying the evidence of genteel disorder. A few pillows lay scattered on the floor. The room smelled . . . odd.

He could scarcely believe that this was Lord and Lady Rycliff’s home. Rycliff had been born and raised in the military. Order came as naturally to him as breathing. And as for his wife . . . she’d been quite the managing sort, in Spindle Cove.

Shouldn’t they at least have servants?

As if reading his mind, someone said from the doorway, “Good God. This house is in upheaval. How is it that no one’s offered you a drink?”

Thorne turned to see that Rycliff had joined him.

He bowed. “My lord.”

Rycliff brushed off the honorific. “It’s just Bram in this house.”

He offered Thorne a tumbler of brandy with one hand and a firm handshake with the other. “It’s good to see you.”

Thorne accepted the brandy and made excuses for the handshake. His right arm was still numb from the elbow down, though he was slowly regaining sensation.

As he drank, he sized Bram up, noting the changes a few months’ time and new fatherhood had made on the man. One thing was clear—he ought to dismiss his valet. Only late afternoon, and Bram was dressed in a waistcoat and a rumpled, uncuffed shirt. To Thorne’s eyes, he looked exhausted—but he’d venture to deem it a contented exhaustion, quite different from the grim fatigue of campaign.

Lady Rycliff reappeared, her arms full of wailing infant. “I’m so sorry,” she called over the din. “She’s a very fretful baby, I’m afraid. She cries with everyone. Our first nursemaid’s already left us. No one under this roof is getting much sleep.”

“She sleeps for me,” Rycliff said. “Give her here.”

His wife did so, with obvious relief. “Two months old, and she’s already Papa’s darling. I fear we’re in for a time of it.” She looked to Thorne. “I do hope you weren’t planning on a quiet, restful stay in Town.”

“No, my lady,” Thorne said. “Just business.”

And when he wasn’t occupied with business, he imagined he’d be spending long hours engaged in self-castigation and regret. Distraction of any kind would be welcome—even if it came in the form of a wailing infant.

“Go on ahead,” Bram told his wife. “I have her. I know you’ve dinner to oversee.”

“Are you certain you don’t mind? I’ll just check on the corporal’s rooms upstairs.”

“She always sleeps for me,” Bram said. “You know that. Come along, Thorne. We can discuss our business in my library.”

Squalling daughter in one arm and brandy in the other, Bram backed out of the parlor. Thorne followed him across the corridor to a richly paneled library.

Bram kicked the door shut behind them, placed his brandy on the desk blotter, and readjusted baby Victoria’s weight in his arms. He paced the floor back and forth, jouncing the wailing baby as he went. His persistent limp from a war injury gave his steps an uneven rhythm.

When he caught Thorne’s inquisitive look, he said, “Sometimes the walking helps.”

Not every time, apparently.

When the babe’s crying still didn’t abate, Bram swore quietly and pushed his rolled sleeve to mid forearm. He fixed Thorne with an authoritative look. “I’m still your commanding officer. You are never to tell Susanna I did this. That’s an order.”

He dipped the tip of his little finger in the brandy, then popped it into the babe’s mouth. Little Victoria went quiet instantly, contentedly suckling.

“God help me,” Bram muttered down at her. “You’re going to be a handful when you’re sixteen.”

He released a heavy breath and looked to Thorne. “So. Are you certain you want this?”

“Want what?” Thorne asked, wary.

“An honorable discharge from the army. Not the infant. Loud as she might be, I’m not willing to part with her.”

“Of course not.” He cleared his throat. “To answer your question . . . Yes, my lord. I’m certain.”

“Enough with the ‘my lord,’ Thorne. I’m not asking you lord to servant, or even commander to soldier. I’m asking you friend to friend.” The baby released his finger, falling into a shallow sleep. He lowered his voice and resumed pacing the room, slowly this time. “I want to make sure this is really your desire. You could make a good career for yourself in the army. I’m well enough placed now, I could easily grant you a commission, if you wished.”

The words gave Thorne a moment’s pause. What Rycliff offered was no small favor. If he accepted a commission, he could be assured higher standing in Society and a steady income for the rest of his life. Enough to support a family.

“That’s very generous of you to—”

“It’s not generous at all. It’s piss-poor compensation. You saved my life and my leg, and you served under me faithfully for years.”

“It was my duty and an honor. But I don’t belong in England anymore, if I ever did. I need someplace bigger. Less civilized.”

“So you’re going to America. To be a farmer?”

Thorne shrugged. “Thought I’d start with trapping. I hear there’s good money in it.”

“No doubt. And I can’t deny it would suit your talents.” Bram bounced his daughter. “I’ll never forget that time in the Pyrenees, when you used nothing but a bayonet to skin and gut that . . . What was it, again?”

“A marmot.”

“Yes, marmot. A tough, greasy bastard. Can’t say I’ll be requesting marmot stew on the menu anytime soon, but it tasted fine when it was the first fresh meat in a fortnight.” Rycliff nodded at his ledgers. “Can’t I lend you some funds? Let me do that much. We can call it a loan.”

Thorne shook his head. “I have money set aside.”

“I see you’re determined to be stubborn and self-sufficient. I can respect that. But I insist you accept a gift, friend to friend.” He tilted his head at a long, gleaming rifle from the mantel. “Take that. It’s Sir Lewis Finch’s latest design.”

When Thorne’s eyebrows knitted in skepticism, Rycliff hastily added, “Professionally manufactured, of course. And thoroughly tested.”

Thorne lifted the weapon with his good left hand, testing its balance. It was a fine rifle. He could see himself out tramping the woods with this gun in his hand. Of course, to make the picture complete, he’d need Badger at his heel.

Damn it. He would miss that dog.

Thorne watched with curiosity as his friend gently rocked the sleeping baby in his arms. “You love her,” he said. “The baby.”

Bram looked at him like he’d gone mad. “Of course I do. Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s my child.”

“Not every father loves his child. How do you know you love yours?”

Thorne knew this strayed beyond the normal boundaries of their conversation, but if Bram wanted to do him a favor . . . this was a favor he could use.

Bram shrugged and looked down at his sleeping daughter. “I suppose it’s a fair enough question. I mean, as of yet she doesn’t do much, does she? Except deprive me and her mother of sleep, food, peace of mind, and sexual congress.”

Bram lowered his weight into the desk chair. Slowly, so as not to wake the babe. “When she’s freshly washed, she smells better than opium. There’s that. And even though I know it’s not statistically likely, no one could convince me she’s not the most beautiful infant in Britain.”

“So she’s pretty. And she smells good. That’s all you have?” If that was all there was to love, Thorne thought, he would have been chest-deep in it for ages.

“What can I say? She’s not much of a conversationalist yet.” Bram shook his head. “I’m no philosopher, Thorne. I just know how I feel. If you require a definition, read a book.”

Sliding his daughter to his left arm, he reached for his brandy and drew a healthy swallow. “Does this line of questioning mean there’s truth to the rumor? You’ve taken up with Miss Taylor?”

“Taken up?”

“Susanna’s had some very strange letters from Spindle Cove. There’s some talk of an engagement.”

“It’s only talk,” Thorne said. “No truth to it.” Not anymore.

“If there’s no truth to it, then how would the rumor be started?”

Thorne set his jaw. “I’m not certain what you mean.”

Bram shrugged. “Miss Taylor is Susanna’s good friend. I just want to be certain she’s been treated well.”

A white flare of rage rose in Thorne’s chest. He worked hard to conceal it. “My lord, when will this discharge go into effect?”

“You’ve permission to speak freely now, if that’s what you mean.”

He nodded. “Then I’ll thank you to mind your own affairs. If you make any further insinuations that disparage Miss Taylor’s virtue, we’ll have more than words about it.”

Bram stared at him, surprised. “Did you just threaten me?”

“I believe I did.”

He broke into low laughter. “Good God. And here Susanna and I were placing wagers on whether you even liked her. Now I see she has you utterly tied in knots.”

Thorne shook his head. She did not have him tied in knots. She hadn’t held him tied in knots for at least . . . fifteen hours.

Bram raised a brow. “Don’t take offense. Stronger men than you have been brought to their knees by Spindle Cove women.”

Thorne harrumphed. “What stronger men would those be?”

A knock sounded at the study door.

“How do you do it?” Lady Rycliff asked, marveling at the sleeping babe in Bram’s arms. “For a gruff old soldier, you charm lambs and babies with remarkable ease. Corporal Thorne, what is his secret?”

Bram gave him a stern look. Don’t tell. It’s an order.

Thorne wouldn’t disobey an order. But neither could he let that “stronger men” remark go unanswered. “It must have been the . . . the lullabies, my lady.”

“Lullabies?” Lady Rycliff laughed and turned to her husband. “I’ve never heard him sing a note. Not even in church.”

“Yes, well,” Thorne said. “His lordship sang them very softly. And then he made little kissing faces. There might have been a story about fairies and ponies.”

Bram rolled his eyes. “Thanks for nothing.”