Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

A delaide did not immediately get out of bed when she awoke the next morning but lay pondering the drastic turn her life had taken. It is true! she repeated, over and over. I am Adelaide Richmond! It made her alternately marvel, giggle, and bite her lip with anxiety that a mistake must have been made, and it would all be undone in a flash.

Lord Oakley—Oakley—her brother! —seemed to hold no shred of doubt. His unswerving enthusiasm was deeply touching, though in a strange way, and made Adelaide yet more nervous. Her Booker brothers and sisters' chief resentment had been that she was not their real relation; thus, the fear that some conflicting proof might yet be uncovered, that she might yet lose the name Richmond and Oakley's esteem with it, lurked at the back of her mind.

She would wager that it lurked a good deal closer to the front of Lord Tipton's mind. Practical he may be, but happy to have inherited a previously undiscovered dependent, he was most assuredly not—not if his caustic remarks and disgruntled looks were any indication. She did not think he would turn her out without good cause, but neither did she think he would be sorry if she was found not to be his niece.

She wondered again how like him her father had been. She knew what Robert Richmond had looked like now; there were no portraits on display in the house, but Oakley had shown her a miniature. His looks, like Oakley's and Lord Tipton's, had been very much in the Richmond way. He had the same green eyes as his brothers, and the same white-blonde hair as she had herself. He was smiling mischievously in the picture, and Adelaide speculated whether he had been as troublesome as Lord Tipton often implied. Likely, for he had run away, after all, just as she had. His brother evidently condemned the act. She clung to it with all her heart, for it gave her a greater sense of affinity than she had ever had with her natural parents before.

She wished she knew what Robert would have made of her finding her way back to the family that had disowned him. He must be pleased that she had reunited with Oakley, at least, but was this the life he and her mother had wanted for her? What, indeed, would she even do with herself now? She had no idea how wealthy people occupied themselves. She would hate to become as pampered and conceited as some of the lords and ladies she had met over the years, but she was not averse to a little luxury. Bar soap instead of barrel, a feather mattress, shoes that did not pinch her toes—the sorts of things she had never allowed herself to covet, but which now seemed within easy grasp.

At the first opportunity, she would send a boar bristle hairbrush to Patty, she decided. It was the only thing her friend had ever openly admitted to wanting—other than a tumble beneath the sheets with a viscount, and that she was not willing to arrange.

The wave of protectiveness she felt at the thought of anyone using Oakley so carelessly made her smile. How quickly the idea of him being her brother had made itself at home! Though, as brothers went, he was so wholly unlike her others as made it impossible not to be endeared to him. He was unspoiled, good-humoured, unprepossessing—a genuinely kind soul. But she had seen, already, how that sweetness made him vulnerable to the Lady Veronicas of the world, and she felt quite prepared, by this point, to guard him from the worst machinations of her sex.

At length, reflection and indolence lost their appeal. She got out of bed and dressed in one of her old gowns, for Lady Tipton's—her aunt's! —required a second pair of hands to fasten them, and she was certain nobody would arrive to attend her for hours. Then she made her way through the house and out into the park.

At the far end of the formal garden was a small folly, which looked out over the estate. Adelaide had whiled away the early hours in it on several other mornings as she waited for the rest of the household to wake up. Each previous time, her thoughts had been occupied with what it would be like to sit in that spot, certain in the knowledge that she was a member of the family who owned everything that could be seen from it.

"Well, now you know," she said quietly as she stepped inside.

"Now I know what?"

Adelaide gasped upon realising the folly was not empty; Lord Kemerton was within. He came to his feet and bowed, though that did not conceal his infuriating little smirk.

"It amuses you to have startled me, my lord?"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Richmond. It is not your shock that diverts me but rather your manner of expressing it."

Adelaide frowned until it occurred to her that she might have cursed when she saw him. It was a habit she would need to work hard to break, though he was no gentleman for drawing attention to it. She blushed but refused to apologise.

"I did not expect anyone to be here."

"I often come here in the mornings when I am staying. Oakley and his family keep such leisurely hours, I have grown used to finding my own entertainment until they rouse themselves."

The early hour had evidently not deprived him of an attendant as it had done Adelaide, for he was pristinely turned out, his side whiskers crisply shaven along his cheekbones. Rueing her hasty decision to dress in her dowdiest gown, Adelaide folded her arms over herself in a way she hoped covered most of the bodice and watched as he checked his fob watch .

"Seven o'clock," he said. "You are an early riser, too, I see."

"Seven is not early for me. Until two weeks ago, I would have been up and working for hours by now."

She enjoyed his discomfort at first—he deserved to be punished for all those times he had scorned her situation. She began to regret reminding him of it when his mouth twisted with something like distaste.

"It is profoundly regrettable that you ended up in service."

Humiliation flared hot in Adelaide's breast. "It is profoundly regrettable that I ended up orphaned, but I can hardly be blamed for it."

"I meant subsequent to being taken in by the Bookers."

"Oh," she said stiffly. "I suppose you agree with Lord Tipton that my running away from them proves I am trouble."

"I do not know what it proves, although I have my suspicions."

"I am sure you do. And I am sure none of them are correct."

He held her gaze steadily. "I hope not."

Something about the way he regarded her, as though he was looking at more than her countenance, made Adelaide indescribably self-conscious. What was it he thought he saw—a menace? A contemptible wretch, incapable of restraint? "Oh yes, because an ‘ungrateful, self-serving rebel' would be a most unworthy connection for your friend to inherit, would it not? "

"Indeed, but those are Lord Tipton's accusations, not mine."

Not for one moment believing that he disagreed with the earl's qualms, she pasted a false smile on her face and said with exaggerated ebullience, "But I was ungrateful. Mrs Booker told me so every day. In her opinion, I ought to have been thankful just to have a roof over my head, given that I was not one of them—and she made certain I never forgot that."

"It grieves me to hear that."

"Oh, she stopped saying it eventually. When she died. But she had taught her children well, and they took over where she left off, ensuring I knew what a burden I was."

"Is that why you left?" He was frowning deeply, displeasure etched across his brow. Adelaide felt yet more uncomfortable, yet more exposed, and she spoke to stave off the sensation.

"Had you convinced yourself I was merely disobedient? You might as well think it, for it is true, I was. No matter how often I was told to stay in my room while my brothers and sisters had their lessons, I never did. I was forever being disciplined for being caught listening at the schoolroom door. I was terribly greedy, too— always wanting more food. But then, I was always hungry, for there was rarely much left to eat once my brothers and sisters had piled their plates high."

Lord Kemerton opened his mouth to speak, but words had begun pouring off Adelaide's tongue, and she knew not how to stop them—and how she hated him for opening the floodgate! These were things of which she never spoke, ordeals that made her shudder to recollect. Her tone grew more resentful with every revelation that spewed out of her.

"There can be no doubt that I was wicked, for I was punished all the time—when my brothers wore out their shoes, when my sisters neglected their practice, when Cook burnt the dinner. And my goodness, I must have been pitiable, for I was the constant object of their derision. Not a day went by when I was not laughed at for some deficiency or other."

"Miss Richmond, this is unnecessary," Lord Kemerton interrupted, quietly but so firmly he sounded angry regardless. "I apologise. My enquiry was clearly ill-judged. It is none of my business what made you leave your home."

"But I have not told you the best bit," Adelaide replied with false cheer. "You will like this, for my leaving was one of the only things I ever did that was not defiant. I left because my father told me he wished I would. And I know I pleased him in that , at least, because if he ever bothered to look for me, it was not hard enough to find me."

The torrent stopped; Adelaide had no more words to say—and Lord Kemerton did not fill the silence. He looked furious, and she comprehended, abruptly, that she had gone too far. Newly minted sister to a viscount she may be, but he was an earl, and such an outburst was unlikely to be countenanced. It was his own fault, of course, for always needling her into insolence, but it would hardly do to try and excuse herself by blaming him.

"It is my turn to apologise," she said reluctantly. "I did not mean to speak so intemperately, only it is a subject that provokes me. I beg you would not inform Lord Tipton of my ill-manners. I hope, in time, to convince his lordship that I will not make trouble, and this was probably not the best way to go about it. If you could see yourself to?—"

"Madam, please stop."

She did, though less because he asked it and more because he had come a step closer, and his entire demeanour was arresting.

"I never suspected, and neither will I ever be convinced, that you are ungrateful, or rebellious, or self-interested—and I certainly will not hear it said that you are wicked. I am profoundly sorry for the injustices you have suffered, but you have displayed a remarkable strength of character in overcoming them. Oakley is fortunate to have such a sister." He stepped away from her. "Now, pray, enjoy the view as you came to do. I shall intrude on your privacy no longer. Excuse me." He bowed and walked away, but before he exited the folly, he turned to add, "Mr Booker is a fool. I would never have stopped looking for you."

When he was gone, Adelaide sank onto the stone seat and exhaled shakily. She had not been expecting kind words. Shame threatened to unbalance her, but she pushed it away, for there had been excellent grounds to believe Lord Kemerton held her in contempt and no reason whatsoever to anticipate that he would be sympathetic. How many times had she heard him deride her condition in life? Recalling them all, she resolved not to regret revealing her history to him. She nevertheless undertook to apologise for her somewhat childish attempt to shock him with it.

That turned out to be impossible, for he had already departed by the time she returned to the house. It irritated her, because although Lord Kemerton had seen through her facetious claims to disobedience and wickedness, he had not withdrawn his opinion of her inferiority, and she would rather not have given him further cause, with her incivility, to think ill of her. She would credit him with one thing, however. He would almost certainly make a far better father than Mr Booker, who she knew full well had never looked for her at all.