Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“ W hat?” Scarlett stared at him in disbelief, but Reverend Margrave turned to the Leightons.

“You will recall that young curate we spoke of? Mr Peter Nobbledick?”

Lady Leighton did not reply, only stared at the reverend with one hand pressed to her chest, and a look of horror on her countenance. It was Sir Humphrey who at last replied, “Yes, I remember him.”

“He has agreed to come and assist me in the parish. He and Scarlett can remain at the parsonage with me. I thought June would be nice for the wedding.”

Scarlett at last found her voice. “You cannot do this,” she said, her voice still shaking but resolute. “I shall not marry this Mr Nobbledick or any other man whom I do not wish to marry.”

“Nobbledick is a good fellow, you will like him,” the reverend replied smoothly. “And I can , in fact, do this. After all—I am your father, am I not?”

He was truly performing now. Scarlett recognised the demeanour as one he would often adopt when he arrived at his point during a sermon. One could almost hear the thud of his hand against the pages of his Bible as he said, with aplomb, “Who but me has the authority to grant your hand in marriage?”

Scarlett crossed her arms over her stomach. Adelaide slowly edged closer, wrapping one arm around her sister’s back when at last she arrived by her side. Scarlett wished, desperately, that she might think of something clever or incisive to say! She had never felt so helpless as she felt standing awash in the lies of a madman, and wholly unable to save herself. She could think of nothing to say but to tell them that the reverend was a filthy liar—but he stood upright and tall in his black suit and Geneva bands, looking every bit the model of respectability and truth. Frustration choked her and even her skin felt too tight. She longed for Lord Tipton to say something, or Oakley, but it seemed the reverend would hold sway.

“In any case, while I cannot speak for anybody else, it is high time that my young lady retired to her bed,” the reverend announced. “After all, first light does come early, and from the looks of her, it seems sleep has been her last priority of late. Up you go, Scarlett. We shall speak more about your wedding on the way back to Stanbridge. ”

Indecision rooted Scarlett to her spot. Was she required to obey him? In utter despair, she cast a look about the room. Would no one stop him?

It was then that she noticed that Worthe was gone.

Scarlett flung herself across the bed, ready and willing to let the tide of sorrow overtake her. Alas, it would not come to her, not so much as a tear, to relieve the tumult within her. Moments after she had arrived in the room, Bess hurried in.

“They are discussing it in the library,” she said. “If we go into Oliver’s bedchamber, we can listen. Come.”

Scarlett followed Bess into her brother’s bedchamber, from which Leighton himself was thankfully absent, and—after watching her friend do so—lay down on the floor and pressed one ear to a particular spot on the wooden boards, but the opposite ear that Bess had done, so that they might face one another as they listened. “Very useful,” Bess whispered, “that Leighton does not like rugs. Makes it ever so much easier to hear things.”

“Who went in?” Scarlett whispered back.

“Oakley, Leighton, Sir Humphrey, Lord Tipton,” Bess whispered. “Lady Tipton and Adelaide were sent home, escorted by Lord Kemerton. I made sure Leighton went in just in case we could not hear it all.”

Bending slightly, Scarlett gave Bess a kiss on her cheek. “Have I told you of late that you are my dearest friend in the world? ”

Reaching over, Bess returned an awkward, one-armed, lying down hug. “I am always glad to hear it. Just remember me when you are the very high Lady Worthe of the first circles!”

“Worthe left,” Scarlett whispered. “He likely felt like he had wandered into Bedlam!”

No more could be said after that, for the men had begun their conversation. Happily the sound travelled well enough that identifying the speakers was no difficulty whatsoever.

“Scarlett,” said Lord Tipton, “is the very image of not only Adelaide, my niece, but my own mother as well.”

“Most peculiar, I shall grant you that,” said the reverend. “But of no real consequence.”

“I do think it is of consequence,” said Oakley earnestly. “Even if you do not believe she is the daughter of Robert and Susan Richmond, as we believe she is, clearly there must be some relation?”

“I think not,” the reverend said as if that was proof enough.

There was a short silence until Oakley said, “Might there have been some confusion?—”

“Now see here,” the reverend interrupted him. “I should imagine that if there was any sort of adoption, there would have been some papers, yes? Information on the child?”

“The orphanage burnt down,” said Lord Tipton, “and much of it was lost, but we did manage to retrieve some information on Adelaide’s adoption?— ”

“There you are!” the reverend exclaimed. “And tell me—on these papers, was there mention of a sister?”

After a long pause, Lord Tipton said, “We sought the information from Adelaide’s adoptive parents, the Bookers. They had only the information of the child they adopted. They would not have been given information on other children—only Adelaide.”

“No, I suppose not. Nor, in fact, should they have had information on my child. Scarlett Margrave. Born a Margrave and a Margrave until the day she becomes a Nobbledick.”

“Which will be never ,” Bess hissed. “Nobbledick indeed!”

“I shall run away first,” Scarlett added. “I do not care if I have to take a position in someone’s scullery! Adelaide survived it—I daresay I could, too.”

“Sir, forgive me, but I simply must ask if you are entirely certain of that,” Oakley pressed in the room below them.

There was a long pause. “Certain of what ?”

“Certain that Scarlett…well, perhaps Scarlett is your natural child?” Oakley said.

Bess’s eyes flew wide, her mouth widening into an exaggerated O; Scarlett nearly burst out laughing, imagining the reverend’s face at such a query. “Good! Someone else seems to understand this is all a bag of moonshine!”

“I do not know whether this is the manner in which you are accustomed to speaking to men of the cloth,” the reverend said in a voice almost too low to be heard. “Perhaps you are too used to being among the libertines here in town to recollect how decent folk live their lives. I can assure you, Lord Oakley, that Scarlett was born of God-fearing parents and as such is indubitably my daughter in every sense.”

“It is only difficult to comprehend—” Oakley said, but he was quickly interrupted.

“Now see here. I have permitted you folks to question me like a common criminal, but the fact is this—you are not her family, certainly not any sort of family that has authority over her. I do not care two straws whom she thinks she is related to, whom she looks like, or whom she feels comfortable amongst. She is an eighteen-year-old girl who has been my daughter, and only my daughter, for her entire life, and if this garboil that seems to have afflicted her has persuaded you otherwise, then I can only say I pity you.”

There was a pause.

Lord Tipton was the next to speak. “Allow me to summarise all of this, if I may. You, sir, are absolutely certain that Scarlett is under the authority and parentage of no one but yourself, and assert that there is positively no chance that she is connected to my family, the Richmonds, as the daughter of my departed brother Robert.”

“That is correct.”

“She has not been adopted, then.”

“No,” the reverend agreed. “Never.”

Another pause .

“Very well, then,” said Lord Tipton. “It seems our business here is concluded.”

There was the sound, then, of movement in the room below. Bess’s eyes were wide and her face was pale; Scarlett could only imagine that she looked the same herself. She could not believe Lord Tipton had put up so little fight. He had seemed so willing, so happy to welcome her to his family. Was she so easily dismissed as a liar? Could her similarity to Adelaide be so easily overlooked?

“You believe me, do you not?” she begged Bess.

“Of course I do!” Bess replied immediately. “You told me about Mrs Blythe’s letter ages before anyone had even heard about Adelaide! The reverend has gone mad.”

“Yes he has,” Scarlett said. “Oh, Bess, what shall I do?”

In the room below, the reverend announced, “I shall be retiring now, and in the morning, Scarlett and I shall return to Stanbridge. I hope, no doubt as much as each of you do, that this will be the last of this nonsense for us all.”

With that, Scarlett and Bess scrambled to their feet, running back to Scarlett’s bedchamber as fast as their stockinged feet would allow them. Taking care not to slam the door, Scarlett closed them in, then walked slowly over to the bed. She lay face down on it, even more ready for sobs that still stubbornly refused to come.

“We will think of something, some way to fix this,” Bess vowed earnestly. “I promise you, we will think of something .”