The Other Daughter

by Lauren Willig

  There was something terribly humbling about the way he said it. It made Rachel feel cheap and small, as though she ought to be something better than what she was.

  “Well, if one were to truly believe in something—” she began, and then caught herself. Because what was she but a fraud?

  “What do you believe in, darling Vera?” inquired Simon. His voice was smooth as velvet, but there was a warning in his eyes. “Other than a well-mixed cocktail.”

  When he had agreed to her mad scheme, it had seemed too good to be true. And perhaps it was. Rachel felt suddenly sick of herself, of their deception, of everything.

  “Justice,” she said defiantly. “I believe in justice.”

  She was spared Simon’s answer by a brassy clanging that reverberated through the hall, once, twice, and then again.

  “That’s the gong,” said Lady Olivia, placing one hand lightly on Mr. Trevannion’s arm. “We really must—”

  She was forestalled by Cece, who whirled along the gallery in a confusion of pleats and powder. “Darlings! What a mercy. I’ve been aching, positively aching with boredom.”

  Rachel managed not to flinch as Cece flung herself first at Simon, then at Rachel, pressing her powdered cheek against hers.

  “And darling Olivia! What a … dear frock. John, my poodle-pie. I shan’t keep you from Mummy. She’s mustering the faithful in the Red Salon.” Having dismissed those inessential to her amusement, Cece turned back to Rachel. “You’ve brought your cards?”

  “Cards?” Mr. Trevannion looked quizzically at Rachel. “You’re short one for bridge.”

  Cece twined an arm through Rachel’s. “Simon’s lovely cousin has promised to tell my fortune.”

  Lady Olivia was making movements in the direction of what Rachel assumed must be the Red Salon, but Mr. Trevannion hung back. “Surely you don’t believe in any of that.”

  “Why not?” asked Simon lazily. “Weren’t you the one touting the courage of one’s convictions?”

  “Yes…” admitted Mr. Trevannion. “But there are convictions and there are superstitions.”

  “One man’s superstition,” said Simon, “is another man’s science. Or how else can we explain Dr. Radlett?”

  Cece rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Not that tedious man again.”

  “I had thought you didn’t hold with Dr. Radlett,” put in Rachel.

  “I don’t,” said Simon. “But if one is willing to condone one sort of superstitious claptrap, it seems poor form to sneer at the others. Hypocrisy is never attractive.”

  Mr. Trevannion’s eyes narrowed. “You’d argue with the devil, wouldn’t you, Montfort?”

  The response came from an unlikely source. “Better to argue with the devil than the opposite, I should think.” Lady Olivia’s voice was soft as ever, with that curious hesitancy, but it arrested the attention of her hearers. “Look at poor Faust.”

  Simon’s teeth flashed in a grin. “Oh, he argued. Just not very well.”

  Mr. Trevannion did not seem best pleased to have his fiancée coming to Simon’s defense. “I assume you imagine you would do better?”

  “Oh, I leave the politicians to make the devil’s bargains.” Simon smiled sweetly at Mr. Trevannion. “I’m content to go to the devil in my own way.”

  “Well, hurry, then,” said Cece, with an impatient tug on his arm, “before Mummy catches us and makes us sit through that deadly lecture. Quick, before she sees us.”

  “Speaking of the devil…” said Simon.

  “Hush. It’s hardly nice to speak of Mummy that way.”

  “I didn’t mean your esteemed parent. I meant my lovely cousin’s fortune-telling.”

  Rachel was very aware of Mr. Trevannion’s eyes on her. “There’s nothing devilish about the cards. It’s hardly black magic, just a … knack.” And three hours spent with a book about the basic forms of tarot reading. She would hardly pass muster among the cognoscenti in the kitchens of the Château de Brillac, but she had faith that she could put on enough of a show for Cece. With a false show of goodwill, she looked first to Lady Olivia, then to Mr. Trevannion. “Come with us. I’ll show you.”

  Lady Olivia answered for both of them. “Some other time, perhaps.”

  The words were a mere social nicety. There wouldn’t be another time. Once she walked away, that was all. The end of the acquaintance. Rachel felt as though she were scrabbling for a handhold on the side of a cliff, seeking desperately for purchase before she found herself sliding down, down, down to crash on the rocks below.

  “Next Thursday night, then,” said Rachel quickly, before her sister could walk away. “I’m giving a small party in my flat.”

  “Oh?” Simon raised his brows.

  Rachel ignored him, barreling on. “It was only meant to be cocktails, but … why not make it a Prognostication Party? We can tell the cards, and, oh, crystal balls, and all that.”

  “A Ball and Bottle party! It’s too perfect,” said Cece with relish. “We can tell everyone to dress up as gypsies. Can’t you just see Brian with a dear little kerchief over his head and gold hoops in his ears? How too brilliant!”

  “Brilliant,” echoed Simon, his eyes on Rachel. Rachel couldn’t tell whether he was intrigued or annoyed. “Darling Vera is a font of surprises.”

  Cece was off and running. “We’ll hardly fit into your flat. The upper room at the Golden Calf might do.… What shall we call it? A Crystal Ball and Bottle party? Or Cards and Cocktails?”

  “What about Mystics Run Amok?” suggested Simon lazily.

  Rachel kept the force of her focus on Lady Olivia. “Will you come and have your fortune told? Do say yes. We shall have such fun.”

  Simon raised a brow at Mr. Trevannion. “Or are you too scared of what the future might hold?”

  Mr. Trevannion mustered a reluctant smile. “I can’t have Montfort calling me a coward.” He took Lady Olivia’s small hand in his. “What do you say, my dear?”

  Lady Olivia looked flustered. “I had promised Mother we would be part of her party for the Massingham dance.…”

  “Afterward, then,” said Rachel gaily. “You can come in all your finery and put the rest of us to shame.”

  “Why not?” said Mr. Trevannion.

  “Perhaps the cards will tell you whether you’ll win your next by-election,” commented Simon.

  Lady Olivia glanced up at Mr. Trevannion. Dutifully, she said, “We don’t need a crystal ball to tell us that.”

  “No, just a safe seat,” said Simon. With a flourishing gesture, he said, “But where are my manners? I mustn’t keep you from Dr. Radlett’s deathless words of wisdom. I shall be lined up and waiting for my injection following the program, after which I shall take my place as a model member of society.”

  “Montfort,” said Mr. Trevannion, taking his fiancée’s arm. “Miss Merton.”

  Lady Olivia inclined her head a scant fraction of an inch. Together, she and Mr. Trevannion passed through the arch into the gallery, leaving Rachel feeling snubbed, frustrated, and deeply unsettled.

  So much for blood being thicker than water. If it weren’t for Mr. Trevannion, Rachel doubted she would have received even a nod.

  Despite herself, Rachel couldn’t help wondering what he saw in Lady Olivia. Did she have hidden depths?

  Or was it only that she was an earl’s daughter?

  Rachel quashed the ugly thought.

  “Don’t forget,” she called gaily. “Next Thursday!”

  Lady Olivia glanced back quickly over her shoulder, but it wasn’t at Rachel that she was looking. Her large gray eyes settled on Simon, and then, just as quickly, looked away again.

  And then they were gone, through the arch and down the gallery, leaving a curious sensation of emptiness in their wake.

  What had she expected? That Lady Olivia would open her arms, recognizing her as the long-lost sister of her heart? They’d nothing in common.

  Except, it seemed, Mr. Simon Montfort.

  “That
will never do,” said Cece. It took Rachel a moment to remember what she was talking about. “We can’t possibly be prepared by Thursday. Perhaps a month Thursday—oh, what is it, Daisy?”

  “Telephone for you, Miss Cecelia.”

  “Really, Diana can’t go ten minutes … I’ll just be a moment. Wait for me in the study. You won’t abandon me?”

  “I make no promises,” said Simon.

  “You never do.” Cece rolled her eyes at him and whirled out in a wave of scent.

  Following Cece’s instructions, Simon ushered Rachel into a narrow room, shutting the door carefully behind them. “A prognostication party. Very original.”

  “I’m amazed you didn’t foresee it.” Rachel fidgeted with the clasp of her bag, pacing restlessly from the fireplace to the window. The small, dark paneled room made her feel claustrophobic. Or perhaps it was just the feeling that she was hemmed in by everyone else’s plans and schemes, by currents she didn’t entirely understand. “Do you mind my hosting a party in your mother’s flat? I know I ought to have asked first, but the opportunity arose, and—”

  “You can do what you like with the flat. Just don’t pawn the silver.” Simon paced abruptly toward the window, leaving Rachel speaking to his back.

  Rachel’s temper flared. “You didn’t mention that you were so well acquainted with Lady Olivia.”

  “I’m acquainted with everyone.” Simon lifted a silver-framed photograph, held it up to the light, and set it down again. “I happen to be damnably well connected. I can’t enter a drawing room without bumping into about sixteen sixth cousins—fortunately for you.”

  “Lady Olivia isn’t a sixth cousin,” said Rachel, doggedly following Simon.

  The table by which Simon stood was littered with portraits. There was Cece, looking ethereal in her presentation dress; a young man in uniform; children on a croquet lawn; a man with a short beard, like Edward VII, and dissipated eyes. All the effluvia of family life.

  Simon strolled toward the heavily draped windows. “No. She’s more on the order of a twentieth cousin fifteen times removed. You can consult the good people at Debrett’s if you are desirous of the details.”

  That wasn’t at all what she had meant. Rachel was tired of innuendo. “What is your interest in Lady Olivia?” she asked bluntly.

  Simon didn’t meet her eyes. “Why, yours, of course. Wasn’t that the object of this exercise? You’ll never secure an invitation to Caffers without Lady Olivia’s … support.”

  Rachel regarded his well-tailored back. “Or so you say.”

  Simon fingered a silk tassel, his voice carefully expressionless. “Do you have a better plan?”

  “No,” said Rachel reluctantly.

  “Your prognostication party is a brilliant idea in its way. It will make excellent copy for my column.” Simon flicked imaginary dust off the drapes. “You have an instinct for the stunt. If one didn’t know better, one might even think that you were what you claim to be.”

  “Thank you. I think.” Rachel steeled herself not to rise to the bait, not to snap back, into what would surely be another of those pointless, circular arguments.

  “But,” Simon continued, in that same maddening, patronizing tone, “it won’t serve your purpose at all.”

  Her purpose? Or his? “I thought the point was to further my acquaintance with Lady Olivia.”

  Simon sighed. “And just how, my dear Lady Machiavelli, do you propose to do that at a party? At a party at which you are hostess? You’ll be far too busy filling glasses and soothing wounded little feelings to worm your way into Lady Olivia’s confidence. If she appears at all.”

  Rachel’s lips snapped shut on her immediate denial. The infuriating thing was that he was right. Not that she would ever admit it.

  “All right, then. What do you propose?”

  Simon prowled restlessly around the room. “I spoke to Lady Ardmore’s secretary this morning. Darling woman. She tells me Lady Olivia will be picking up a pair of gloves at Debenhams tomorrow. She will let me know the precise time as soon as Lady Ardmore orders the car.”

  “Debenhams,” repeated Rachel flatly.

  “An emporium of sorts,” said Simon helpfully. “Located on Oxford Street.”

  Rachel set her hands on her hips. “I am aware of the location of Debenhams.” She wasn’t, really, but she might have been. “If you had that in mind all along, why are we here?”

  “Here,” said Simon, “is a very broad term. Heatherington House? Mayfair? Your dear aunt Fanny’s study?”

  For a moment, Rachel assumed he had misspoken. Lady Frances wasn’t her aunt Fanny. Her cousin Fanny, perhaps, if they were meant to be keeping up the pretense that she was Simon’s cousin. Or—

  Rachel’s eyes snapped up to Simon’s as his meaning hit her.

  “Before her marriage,” Simon said softly, “Lady Frances was Lady Frances Standish. Your father’s sister.”

  Her aunt. Which meant that Cece was her first cousin. She couldn’t quite make sense of it; it wouldn’t seem to go together in her head.

  Rachel felt as though all the breath had been squeezed from her chest. “You might have told me before.”

  “You might have opened any copy of Debrett’s.” Simon was watching her closely. “Why didn’t you?”

  Because she didn’t want to think of her father’s other connections, his other life. She wanted him back, as he had been, all those years ago, when he had belonged to her and her mother in that little cottage in a village whose name she had long ago forgotten.

  Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. It was all distraction, that was what it was, just Simon being Simon, playing his games.

  Rachel managed a shrug. “My sort of people don’t own copies of Debrett’s. It would never have occurred to me.”

  Those silver-framed pictures on the table. Cousins. She had cousins. An aunt. She’d never thought of such things, any more than she had thought of siblings; they’d grown so used to being alone in the world, Rachel and her mother.

  Rachel forced herself to stop. It didn’t matter. As far as they were concerned, she didn’t exist. Only Vera Merton, the cousin of Simon Montfort.

  “If you wanted me to ambush Lady Olivia at her shopping, why go through Cece?”

  “Ah, but you know her now,” pointed out Simon with impeccable logic. “You could hardly have attacked a total stranger over the gloves counter, could you?”

  “I’ve met her,” Rachel countered. “I don’t know her at all.” And she didn’t want to.

  Simon leaned over her, one hand on the paneled wall behind her head. “You know her enough to speak to. You’ve been introduced.”

  “If one can call it that.” Rachel glowered up at him, too angry to be intimidated. “I didn’t get the impression she was anxious to further the acquaintance.”

  “That,” said Simon, “is what tomorrow is for. You need to win her confidence.”

  “Over the glove counter?”

  “Was ever woman in this humor wooed? If Richard the Third managed to win Queen Anne over her dead husband’s body, surely you can engage the affections of Lady Olivia over the glove counter.” He paused for a moment, then added, with seeming casualness, “She likes poetry. Tennyson. You might want to mention ‘The Lady of Shalott.’”

  “Did the Lady wear gloves?” said Rachel, with crushing sarcasm. Honesty impelled her to add, “What I don’t understand is why Lady Olivia would have any interest in befriending an … an utter unknown.”

  She couldn’t quite keep an edge of bitterness from leaching into her voice. What did Lady Olivia need with her? She had a mother, father, brother, cousins. She was at the center of a world that Rachel could only view from the fringes, like a beggar child pressed against a bakery window.

  Simon smiled crookedly. “Who wouldn’t want to bask in the reflected notoriety of the glamorous Miss Vera Merton?”

  That wasn’t an answer. Rachel scowled at Simon. “I’m hardly notorious.”

  “Aren’
t you?” There was a decidedly cat-and-canary gleam to Simon’s curved lips. “You might want to acquire a copy of today’s Daily Yell.” He pushed away from the wall, the urbane mask once more in place. “Ah! Cece, darling. I’d begun to fear you’d fallen prey to the blandishments of Dr. Radlett.…”

  ELEVEN

  There was a newsstand at the corner of South Audley Street, the day’s headlines emblazoned on white pasteboard.

  Rachel passed by the murders, the communist plots, the rising prices, and flipped, instead, straight to the society column. “The Man About Town,” the byline read. She supposed it wasn’t entirely surprising that Simon wouldn’t use his own name. It was hardly an exalted profession, gossip columnist.

  The first few paragraphs were what one would have expected. Peers’ daughters making their curtsies and dancing on tables; flower shows and bottle parties. Elizabeth Ponsonby’s name featured prominently throughout, along with Brian Howard, Stephen Tennant, the Lygon sisters, and, in the thick of it, Cece Heatherington-Vaughn. Rachel’s cousin.

  Rachel brushed that thought away and plunged resolutely on, heedless of the effect of newsprint on the pale leather of her gloves.

  It was three paragraphs down before she spotted her assumed name. She nearly missed it at first. The piece began innocuously enough: It was a lively crowd at Dean Street on Wednesday night. The usual names came into play. Bons mots from Brian Howard. Ennui and diamond bracelets hanging off the incomparable Cecelia Heatherington-Vaughn. Evelyn Waugh had been sacked from the Express, leaving him free to devote himself to Miss Evelyn Gardner: would they wed and raise a brood of little Evelyns?

  And there it was, halfway down the page.

  The party was enlivened by the addition of the elusive heiress Miss Vera Merton. Usually found yachting off the South of France or riding one of her many horses at her stepfather’s hacienda in Argentina, Miss Merton blazed onto the scene in flame-colored chiffon with gold accents, carrying an ebony-and-gold cigarette holder rumored to have been gifted to her by a certain very important personage whose name cannot, for obvious reasons, be repeated here. Although she would neither confirm nor deny the rumor, it is common knowledge that the gentleman in question is but one of her many conquests; she still wears, on occasion, the heirloom ruby gifted to her by none other than the Rana of Kildapur, who gave his congé to all his concubines in the hopes of enticing Miss Merton to take up sole occupancy in his harem.