‘Eloped!’ gasped Lady Fenella, her eyes round with surprise. ‘How shocking!’
Even the Dowager had stopped glaring at Septimus, in the wake of that announcement. She flapped her hand at her daughter impatiently, to silence her, which Aimée did not object to for once, not really. An elopement was a scandal best not discussed in front of the servants. Though she had no doubt the Dowager would quiz her about it when they had withdrawn from table.
And so she felt quite shocked when the Dowager pressed on. ‘Who was your grandfather, then, if he objected to your mother marrying the son of what sounds like a perfectly respectable family?’
Aimée glanced furtively round at the footmen, before leaning forwards, and admitting, quietly, ‘The Earl of Caxton.’
She glanced at Septimus to see how he had taken the news. She had not wanted him to learn about her background in this way, but at least she had managed to broach the topic of her heritage in a way that did not sound boastful. He must, surely, understand why she could not keep quiet about her background, not in the circumstances! But his face was so inscrutable that she could not tell what he was thinking.
The Dowager, however, left nobody in any doubt what she thought. ‘A backstairs connection, I take it?’ she said, with cold contempt. ‘Your mother was the product of an affair with one of the maids.’
Aimée gasped. This was extremely rude, even by the Dowager’s standards. Poor Lady Fenella did not know where to look.
‘She was nothing of the sort!’ she retorted, by now past caring what the servants were making of such inappropriate dinner-table talk. ‘And if you took a moment to reflect, you would see for that yourself. Why, if my mother was that kind of person, it would have been my father’s family who opposed the match!’
‘Who do you claim she was, then?’
‘My mother was Lady Aurora Vickery!’
‘Lady Aurora!’ the Dowager sneered. ‘Do you take me for a simpleton? Lady Aurora was barely out of the schoolroom when she died!’
Aimée could not help flinching. Was that the story her grandfather had put about, to prevent people knowing she had eloped?
Septimus felt his heart sink as the Dowager tripped her up in one of her lies. For, no matter what he suspected, he could not permit anyone to publicly accuse his wife of lying, not without appearing to be completely lacking in honour himself. Furious that Aimée was forcing him to play along with her story, he said, ‘Take care what you say, madam.’ He raised his head, and only slowly turned to glare at the Dowager. ‘Before you accuse my wife of anything else, perhaps it would benefit us all to hear a full account of the circumstances surrounding her mother’s demise.’ Then he turned to Aimée and said, challengingly, ‘If you are willing to give it?’
Lifting her chin, and with a slight wobble to her voice, she declared, ‘Of course I am. Lady Aurora was my mother. And whatever you may have heard, she died not quite ten years ago. In Rome.’
The Dowager snorted with contempt. ‘You have learned to say your lines very prettily. But everyone knows Lady Aurora died the summer after her come out.’
‘I th-think that must have been a story my grandfather put about, to conceal the scandal,’ she said, as much to try to work it out for herself, as to explain it to the others. ‘From what I have heard about him, he would probably have preferred people to think she had died than to know she had defied him and disgraced the family name by eloping. He cut her completely out of his life, for a while. Th-though he eventually made her a small allowance, which he paid directly to her, on the condition she went abroad and did not return to England with my father in tow.’ Or her, though she would never divulge that to this harpy.
It was all very plausible, Septimus thought bleakly. She had already informed Jago, during the interview, that she had travelled all over the Continent in her childhood. And the cleverest part of it was that it would be almost impossible to ascertain if it was the truth. One could not go to the Earl of Caxton, and ask! But he could not give her story too much credence. If she was an orphan, as she was leading her audience to assume, and penniless, then how to account for the money she had in her possession? She must have come by it dishonestly, to be concocting such a far-fetched tale to cover her tracks.
At this point, as though sensing Aimée’s growing distress, and desperate to restore some sense of normality to the proceedings, Lady Fenella put in, ‘How interesting. Whereabouts did they live? I don’t suppose you ever went to Paris, did you? I should love to visit Paris.’
Aimée turned to her with heartfelt gratitude.
‘Yes, I have been to Paris, actually. Though we did not stay there as long as I should have liked.’ They never did. It was never long before they outgrew their welcome, once her father’s propensity for cheating at cards was discovered.
‘So where did you go?’ asked Lady Fenella, agog with curiosity.
‘Oh, many places.’ She mentally dismissed all the small towns of which Lady Fenella was not likely to have heard. ‘Rome, as I have already mentioned. And Naples and Florence, as well as Marseilles, and Bordeaux …’
‘Which must have been where you met his lordship!’ Lady Fenella exclaimed. ‘When his squadron was stationed there. Oh, but …’ her brows drew down in confusion ‘… you could not have been very old then. Scarcely more than a child!’
Aimée swiftly stifled a small pang of jealousy upon hearing that Lady Fenella knew far more about her husband’s naval career than she did. And darted him a beseeching look. She had no notion which, out of the list of places she had just named, Septimus might have been stationed in, nor in what year!
She was annoyed to find she could not catch his eye. He must know she was out of her depth with this one. Did he not care? If she began to admit she had only met him a matter of days ago, Lady Fenella was going to end up finding out about the advertisement.
Well, even if he did not care, she, at least, had no wish to hurt the poor girl.
‘Well?’ said the Dowager.
Her heart hammering in her chest, she said, as casually as she could, ‘Scarce more than a child by your standards, Lady Fenella, perhaps. But because of my circumstances, I grew up faster than a lady as sheltered as yourself.’
Septimus marvelled at her facility for evading the truth. She had managed to couch her response so that people could make whatever they wished from that statement. What a deceitful creature he had married!
But the worst aspect of the case, to his mind, was that even as she sat there, spinning her outrageous tales, he was capable of admiring the dexterity of her mind. How could he? Why did her lies not make him despise her?
There, thought Aimée, taking a sip of her wine to moisten her mouth, which had been dry with nerves. That should cover any eventuality! No matter what year Septimus had docked at any of those ports she had mentioned, it would not matter how old she had been. She had made the question of maturity a moot point.
Besides, it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that he might, indeed, have been a visitor in her parents’ home.
‘My mother was always eager for news of England,’ she elaborated. ‘Whenever an English ship put into harbour, she would invite the officers to make free of our home.’
Septimus could well have been amongst their number. That she did not recall having met him was an insignificant detail that she could explain away, should it become necessary, in one of two ways. Either she had been too young at the time and therefore tucked away safely in her room, or old enough to have learned that it was better to keep out of the way when such men thronged the reception rooms, for while her mother clucked round them like a mother hen, her father, under the guise of genial host, would ply them with cheap local liquor, then fleece them at cards.
‘So, if you were a mere child when his lordship visited those places, it must have been your parents with whom he became friends?’ Lady Fenella persisted.
‘Oh!’ Actually, Aimée supposed that would be the logical conclusion to draw. ‘Um
…’ In the end, she nodded, not feeling quite up to telling an outright lie.
‘And his lordship had never forgotten you, though you were far too young to marry when he first met you. You see, Mama?’ said Lady Fenella with a sentimental sigh, ‘I said all along it was a love match.’
Septimus could not have looked less like a man in love at that particular moment, thought Aimée. She wondered what was the matter with him. The revelations about her background could surely not be upsetting him, could they? She had thought that learning they shared a common heritage, having both been nobly born, yet raised in less than luxurious circumstances, would have drawn them closer together.
Perhaps he was just preoccupied with estate matters? He had looked somewhat strained even before dinner. Yes, come to think of it, he had greeted her arrival in the gilded salon with an abstracted air.
She turned to Lady Fenella and gave a brittle smile. ‘We took one look at each other, and knew there could never be anyone else for either of us.’
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Septimus was looking as though the beef he was chewing was made of leather, and he wished he could spit it out.
‘I am so happy for you,’ Lady Fenella said, drawing Aimée’s attention back to the more friendly side of the table. ‘To have found each other again, when you have both travelled so much, and might easily have lost each other for ever …’
‘Nonsense!’ the Dowager shouted, slamming the flat of her hand on the table. ‘This is all utter nonsense! The Earl of Caxton has only one granddaughter. Lady Jayne—remember her, Fenella? We met her at the Cardingtons’ house party. That spoiled little madam with the big blue eyes and an unnatural amount of gold ringlets.’
‘Yes, I remember Lady Jayne,’ said Lady Fenella. ‘She looked just like a little fairy, I thought.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ the Dowager sputtered. ‘The point is that she looked nothing like this creature! No family resemblance whatever!’
It was getting too much.
She did not really care what the Dowager thought of her. But to learn, in this way, that she had a cousin, a cousin that she had never met, with whom the Dowager might have mingled freely …
To her chagrin, she felt tears start to her eyes.
Septimus got to his feet so swiftly the footmen had no chance to draw the chair out for him. It scraped noisily across the floorboards.
‘I think we have had quite enough of this,’ he said, holding out his hand to Aimée. ‘Come. It is time we retired for the night.’
‘Oh, but … pudding …’ said Lady Fenella. ‘You don’t want to miss pudding. It is apple charlotte …’
Hang pudding! thought Aimée. Thank heavens, Septimus had seen how upset she was becoming and had come to her rescue. And not a moment too soon!
‘Th-thank you for removing me from that unpleasantness,’ she said, sniffing back a tear as they left the room.
He shot her an irritated look. He was disgusted with himself for feeling so protective towards her when he had seen tears spring to her eyes, even after sitting through that masterly demonstration of her duplicity.
‘I am sorry that I did not stand up to the Dowager better than that,’ she said, misunderstanding the look. ‘But it was hearing about Aunt Almeria’s daughter. I had known, of course, that my grandfather has no legitimate male heirs of direct line, but until just now, I was unaware I had a cousin. A cousin, moreover, who is openly acknowledged. Spoiled, even. Whilst I am just the family’s dark, d-dirty secret.’
He took her by the elbow and ushered her up the stairs, which was just as well. Her eyes were so blurred by tears she could not see properly which way to go.
‘Your Aunt Almeria’s daughter?’ She looked so upset, speaking of these people as though she was really related to them, that he began to wonder if she actually believed what she was saying. He scowled. There had better be a grain of truth in it, somewhere. It was one thing listening to her telling stories to the Dowager and her silly daughter, but quite another for her to tell him barefaced lies. He would not stand for it!
‘Yes,’ she nodded miserably. ‘My mother told me that her older sister had dutifully married the man their autocratic father had picked out for her. And been made utterly miserable. Aunt Almeria’s fate bolstered Mama’s determination only to marry for love, no matter how unsuitable the family considered her choice.’
‘And so your parents eloped,’ he said. For some reason, he did not doubt she had spent her childhood flitting about the Continent. She had told Mr Jago the same thing at her interview, before she had felt the need to impress anyone with her increasingly far-fetched tales!
‘Why, exactly, did you return to England?’ He had not meant to ask her anything about her past. To do so would imply that he cared, that her answers mattered. But now that the Dowager had stirred things up, it was only natural to bring this line of conversation to its natural conclusion.
‘Well, you see, the allowance ceased when Mama died.’
‘You said that was ten years ago,’ he reminded her. The trouble with lies was that people nearly always forgot some salient point, which showed them up in the end.
But Aimée was looking down, rummaging in her reticule for a handkerchief, and so she totally missed the look of anger that flickered across his face.
‘Yes, but Papa was in a terrible state for quite some time after that,’ she replied, blowing her nose. ‘He blamed himself for taking her to Rome during a season that was known to be unhealthy. It was a long time before it even dawned on him that there was nothing to prevent him from returning from exile.’
She had not missed a beat. No matter how closely he questioned her, she always had a ready answer. His heart began to pound. Perhaps she had been telling the truth. Perhaps she really was the offspring of a runaway match between the lady whatever her name was, and some swindler.
In any case, while they were on the subject, he might as well ask why she had applied for a job as a governess, when she had a small fortune in her keeping. There might be some perfectly simple explanation.
‘And once here …’ he prompted her, as they reached the landing, and turned towards their suite of rooms.
‘I …’ To his immense sorrow, she faltered for the first time in the fabrication of her fairy tale. Her eyes slid away from his face.
‘I wanted a fresh start. A more settled existence …’
‘And so you applied for the job as governess to a gentleman in Yorkshire?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes,’ she said, with palpable relief.
She had no idea, of course, that he knew about the money. A sense of betrayal surged through him. He had given her a golden opportunity to confide in him, and she had fobbed him off. He could not believe how much it hurt.
‘Go to your room, now, Aimée,’ he said, barely holding himself in check. ‘And compose yourself. I will be along shortly.’
She touched her handkerchief to her eyes one last time, shot him a watery smile and darted into her room.
Septimus strode along the corridor to his own door, rather than following her and accessing his room via hers. If he went anywhere private with her now, he did not know how he would prevent himself from putting her across his knee and giving her the spanking she deserved!
He gave vent to his anger by slamming his bedroom door behind him instead.
The lies had rolled off her tongue so glibly she almost had him convinced she was the long-lost granddaughter of some starched up old Earl.
Though why on earth had she come up with that tale about having a nobly born mother, anyway? He ran his fingers through his hair, striding up and down in his agitation. He had told her he didn’t care what any of his newly discovered family thought of him, or her!
Perhaps she thought she ought to have that kind of background, in order to make some headway for herself, though. He had noted some of the servants looking askance at her, taking their lead from the Dowager.
He refused to countena
nce the possibility that what she had told them could be true. He knew what came of believing a single word that slid from Aimée’s treacherous little mouth.
Only a fool would keep on falling for her lies. To start with, she had made him believe she was accepting his proposal whilst, in her mind, she was already planning her flight from his house.
She had then convinced him that she had been weeping on their wedding night, out of gratitude for being rescued from life’s hardships—though, he snorted, it had taken her almost a week to come up with that one.
And then, worst of all, last night, she had responded to him so sweetly, that he had almost been duped into opening his very heart to her! Which would have led to complete disaster.
But what sort of woman, he asked himself, striding across to the mirror and examining his reflection with disgust, would willingly ally herself to that? Only a woman like Aimée, a woman who had been brought up to think there was nothing wrong with lying and cheating, that was who.
He laughed hollowly. A woman like that was all he deserved. Any woman who was truly fit to be the mother of the next Earl of Bowdon would turn her nose up at the disfigured son of a country doctor and the local ironmonger’s daughter.
He raised his hand to the patch he had worn to dinner, so as not to put Lady Fenella off her food, and tore it away. Let his wife suffer the sight of it!
She must be ready for bed now, surely? He had paced the floor of his room for what felt like plenty long enough for her to undress and hide the evidence of whatever crime it was she must have committed, to want to flee so far from London and marry a disfigured wreck of a man.
In the mood he was in, he almost did not care if he did catch her hiding her stolen money away from him. Perhaps it was time they confronted her past, got it all out in the open! He stormed into her room, spoiling for a fight.
But she was sitting up in bed, clad in one of the ridiculously expensive nightgowns he’d bought her in Harrogate, a shy smile of anticipation on her face.
Captain Corcoran's Hoyden Bride Page 17
