The Dowager’s jaw dropped.
The elderly man turned white and dropped back into his chair.
‘I knew it was unlikely you would forgive me,’ he grated, through bloodless lips. ‘But I had hoped …’ His trembling hands clenched at the arms of his chair.
The Dowager was pulling herself together, visibly swelling with outrage.
‘How dare you speak so rudely to his lordship! Especially since you claim he is your own grandfather!’
Aimée gasped and whirled back to the elderly man, whose eyes were still fixed upon her, not with hunger any longer, but with despair.
‘Aha! You may well look shocked!’ the Dowager continued. ‘For the truth about your fraudulent claims to kinship with the Earl of Caxton are about to be shown for what they are! The whole world will know that you are nothing but a lying hussy!’ She swivelled her upper body towards the elderly Earl. ‘You have only the one granddaughter, is that not so, my lord? The lovely Lady Jayne.’
Aimée looked really closely at the elderly man. His voice bleak, he said, ‘I am still not sure. I had hoped that today I would find that I have two granddaughters. But I fear that my stubborn pride, my rigid refusal to back down from the stand I took over your father, may have robbed me of you for ever.’
‘Who …?’ Aimée took a step towards the old man, feeling as though her whole world was turning upside down. ‘Who are you?’ Could this frail, unhappy-looking old man really be her grandfather? He did not look anything like she had imagined the domestic dictator who had ruined the lives of both his daughters would look.
And yet, there was something about his features.
‘This,’ declared the Dowager triumphantly, ‘is the Earl of Caxton himself! The man you claim is your grandfather! There! What do you have to say now?’
‘That he is the last person I had expected to find here,’ she admitted frankly.
‘Naturally!’ the Dowager gloated. ‘Now we shall see what we shall see!’
Aimée walked unsteadily across the room and dropped into the other chair that was pulled up to the tea table.
‘Are you really the Earl of Caxton?’
Even before he nodded, Aimée knew it must be true. The Dowager had spoken of having some acquaintance with him. She would not have invited anyone but the Earl himself here today. Because she wanted to expose Aimée’s ‘fraud'. With profound relief, she saw that the Dowager had not investigated in at all the direction where she most feared the danger might come from.
No, it was her claim to kinship with the Earl of Caxton alone that the Dowager had sought to disprove.
Well, she could understand why the Dowager had invited the Earl to come here, but not why he had travelled all the way up to Staffordshire, when, as far as she was aware, he had never wanted anything to do with her before.
Though, from the expression on his face, the hesitantly spoken words of penitence, it sounded as though he might have undergone a change of heart.
‘Why did you come here?’ she managed to whisper.
‘To expose you for the fraud you are!’ hissed the Dowager. ‘He cannot stand idly by and let nobodies wander round the countryside, claiming to be his granddaughters!’
The Earl took his eyes off Aimée just long enough to shoot the Dowager a coldly contemptuous look.
‘That is why this vulgar person wrote to me, to be sure. But when she gave me the particulars of what she said you had told her, I had to come, to see if it could really be you.’
Aimée’s heart thudded against her breastbone. It took her a few attempts before she managed to say, in a voice that sounded forced, even to her own ears, ‘You need me to confirm my identity, is that it?’
He stretched out one trembling hand. ‘No … no, there is no need. I can see her in you.’ The Earl’s face contorted with pain. ‘I thought she would come home,’ he said in a voice that quivered with regret. ‘Your mother, that is. I thought that cutting her off would expose Peters for the grubby fortune-hunter that he was. When he did not immediately cast her off, I let her have enough money so they would not starve, but I thought it could only be a matter of time before she came to her senses. How could she stay with a man like that? A gambler, a wastrel, a drunkard? How could she …?’
‘Keep to her marriage vows?’ replied Aimée ruefully. ‘To keep faith with him, for richer or poorer. In sickness or health. For better or worse.’ She reached out blindly and felt Septimus grasp her hand firmly. Though her attention had been focused on her grandfather, she had been aware of the moment Septimus came to stand beside her chair. As he would stand by her, she now knew, whatever life might throw at them.
‘Unto death,’ she whispered, turning to place a kiss on the back of his strong, brown hand.
The Earl seemed to shrink from her words as from a blow, and though she would not have believed it possible, turned even more pale.
‘I never thought she would defy me to the end! I always thought something would happen to effect a reconciliation.’
‘Why did you not then acknowledge my birth?’ Aimée said sorrowfully. ‘Surely that would have been the perfect opportunity.’
‘It would have, if only you had been a boy,’ he groaned. ‘That would have given me a reason to recall my daughter to England. Nobody would have thought I was weak for acknowledging my only legitimate heir, no matter what had gone before. Peters was, after all, the son of a gentleman. And they were legally married. I could have established them in one of my smaller properties, and gradually, so that I did not look as though I was backing down, I could have restored my relationship with her.’
‘But I was merely a girl.’
He hung his head. The proud old aristocrat actually hung his head in shame.
‘I have been guilty of making every mistake a man could make. Anger, pride …’ He shook his head ruefully.
‘And cruelty,’ she said, tears coming to her eyes. ‘I know I was only a girl, but when she died, you turned a deaf ear to my father’s pleas for assistance! We were distrtaught. And destitute without the allowance you paid her. How could you have done that? Do you know how we had to live without that money? Can you even begin to imagine the hardships I have endured—?’ She broke off as a spasm of pain crossed the old man’s face.
‘I never meant to punish you for the sins of your parents,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It was just such a shock when I received news of Aurora’s death. And the tone of your father’s letter …’ He grimaced. ‘It infuriated me. By the time I had calmed down somewhat, and acknowledged the justice of what he had said, it was too late. You had left Rome. There was no trace of either of you. And then I thought that if I ever did find you, it would be too late.’
He looked up at her, his eyes bleak. ‘Is it too late? You must have grown up hating me. I dare say you want to repudiate me, as I once repudiated your father. You are in a position to do it,’ he said, flicking a look at Septimus. ‘You have no need of me. And perhaps it will be some consolation, to take this revenge on me.’
Revenge? Aimée was angry with this man, but she did not have it in her heart to hate him. She could tell, just by looking at him, that he was the one who had suffered most from the rift with his daughter. Her mother, from what she remembered of her childhood, had not seemed unhappy with her lot.
And if she was honest, she would be no better than the Dowager if she persisted in maintaining hostilities when there was a chance to make peace. Had she not just been thinking that the past should stay in the past?
‘Grandfather …’ she began hesitantly.
But the Dowager shot to her feet, screaming, ‘No! You are no relation to this man! You cannot be! You are some actress this vile man has brought into my home to humiliate us all!’
And she flew at Aimée, her fingers curled into claws.
Such an uncharacteristically energetic attack took Aimée completely by surprise, for she had been sitting sideways on to the woman, with her attention fixed firmly upon her grandfather. But the eld
erly Earl had been keeping a watchful eye on the Dowager over Aimée’s shoulder. At first she had looked only bewildered that the scene was not playing out exactly as she had envisaged, but her mounting fury had become increasingly apparent as the revelations piled up.
He leapt to his feet with remarkable agility for a man his age, and prevented the Dowager from knocking Aimée to the ground by flinging himself in her path.
The talons that had been aimed at Aimée’s face scored the Earl’s cheek instead. The Dowager screeched with fury and tried to thrust the old man aside, but he steadfastly interposed his body between the women, letting all the blows aimed at his granddaughter rain down upon him.
Septimus entered the fray then, separating the two elderly combatants by the simple expedient of lifting the dumpy Dowager bodily off her feet, whirling her round, and depositing her none too gently back on her sofa.
She bounced straight up and launched herself at Aimée again.
This time, Septimus grabbed her flailing arms and sat down next to her on the sofa, holding her wrists firmly while she struggled, and kicked, and screamed insults indiscriminately at all three of them.
The Earl of Caxton sank back into his chair, clearly as shaken as Aimée felt by that appalling development. Bright blood was trickling down his otherwise ashen cheeks from the three deep scratches the Dowager had inflicted on him. He reached up to touch the wounds, then began to fumble in his pocket for a handkerchief to staunch the flow.
‘Here, sir, let me help you,’ said Aimée, coming out of her stupor to render him assistance. She took the handkerchief from his trembling hands and pressed it to his cheek.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said, raising his hand to cover hers. Their eyes met, and suddenly Aimée saw, not the ogre of her childhood imagination, but a spent and weary old man. A man whose pride had been crushed, whose hopes had never borne fruit, and whose last years would be filled with sorrow if she did not put the past firmly behind her. A man who had made mistakes, yes, but who bitterly regretted them.
And who was she to judge another? Or to refuse to take the olive branch he was extending to her by coming here and abasing himself before her?
Had she not made mistakes, criminal mistakes, in her own efforts to live the life she chose?
She lowered herself until she was kneeling on the floor at his feet. ‘Think nothing of it …’ she took a deep breath ‘… Grandfather.’
Hope lit his eyes. Some colour returned to his cheeks. His entire body seemed to pulse with renewed vigour.
He turned towards the Dowager, who was still grappling with Septimus upon the sofa, cursing and kicking in a most unladylike manner.
‘That will do, madam!’ His voice cut right through her display of hysterics, as nothing else had managed to do. She stopped fighting Septimus and gaped at the sight of Aimée kneeling at the Earl’s feet, with her hand clasped firmly in his.
And identical expressions of contempt on their faces.
Even the Dowager could no longer deny Aimée’s origins. It was written in the set of their determined chins, the proud tilt to their heads, the way they both elevated one eyebrow slightly, to convey reproof. Even though she had not been brought up in his orbit, even though she bore no resemblance to the Earl’s other granddaughter, there was no doubt that Aimée had inherited several of her grandfather’s features and mannerisms.
With a wail, the Dowager flung herself back upon the cushions and burst into tears.
Aimée got up and went to the bell pull. ‘I think we had better send for the housekeeper, don’t you?’ she said rather shakily. ‘My lady,’ she said in a firmer voice, ‘I think you had better go and have a lie down. You are clearly unwell.’
An uneasy silence prevailed in the room, punctuated only by the Dowager’s increasingly feeble moans, until the moment Mrs Trimley arrived. Her eyes widened at the scene that met her. The Dowager slumped on the sofa, her cushions scattered all over the floor. The Earl of Bowdon sitting beside her, scowling in a way that made him look even more piratical than usual, and the young Countess in a state that could only be described as dishevelled!
‘Your mistress needs to go and have a lie down,’ said Aimée. ‘She has had a very nasty turn.’
‘Yes,’ the Dowager agreed feebly. ‘I am not well. Really, it is all too much for a woman my age …’
She allowed Trimley to assist her to her feet, and, leaning heavily upon her arm, tottered from the room, still muttering complaints.
‘What the deuce,’ remarked the Earl of Caxton when she had gone, ‘is the matter with that woman?’
A curl to his lip, Septimus replied, ‘Been used to getting her own way for far too long.’
‘It had crossed my mind,’ replied the Earl of Caxton drily, ‘that if she were forty years younger, I should have described that as a temper tantrum and had her sent up to the nursery without any supper.’
Then something like a spasm of pain flashed across his face. Perhaps he was remembering how harshly he had treated both his daughters.
Septimus made for the sideboard. ‘I don’t know about either of you, but I could do with a drink.’
Now that the Dowager had gone, it felt as though a storm had passed, leaving the air washed fresh and clean. The sun was already beginning to peep from behind the clouds. As if to confirm her impression, the Earl said, with the ghost of a smile, ‘If it were up to me, I would call for champagne.’
‘Well, my love?’
His love. Hearing the open affection in his voice as he employed that endearment made her certain that her future would be brighter than anything she had ever dreamed of.
‘Just this once,’ she admitted, ‘I would not object to having a drink. I feel …’ she sucked in a breath to prevent her voice wobbling with all the emotions she was feeling ‘… as though I have cause to celebrate.’ Septimus had made her face up to her fears, had given her the assurance she could face anything, with his support.
Because of Septimus she had made peace with her grandfather. And she now had a cousin, too. That Lady Jayne the Dowager had said was the complete opposite of her.
He had restored her family to her.
She walked across to her husband, leaned up and kissed him full on the lips.
‘I would have missed out on this—’ she indicated her grandfather, who was sitting regarding them with a fond smile ‘—if it had not been for you. Thank you.’
She gazed up at his rugged, slightly damaged face and counted herself the most fortunate woman in the world.
She had her security, at last.
And it did not come from having money, or status, or a big house to live in, but from realising that at last, she had found a man she could trust. Septimus would never let her down. He would not repudiate her, or neglect her, or try to sell her to pay his debts. Whatever fate flung at them, this man would be beside her. Dealing with her troubles as if they were his own.
Because he loved her.
Epilogue
Aimée started nervously as she heard the front door slam. She had been on edge ever since Septimus had brought her to this property in Surrey, knowing that he meant to ride over to Kingsmede, which was scarce one day’s ride away, to settle things with Lord Matthison.
‘I won’t have you worrying about him any more,’ he had growled before setting out just after dawn that morning. ‘I will make him take all the money back, and let him know just what he will have to face should he ever speak of his part in the affair.’
She got to her feet as Septimus strode into the room.
‘You did do it, didn’t you?’ she managed to say, just before he swept her into a crushing embrace and stopped her mouth with a passionate kiss.
‘You won’t have any trouble from that quarter, that is certain,’ he said, tugging her to the sofa, and pulling her down onto his lap. ‘But it was not quite as you thought, my lovely wife.’
Hearing him address her so affectionately, and acting so demonstratively, after despairing s
he might never find a way to reach his heart, instantly put paid to the slight qualm his cryptic comment had roused.
‘To start with, he denies outright that he had any thought of making you his mistress.’
‘What? But—’
‘Just hear me out, sweetheart. He claims that he was disgusted that any man could auction off his own daughter to a man of Sandiford’s stamp. That he only took part in the bidding so that he could ensure you would be safe. He says he sent you all the winnings from that accursed table, to provide you with the means to escape. He says that he told his manservant to make that very clear.’
Aimée cast her mind back to that night. The servant had said she was not to let her father know about the money. That it was not for him, but for her. But she had assumed … because of what Mr Carpenter had said, about all those lechers bidding for her …
‘I s-suppose I might have misunderstood. I was so frightened, and alone.’
‘And suspicious of every man, I know. You fled from me, just because I made a mull of proposing to you, remember?’
When she blushed, he kissed her until she felt better. Then she said, ‘So, he has taken the money back then, and it is all over.’
‘Ah, well, not exactly. The fact of the matter is,’ he said, looking a bit sheepish, ‘he refused point blank to so much as touch it. He told me that now he has found happiness at last with his new wife, he dare not risk offending Lady Luck by taking it back. Cora explained it in such a way that I saw it all made perfect sense to Lord Matthison. He is very superstitious. Gamblers often are, you know.’
‘Cora?’
‘Lord Matthison’s wife. Remarkable woman,’ he said. ‘You know, I went to Kingsmede planning to call the devil out and make him pay for what I thought he’d done to you. And he squared up to me, breathing fire and brimstone for daring to accuse him of such villainy, and then in walked this tiny little woman, with red hair and freckles, so slight you would have thought a puff of wind would blow her away, and within seconds she managed to have the pair of us feeling like guilty schoolboys.’
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