by Liz Tyner
He handed her the cloth, but their fingers didn’t touch. An ache settled in her heart. She needed to make him understand.
‘Don’t think I believed her when she blamed me. I might not have spoken the words, but I put it right back on her. It added another blot to her actions—her blaming me.’
‘She was doubly wrong to do that.’
‘When I heard the tales of Lady Caroline Lamb trying to gain Byron’s attention, I thought of my mother’s actions. It pleased me that Mother wasn’t the only woman who caught herself up in the drama of love.’
She’d been so thankful her mother hadn’t attached herself to Byron or Wellington or someone like that. Her friendship with Sophia Swift had been disastrous enough. The two women had both become fascinated by the same man and had had a falling out. The Memoirs had been published not long after.
She’d never asked her father how he’d felt to be mentioned in the book, but by the time the book had been printed, her mother had left.
‘I never once thought about what it would be like to not be the bastard child,’ she said. ‘Well, not often. That would have been like telling myself I wanted to feel different about who I was. You wanted to see what it was like to be on the other side of your life, but I didn’t feel that way. I wanted to be happy with who I was.’
‘Perhaps it would help to talk all this through with your mother.’
Lily considered the words. ‘I don’t want to be around her.’
His brows flicked in acknowledgement. ‘Every family has tales. And they should remain within the family.’
She knew he thought of the newspaper.
‘I am sure you read of my father’s little blunder,’ he said.
The words jarred into her. ‘Yes, I knew.’
She knew much more of Edge’s life than he realised. He’d even had an attachment once and she’d not known the woman, but she knew of her.
‘Did you know of the babe before it appeared in the paper?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘Of course not. Would you have thanked me?’
‘No.’
‘Would you have believed me?’
‘I don’t know, but I certainly would have later. My father confessed to my mother after she’d read about it. A nice quiet conversation behind closed doors, then he walked out and she didn’t have the strength to leave the room.’
‘The mistress was no happier. She was at my mother’s home before the baby was born.’ The words hurt to speak them, an admission of the world she lived in when she wasn’t at her father’s. A completely different world of gaiety, misery and celebration of doing as one wished without regard for others.
‘You knew her?’ Clipped words.
‘Yes. My mother wasn’t welcome in many places. She tended to know everyone in the same situation as she was. Any married woman who hadn’t strayed outside the marriage would never have stepped foot in Mother’s home. So the women Mother welcomed were usually mistresses of society men. They shared stories. My mother had a husband who supported her and the other women often didn’t. So I saw the mistresses and heard the tales of their life.’
All the stories were similar. Adventure. Love. Abandonment. The search for another man to ease their pain or house them. Lily had heard them over and over. The names changed, but the stories didn’t. Heartbreak. Jealousy. Wives having more children and husbands having more mistresses.
* * *
Edgeworth paused, debating on his words. ‘I saw that the woman had funds to leave the country.’
He’d seen no other way. His mother needed to survive. His father couldn’t abandon her and start a different family. How could she go to any social events where her husband might be present? The Duke would have been welcomed as always and one couldn’t invite his wife if he’d shunned her. But the Duke could have retained his friends, or at least, most of them. Sides would have been chosen and his mother would have been tossed away. Only his father would have been allowed to walk the same paths, albeit, alone.
And his father wasn’t the same. He’d changed over the course of a year—became confused. His temper had floated below the surface where it had never been visible before. He’d planned to leave to be with his mistress, but he’d been unable to go.
Edge had taken the decision from him.
Edge had paid the woman to leave and that had taken some wrangling on his part. His father—his mind had been so unfocused. Edge used it to his advantage.
He’d thought he might have to put the woman and her son on the ship himself, and he’d been kind to her. Compassionate. Wanted to see the baby. Agreed with her plight. Bought time. Bought the woman a husband and shipped the woman and child to the Americas. Told her she could be a part of the growing country. He’d done what was best for all of them, her included. Hadn’t he?
It needed doing. His mother could not look anyone in the eye, but she’d pulled herself together.
Finally they’d all realised his father’s mind had been waning for a long, long time. At first when they’d looked back, they’d thought his father’s increasing silence had been due to the duplicity. But later, when he was dying, they realised he’d been failing and hiding it from his family.
For his mother, that had made the betrayal easier to bear.
For Edge, it had been harder.
He’d wondered if his father had crumbled under the weight of his duties, or if fate had stepped in and twisted things to blemish his father’s life.
‘You will be able to put it behind you,’ he said to Lily.
But he’d not been able to do the same. The past lingered worse than the scars on his legs. He felt guilt for manipulating his father’s life. Guilt he’d not realised what was happening until the paper had blasted the words into peoples’ minds.
If he’d discovered his father’s mistress earlier, he could have intervened before his mother was devastated. Before the rubbish was printed for his mother to see.
‘I should go.’ She turned to leave, but his fingers tightened on hers. She pulled her hand from his, moving back. ‘I have to.’
‘Meet me in the gardens tonight.’
‘I need to speak with my father.’
‘And then meet me again.’
Chapter Ten
After asking the valet when her father would be home, Lily sat waiting in the sitting room. Whenever she or Abigail wanted to know their father’s whereabouts, they’d always asked his valet. The answer was always the same. Working. Sometimes the valet left the house—taking food, clothing and a shaving kit to her father.
Several days could pass without seeing him and no one would think anything of it.
Then she and Abigail might be eating dinner and he would walk in. Or they might pass him in the hallway carrying the brown satchel stuffed with documents.
She held the recipe book and took out the bookmark—the Duchess paper she’d folded into a kite shape with red threads stitched through it to give it a string.
All the food in the book sounded tasteless. She put the place holder in a random spot, closed the book and kept it in her lap.
The sun painted the outdoors with an evening glow and she heard the door downstairs close and her father speaking with one of the servants, their voices a rumble she couldn’t make out.
The beauty of the evening made anything seem possible.
She pictured Edgeworth as her husband—the broad shoulders holding her. The possibility of their children. The little ones playing in the same gardens their parents had tramped through as youngsters.
She shut her eyes, imagining the home she wanted. A home. Peaceful. She could stare down all the condescending society women of the world with Edgeworth at her side. He would protect her from their barbs, just
by his very presence.
One stair creaked and her father’s shoes padded on the carpet. Passing the room, he stopped when he saw her.
Years of sitting in a room concerning himself over bank notes and money he’d been entrusted to safeguard had stooped his shoulders and masked his height. She wondered if he reached her shoulder.
She looked at him. His brows had greyed and the drooping lids shaded his always tired eyes. She could see nothing in his round face that she recognised in herself.
Nothing.
‘I only have a few moments,’ he said. His frown apologised. ‘I’m needed at the club. I promised I’d sit in for a few games tonight. I’d rather be home working, but I said I’d round out the table.’
She tightened her hold on the book. ‘Who is my father?’
His throat worked. ‘I am.’
‘That’s not what you once told Mother.’
He stepped inside and shut the door behind him, the quiet click reverberating, and his hand still on the knob. His chest heaved out. His head shuddered when he shook it from side to side. ‘I cannot discuss it.’
‘Then you are the only one who can’t.’
‘Lily,’ he snapped.
‘You shouted it to Mother so that all the servants could hear.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘What do you remember, then?’
‘I told you I will not discuss it. Is it not enough that I fed and clothed you all these years?’
‘Just tell me I am not your child, then. I want to know.’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘I asked myself that a thousand times. But for some reason I cannot fathom it seems to make a tremendous difference.’
His head leaned closer to the door and his chin trembled. ‘You’re my daughter.’
‘You don’t know for certain. Do you?’
He pushed his hand over his forehead, before waving his palm between them. ‘I thought this had long ago died away and then that courtesan’s book brought everything back.’ Shutting his eyes for a moment, he opened them on a deep breath. ‘You’re my daughter. But it was hard to look at you when you were a child. I would always be looking for someone else’s face in your smile.’
She couldn’t remember how old she was when she’d heard the argument, or how old she’d been when she’d figured out what it meant. But she’d felt a fraud for living in her father’s house, pretending to be Abigail’s full sister. She’d been so angry at her mother.
‘I looked in the mirror and examined my own face for resemblance,’ she said. ‘Many times.’
‘I can’t blame you.’ His fingers clenched in the air, but didn’t close into a fist. ‘It ate at me for years—wondering.’ He put his hand at his side. ‘When you were about four or so, I went to see the blacksmith. He didn’t know who I was. I wanted to see him for myself. I asked directions, simple enough, and left.’
‘What did you think?’
‘I—I confronted your mother. That had to have been the discussion you heard. She refused to tell me. Refused. I took it as an admission.’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to think about it. But then, I started noticing you’d taken to turning your chin just like my own mother did.’ He laughed. ‘The day I saw that, I thought you must have copied her. But it stayed in my mind. Over and over I thought of it, then I decided you learned the movement from the visits.’
‘I cannot remember anything I do similar to her.’
‘I studied you every time I was in the room with you, trying to find the answer. But the more I was near you, I decided you were your own person.’
‘You do not know.’
‘I do. But I didn’t believe it at first. Not at all. Your mother and I—it was almost impossible for you to have been my child, but not entirely. We fought and returned to each other so many times I could not keep up with the dates. Later, I thought she’d returned to me when she did because she’d suspected a child was on the way and wanted to be certain I could think it mine. Because at the start of our marriage, she would return to her parents’ home and it was so close to the blacksmith’s shop.’
‘Why do you think I am yours?’
‘Put your hand flat on the table.’
She held the book in her left hand and placed her right on the table. All her fingers aligned straight, except the little finger, which crooked a bit.
‘One day I noticed that. My own father had the same bend of his fingers. It’s not much, but with the movement of your head like my mother... And then my great-aunt came for a visit. You were her all over again. I realised you are my own, but even that didn’t bring your mother and I closer. She demanded so much attention. I couldn’t concentrate on my work. I couldn’t. Not with her upheavals. You know what she’s like.’
‘Yes, because I was with her more than you were.’
‘She is your mother. Mothers and daughters are meant to be together.’
‘You never liked having us around.’
‘I did. I truly did after I realised you were mine. I knew it shouldn’t matter, but it did.’
‘Are you certain, or are you telling yourself what you want to believe?’
‘Lily. I believe you are mine. I treat you as such now, whether or not I have found that difficult in the past.’ He shrugged. ‘I cannot do better than that.’
‘Sophia Swift’s words are written in ink.’
‘She has financial incentive to stir as much mud as she can.’ He looked away and downwards. ‘Do not blame her entirely. Your mother and I set the stage for her. Your mother and I betrayed you first. There should never have been a question.’ His hand slid away. He looked at the painting over the fireplace, then looked towards the rug. She could see his profile. ‘The fault was mine. Mostly. I didn’t want to be with her, but I couldn’t bear the jealousy. She is the only woman I have loved with such passion and the only woman I have hated with equal passion.’ He looked up and for a moment his stare faded. ‘I would say she felt the same of me.’
His head wobbled. ‘Time and time we tried to forgive each other. But the memories couldn’t go away. We couldn’t shut out the past we kept repeating.’
‘You did nothing but fight when you lived in the same home, and even when you only saw each other for a few minutes, you’d be at each other’s throats. I feared you might commit murder.’
He took in a breath and the memories took his vision from the room. ‘I miss her.’
‘She swung a candlestick at you.’
‘You warned me.’ He smiled. ‘I dodged. No harm done.’
‘Father. She could have killed you.’
He shook his head. ‘She would have missed at the last moment.’
Lily stared.
A spasm of pain crossed his face. ‘She was not the only one at fault. I knew exactly how to enrage her.’
Lily shut her eyes, thinking of all the clashes and how they’d dug into her. Then she peered at her father. The lines in his face seemed to have been there for ever.
‘We should never have married,’ he said. ‘Yet I couldn’t imagine myself wed to anyone else. We can’t be together, but...’ He held out his hands, palms up, and his shoulders rose. ‘I cannot explain to you what I don’t understand. I don’t regret the marriage. Or my daughters. I regret the hatred. But your mother...’ He paused, shaking his head. ‘Can’t throw worth a flip, though.’
‘You should not have married. Neither of you. To anyone.’
His brows furrowed. ‘I’m not sure of that. Your mother—when she laughs, she laughs with her whole heart. Her being. She doesn’t just see the colour in life, she lives inside it.’ He shook his head and looked at the ceiling. ‘Lily, she loves you and Abigail both. She told me that’s why she had to leave. Because she had made such a hash of things an
d wanted to take her reputation with her so the two of you would not be harmed by it any more.’
He walked over, leaned down and kissed Lily’s forehead. He straightened. ‘I love both my daughters equally. And I care for your mother. She gave me my daughters. But it’s more than that. I love her. I don’t know why. But I do. I have from the first moment I saw her.’
‘Couldn’t you have fallen in love with someone...quiet?’
‘I wish, but it just didn’t happen that way.’
‘But if you decided I was yours, why didn’t you refute Sophia’s book?’
‘And who would believe me? Your mother was likely to say something to spite me. Or if she claimed you were mine, it would only look as if she hid her unfaithfulness. The blacksmith and your mother were seen together many times.’ He shook his head. ‘Everyone would have believed I was merely blinded to your mother’s infidelity. Saying nothing was best. I mentioned in conversation to friends that you took after my side of the family and I could see the waver in their eyes. I could have put out broadsheets and no one would have believed me.’
Emotions shut out her words before they could reach her mouth. She took a moment to push her thoughts far enough away so that she could speak them. ‘Did you think that I would have liked to have heard you say I was your child? Did you not realise how it would affect me?’
‘I never expected you to have heard the tales. You kept to yourself.’
‘Page fifty-four.’ She’d read it.
‘I didn’t realise you knew.’ He stared at her. ‘How did you find out?’
She balled her hand into a fist. ‘What is that witch’s name?’ She thought for a moment. She could remember a page in a book, but couldn’t think of the woman’s name she’d known of since childhood. ‘Agatha Crump. Mrs Crump told me how sorry she was that such a thing was printed about me in the Swift Memoirs. I didn’t know what she meant. So I found a copy. Paid for it. I paid well for that book. And on page one, I realised it would not end well for me.’
‘I’ve never read it.’ He sneered. ‘Rubbish.’
