by Jane Goodger
“Take a seat, my dear,” her uncle said heavily, and Melissa’s fear grew tenfold. She sat clutching her hands in front of her. She looked quickly over to John, who took a chair beside her, but he was gazing at his father—and looking quite miserable.
“I have something difficult to tell you,” her uncle began.
Melissa furrowed her brows. Certainly, telling her a man wanted to marry her would not be difficult.
“The man you thought was your father, my brother, was not in fact your father.”
Relief swept through her, and she let out a laugh. “Oh, yes, I know,” she said, practically giddy that this meeting had nothing to do with Charles Norris.
Her uncle looked stunned. “You know?”
“Of course. Ever since I can remember, I’ve known. My parents made no secret of it. But my father has always been my father, so it made little difference to me.”
“But surely you understand how society . . .”
“Father,” John interrupted, and shook his head. He turned to her, and seemed to force a smile, which Melissa found rather confusing. What was all the fuss? “Would you mind waiting outside for a moment, Melissa? Just for a minute.”
Without a word, Melissa stood and left the room, wondering what the two men could possibly have to discuss. Was it possible that they themselves had just learned the truth? She leaned against the paneled wall, hearing their muffled voices but not able to discern what was said. Their voices, low rumbles, made her smile. No doubt they’d thought she’d dissolve into tears upon hearing their news. Rupert Atwell was the only man she’d known as her father, though her mother had often talked about how lucky they both were to have found him. Their meeting had always seemed like a fairy tale to her. Her mother, alone and with a small baby girl, had stumbled along Bamburgh’s coast, homeless and desperate, and had been discovered by her father.
“I fell in love with her—and you—that very day,” her father had said.
Though quite young when her mother had died, she still remembered how her parents had loved each other. Vague images of cold, blustery days sitting before the fire while both parents read often comforted her after her mother died. She remembered the windows rattling, and her mother’s worried look at the storm outside, and her father with those strong, reassuring hands, taking her mother’s smaller, more delicate one, and comforting her.
The door opened, and John appeared again, with that same forced smile plastered on his face. “Please join us,” he said, and she walked back into the study, slightly amused by their attempts to protect her.
After she’d been seated, her uncle, looking even more dour than before, asked her the one question she did not have the answer to. “Do you know who your true father is?”
Melissa felt herself bristling a bit. Her father was her true father. “No, nor do I care.”
“I understand,” her uncle said, giving John a helpless look.
“I take it you know his identity?” Melissa prompted, suddenly feeling nervous. She had never given her true father’s identity more than a passing thought.
“By pure happenstance, yes.”
“I don’t want to know,” Melissa said in a rush. She felt that knowing her father’s identity would somehow change who she was, what she was.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” John said softly. “I’m afraid that everyone will know who your father is—or at least they will wonder.”
“And we cannot have that,” her uncle said, his tone brooking no argument.
“Father,” John said in warning, before turning back to her. “Did you know your mother was a governess?”
Melissa creased her brow. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I do believe they talked of it, or my father told me, years ago it was.”
“And do you know where your mother worked? In what household?”
Melissa shook her head, gazing from one man to the other, completely confused by their demeanor. It was as if they were about to tell her that her father was Satan himself.
“Have you ever heard of the Duke of Waltham?”
“No,” she said, stunned and relieved. Her father, a duke? It was a pleasant surprise. “My true father is a duke? Oh my, isn’t that grand. Will I get to meet him, then?”
“No!” They spoke in unison, both looking exceedingly uncomfortable.
“Melissa, you do not understand the implications of this news,” her uncle said. “It is not something to celebrate. Indeed, it is . . .”
“Father, let me,” John interjected. “You see, Melissa, we discovered your likely parentage quite by accident. It appears you bear a rather striking resemblance to Waltham’s younger daughter.”
“My sister,” she said, quite happy to learn she had a sibling.
John gave his father another of those helpless looks, and her uncle let out a small moan. “Yes, your sister,” her uncle said. “But, unfortunately, you can never publicly claim her as such.”
“Why ever not? And if I look so much like her, won’t everyone know anyway?”
“That’s just the thing, Melissa. We cannot claim we do not see the resemblance when it is so remarkable. However, we also cannot let anyone know Waltham is your father.”
Melissa shook her head in confusion. “Why?”
Again the two men shared a helpless look. “Well, because . . .” her uncle started, his voice fading.
“Because of the duchess, you see,” John said in a rush, sounding rather triumphant.
“The duchess?” her uncle asked.
“Yes, Father, the duchess would know her husband has been unfaithful, and it would surely humiliate her. Do you see now, Melissa? If we were to announce your sire, all the world would know that the duke was unfaithful to his beloved wife. That single indiscretion twenty-four years ago could cause both such terrible heartbreak.” Her uncle let out a strange sound, but John continued. “The right thing to do, therefore, is to agree with everyone who mentions this likeness but completely deny you are the duke’s daughter.”
“That might work,” her uncle muttered, and John smiled genuinely for the first time that day.
“What if the duke sees me?”
“Doubtful. We have no plans to attend any event he’ll be attending. Indeed, we shall avoid the family completely. And if the worst happens, only you and he will know the truth of the matter. No one else.”
Melissa frowned, not wanting to lie.
“No one will ever ask you outright,” John said. “No one would dare.”
“Surely they will suspect,” Melissa said, thinking of the poor duchess and her broken heart.
“Let them. Let our truth become the real truth,” John said with force. “They might question us privately, but they will never do so publicly.” But a look passed between John and his father, and Melissa knew he was not as confident as he sounded.
After Melissa had left, John remained in the room with his father.
“I should thrash my brother if he were alive,” his father said darkly.
“And I should join you. However, we must play the hand we’ve been dealt. At least the news didn’t destroy Melissa.”
It was a stunning development to learn Melissa knew she was a bastard and that she had absolutely no idea it was something most people would find devastating. John could not allow anyone to crush the girl. It would be so easy to do, to make her believe that she was somehow tainted. He would not have it, not even from the father he worshipped.
“As difficult as it is to believe, being a bastard is not a stigma to her, Father. Remember, she has been completely isolated from society. She has no idea that being a bastard is anything to be ashamed of, and I think it would have been a grave error to inform her now.”
His father shook his head, a defeated gesture that tore at John. “I think we are both being naïve to think she will not get a very quick lesson in just how the ton treats bastard children.”
John clenched his fists at the thought of someone hurting her. “But she is not a b
astard. We will not acknowledge it, and so it will not be. Don’t you see, Father, nothing has changed. She has no shame, nor should she. Only we have the power to make her feel less than she is. And right now, she is quite happy to learn she is a duke’s daughter.”
“Yes. She seemed rather pleased,” his father said, shaking his head. “I fear this is going to turn on us. It is going to be a disaster.”
John sighed heavily. “Likely so. But there is nothing we can do about it. We have no alternative. We cannot announce that we have Waltham’s daughter living with us, a daughter we’ve been passing off as your brother’s daughter. I cannot think of anything we can do to protect her completely. Perhaps a convent?”
He was joking, but his father actually appeared as if he were considering such a drastic plan. “Father, we are members of the Church of England. I hardly think a convent is feasible.”
“Yes, but it certainly would solve everyone’s problems.”
“I would marry Melissa myself before I allowed it,” John said, waiting in vain for the dread that always followed when he mentioned marriage. It strangely did not come.
His father let out a laugh. “I daresay it hasn’t come to that. Everyone in the ton is aware of my stance on marriage between first cousins. They know I would never allow such a thing. I would be labeled a hypocrite, and all my hard work on behalf of the Commission and Mr. Darwin would be for naught. And if we admit that Melissa is not your cousin, we label her a bastard, and she would be ostracized and even your children would suffer.”
“I wasn’t serious, Father, so don’t get yourself all riled up,” John said, but something shifted in his mind. He felt a sharp stab of disappointment that was disturbing and unaccountable. What rubbish.
Still, a small voice, a voice that he’d been ignoring for weeks, whispered how unfair it was that someone he could finally imagine being with for the rest of his life should be forbidden to him for no other reason than propriety. Melissa was not his cousin, and he truly didn’t give a fig about her birth. But he would not destroy his father’s honor, his very standing in the House of Lords, with such a selfish act.
He could not deny he was attracted to Melissa, for he was. He wanted nothing more than to drag her into his arms, to feel her soft lips against his. That small kiss in the drawing room had been a tantalizing taste of what he really wanted. The thought of that kiss, the thought of what he’d wanted to do, had kept him up more than one night. He could not bring himself to imagine her married to another, touching another. But it did no good to pine for her, if that was what he was doing. Pining was too strong a word, he decided, pragmatic as always. If he had an attraction to Melissa, he would get over it. The best route to ending this ridiculous attraction was to get her married. No matter how his heart rejected such a solution, his mind knew it was the only one.
Chapter 10
Melissa, her cheeks flushed from being outdoors in a blustering March wind that carried with it the finest of mists, spied John sitting in his father’s study brooding. That made her smile. A brooding lord. How cliché.
“You look like Mr. Rochester, sitting here all alone. Brooding,” Melissa said, laughing.
“With a mad wife in the attic?”
“Have you read Jane Eyre? I thought only ladies did,” she said, sitting down next to him on a settee and staring into a lively fire.
“You smell of the outdoors,” he said.
“I know. Isn’t it wonderful? I remember my father coming in after a cold, blustery day and smelling him. And now I can smell like that any time I want.”
He gazed at her warmly, then turned abruptly away. “Where were you?”
“Oh, out walking. With Charles. I mean, Mr. Norris. He does love to walk. But I don’t mind. I still need the exercise, and it was lovely outside. The finest mist was falling, tiny little beads that you could hardly feel, and yet my cloak was nearly soaked when we came in. Miss Stanhope was quite cross, I think, that we walked so far and she got so damp. But I think the next time it rains, I shall rush outdoors and swim in it.”
He closed his eyes briefly, before turning to her again, his eyes going to her hair. One hand touched the very top of her head, an odd smile playing about his lips.
“Were you not wearing a hat?” he asked, gazing at his fingers, wet from her hair.
Melissa looked down, feeling guilty. “I was, yes. But it was so lovely to feel the mist on my face and my hat was quite blocking it, so I took it off. Miss Stanhope was very disappointed in me, but I just could not resist.”
“And now your hair is wet. I suppose a little mist won’t hurt you.”
Melissa was glad he didn’t chastise her or, worse, tell her she would certainly catch a cold because she’d committed the sin of getting damp.
“So. You were walking with Charles.”
“Yes.”
“Are you . . . Do you like him, then?”
John became very still, as if her answer was quite important. No doubt he wanted her settled quickly, but she didn’t want to give him false hope. “He’s very pleasant,” she said. He was pleasant. And rather boring. And stared at her too much. And hovered. And smiled. It was all too much.
“I think he likes you very much. Could you see yourself,” he swallowed, “marrying him? Could you see yourself in love with him?” He smiled, but it was a strange smile, oddly forced.
“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “I . . .” Then, she let out a sigh and said in a rush, “I wish I had never kissed you.” She stared at her hands, twisting the still damp material of her skirt and leaving behind clusters of wrinkles.
“It was hardly a kiss. It was nothing,” he said, forcefully.
“Oh, I know that.” She bit her bottom lip, not noticing John’s eyes drifting down to settle on her mouth. “It’s just that I . . .”
“You what?” He sounded impatient, but when she searched his face, she saw nothing but mild interest.
Now she was completely mortified. “I should not have said anything. But, you see, it was likely because it was my very first kiss, and I’ve no doubt made it more important than it was. It was just for practice, I understand that, but I felt . . . It made me feel . . .” She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them to stare blindly at the fire. “I think there is something wrong with me,” she whispered miserably.
“No.”
She nodded. “There is. I don’t think I’m normal.”
“Tell me what you felt.”
She looked up at him, her lips parted, her eyes beseeching him to understand. “I felt that I didn’t want you to stop,” she said in a rush. “I let Charles kiss me and . . . nothing. Like kissing the back of my own hand. Not repulsive, certainly, but not like . . .”
“I think you should stop talking now. I think you should go.”
A hot rush of humiliation flooded her, and she stood abruptly. “It was only the briefest of kisses. Not even as long as our practice one. It didn’t seem improper, and Miss Stanhope was just ’round the bend so nothing untoward could have happened.” He sat, his expression stony as he stared into the fire. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, but she had no idea what she was sorry about.
He looked up at her, and his expression softened. “No, I am sorry. You did nothing wrong, Melissa. Nothing. A small kiss from a gentleman is not such a terrible thing.”
Then why did she feel terrible?
“I think I shall go and change out of these damp clothes,” she said, lifting her limp skirt. She walked from the room, berating herself for being such an idiot. To admit her feelings to John, no doubt mortifying him, how could she have done such a thing? She never should have said a word.
That night there was dancing. The men pushed the furniture out of the way, and two footmen rolled up the huge carpet covering the parquet floor, giving them a miniature ballroom. Laura coaxed Miss Stanhope to play the piano while the younger people danced. It was, Miss Stanhope decided, a perfect way for Melissa to practice her social skills while having a bit o
f fun with a small group.
Melissa, who had been dreading seeing John after their awkward conversation in the study, was relieved when he acted as if not one single embarrassing word had been exchanged between them. If anything, he seemed even more good-natured than usual, announcing a dance contest in which people had to dance with an imaginary partner. After the announcement, he winked at her, and Melissa felt unaccountably relieved. Everything was back to normal.
“This seems rather silly,” Lady Juliana said, but she unexpectedly volunteered to go first and seemed to be enjoying herself. Melissa thought that if Lady Juliana would just relax a bit, that sour expression she always seemed to wear would disappear completely. Lady Juliana was a vision wearing a deep golden gown with cream lace trim and beading about the bodice. The underskirt was a rich, deep brown, trimmed with golden lace. Her hair, swept up into an intricate style that Melissa knew she would never have the patience for, gave Juliana an elegance that few women could easily achieve. Melissa, wearing a simple midnight blue gown with few embellishments, felt downright dowdy in comparison. If she’d known there was to be dancing that evening, she would have worn one of her newer gowns.
As Lady Juliana danced, the others laughing at her perfectly executed turns in a complicated country dance, Melissa moved next to John, who watched the display with a small smile. “I do believe I have some competition,” she said.
“Lady Juliana is fiercely competitive. You should see her on the archery course. Perhaps Mr. Norris can give you a lesson tomorrow. He’s quite good, as well.”
“You do not like archery?”
“I do not.”
“He may not like it, but he’s the only man I know who can outdo Lady Juliana,” Charles put in. “But I’d be more than happy to give you what little knowledge I have of the sport, Miss Atwell.”
“Thank you, Charles. That sounds delightful.” It didn’t sound at all delightful, though it should have. She should have been excited about trying something new, but all she could think of was that John had been disingenuous. How could he be an expert at something he disliked? His attempt to push her toward Charles was obvious and a subtle reminder that she should not have any silly thoughts about one inconsequential kiss. He seemed to be perfectly happy, but John did not look at her. Unexpectedly, she felt her throat ache. When the music stopped, she announced brightly that it was her turn.
