The Hero Least Likely

by Darcy Burke

  “Maybe.…” Corinna said between taking deep, calming breaths.

  Shrugging into her own light pelisse, Rachael paused. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Corinna fibbed. “Perfectly fine.”

  She couldn’t help wondering if she’d done the right thing encouraging Sean to continue deceiving Lord Lincolnshire. In fact, it seemed she could think about little else. Besides the kiss. And the reception. And her looming deadline to finish her portrait.

  But she was fine. Perfectly fine.

  And there she went, lying to herself again.

  Rachael patted her shoulder. “Don’t get yourself in a dither. I know this reception is important to you, but we shall all contrive to make certain it’s a wild success.”

  Alexandra lifted baby Harry out of his pram. “Yes, we will.” The other ladies made noises of agreement.

  Aunt Frances pushed slowly to her feet. “Yes, we will,” she echoed, sounding a bit out of breath.

  Juliana laid a hand on the woman’s arm. “Are you all right, Auntie?”

  “Yes, just fat and ugly and winded. My friend Lady Mabel swears this city isn’t good for the lungs once a lady reaches a certain age, but then again, she has asthma.” Frances gave a wheezy laugh. “I’m only with child.”

  Elizabeth grabbed her cloak, but as it was a warm day she laid it over her arm. “Our mother always said that about the London air, too. But I don’t remember her ever having any trouble breathing.”

  “That’s because Mama refused to come to London,” Claire said, and turned to Juliana. “I hope you put those extra tea buns in the basket for us.”

  Juliana nodded. “I noticed the recipe in our family cookbook was your mother’s.”

  Claire smiled, taking the offered basket. “She used to make them for us all the time, but we haven’t had any in years.”

  ”I hope you’ll enjoy them.” Leaving her two sisters behind, Juliana started walking the rest of her guests toward the door. “Your mother wrote that the tea buns encourage serenity.”

  “Is that why you made them?” Rachael asked. “Do you think Corinna is in need of serenity?”

  Before Corinna could go after them and speak for herself, Juliana answered. “Of course she’s in need of serenity. Her entire future hangs in the balance!”

  Corinna heard everyone laugh before they said their good-byes. Then she heard the door shut, and Juliana returned to the Palm Room.

  Going to a sideboard that had gilt legs carved to look like palm trees, Juliana poured three glasses of sherry before joining her sisters on one of the many sofas covered in palm tree-themed satin fabric. “Here,” she said, handing Corinna a glass. “I expect you’ll find this encourages serenity much more than tea buns.”

  Corinna sipped gratefully.

  “It’s natural to be nervous about the reception,” Alexandra said, shifting Harry on her lap to take a sip.

  “And you’re nervous about something else, too.” Juliana crossed her legs. “I can tell. Out with it, Corinna.”

  They knew her too well; there was no sense pretending. She sighed. “I have a secret.”

  Her sisters exchanged meaningful glances. “Well?” Alexandra asked.

  “Lord Lincolnshire’s nephew isn’t John Hamilton,” Corinna confessed in a rush. “I mean, John Hamilton is his nephew, but the gentleman you met at Lady Partridge’s ball isn’t. He’s his brother-in-law. He wanted to tell Lord Lincolnshire the truth, but I convinced him not to, and now I’m not sure that was right.”

  “Whoa.” Juliana’s sip of sherry was more like a gulp. “Explain that again. Slowly, and with more detail.”

  Corinna did so, telling the whole long complicated story. Then she held her breath before asking, “Was I wrong? Should he tell Lord Lincolnshire the truth?”

  Juliana shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

  “I agree.” Alexandra patted the baby’s back. “Lord Lincolnshire deserves a happy ending.”

  Corinna blew the breath out. “You’re right. I love Lord Lincolnshire.”

  “So do we,” Alexandra assured her.

  “I’m going to visit him more often. I promised Mr. Delaney I would, to help him keep up the pretense that he’s an artist.”

  “You’ll get to see more of Mr. Delaney that way too, hmm?” Juliana wiggled her eyebrows.

  Corinna looked to Alexandra. “She’s meddling again, isn’t she?”

  “Doesn’t she always?”

  “I can tell you like him,” Juliana said defensively. “And I cannot say I blame you. He’s quite good-looking—”

  “You’re a married woman!” Corinna interrupted.

  “A very happy one,” her sister agreed. “But a lady doesn’t go blind when she takes her marriage vows. Or deaf, either. That accent—”

  “You make him sound like a pretty box. You know nothing about the person inside.” Neither did she, for that matter.

  “I know he’s being very nice to Lord Lincolnshire. And that his sister is married to John Hamilton, which means he’s connected to the right people.”

  “He’s not a peer, Juliana. He owns property.”

  “Doesn’t every gentleman own property?”

  “Gentlemen inherit property. Mr. Delaney buys and sells it for a living. Among other things.” She wondered what the other things were.

  “Well, that seems a very lucrative sort of career. And an impressive accomplishment for a young man his age. He must have quite the work ethic.”

  Corinna rolled her eyes. ”And there’s the fact that he’s Irish.” With that accent. She’d gone back to the bookstore to buy Children of the Abbey this morning, and she was already up to page 43, where she’d thought of Sean instead of Lord Mortimer while reading about how the harmony of his voice imparted a charm that seldom failed of being irresistible.

  “Does his being Irish bother you?” Juliana asked.

  “Of course not. But it might bother Griffin.”

  “Griffin would be a hypocrite if it did,” Juliana scoffed. “His own name comes from an Irish ancestor.”

  “That’s right,” Alexandra put in. “Our sixth or seventh great-grandfather, wasn’t he? Aidan Griffin, Baron Kilcullen from Ballygriffin, Ireland.”

  “How do you remember such things?” Corinna asked.

  “Family is important to me.” She smiled at little Harry, who was named after her husband’s uncle. “Besides, you remember every word you’ve ever read.”

  “That’s different. And far more irritating than it is helpful. My brain is always filled with all those stupid lines.” She sighed. “In any case, I’m not interested in Mr. Delaney that way.”

  She wouldn’t say no to another kiss—now that she knew he wasn’t really married. But if she knew her sister, Juliana would stop at nothing to get him married now.

  To Corinna.

  She fixed Juliana with a serious stare. ”I have only seventeen days left to finish my portrait, and call on Lincolnshire House to make sure the earl’s last days go smoothly. I don’t have time for your matchmaking schemes.”

  “Matchmaking schemes? I’ve no idea what you’re on about.” Juliana’s eyes were wide and innocent. “I happen to think it’s very kind of you to look after dear Lord Lincolnshire. You should bring him a sweet to comfort him in his illness.”

  “Corinna doesn’t bake,” Alexandra reminded her.

  Corinna couldn’t bake. The ladies of their family were famed for their sweets, and she was the only Chase lady in history with no talent in the kitchen. She couldn’t measure anything properly; she couldn’t mix without creating lumps. If she so much as looked at the oven, biscuits burned and cakes collapsed.

  “I didn’t say she should make it,” Juliana pointed out. “I only said she should bring it. I shall do the baking for her.”

  “Thank you,” Corinna said sweetly. It wasn’t so bad being a bungler in the kitchen, really. In truth, she’d much rather paint.

  SIXTEEN

  “I wonder w
hy Corinna’s so nervous,” Rachael said to her sisters during the ride home in their carriage. “There’s the reception, of course, but she seems to be worrying about more than that.”

  Corinna had been very far from calm and collected. As a person who wasn’t quite herself these days, Rachael recognized the signs. Griffin was supposed to have returned yesterday, and she was on pins and needles waiting to hear what he might have discovered.

  “I don’t know what’s bothering Corinna.” Elizabeth shrugged. “But I’ve been thinking.”

  “That’s a novelty,” Claire chimed in.

  Elizabeth stuck out her tongue. “I meant I’ve been thinking about something else. I’ve been thinking about how Mama never wheezed like Lady Mabel.”

  “I told you, that’s because she refused to come to London.” Claire fiddled with a new amethyst ring she’d made, twirling it on her finger. “She knew it wasn’t good for her.”

  “But Mama was very quiet,” Elizabeth pointed out. “I’m wondering if she even had asthma at all. Maybe she just didn’t want to socialize, so she used that as an excuse.”

  Claire stopped twirling. “You think Mama lied?”

  “I didn’t say she lied. I said she might have made up an excuse.”

  “That’s the same as a lie! And she would never—”

  “Mama wasn’t perfect,” Rachael interrupted. An understatement, considering she’d hidden the truth of Rachael’s parentage all her life. “It’s possible Elizabeth could be right.” Thinking back, she couldn’t remember her mother ever having difficulty breathing. “Mama never attended large social gatherings. She always preferred to stay home with her needlework and her watercolors and us.”

  “She went to Cainewood,” Claire argued. “Often.”

  “But only to visit with family. Never for a ball or any other grand occasion.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Claire said, looking pouty.

  “Well, it doesn’t signify anyway, does it?” Rachael sighed. “We’ll never know for sure.”

  They all rode in thoughtful silence until the carriage came to a stop before their town house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Elizabeth climbed down first, then let out a little yelp.

  “What are you doing here?” she cried.

  Rachael followed Claire out to find Griffin standing in the courtyard.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said with the crooked smile that always made her feel flustered. But when his gaze swung to meet hers, his expression grew more serious. “I’ve been waiting for you. I have news.”

  “What news?” Claire demanded.

  “I’ll explain later,” Rachael told her sisters. She didn’t want an audience when she heard what Griffin had learned. “Go inside. Griffin and I will talk in the square.”

  Grumbling all the way, her sisters entered the house while Rachael and Griffin crossed the street and went through the gate to the private park in the center of the square. It was a nice day, sunny but not hot, and Lincoln’s Inn Fields was filled with people enjoying the fine weather.

  Choosing a bench beneath a large tree, where the shade would hide them from view of the houses all around, she sat and smoothed her pelisse’s lavender skirt. “You took longer than I expected.”

  Angled toward her, he pulled her father’s jeweled badge from his pocket and placed it in her palm, folding her fingers around it. “Rachael…I know who he was.”

  “Was,” she repeated. “He’s dead, then.”

  In a cousinly, concerned way, he took one of her hands in both of his. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” But apparently part of her had hoped that wasn’t true, because a pang of disappointment seemed to spear her heart.

  “There’s more,” he said, squeezing her fingers. “Not all of it good.”

  She nodded and pulled her hand free, staring down at the badge she held. She couldn’t think straight with him touching her. “Start at the beginning. Please.”

  He took a deep breath. “I searched all the records for the time in question and found a member of the Tenth who took leave to wed a woman the month before you were conceived. An officer, a lieutenant. His name was Thomas Grimbald.”

  “Grimbald,” she echoed, testing the word on her tongue. She should have been Rachael Grimbald, but that sounded so very wrong. “Are you sure he was the right man?”

  Griffin nodded. “He married a woman who was thereafter known as Lady Georgiana Grimbald.”

  Startled, she looked up at him. “He was titled, then?”

  “No. She must have been a peer’s daughter.”

  “But my mother was a commoner. She was born plain Georgiana Woodby. She wasn’t a lady until she wed my fa—I mean, the Earl of Greystone. You found the wrong man.”

  “I also thought so at first. That’s why I was gone the extra day. I combed the records going back years, in case your mother married long before conceiving you. But very few men from the Tenth wed in the correct time frame, and no one else married a woman named Georgiana.”

  “You’re sure it was her, then?”

  “There’s no other explanation. Your mother must have lied about being a commoner. She always acted like a true lady, didn’t she? And the timing of Grimbald’s wedding is perfect. It cannot be a coincidence that his wife had the same given name. He had to have been your father.”

  “Maybe.” The name sounded wrong, but she still couldn’t seem to think straight. She focused on a wooden stand in the distance, where lemonade was sold in the square. “This Grimbald…did the records say how he died?”

  “They did.”

  She waited, but no more information seemed to be forthcoming. She waited some more. When she finally looked back to Griffin, his green eyes were flooded with sympathy.

  She didn’t want sympathy; she wanted the truth.

  “What?” she asked, but still he didn’t answer. She clenched her hand around the badge. “What in blazes are you hiding from me? I’ve already learned that my mother lied to me all of my life, came from a different family than she claimed, and my name should be Rachael Grimbald.” Grimbald, for pity’s sake! It wasn’t a cold day, and she was wearing a pelisse in any case, but she wrapped her arms around herself as though she might ward off a chill. “What could you possibly have to tell me that would be more upsetting than all of that?”

  Griffin blew out a breath. “He was executed, Rachael. For treason.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly all the air seemed to have been sucked right out of her. The birds in the tree overhead sounded entirely too cheerful. The people strolling by, chatting and drinking lemonade, sounded too cheerful, too.

  “Treason?” she finally managed to say, her voice thin and the opposite of cheerful. “What did he do?”

  “That I don’t know; the records of the court-martial must be elsewhere. But he joined the Tenth in 1782—transferred from a disbanded regiment—and there was a notation of his family’s address at that time. In Yorkshire. I’ve hired a man to see whether they still live there. I’ll let you know when I find out. Then take you to meet them.”

  Treason. She hugged herself tighter, the edges of the hard metal badge digging into her clenched fist. “I’m not sure I want to. Meet them, I mean. Not if their son committed treason.”

  “You don’t have to, of course. It will be up to you. They’re your family, but I’m willing to wager they don’t know of your existence. Perhaps that’s why your mother used another name. So they couldn’t find you.”

  “That makes sense.” As much sense as anything else he’d said to her today. “Treason,” she murmured. “My father was executed for treason.”

  “I’m sorry.” He began to reach for her, then apparently thought better of it and crossed his arms instead. “It doesn’t change who you are, Rachael, or make you any less good than you are.”

  “No,” she said, “it doesn’t.”

  But she must not have sounded convincing.

  “’Fathers sha
ll not be put to death for their children,’” he quoted solemnly, “’nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sins.’”

  That dredged up a tiny smile. “Griffin Chase, referencing a Bible passage? There may be hope for you yet.”

  “I live for your approval,” he said, his crooked smile reappearing in return.

  ”Thank you for finding my fa—Grimbald.” She rose and smoothed her pelisse. “I do appreciate your going out of your way to do me this favor. I’m sorry it proved so difficult.” She cleared her throat and started back home, taking a little comfort when he fell into step beside her. “My sisters must be half dead of curiosity by now.”

  She wasn’t looking forward to telling them the awful truth.

  SEVENTEEN

  GINGERBREAD CAKES

  Take four pints of Flower with Ginger and Nutmeg and rub Butter into it. Add to it Brandy and Treacle and mix it altogether. Let it lay till it grows stiffe then pinch pieces and make into little balls. Flatten cakes on a tin and add a Sweetmeat if you please and bake.

  These spicy little cakes are known to raise the spirits. Not ghosts, that is, but spirits of the emotional variety. Excellent to bring when paying visits to the ill.

  —Anne, Marchioness of Cainewood, 1775

  Upon arriving at Lincolnshire House the next afternoon, Corinna was shown to a drawing room. She dragged her feet, not caring that it was unladylike. She felt creaky and headachy from being up all night trying to work on the portrait—but stupidly letting her worries distract her instead. A whole day wasted.

  When she entered the room, Sean sat holding a book that he’d apparently been reading to Lord Lincolnshire.

  He rose immediately. “I waited for you all yesterday. Where were you?”

  He’d waited all day? “I was helping Lady Avonleigh make invitations for a reception. And I was painting. And earlier I went back to the colorman’s shop.” Well, really to the bookstore to buy Children of the Abbey. “What were you doing here all day? Didn’t you need to…ah”—she slanted a glance to Lord Lincolnshire—“paint?”

  “Yes, I would have loved to paint. But my uncle is my priority,” he said pointedly.