Marblestone Mansion, Book 8

by Marti Talbott

  Cameron thought he should explain, “When we found you, you told us you were five, so Lord Bayington and I both thought it possible, but not likely you were his.”

  “Yet, ‘tis possible now that I am a year older?” Blair asked.

  Cameron shrugged. “I do not know. She was only married to him for a month and I do not know which month.”

  “Thank you,” Hannish said as he accepted the letter Alistair handed him.

  “We learned where you were,” Cameron continued, “and hoped Mr. Sinclair could tell us if you were indeed Edward’s child. Unfortunately, Mr. Sinclair had already passed. Mrs. Sinclair…”

  For the next hour, Hannish and Cameron continued to answer all her questions. The butler’s let the cooks back in so they could start dinner and make tea, but the rest of the overly curious servants stayed outside playing with the children.

  Hoping all of Blair’s questions had been sufficiently answered, Hannish handed her the letter from Laura Bayington. “If you do not believe me, perhaps you shall believe Laura.” He watched as she opened the letter and began to read.

  Your Grace,

  Lord Bayington and I agree, as we are most fond of both you and your brother, and can maintain our silence no longer. There is something you should know about the woman Hannish married. Olivia and I were born in the Shetland Islands, more specifically Scalloway and played together as children. It was apparent early on, that Olivia intended to get what she could from the world in the way of riches and celebrity, and I, in my foolishness followed in her footsteps.

  Her first husband married her before she reached the age of fifteen and I married as well. Unfortunately, Olivia…perhaps this is a good time to explain that Olivia is not her real name. She was born Gormelia Carr. Realizing marriage to a simple man was not the life she envisioned, she convinced me to run away with her.

  We fled to London, where we got a glimpse of the finer side of life, and Olivia at once began to plot precisely how to get to the top of society. She took on the new name of Alexandra, an exotic name naturally and before long, her beauty attracted the attention of an English gentleman. She married him in the spring of 1885.

  Even her new husband could not meet her insatiable appetite for wealth and glory, and she left him before the year was out. Olivia then married a Lord, whom I shall leave unnamed to preserve his reputation. He kept her for less than a month and quickly petitioned for a divorce, from the woman whose name was now Alice. It was well before that divorce was granted, that she, now Olivia, married Hannish MacGreagor and became the duchess she’d always wanted to be.

  Marriage to Hannish, however, was to be her greatest mistake.

  Seeing her wedding picture to a duke in a London newspaper, her first husband discovered his own path to riches, and has been blackmailing her for the past two years.

  Take care, my darling, for there is nothing she will not do.

  Yours with love and devotion,

  Lady Laura Bayington

  Blair finished the letter, folded it, and laid it in her lap. At last, she looked at Hannish. “Lady Bayington would not lie, of that I am certain.”

  “Nay, she would not,” said Hannish. “So you see, it is not you alone we protect or even Leesil and Charles, but Lord and Lady Bayington. Laura and the children would suffer most, then there are my children to think of, and...”

  Blair handed the letter back. “So I must not tell my friends I am fourteen, because I have seen my real mother, whom you wish no one to know about? Uncle, I am not that clever. What am I to say?”

  “We shall think of somethin’ to tell them?” Hannish tried.

  “Aye, and then I shall be a liar too.” She abruptly stood up, “I have a headache. If I may be excused, I would like to be alone for a while.” Blair started to leave the room, but thought of something and turned to Cathleen. “Mother, I hate pink.”

  Shocked, Cathleen watched her daughter leave the room and close the door. “Lillie Mae, stay with her,” she instructed.

  “I shall, Miss Cathleen,” Lillie Mae said as she hurried out of the room.

  When they were gone, Cathleen finally closed her eyes. “What a wretched way for her to find out.”

  Cameron said, “She grew up and we were not watching. We…I waited until the time was right, and it slipped away without my notice.”

  Leesil was still angry. “Have we not enough guilt to go around already? ‘Tis not what we have or have not done, ‘tis what do we do now?” She got up and walked to the back window to see where Blair was going. “For a sixpence, I’d tell the world and have it over with.”

  “I agree,” said Gloria.

  “Well, I do not agree,” Abigail argued. “You know very well how this town loves its gossip.”

  “Yes, Mother, I do know.” She tried not to smile, but somehow couldn’t help herself.

  “I wish we could tell it too, but we cannae for Laura and Edward’s sake,” said Cathleen.

  “They are in England, surely the gossip would not reach them,” said Leesil.

  “You forget,” Hannish said, “many an English lord and lady spend their holiday bathing in the hot springs for their health. Once they got wind of it, we would be the talk of the town in London, and Edward even more so.”

  “I worry most about Blair being shunned, once they find out she is the daughter of a bigamist,” said Cameron.

  “We should tell Edward of Blair’s true age,” said Cathleen. “Blair is likely his daughter after all.”

  “Aye,” said Cameron, “and I have cheated him out of…”

  “Stop,” said Leesil as she turned around to face them. “What is done it done, and none of us could have prevented it. I shall call Laura and let her decided if Edward should be told.”

  Hannish finally got up and took his wife in his arms. “Aye, what is done is done.”

  “My love,” said Leesil, “we cannae ask Blair to hide her mother’s existence. It will make her as daft as the rest of us.”

  When Alistair offered to refill his glass, Cameron nodded. “I shall talk to her.”

  Leesil sighed. “Very well, she is your daughter and you must decide what is best. I just wish it were otherwise.”

  “As do we all,” said Cathleen.

  “However,” said Hannish, “Justin is our son and he shall have questions. What do we tell him, and when shall he be old enough to hear it.”

  “And then there are the other children to think of,” said Cathleen. “One sentence overheard will plant questions in their minds as well.”

  “And so it goes – on and on without end,” Cameron muttered.

  Cathleen rested her head against her husband’s arm. “Blair was wise enough not to go with the duchess. I find that very comforting. As awful as this is, it might have been much worse.”

  *

  With Lillie Mae not far behind, Blair ignored the servants, strolled across the backyard, disregarded the swing, and kept going to the corral. Another tear of frustration rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away with her hand. She oddly felt no sorrow, having just parted from the woman who claimed to be her mother. Even Blair’s anger had passed and now there was nothing in her heart and mind, except frustration. The colt was busy nursing, the birds chirped in the trees as if nothing was wrong, and storm clouds were still gathering, which seemed oddly fitting.

  It was all too much. Her mother was a bigamist who hurt a lot of people, mainly the ones Blair loved, and it was all too much. Yet, what child did not want to be with the mother that bore her.

  She was surprised when she realized Lillie Mae was standing beside her. “Crying always makes my head ache,” she said.

  “Mine too,” said Lillie Mae. “Shall I get you some aspirin powder? The doctor gave me some last time I had a headache, and it was a great help.”

  “Please.”

  “Do you promise not to run off?”

  “I promise.”

  Not sure if she should leave her, Lillie Mae hesitated a moment an
d then started for the house. On the way in, she paused near Brookton. “Watch her. She has had a terrible shock.”

  Brookton nodded, watched Lillie Mae go in the back door, and then leaned against the house to keep an eye on Blair.

  Just back from town, Dugan was surprised to see everyone outside and walked to Brookton. “What is it?”

  “Blair has seen her mother,” Brookton whispered.

  “No,” Dugan gasped. “After all we have done to prevent it?”

  “It was not enough, apparently,” Brookton answered. “The duchess had a gun.”

  Dugan started toward Blair. “I am not surprised to hear that. Did she shoot anyone?”

  Brookton hurried to catch up. “Not that I heard.” When they reached her, he went to stand on one side of Blair, while Dugan went to the other side.

  “Your mother was here?” Dugan asked.

  Blair turned to face him. “Is it true you gave her money to keep her from coming here?”

  Dugan was surprised she knew about that. “Aye.”

  “And Uncle Hannish told you to do it?”

  “Aye, that too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knew if she came, and if the town found out he and Charles had married the same lass, Miss Abigail and Mr. Claymore would be humiliated beyond repair. I have known your uncle since we were laddies, and I have never known him to do anything that was not for the benefit of others.”

  Blair turned back to watch the horses and thought about that. “Nor have I. Mother…the duchess, said she was not married to Charles Whitfield.”

  “I know not the truth of who she married and who she dinna, but I shall tell you what I saw with my own eyes,” Dugan began. “In Scotland, when she was married to Mr. Hannish, and when she left the castle, I followed her. ‘Tis how I found you.”

  “To Mr. Sinclair’s cottage?”

  “Aye,” Dugan answered. “She sometimes hid from Mr. Sinclair’s wife and just watched you play.”

  “She loved me a little?” Blair asked.

  “I believe so, and I believe she loved Mr. Sinclair as well as she knows how to love anyone.”

  Blair giggled. “She said Mr. Sinclair was her brother, but he was one of her husbands.” She turned to Brookton next. “Did you know about her?”

  “I was here when she first came. The Mansion did not please her and she only stayed one night.”

  “One night?”

  Brookton smiled when he remembered. “She said the foyer reminded her of a mausoleum.”

  Blair couldn’t help but return his smile. “A mausoleum?”

  “That is precisely what she said. We knew from the beginning she had no intention of staying,” said Brookton. “The duchess wanted to live in London, not Colorado. She had made up her mind not to like Marblestone long before she arrived.”

  Blair tipped her head to the side. “How do you suppose Miss Abigail kept the secret all these years?”

  Brookton chuckled, “Miss Abigail is amazing when she wants to be.”

  Blair turned around when she saw Lillie Mae coming. In her hand, she held a glass containing a small amount of cloudy water. “Drink this.” She handed it to Blair, and then took the glass back when Blair finished.

  Blair stared at the ground for a moment. “I still cannae believe Father lied to me all these years.”

  “Everyone lies when they see the need,” said Lillie Mae.

  “But you do not, do you Lillie Mae?” Blair asked.

  “Sometimes I do,” Lillie Mae confessed.

  Brookton scoffed. “About what?”

  “About my age, if you must know.” She shifted her weight to the other foot.

  “What about your age?” Brookton insisted.

  Lillie Mae ignored him. “You seem a bit better now, Miss Blair.”

  “I am always better when I am with Dugan,” Blair answered. “He reminds me of our home in Scotland.”

  Lillie Mae nodded. “I miss home too sometimes…not all the time. All the time was misery, that’s why I left.”

  “Misery?” Brookton asked.

  “We did not have enough to eat, most of the time. I left when I was twelve so the others could have my share.”

  “Is that why you are always so hungry?” Brookton asked. “You eat enough for two fully grown men, but you do not gain a pound.”

  She put her hands on her hips and looked him in the eye. “Mr. Brookton, I did not think you noticed me at all.”

  He was caught off guard, and looked away for a moment. “It is my job to notice.”

  She decided to let that feeble excuse pass. “I fear hunger, you see. I fear it more than anything in the world, even a gun. I am a thief too, for I stole radishes from the neighbor’s garden and ate them, tops and all. I am not fond of radishes, but the neighbor always planted far more than he and his wife could eat. I think he knew we were stealing them.”

  “You only took radishes?” Blair asked.

  “I would never steal what someone else needed to eat,” Lillie Mae assured them. “A lack of radishes would kill no one, I imagined. But then, the radishes were only in spring.”

  “What did you do otherwise?” Dugan asked.

  “I prayed for death on the truly bad days, and wished I had a gun, but if I had a gun, I would have sold it to buy food, you see.”

  Blair looked away, watched the colt for a while more and considered what Lillie Mae was saying. “You make me see how very trifling my problems are. I have never been that hungry in my life.”

  “Nor have I,” Brookton admitted. He was beginning to have a newfound respect for Lillie Mae. “Is there nothing we can do to help your family? Miss Abigail makes baskets for the poor all the time.”

  “There is no need. I send my wages home to my mother each month,” Lillie Mae admitted.

  “All of your wages?” Brookton asked.

  “I do it so I can sleep at night. We sell eggs, and Father drinks most of the egg money. I like to think my money is spent on food for my sisters, but I cannot be certain, of course.”

  “But you should save some money for a rainy day,” Dugan said.

  As if on cue, sprinkles began to fall from the sky. Blair playfully shrieked, grabbed Lillie Mae’s hand and ran beside her to the house.

  Watching through the window, Gloria turned to face the distraught family. “She is laughing.”

  Cathleen breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Perhaps she does not hate us as much as we feared.”

  “Aye, but she does hate pink,” said Leesil.

  “Her room is pink. I wonder why she has never mentioned it before,” Cathleen muttered. “Does she not know she can decorate her room in any color she wants?”

  Abigail sighed, reached out her hand and let Hannish help her up. “We best go, Gloria. Claymore should be home soon and we’ve a lot to tell him.” She followed Prescot out the back door and then started up the hill.

  “Mother, it is sprinkling and the path will get muddy.”

  “Oh, who cares, Gloria?”

  “Normally, you care,” Gloria muttered as she raised her skirt a few inches and hurried after her mother.

  “Heretofore, we must lock the doors in case that…monster comes back and kills us all.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Gloria could think of no one she wanted to talk to more, so after she and Abigail got home, she called Ben and asked him to come to the house. The clouds did not release the rain until they had moved east of town, and the sun was back out by the time Claymore came home. Soon, Abigail began to tell him a story like no other. Outside the sitting room window, Gloria watched her father’s expression become more and more distraught, until he finally sat down and closed his eyes.

  There was nothing she could say to ease the situation, so she moved away from the window, and began to walk around the yard. Troubled, she took deep breaths of fresh, spring air to calm her nerves, and paused occasionally to examine a rose bud that would soon bloom.

  It was not as though sh
e had forgotten the title of the book the duchess was reading on the train. Gloria considered telling her parents about it, but decided she should read a copy when she got back to New York first. The odds were good that it had nothing to do with the people she knew and loved, and the last thing she wanted to do was upset them more than they already were.

  To her relief, it didn’t take long for Ben to arrive and when he spotted her in the backyard, he went to her. “You sounded upset.”

  “Thank you for coming. I am fine, I just needed to talk to someone and I thought of you.”

  Still concerned about her, Ben took hold of her arm. “Are you unwell?”

  “A little frightened is all. Blair’s mother was here. She had a gun and tried to get Blair to go with her.”

  Ben caught his breath. “Blair dinna go, did she?”

  “No, she refused.” Gloria glanced at the sitting room window where her parents were still talking. “Ben, she came here… to our house.”

  “No…none of us expected that.”

  “You knew about her?”

  “Not until she escaped, and then Hannish asked that we be on the lookout.” Ben let go of her arm and clasped his hands behind his back.

  “I have never seen anyone as vicious as she. When she first came, she…” Gloria recounted the entire experience, answered Ben’s questions, and then said, “Blair may never fully recover.”

  “She is more sensible than we give her credit for, and it sounds as if your mother held her own with the duchess.”

  “I am very proud of Mother, although why the duchess did not shoot her is more than I can understand. I could see the fury in that mad woman’s eyes, and believed her ready to fly into a rage at any moment.”

  “Perhaps, she knew she was outnumbered four to one,” said Ben.

  “Yes, but she had the gun. She would have shot Mother first, I am convinced.” Gloria started to resume her walk around the yard and he joined her. “I cannot think what I would do if I lost Mother.”

  “Losing a parent is what we all fear most.”

  “Of course we do, and how thoughtless of me not to remember you lost your father. Tell me about him.”