Scandal's Daughter

by Christine Wells

  Impatient to be gone, Gemma attempted to read Lady Carleton’s copy of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, while her hostess wrote letters and attended to household business, but the poet’s words blurred before her eyes.

  HALF an hour later, Fanny and Romney bounded into the sitting room. Fanny’s face lit with a seraphic smile. “We are married!”

  Gemma gasped and slammed her book shut.

  “What?” Lady Carleton spun around in her chair. “But how? Why?”

  “We decided to be sensible, after all,” said Fanny, gazing up in adoration at Romney, who was grinning foolishly back. “And we could not wait another week, so we slipped off to the church. Romney is great friends with the vicar now, you know, and he already had the special license, so . . . here we are.”

  It was the most ridiculous thing Gemma had ever heard. She sprang up to embrace Fanny and kiss Romney’s cheek.

  “Your mama is very wise,” whispered Fanny with a wink.

  Lady Carleton viewed them with an expression between delight and bafflement. Then she began to laugh. “Well, now. This calls for a celebration. A glass of wine to toast the happy couple, I think.”

  Gemma joined in the toasting and teasing with all the sincerity she could muster, but she could not quite ignore the splinter of envy in her heart. She was not as sorry as she ought to have been to leave the couple’s effervescent joy behind.

  “You will write to me, won’t you, you wicked creature?” Fanny kissed Gemma’s cheek. “I wish we could have had more time to talk. About—well, you know.”

  Her bright eyes held a distinct kernel of curiosity, and Gemma remembered she had told Fanny she intended to work her wiles on Sebastian.

  Briefly, Gemma shook her head.

  A heavy tread approached the door and there he was: Sebastian, come to say good-bye.

  He looked pale, but completely master of his emotions. As she stared up at him, their surroundings faded away. She hardly noticed when the others slipped past her and left the room.

  “I am sorry, Scovy,” she whispered. “I behaved badly last night.”

  A flicker of hope leaped in his eyes. “You were under a considerable amount of strain. There is no need to apologise. I . . . I deeply regret those things I said.”

  Gemma looked away. He regretted saying them, perhaps, but it did not make them less true. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat that threatened to dissolve into raw, betraying sobs. “Well, then.”

  Awkwardly, she held out her hand. When he hesitated to take it, she realised the insulting coldness of the gesture after the warmth they had shared. On impulse, she reached up to trace his jaw with her fingertips. He closed his eyes briefly, and she smiled, though perilously close to tears.

  His eyes flickered open. “I wish I knew what you were looking for,” he breathed. “Whatever it is, I hope to God you find it.”

  She shut the words out. “Good-bye, Sebastian.” And with a wrench so painful, she might have been leaving a part of herself behind, she left.

  SEBASTIAN watched the carriage rumble away until it rounded the bend out of sight. After a minute or two, he sensed someone standing beside him. “Mama.”

  Her eyes looked huge in her delicate face. “Did you tell her, my dear?”

  He could have asked the obvious question, but he knew what she meant. “No. I did not tell her I love her. She does not want my love. She is better off without it.”

  They stood together in the freshening breeze, as storm clouds rolled over the sun.

  “How do you know?” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “How do you know she is better off? Your love might make all the difference.”

  His mouth twisted bitterly as a light rain gusted on the wind. “She is so tender-hearted, the knowledge would only be a burden to her. She might even marry me, but out of pity, and I don’t want that. As long as she does not know, she will be free.”

  A few moments trickled by before his mother spoke. Softly, in a voice that had the faraway quality of the storyteller, she said, “There once was a small boy, whose mother loved him more than her own life. To save him from his father’s cruelty, she sent him away, confident, or at least hopeful, that she did right. She thought that to cling to him and tell him how much she wished he would stay with her, how much she loved him, would be a kind of burden he should not have to bear. He might not be so happy to go if he knew he left her love behind.” She paused. “Was she right to do that, Sebastian? Would it not have been better to have given him the choice?”

  He frowned for a long time, digesting her words. The rain pelted down in earnest, blurred the soft green landscape, formed puddles in small potholes on the drive and herded a cluster of deer to huddle under the canopy of an ancient oak. He stood with his mother, warm and dry, sheltered beneath the portico outside his cavernous house, as aching regret and loneliness swept over him like the driving rain.

  And when her small hand sought his, he took it. Held it in a strong, tender clasp.

  GEMMA and her mother rode home together in Sybil’s luxurious turquoise chaise. The rain drummed on the roof, and the noise would have drowned any attempt at conversation, but neither of them spoke for mile upon mile. The countryside swept past in a haze of green and leaden sky.

  They stayed in a small inn overnight, and set off again early the next morning. Though comfortable and well-sprung, the carriage rattled over ruts and bumps in the road with cheerful disregard for the taut silence inside it. The postilions shouted. The coachman’s whip cracked. Dogs barked as they bounded alongside.

  “Gemma . . .” Sybil spoke softly into the gulf of quiet between them. “Your grandfather is dying. Before we left Laidley, I received word that he does not have long.”

  Gemma’s stomach clenched and twisted. A violent wind howled in her ears. “No,” she whispered.

  “I am sorry, darling. I had to tell you before we got home.” Sybil blinked rapidly. “That is why he sent us all away, you know. He did not want anyone to see him like that. Especially not you.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Gemma’s hands gripped her reticule. It could not be true. Hugo, so full of fire, dying? She could not imagine it, had never contemplated an existence without him.

  The last vestige of her anger over her grandfather’s bargain with Sebastian evaporated. Sadness engulfed her but she had already wept too many tears. She stared, blank-eyed, out the window at the rain.

  After a few moments, she felt her mother’s fingers untie the ribbons of her bonnet and lift it away. With a deep sigh, Sybil drew Gemma’s head onto her shoulder and gently stroked her hair.

  Eighteen

  THEY arrived at Ware to see rushes strewn on the drive, muffling the clop of the horses’ hooves. The knocker dripped with black crêpe.

  Gemma turned a fearful gaze on her mother. Sybil wiped away her own tears with a gloved knuckle. She nodded. “He is gone.”

  Mrs. Jenkins wrung her hands in her apron as she welcomed them inside, offering words of comfort. “He did not suffer in the end, Miss Gemma. The doctor made sure of that.”

  Gemma managed to thank the housekeeper, but she could not say more. She fled upstairs, intending to seek the sanctuary of her bedchamber, but on the landing she came face-to-face with Charles Bellamy.

  She gasped. His youthful beauty had grown almost haggard. Sadness weighted his broad shoulders and shadowed his fine eyes. He was thinner than she remembered, and his jaw bristled with a new beard, as if he had not shaved for days.

  Gemma stared as the implications of his appearance hit her. He had been here all this time? Hugo had let him stay?

  Seeming not to notice her recoil, Charles took her hand, regarding her with anxious hazel eyes. “Gemma, please allow me to express my condolences. Hugo was a fine man. I . . . I only wish I had known him as you did.”

  Wave after wave of emotion hit her: anger, hatred, remorse, grief, bewilderment. How was she meant to behave towards this man—the brother she had nev
er known—who had supplanted her at Ware by the mere accident of his sex? She wanted to scream at him like a fishwife, but he did not deserve her abuse. Without a word, she pushed past him and ran to her bedchamber.

  HUGO had ordered that the funeral be a simple affair, but mourners came from all over the county. Sebastian was there, tall and unsmiling as they lowered the coffin into the ground. He spoke his condolences to Gemma through stiff lips, his dark eyes burning into hers. He did not come to Ware afterwards for the wake or hear the will read, even though Hugo had left him a handsome legacy. Gemma tried not to take offence or wish for the comfort of her old friend’s presence. He had loved Hugo. That was enough.

  She wondered if Sebastian resented her. She had been the cause of him breaking his promise to his godfather, after all. She understood now why he had made that promise, and knew she would have done the same. If she had known he was dying, she would have done anything Hugo asked of her, even given up Ware.

  If he had asked.

  WEEKS later, the pain of losing Hugo was still raw. Gemma wore black even though, with his dislike of fuss, Hugo had forbidden anyone to mourn him. She grieved for her grandfather, but strangely, the death of her dream scarcely troubled her. Ware had lost its lifeblood when Hugo died.

  Or perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps she had changed.

  In her heart resided another kind of ache. She missed her life at Laidley with an intensity that shocked her. She missed Fanny and Romney and Lady Carleton. Most of all, she missed Sebastian.

  If only he had not spoiled their one night together by making that false marriage proposal, she might remember their passion without regret. Live in the dangerous hope that he loved her, just a little. But that sorry chapter was closed. Bellamy was Squire of Ware now and she must decide what to do with the rest of her life.

  As the fog of grief surrounding her slowly lifted, Gemma realised with a kind of horror at her selfishness that she’d never asked her mother how she came to have a long-lost brother—a legitimate one, at that.

  Bellamy had taken up his duties as heir with alacrity and a degree of competence that surprised her. It seemed that under Hugo’s guidance, Charles had thrived.

  Though she relinquished Ware to him without protest, Gemma could not quite bear to see Charles wear his new position like a comfortable old coat. She rode out every day, visiting her familiar haunts, trying to recapture some essence of her place in the world—the place she had lost.

  It was no use. She might rail against a distant, ramshackle cousin inheriting the estate, but how could she begrudge her own brother what should always have been his birthright?

  She could not warm to Bellamy, for all that. She could not quite bring herself to be gracious in defeat.

  Always, he tiptoed around her, as if he walked on the eggshells of her uncertain temper. She knew she had been short with him, but she felt so out of sorts these days, she could not bring herself to be civil.

  And then he chose the day her monthly courses arrived to make his proposition.

  It wasn’t until she saw the telltale specks of blood that Gemma realised she had been nourishing a secret hope. She cringed, sickened at her absurdity. How base and foolish to wish a child into existence when she had nothing to give him, not even legitimacy. But still, she had wanted and hoped. And later, when Bellamy stammered and hedged about his proposal, she barely listened, clamped her lip between her teeth to stop herself shrieking at him to go away.

  He shifted his stance. “Just, I thought, well . . . Ware has been your life, Gemma and I’m a Johnny-come-lately. I would benefit from your experience and your knowledge of the people and their ways. There is so much to learn. Would you . . . would you consider a partnership of sorts?”

  Stunned, Gemma held silent as the implications unfolded in her mind. Bellamy offered her the fulfilment of her life’s ambition. Why wasn’t she laughing for joy? Why wasn’t she shouting her gratitude from the rooftops?

  Because now, Ware wasn’t enough.

  He searched her face, as if trying to gauge her reaction. “After all your hard work here, I owe it to you—”

  Quietly, she cut him off. “No. You owe me nothing, Charles.” She bit her lip. “But I owe you something. An apology. I have been an unmitigated shrew.”

  With a wry smile, she looked at him, really looked at him for the first time. Bellamy was a good man, a kind, generous soul. He was young, but he had backbone and intelligence, too.

  Softly, she said, “You do not need my blessing, Charles. Perhaps you will think me presumptuous, but I give it, all the same.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “You will make an excellent squire, brother.”

  He took her hand, and gripped it hard, his throat working with emotion. “Thank you, Gemma,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

  GEMMA sat in front of her looking glass, observing her reflection with a deep, troubled frown.

  “Oh, my dear.”

  Sybil’s silk skirts hushed along the carpet as she moved to Gemma’s side. She plucked the pins from Gemma’s hair one by one and shook out her braids until her gold curls clouded about her face. Then Sybil took up a brush and ran it through Gemma’s hair with long, even strokes.

  Her mother’s gentle touch nearly made her burst into tears. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Mama. I have begged Charles’s pardon. I don’t know what is wrong with me these days.”

  For a moment, Sybil remained silent. Then she met Gemma’s eyes in the looking glass. “Perhaps it would be best if I tell you the story now. I had hoped to spare you this, but I realise it was unwise of me to keep you in ignorance all these years. You see, as a child you begged me so often for a brother or sister to play with, I did not tell you about Charles because I was afraid I would never find him, terrified I’d disappoint you. When I wrote to Hugo that I had Bellamy with me at last, he wrote back, asking me not to tell you straight away. Oh, but I wanted to, Gemma! I longed to have the two people I loved most in the world united.”

  So Hugo had wanted her out of the way while he trained Bellamy to take over Ware. Gemma blinked, surprised to find the knowledge hurt only a little. She nodded. “I understand.”

  A lengthy silence followed. Gemma watched those turquoise eyes cloud with dreams. “Mama?”

  Sybil gave a slight start, and grimaced. “Your father and I had the tempestuous sort of courtship foolish young women often mistake for grand passion. We were criminally incompatible.”

  She sighed. “I fancied myself in love and the world well lost. Your father did, too, only his was a possessive kind of passion that thrilled me until I grew more closely acquainted with it.”

  She frowned over a tangle in Gemma’s hair, put down the brush and worked at the knot with her fingers. “I was . . . headstrong. Unused as you are to taking orders from anyone. Hugo let me run wild as a girl. I had no mother to lecture me on the perils of flirtation when one has a jealous husband.”

  This was something Gemma had not known. No one ever spoke of her papa. She’d always thought it was because tragedy and scandal cloaked his death. Had she considered the matter at all, she would have assumed he was the innocent party. Now, her mother painted a different picture.

  Sybil continued, a trifle gruffly. “I never went beyond flirtation, you know. It was the way of our world, the fashion for elegant dalliance. But after you were born, your father became convinced that I was . . . consorting with a certain gentleman of our acquaintance. He became obsessed with catching us together.”

  “And that man killed my father in a duel over you,” said Gemma. It was a statement, not an accusation. She had never felt the lack of a father. She had never known him, and gained ample substitute in Hugo.

  Slowly, Sybil nodded. “But that is not the entire story. You see, when I gave birth to Charles barely a year after you were born, your father went a little mad, I think. He decided that the babe was not his.”

  She drew a painted porcelain oval, framed in silver, from her pocket and handed it to Ge
mma. “But if you look at this miniature, you will see a striking resemblance.”

  As she took it, Gemma realised her hands trembled. She had never seen a picture of her father before.

  Her eyes widened. The resemblance was striking. Her father’s hair was darker than Bellamy’s, almost black, but the high cheekbones, the passionate slash of a mouth, and melting hazel eyes were the same. If she had seen this before meeting Bellamy, she would have known instantly whose son he was. If she had doubted her mother’s word, she certainly held the proof before her. But she had not doubted. Sybil Maitland did not lie.

  Sybil slipped the miniature back into her pocket. “Aunt Matilda visited for my lying-in. She believed your father’s nonsensical story—you know how she is, the most credulous being alive—and . . . and she helped him steal my baby.”

  Sybil stood very straight, dry-eyed, clutching the back of Gemma’s chair. “The means by which he discovered a childless couple who studied botany in far-flung destinations are beyond me. I believe they were Devonshire’s protégés, so perhaps he met them at Chatsworth. At all events, your father could not have chosen a more effective mode of concealment than to send Charles away with that nomadic pair. I’ve chased rumours and shadows over the globe for twenty years.”

  Gemma could hardly believe anyone capable of such a dastardly crime. “But what about Hugo? Why didn’t he put a stop to it?”

  Eyes bright, Sybil shook her head. “They told him the child was stillborn, that I suffered from a form of melancholia common among women who have lost their babes. It was not until much later that I convinced Hugo of the truth.”

  Slowly, Gemma said, “And he has been waiting, ever since, to make his will in favour of his grandson.”

  “Yes. So you see, Gemma, whatever hopes you might have cherished . . .”