The Heiresses

by Allison Rushby

  This took only seconds. But for Ro, it felt like minutes, her brain suddenly whirring into action. When he had passed by, she stood stock-still in the middle of the pavement, quite unable to fully grasp what she had just realized on first spying him—what she was still considering might be possible.

  “Ro!” Hestia stopped alongside her. “Are you all right? You don’t look at all well.”

  “Who was that?” Ro finally managed to focus on her aunt. “That man? The one who just winked at you?”

  Hestia laughed. “No need to be alarmed, my dear. He’s an old friend. His name is Felix Ashbrooke and he is the Duke of Hastings now. I’ve known him since I was a girl. I had told him my nieces were staying with me and I did so want to introduce you to him at our soiree, but he had a prior engagement, I’m afraid. I’m sure now that he’s spotted us, we’ll have a dinner invitation shortly. You must meet his daughter. She is the sweetest little thing.”

  “But…” Ro could not find the words she needed to say. Could not form the sentences.

  “Oh, look, here he comes now.”

  Ro forced herself to turn and saw the man in question running back to them. “My beautiful Hestia,” he said as he reached for one of her hands and kissed it. “It has been too long. I have been meaning to send a dinner invitation for an age now.”

  “That’s just what I was telling my niece,” Hestia said, before formally introducing the pair.

  “She used to call me Fifi when we were growing up, you know.” The duke’s eyes flickered to Ro for only a moment.

  “Well, I couldn’t say Felix! If you’re not careful, I’ll start calling you Fifi once more!” Hestia laughed.

  Felix’s attention turned fully to Ro now, finally considering her presence properly, if somewhat reluctantly. Perhaps it was her imagination, but Ro fancied that he flinched slightly when he took her in her entirety. “But just look at you, Miss Halesworth,” he said, after a longer pause than necessary. “You are the very image of your mother. Just beautiful. She was … enchanting.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” Ro replied.

  “We all miss her very much. And what a delight that you are with us after all this time.” He made a sudden gesture with one hand, as if to stop himself. “But excuse me, I must go. Hestia, I will have that dinner invitation to you shortly.”

  And, with this, the duke was gone.

  “Well, that was rather odd,” Hestia said, frowning slightly. “He seemed very out of sorts today. Did that seem odd to you?” Hestia watched her friend Felix walk quickly away before turning back to Ro.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Ro’s eyes moved to meet her aunt’s. How amazing, for him to turn up like this. For everything to come together when she least expected it.

  “Know what?” Hestia glanced from Ro to Felix’s retreating back.

  “Hestia, that man is Clio’s father.”

  * * *

  Hestia had been so overcome that Ro had to guide her by one elbow to Mount Street Gardens, directly across the road, and sit her down upon a bench seat.

  “I knew it as soon as I laid eyes on him,” Ro told her, as Hestia sat in stunned silence. “I thought to myself that he looked awfully like Clio. And then I remembered that photograph of your cousin, because he rather resembled him, too. That’s when I put two and two together. Do you think that I might be right? I’m sure I am. Sure of it.” Ro turned her head to look at her aunt and realized she was crying, silent tears running down her cheeks.

  Hestia brought her hands up to her face. “Oh, what a spectacle I must be making and what a fool I am that I never saw it. Never once thought of it. But it all makes so much sense now.” She lowered her hands to meet Ro’s eyes. “Ro, he is such a good, kind man. So very much like Clio. He is very influential now. Very political. He is always pushing for better public housing. For more money to be spent on education for the poor. I see him several times a week. How could I not have known this?”

  Ro bit her lip for a moment. “You said that you were childhood friends…”

  “Yes,” Hestia said, nodding. “But then our families fell out. Our fathers, actually. It was an awful disgrace. A feud. Felix and I joke about it now that our parents have all gone.”

  “But what happened?”

  Hestia shook her head. “You would not believe it, but they fell out over a pair of dueling pistols. They both collected them, you see, and there was supposed to be some agreement about who was to buy this particular pair at auction and then the other reneged at the last moment and purchased the pistols for himself. It was so very stupid. They behaved like children. And continued to, as well, until both of their deaths. But, yes, before that, our families were very close.” She took a deep breath now. “So that explains why our parents would not sanction this relationship that Demeter had. It was Felix she was seeing. My father would not have her marry into his enemy’s family.”

  “And so they had an affair. For … well, we don’t know how many years,” Ro continued with the theory.

  “Felix was sent away for some time—traveling abroad. Perhaps it was arranged by both families? He only returned after Demeter married William.”

  “But he must have been such a prize.” Ro didn’t quite understand. “I mean, he’s a duke now. Surely—”

  “Ah,” Hestia cut in. “My father might have been able to overlook the dueling-pistol affair if he had known Felix would one day become a duke. But the thing is, three men died in battle before the title came to Felix—two of his cousins and his elder brother. He never expected to become the Duke of Hastings. Felix was lucky. He lost part of his right foot, but not his life.”

  Ro’s eyes widened. “It’s just like Romeo and Juliet—the Capulets and the Montagues.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sure the Capulets and the Montagues weren’t quarreling over something as ridiculous as dueling pistols.” Hestia let out a short laugh, as if she suddenly realized something.

  “What is it?” Ro asked.

  “Well, now I understand why Felix is always trying to press those dueling pistols upon me. I have absolutely no interest in seeing or hearing about them, ever again, but almost every time I see him he insists on giving them to me. He feels guilty about it all. Oh…” Her expression changed suddenly. “This does change everything, doesn’t it? I do believe you are quite correct the more I think about it all, but it’s difficult to take it in all at once. Felix was devastated when Demeter died. Utterly inconsolable. And now I know why. I knew Demeter loved him dearly, as he did her, but not … like this. In this way. How stupid of my father. They would have been lovely together. So lovely.”

  “But you said he has a daughter and, I take it, a wife. Won’t this be very … awkward? Obviously, both he and Clio must know if we are right.”

  “Oh, no. It’s not what you think.” Hestia shook her head quickly. “Felix married some years after Demeter’s death. His daughter is quite young. Around ten years of age.”

  Ro breathed a sigh of relief. “Still, he is married now…”

  “Yes,” Hestia said as she nodded. “Which means we will have to be extremely discreet. I will telephone him this evening and test your theory.”

  * * *

  Hestia had warned Ro that it would be best not to speak to Clio regarding Felix until she had spoken to him herself. Later that evening, she had a quiet word with Ro in the drawing room, after she had telephoned her old friend.

  “I told Felix that I had something very important that I needed to speak to him about,” she started, “but I then found, for some reason, that I couldn’t continue. I think it is your story to tell him, Ro. I told him only that it concerned Demeter and that you needed to meet with him immediately. If it is true, he will tell you. I have arranged for you to meet him tomorrow morning, at ten o’clock.” Hestia passed Ro his address, written on a piece of paper. “Do be gentle, however. If it is as we suspect, this will all come as a great shock to him. Not only because he and Demeter obviously loved each other very muc
h, but also because he is the sort of man who would be devastated to know he had a child he knew nothing about.”

  * * *

  At just after ten o’clock the following morning, Ro sipped her tea nervously in the duke’s study, then returned her cup to her saucer with a clatter, due to her shaking hands. She placed the cup and saucer on a small side table, afraid she might drop them.

  “It must be something very grave that you have to tell me,” the duke said, his voice light, but with an undeniable twinge of anxiety to it. “Hestia said it concerns your mother … Demeter,” he struggled slightly with her name. “I must admit it feels very strange to be talking about her and using her name once more. It all seems very long ago, that time I spent with Demeter and Hestia. A lifetime ago.”

  Ro cleared her throat. “Your Grace, before I tell you, I’m afraid I must ask for some information from you. I’m embarrassed to ask it … but I must know. It is of vital importance.”

  In the opposite armchair, the duke regarded her with studied composure. “Yes?”

  Ro took a deep breath before continuing. “Did you have a relationship with my mother where you were … more than friends?”

  The duke inspected Ro for a moment or two, before answering. “Yes,” he finally told her. “Yes, I did. This is, of course, a private conversation…”

  “Yes.” Ro nodded quickly. “Of course.”

  He nodded slightly, acknowledging this. “I am not ashamed to admit it. I loved your mother very much. And she loved me. But our families found out we were seeing each other in secret and, to stop us, they arranged for me to be sent abroad for some time. We found out about their plans and managed to run away together. It was almost a week before they located us. Thankfully, we managed to avoid a scandal,” he said with a long sigh. “We were very silly. Young and in love and foolish. Not much more than children, really.”

  “Hestia told me about the family feud.”

  The duke shook his head, emitting a short laugh. “Yes, ridiculous, isn’t it? I see now that we could have approached our families differently and made them see sense. But, at the time, I was very angry. I do wish I could go back and change things”—he straightened in his seat—“not that I am unhappy with how things have worked out, of course. I love my wife and daughter very much.”

  “Of course,” Ro seconded. “After you were sent abroad, can I ask what happened to my mother?”

  The duke exhaled. “Our parents thwarted contact between us at every turn. And I found out later that Demeter was fed lies about me in the hope that she might believe I would never return—that I had married while abroad and so on. Eventually she must have begun to believe what she was being told, because she fell into a deep depression. I think that awful family doctor of theirs started medicating her to the point where she became quite unstable. When William came sniffing around after her fortune, her parents most likely thought it could be the only offer she might ever get, especially if anyone ever found out the truth—that she had run away for a week with a man. Thus, her parents accepted William’s proposal for her and married her off like a lamb to the slaughter. She consented because she didn’t care what became of her anymore, or was under the influence of too much sedative to care.”

  “But then, eventually, you came back,” Ro said, urging the duke to go on with his tale. This was the important part—that he admit to still seeing Demeter as a married woman at the time she and her sisters were conceived.

  The duke nodded. “Yes. After Demeter was married, both families let the matter go somewhat. I returned a year or so after Demeter’s marriage.”

  In the silence that followed, the pair stared at each other, trying to assess just what the other knew, or was willing to divulge. Finally, Ro continued on, bravely, “I am sorry, but it is of vital importance to what I have to say—you continued to see each other on your return?” She held her breath after the question exited her mouth, hardly believing she had asked it. And of a duke, no less.

  The duke did not speak for some time and, instead, stared at a point on the rug beneath his chair.

  “Please,” Ro begged. “I would not ask, but I do need to know.”

  Perhaps he heard something in her voice, because his face softened then and he cleared his throat before continuing. “Yes. I’m not sure how you know it is so, but, yes, that is true. We tried to stay away from each other on my return, but it proved to be impossible. We were so happy to have found each other again and Demeter was miserable with William. I’m sure I will burn in hell for it, but it was truly one of the happiest times of my life.”

  “And then she conceived.”

  He frowned now. “Yes. Hestia has told me some of what happened. That William denied his children had survived and ferried them away to other families to raise. You must believe I had no idea about this.”

  “No one did,” Ro answered. “Only Hestia, and she was, like my mother, manipulated to within an inch of her life.”

  “Yes, I see that now. I wish I had known. I could have done something. As it was, I went abroad once more, immediately following Demeter’s death. It took me some years to marry myself. That’s my wife, Emily, and my daughter, Penelope.” He gestured toward a photograph encased within a silver oval frame.

  “A Greek name!” Ro’s eyebrows rose as she glanced at the image.

  The duke smiled slightly. “No one has ever worked that out before now—a silent nod to your mother. My wife, of course, knows about Demeter and what happened between us, even though it was long before I ever met her. There are no secrets between us.”

  A stillness fell over the room, in which the tick of the clock on the mantelpiece was all pervasive.

  “So,” said the duke, finally fracturing the quiet in the study. “You have something to tell me…”

  “May I?” Ro held an outstretched hand toward the photograph of the duke’s wife and child.

  “Of course,” he said as he passed it over to her.

  Ro’s eyes were transfixed by the photograph for some time, her hands gripping the cold, curved edges tightly. Penelope and Clio really were one and the same. All these years Clio had believed she looked like no one else in this world, when the truth was she resembled two people very much indeed. Finally, Ro glanced up at the duke. “Your daughters are very similar.”

  “But you must be mistaken,” he said as he shook his head. “I only have the one daughter.”

  “That’s what I’m here to tell you, Your Grace.” Ro pulled a photograph from her own pocket now—a photograph of Clio from a few years back—and handed it over to the duke. “You do not have one daughter, but two.”

  * * *

  “I … I don’t understand,” the duke said as he clenched the side of his armchair with the hand that wasn’t holding on to the photograph as if his very life depended upon it. He was visibly pale. “This can’t be true.”

  “Please.” Ro sat forward in her chair. “Let me explain. You knew Demeter gave birth to twins.”

  “Yes, of course. And that she and the twins died. I even saw the memorial portrait.” He did not look up from Clio’s photograph, his eyes drinking her in.

  “Which you know is not true, as you said before—you mentioned Hestia told you we were all born healthy and that there were, in fact, three of us. Also, that we were all sent to live with relatives.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, this is a photograph of the three of us, including the third triplet, whom you have never seen before now.” Ro located the image she had brought with her and passed it over as well—a photograph of the three girls taken a number of weeks ago. The duke took it from her willingly. “And this is why William was so angry. He knew, you see. He knew immediately on seeing her that Clio was your child and not his, with her darker skin and black curls. That is Thalia, on the left of the photograph, I am in the middle, and Clio is on the right, of course.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “Clio, did you say?” Again, he did not look up.

 
“Yes.”

  “And this one … Thalia?” He reached out a shaky finger to point her out, seemingly fearful that doing so might somehow make the picture spring to life. “It is like … looking at your mother all over again.”

  “So I believe.”

  Finally, the duke raised his head. “But how? How is such a thing possible?”

  Ro explained scientifically how such an occurrence was possible. When she had finished, her companion seemed no less shocked.

  “But this must be extremely…” He was suddenly at a loss for words.

  “Rare?” Ro finished his sentence for him. “Yes, it is. It is very unusual. But it is true. I was very careful about researching how this situation might have come about and did at first wonder whether Clio was related to Thalia and me at all. But there is overwhelming proof now. I have spoken to the midwife who was there at the time, and quite impartial. She was forced to participate in the memorial portrait and cared for all three of us after birth. Clio even has the scar that matches one the third triplet received at birth, as well as the same small token that the midwife hid in all of our swaddled clothes before we were sent off to different relatives.”

  The duke stood up suddenly, making Ro jump slightly in her chair. He began to pace the room. “And does Hestia know about this? About my … involvement?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ve told her. She knows everything.”

  “Everything?” He turned on the spot, to look at Ro. He examined her expression closely.

  “Well, yes. Unless there is something else. Is there something else?”

  The duke shook his head and returned to his brisk pacing. “No, of course not.”

  Ro wasn’t sure if she believed the duke, but didn’t think now was the time for her to question him too thoroughly. After what she had just told him, she needed to be answering questions, rather than introducing additional ones.