Cruel Shame

by Sofia Daniel

  I gulped. Maxwell collected the first batch of DNA and placed those in envelopes himself. Mr. Burgh and I did the second batch in his quarters, and the third that I stole when Father Neapolitan and the archbishop were smoking were placed in separate envelopes, too. “Why?”

  “I’m assuming that you are DH and Elizabeth is EH?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  Gideon blew out a long breath. “Alright. It says that while they found a paternal match for the candidate DH, they could not find a match for the father of EH.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I stared across the room at Gideon, my brows creasing into a frown and my heartbeat accelerating with every passing second. What the hell did he mean that there was no match for Elizabeth’s father? Maxwell and I had checked and double-checked the samples.

  “What are you saying?”

  “None of the men tested were the father of Elizabeth,” Gideon said. “I wondered if the laboratory mistook her sample for yours.”

  “Because it would make better sense that my father would be none of the above,” I muttered.

  Gideon rose from his pile of clothes and placed the cover letter on my lap. I stared down at a bunch of words swimming across the page but couldn’t understand a thing.

  He placed an arm on my shoulder and sighed. “If my suspicions are correct, then this is wonderful news. It proves that you’re not in any way related to the Liddell family and have no claim whatsoever to their fortune.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” I asked

  Gideon shook his head. “It’s impossible.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, pushed away the fog closing in on my vision, and opened them again. The piece of paper contained a jumble of undecipherable letters and numbers.

  “DC stands for Deputy Chief Constable and AB stands for archbishop?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Gideon flipped over the first page and placed his finger on one of the results. On the left-hand column were the initials DH and the right the alleged father, AB. “A fifty-percent match with a probability of paternity of 99.9998%. Do you see why I think that’s Elizabeth’s result?”

  I frowned but nodded.

  He flipped over the next page. “DC here is a twenty-four percent match, consistent with an uncle.”

  “If the lab mixed us up, then that would make sense, since the Deputy Chief Constable is the archbishop’s younger brother,” I said.

  Then he flipped to the next sheet. “DB also has a twenty-three percent match, consistent with a grandfather.”

  “But Mr. Burgh isn’t related to the Liddells—”

  “I haven’t finished.” He flipped over the next. “TN’s match is eighteen-percent, which denotes a more distant familial relationship.”

  I rubbed my chin. “If you think they mixed my sample with Elizabeth’s, why would Mr. Burgh come out in the DNA test as Elizabeth’s grandfather?”

  “I don’t know…” Gideon turned a few more pages. “Who is GB?”

  “Gabbage,” I said. “That’s Lady Liddell’s maiden name.”

  A breath caught in Gideon’s throat, making him stiffen. “What?”

  “What?” I asked.

  Gideon held up a palm and muttered something about incomplete information. For the next few seconds, he flipped through the results and even picked up the pamphlet to cross-reference them. Throughout this, nausea rippled through my insides. What if the results weren’t really jumbled up? What if Lady Liddell got pregnant with another man’s child and passed Elizabeth off as the daughter of the archbishop?

  That would mean… I shook my head. The archbishop couldn’t be my father. He was ancient—even older than Mr. Burgh—and he hardly got involved with anyone apart from the occasional meeting for chapel sermons.

  “Remember everything I just told you?” Gideon placed the papers back on my lap. “Forget it. The final DNA test matched EH to GB, indicating that Elizabeth is both the daughter of Lady Liddell and doesn’t match with any of the men sampled.”

  Every ounce of blood drained from my face. I reached a trembling hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. “Bloody hell.”

  Gideon’s gaze dropped to my hand. “What are you doing?”

  I tapped the shortcut for Mother, hoping she would be sober enough to pick up. “Calling the only person who can tell me what really happened eighteen years ago.”

  Gideon flopped back on the crushed pile of clothes. “Good luck.”

  The phone rang and went to voicemail. I hung up and dialed again and again and again until someone picked up. It was an impatient, female voice I didn’t recognize. When I told her it was Lilah, the voice softened and asked me to wait a moment. I licked my dry lips. Was this another housekeeper or was that Margaret woman doing a bit of overtime?

  Just as I turned on the phone-recording app, Mother rasped, “Lilah?”

  “I’ve just gotten some DNA results back from the lab. Guess what they say?”

  She paused before answering. “What are you talking about?”

  My eyes narrowed. If she wanted to stall for time while she thought up another lie, that was up to her, but I already knew the results—I just wanted to know how Mother could have gotten pregnant by the archbishop.

  “Someone took samples from Thomas Neapolitan, Mr. Burgh, Cameron Liddell, the Liddell’s lawyer, and the archbishop and sent them to a lab with my DNA. My father isn’t Thomas Neapolitan, nor is it Mr. Burgh.”

  Mother made a sniffing sound. “Are you calling me a liar? That man raped—”

  “Tell me the truth for once in your life, or I’ll come down tonight and ask Billy.”

  “Lilah,” Mother hissed. “If he ever found out—”

  “Then tell me right now.”

  For the next few moments, the only sounds from the speaker were her rasping breaths. Mother tended to brood. When things got awkward, she went silent, erecting a wall around her nobody could penetrate. When things went beyond that, she turned to gin.

  Not today.

  Some crazy bitch wanted me dead and another wouldn’t leave me alone. And the key to discovering why was Mother.

  Gideon leaned forward and widened his eyes in a silent question of what was taking so long. He was bloody right. Mother probably wasn’t gathering her words but stalling.

  “Alright, then,” I said. “Tell Margaret to put another roast in the microwave. I’m coming down to Richley.”

  “Wait,” she rasped.

  “What?”

  “Thomas did ambush me on that school skiing trip. I wasn’t lying when I said he was your father. It had to be him because…”

  I gulped. Because he held her hostage for hours and—I shook my head. Boys my age needed next to nothing to get hard after climaxing. He probably raped her the entire time she was his hostage. Nausea rose to the back of my throat, and my eyes filled with tears. How could I keep pushing her to relive that terrible ordeal?

  An apology rolled to the tip of my tongue, but I clicked my mouth shut. Mother had done it again. She’d distracted me with the situation with Father Neapolitan, just so I wouldn’t ask about my true father.

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked with a gasp.

  “The DNA test said he wasn’t my father, so who?”

  Mother’s wracking sobs filled my ear. Every instinct told me to stop pushing her because as soon as she hung up, she would drown herself in gin to blot it out. I clenched my teeth, hardening my heart against the pain I was causing Mother, but if I dropped the subject, the Liddells would do something else to ruin our lives. Then, I’d be back to Mother, asking the same question and tearing open the same wounds.

  “Lilah,” she said. “Please don’t—”

  “The girl Lady Liddell sent after me used a bloody gun. If my boyfriend hadn’t stormed in when he did, she’d have blown off my head.”

  “Nothing good will ever come of uncovering this,” she said with a moan.

  “Nothing good ev
er came of covering up the truth,” I said. “You sent me up to Templar—”

  “Because Sammy wanted to wring your neck.”

  “Well, now I need to know what’s so terrible that the Liddells want me dead.”

  We went around in circles until the battery on my smartphone drained down to five percent. Gideon plugged me in at the mains, and I sat on the floor, waiting for Mother to finally talk.

  “Alright,” she whispered. “But you’ve got to swear never to tell Billy.”

  “I won’t.”

  “The morning after, Thomas let me go and warned me not to speak of this to anyone.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “Miss Gabbage confronted me at breakfast, saying my roommate reported me missing that night.” Mother’s voice hardened. “When I told her what had happened, she just laughed and called me a social-climbing slut.”

  “Right,” I snarled. Because a former Home Economics teacher who had somehow managed to ensnare Lord Liddell wasn’t a social climber herself? One day, I would punch the silicone from her lying lips.

  “So I went…” Mother’s voice hitched, and her words became a jumbled mess of sobs.

  “Slow down, Mum,” I said in my gentlest tone.

  Her rapid breaths filled the speaker, making my heart pound. Part of me, the corner of paranoia in the back of my mind that always thought of the worst case scenarios, already knew what she would say. I shoved those thoughts away and waited.

  “I told the headmaster,” she blurted.

  “Mr. Burgh?”

  “Father Liddell was the headmaster when I was your age,” she said, her voice bitter. “He called me into his suite, gave me painkillers and hot chocolate, and told me everything would be alright.”

  My stomach dropped. “Oh.”

  “Only I got drowsy. I still don’t know what he gave me, but they weren’t painkillers. When I woke up, I was in his bed, naked and he was on top of me.”

  The words hit me like a punch in the gut. Even though I’d suspected the archbishop had raped Mother, I’d never expected it to happen like that.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “He wouldn’t stop, even when I cried.” Mother paused to catch her breath. “He said the only way to erase an act of hatred was with an act of love. Afterward, he performed a spiritual marriage, wrote up a shitty certificate, and gave me a ring that would symbolize our connection in the eyes of god.”

  “What?”

  “Check beneath the base of the grandfather clock,” she muttered. “The police seized the ring when they tracked me down to London and arrested me for theft.”

  My eyes blurred with tears. Twice within twenty-four hours then got thrown into prison while pregnant? “Mum, I’m sorry.”

  “Well, there’s your truth, Lilah. It might have been better that Thomas Neapolitan was your father. At least he was honest in his hatred.”

  I glanced across the room at Gideon, who leaned forward, his lips parted with shock. He seemed to be struggling to absorb what he was hearing. There was so much I wanted to say to Mother. After everything she’d gone through, I couldn’t blame her one bit for being cold and distant. Nobody had helped her in her hour of need but Billy Hancock.

  It wasn’t one terrible trauma, not even two, but three because the Liddells sent the police after her to get back their ring.

  “When the old bastard finally opened the door to let me go, Miss Gabbage was standing in the hallway. The way she looked at me was like she knew exactly what had happened and it was my fault because I was trash.”

  Mother swallowed, sounding like she was having a drink.

  “She brushed past me and stepped into Father Liddell’s room for a word.” Mother snorted. “I guess she was negotiating with him for her silence.”

  “Those bastards,” I whispered.

  “Now that you know everything, I will not have you bring up the subject again.” Mother hung up.

  I stared at the screen’s recording app, which counted off the passing milliseconds. “Everything makes sense.” My voice was a monotone. “Why the archbishop was so willing to accept me as the daughter of Father Neapolitan and why he married a woman who he’d previously brushed aside.”

  Gideon shook his head. “It was to hide his own dirty sin.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Later that evening, I told the knights what I had discovered, and all three of them were furious on our behalf. All this time, we thought Lady Liddell was the evil one, when she’d been covering up for the archbishop the entire time.

  When it came to Mr. Burgh, I couldn’t say the words. The boys walked me back to the headmaster’s quarters, where a dim light still glowed in the window. I expected to find him brooding in front of the fire, but voices drifted from the basement, and a chink of light shone from the door that led down to the kitchen.

  My throat dried. Was he talking to a solicitor so late at night? I descended the stairs, treading hard on the creaky steps, and found Mr. Burgh at the kitchen table, sharing a cup of cocoa with Mrs. Campbell. Curled tendrils of the older woman’s hair hung loose from her bun, framing her freshly made-up face. While she still wore the same tweed suit I’d seen her in at lunchtime, it was with a pussybow blouse that accentuated her bust.

  Pink bloomed across her cheeks. “Good evening, Lilah. I trust you’re well?”

  Normally, I would make an excuse to leave them to enjoy their evening, but time was critical. Mr. Burgh hadn’t decided on whether or not to accept the archbishop’s offer of his job back. According to the solicitors, Elizabeth’s apology was inadequate and strengthened Mr. Burgh’s grounds for a defamation suit. If I let him make a decision without the full facts, Mr. Burgh might never forgive me or himself.

  “I’m sorry, but something’s happened and I need to speak to my grandad.”

  Mr. Burgh’s eyes widened. I’d never referred to him out loud as anything except by name. “Are you alright?”

  I shook my head.

  Mrs. Campbell rose from her seat. “I won’t be keeping you.” She turned to me, her eyes softening. “If there’s anything you need from me, please ask.”

  “Thanks, Miss,” I murmured.

  As the older woman swept past in a cloud of lavender perfume, Mr. Burgh also rose, his blue eyes shimmering with concern. “Has anything happened?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and whispered, “Yes.”

  His footsteps echoed across the kitchen’s flagstone floors, and the warm weight of his arm settled around my shoulders. Mr. Burgh smelled of cedar, cacao, and chocolate liqueur, but not even his pleasant scent could sooth my frantic nerves.

  “Please tell me,” he murmured. “Whatever it is, we can face it together.”

  “Do you have any whiskey?” I asked.

  “I don’t think—”

  “It’s for you.”

  The arm around me fell slack, and Mr. Burgh turned me around, placed both palms on my shoulders, and looked me straight in the eyes. “Lilah, what’s happened?”

  My words dried up in my throat. It had been easier telling the knights because they didn’t know Mother. Mr. Burgh had spent the last eighteen years heartbroken by her disappearance and continual rejections.

  I pulled out my smartphone, tapped the call recording app, and let Mother’s voice tell him. He lowered himself into one of the wooden seats, and stared at the screen, his face unmoving.

  As he heard Mother refer to the rape, Mr. Burgh’s face paled, and his breathing became harried. My stomach churned with a mix of nausea and dread. That part was horrific, but it wasn’t the worst. The recording played Mom telling me about Lady Liddell’s reaction, and Mr. Burgh flared his nostrils, his face twisting into a rictus of hatred.

  My pulse beat so hard that it muffled what she said next. I didn’t need to hear it again. A horrific image had etched into my mind that I doubted would ever stop haunting me until I destroyed every Liddell in existence.

  Mr. Burgh bowed his head and sobbed.

 
; I dropped the phone and wrapped my arms around the old man’s trembling shoulders. Part of me wanted to rain apologies on his head, but my recorded voice was already apologizing to Mother.

  As soon as it stopped, Mr. Burgh wiped his eyes. “I hadn’t expected to hear that.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you, but—”

  “Don’t.” He squeezed my arm. “For the past eighteen years, I’ve wondered how on earth a happy girl could have fallen in with a man like Billy Hancock. She was probably safer with that cocaine baron than with me.”

  I hugged Mr. Burgh tighter. “How were you supposed to watch her on a school trip when you trusted your colleagues to take care of her?”

  He shook his head. “Abby became rebellious after that trip, but I left her discipline to her mother. I was so preoccupied with climbing the ranks when I should have known something was desperately wrong.”

  I exhaled a long breath. “You can’t blame yourself for someone else’s actions, but what will you do about your job?”

  “If I bankrupt myself exposing the Liddells, it will be money well spent.”

  My eyes fluttered shut, and I rested my head against Mr. Burgh’s shoulder. With Orlando’s grandfather mobilizing the negligence trial against the academy, maybe the Liddells’ resources won’t stretch to defend the defamation suit.

  I spent Saturday helping Mr. Burgh to pack his things. Mrs. Campbell had already helped him with a major clear-out after his wife had died, so it didn’t take long to put his essentials together. When we found the certificate hidden within the grandfather clock, Mr. Burgh’s mood turned dark, and he swore to ruin Father Neapolitan, Lady Liddell, and the archbishop.

  As much as I wanted to help him on Sunday, I’d already promised Gideon that I’d stand in as his girlfriend for him when he met his parents. I wore the camel dress in merino wool I had made in my first term, and met Gideon in the academy’s reception area.

  He donned a navy-blue, three-piece suit, with a white shirt and burgundy tie. Instead of the quiff he wore these days, he slicked back his straightened hair. He looked even posher than the haughty boy who had knocked on my door offering me elocution lessons.