She clung to him with a pressure that was almost painful. ‘He had to drag you into it too,’ she went on, ‘and for that I really never will forgive him.’
‘I swear I didn’t know while he was alive,’ he said steadily.
‘You played with her. His shameful brat. Your half-sister!’
‘I did,’ he acknowledged, ‘when he took me to the house. I became fond of her, it’s idle to deny it. Our ages being such, just three years between us…’ Best not to go there, perhaps. Certainly best not to say her name. ‘But I did not know who she was, I promise you, Mama. If there was a conspiracy to deceive you, you must believe that I was not part of it. Not then. I had no idea of her identity, or of their relationship, until he died and I read the private missive he had left me.’
‘And when you discovered the truth, you did not tell me.’
‘At his urgent request. He was convinced you knew nothing. He wanted to protect you from the knowledge – begged me to do so in his letter. He wouldn’t have told me at all, Mama, if it hadn’t been necessary to appoint someone whose discretion could be relied upon to have a care for their financial wellbeing once he was gone.’
He wasn’t being honest now. Not completely. But stark honesty could only hurt her even more. He had kept this secret for nine years and he would keep it as long as she lived. He would never reveal to his mother the details of that final deathbed conversation he’d had with his father, Sir Thomas’s slow, painful confession, in rasping breaths that each cost him a little piece of precious life, that the only woman he’d ever loved had been Angela, and not the lady from his own class and background his parents had pressured him to marry. Of course he’d clasped his father’s thin hand as he died and promised he would look after Sir Thomas’s lover and their child, as long as they and he lived and beyond. He’d done it gladly, not as a mere matter of duty. He loved them both, had always done so since his early childhood as a lonely little boy with – as he had always believed – no siblings, and few playmates. But why tell his mother? The truth could be a mercilessly cruel thing.
‘You see her still. You seethem. You are intimate with them.’ It might have sounded like an accusation, but it was said so levelly that it seemed more a painful statement of fact.
‘Mama, I do, but I have an obligation to them; my father made it so.’ It was much more than that, they were family too, but once again, no need to force the painful knowledge on her.
‘It doesn’t matter if that’s true or not,’ she said wearily now. ‘There’s no point in reproaching you for something that is not your fault but Thomas’s. And yes, you are right to think me weakly self-indulgent, as I know you do, to mind so much that he never loved me. But whether I am or not, Lord Nightingale somehow knows of their existence. Their identities, everything. Of your father’s cruel betrayal of me, and the child that was born of it. The bastard mulatto child.’
‘That is not?—’
‘I will not have you school my tongue, Dominic. Not today. Be silent. The mulatto child. The shameful bastard. That is what the world will say, as they make pious, shocked expressions and laugh gleefully behind their hands, and in my face. That is, if they don’t cut me completely. That is what Lord Nightingale will tell them, you can be sure of it, if you do not marry his daughter.’
He could see that there was no use in trying to argue with her, such was the depth of her distress. And though the way she spoke about people he cared deeply for must disturb him, it could not come as a shock. She was concerned only for herself and for her standing in the world, but, the truth, if it came out, would damage Angela and her daughter as much as it would damage Lady De Lacy. More, much more, because they were so much more vulnerable, lacking the protection that her wealth and status brought her.
He rose to his feet and paced restlessly about the room, oppressed by its confines as he always was. ‘Good God, ma’am, why? I understand that he is blackmailing you, to bring about my marriage with his daughter – I have grasped as much as that!’ he said impatiently. ‘But what I cannot conceive is why he should do such a thing!’
‘Nor I,’ she answered listlessly. ‘I asked him, of course, but he would only smile in that infuriatingly smug way he has, and tell me nothing to the purpose. How I loathe and despise him! You are a great catch, I suppose, and by this stratagem he has captured you. Maybe it is no more than that.’
‘Even supposing that to be true, why should he care? However generous my arrangements might be, he will not lay his hands on a penny. I have not made him a trustee of his daughter’s marriage settlement; he is far too advanced in years. And Miss Nightingale herself is a substantial heiress, is she not?’
‘You know she is. But what does it matter? Maybe he merely does it because he can, to enjoy having power over us. Maybe he’s mad. I think he must be. A madman with the means to ruin us, that’s a comforting thought. But you see now why the wedding must go ahead, Dominic. I implore you to think of me, of my standing and my pride, and how humiliated I would be, if you have no care for your own reputation!’
He could see whyshethought the marriage must go ahead. It would be unreasonable, he supposed, to expect his bitterly hurt mother to have any concern for the other potential victims of Lord Nightingale’s cruelty, or understanding of their situation. And he didn’t have to agree with her motives at all to understand that they were in a terrible bind, even worse than before. ‘To give in to blackmail is to encourage the blackmailer to try again,’ he said. ‘Or so I have always understood, not having any previous experience of such matters.’ He was struggling to regain his customary insouciant manner.
‘In normal circumstances – if there can be said ever to be normal circumstances when one is being blackmailed – I cannot doubt that you would be correct, Dominic!’ said Lady De Lacy tartly. ‘But surely not in this case. Our scandals will become Nightingale’s too. I cannot believe he intends to expose us to public censure and mockery once his purpose has been achieved and our families are inextricably tied together. He will have got his wish, the dreadful creature, his daughter will be Lady De Lacy – what more could he possibly want from us?’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said noncommittally.
He could only be glad that he had never had the least intention of revealing Maria’s secret to his mother. She was plainly at her wits’ end. He would not put it past her, in her desperation, to try a little blackmail on her own account, by threatening Lord Nightingale that she might spread the details of his older daughter’s unconventional private life far and wide. Things were ugly enough as they stood without making them worse in such an incendiary fashion. They were in dangerous waters, he thought, more dangerous by the day. There was a great deal to think on here – not least the knotty problem of whether he could in all decency betray his father’s confidence, and Angela’s, to Meg. He must, if he were to tell her that Lord Nightingale was more despicable and far more ruthless even than she and her sister had imagined. That seemed like something she should know, and Maria too, for their own protection as much as anything else. But it was not his secret…
26
Meg, despite the fact that she had gone to bed so excessively early and without her dinner, did not wake until the early morning. The much-needed slumber brought a little counsel, though she was not sure if she should trust it, since it was a low, seductive voice, sounding very much like Sir Dominic’s honeyed tones, that whispered in her ear and said,After all,why not? Perhaps Maria was right – perhaps she, as an outsider, saw more clearly. Meg had never had a distinct idea of her own future before, but she thought she could picture herself married to Dominic. Making love with him, getting to know him, building a life together, writing, one day travelling with him. He was a good companion, she knew that already. She didn’t care at all for being a great lady, or for fortune and luxury, but they could be happy, she thought. They might be happy together, and share that happiness with others.
Was she really going to say yes, next time she saw him? She thought she was, but she felt shy, still unsure – as though the idea of a life with him was a present she had been given unexpectedly; something so precious that she dared not show it to anyone else yet, but needed to keep as a secret while she examined all its contours. A shining globe of possibility, a velvet temptation. Riding with him today… she couldn’t do it. It was too much, too raw. If she saw him on a horse, in breeches and top boots, she’d want to drag him off and throw herself upon him shamelessly. In Hyde Park!
And it was not as though this decision of hers solved all their problems at a stroke. Was she saying she was prepared to take up the masquerade as Maria, for the rest of her life? She thought she was, but… She would write to him properly later in the day, when her thoughts were more collected, and say yes, and they would face all these difficulties together. And if she saw him – and she hoped she would – it would be in private, an idea which lit a flame deep inside her.
She wrote him a brief note now, revealing nothing of her feelings but crying off politely from their arrangement to go riding together, and stayed in bed, thinking of him, imagining their future, smiling to herself despite all the obstacles that still stood in their way.
It occurred to her as she lay there that she had no idea – never having needed to consider such matters previously – whether the banns had been read in St George’s in the normal manner over the course of three weeks, or whether the ceremony was to be carried out by expensive special licence. Could church weddings be organised in such a manner and, if so, would it even be possible for her to take her sister’s place under her own name, assuming that was what they ended up deciding to do, or would they have to begin the whole business of application again, and give a great many awkward explanations besides? She let out a little hiccup of wild laughter at the thought of Sir Dominic disclosing urbanely to some mystified reverend gentleman that he had, in fact, somewhat confused the precise appellation of his betrothed, even to the extent of applying for a licence at Doctors’ Commons in the wrong name, which was, after all, a mistake anyone might make, and quickly set right. It was easy to imagine that all sorts of objections and legal obstacles might be raised to such a switch of brides. To marry him as Maria would be far easier, of course, but should she? Would he agree to that, even if she decided she could do it?
After nuncheon, she went out with Hannah to walk off her fidgets with the excuse of doing a little shopping. She had not the least need to buy anything, and barely any money in her purse in any case, but she was fizzing with restless energy, and it was another fine, bright day. Hannah suggested that, if she had no particular aim of her own in mind, they might browse in a new bazaar she knew of in Soho Square, where all manner of things, from sewing supplies, fabrics, accessories, even children’s toys and books, might be purchased at reasonable prices. It might be crowded in the afternoon, she warned, but they were perhaps less likely to encounter anyone of Maria’s acquaintance there than in the more fashionable shops of Bond Street. Meg agreed energetically that this was a good notion, and they set off. The walk through London’s most fashionable streets was less than a mile, and to stride out in the fresh air was more to Meg’s taste than sitting idle in her father’s carriage for the short journey. She was largely silent on the way, nervous of sharing her thoughts with anyone, even this woman who’d known her as a baby, and Hannah appeared to be aware of her mood and did not attempt to coax her into speech. This morning she’d told her old nurse that she’d found Maria and that she was safe, but had not had permission to share any more, and so had left her guessing.
Once at their destination, Meg couldn’t summon up any interest in the colourful rolls of fabric sitting ready to be taken down, cut up according to patterns and made into gowns. It would require an effort of imagination that she simply could not summon at the moment – who would she be, by the time some piece of material she bought now was transformed into a gown? And admitting that she didn’t know, how could she be expected to look at muslins and silks and take them seriously? Maria Nightingale – the future Lady De Lacy – had gowns enough, and Meg Nightingale, dowdy country bluestocking, didn’t need them, unless of courseshewas to be the one to marry. It was exciting, she must acknowledge, but all still so uncertain.
They wandered aimlessly about the stalls, with Hannah trying and failing to engage her restless companion in this trinket or that pair of evening slippers, when she suddenly became aware that her companion had stopped dead in her tracks and was pulling hard at the sleeve of her pelisse. ‘Miss Meg!’ Hannah hissed. ‘Don’t say anything, but look! Over there on the left!’ As she spoke, Hannah, most extraordinarily, dragged her with some force and speed into a place of partial concealment behind a tall glass cabinet of goods.
