“You think me unkind? Damned? You have no idea.” Nick's lips curled into a sneer. “Get up, you look like a bawdy house slut.”
Jemma clutched her hands to her stomach. “Nick, please, I didn't mean—”
“But youdid. I saw it in your face.” He looked towards the door. “I hear someone coming, likely your uncle.”
Jemma tried to scramble to her feet and failed. She could do nothing but sit against the wall stupidly, her chest heaving with emotion and shock.
The door to the conservatory flew open.
“Jane Emily? The maid heard something shatter and I—” Her uncle's confused glance took in her disheveled clothing as she sat on the floor and the flush on her cheeks. A large chunk of her hair had fallen from its pins and now lay between her breasts.
“If you did not believe I ruined her before, believe it now.” Nick spoke calmly in a snide, patrician tone. “My solicitor will call on you, Lord Marsh, tomorrow morning. Due to the circumstances of my,” Nick paused, “discussionwith your niece, we should post the banns without delay.”
Mortified, Jemma turned away from her uncle. Her eyes welled with tears.Did I really think hurting Nick would make me feel better? Because it hasn’t. This is far worse than anything I could have imagined. Worse than Uncle John seeing me here like this.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” The whiskey voice remained calm. “I will send a seamstress tomorrow to fit Jane Emily for her trousseau.”
“Your Grace, perhaps—” Uncle John started to say, barely glancing at her.
Nick raised his hand, the ring on his thumb winking in a stream of sunlight from the large conservatory windows. “I insist, Lord Marsh.” Nick brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his forearm. “On the marriageandthe trousseau.” He turned back to her uncle all civility gone from his tone as he said, “The Devils of Dunbar keep what they claim."
Nick's words had the desired effect. Her uncle did not contradict him again nor offer any other resistance. “All shall be as you wish, Your Grace.”
Jemma looked down in her lap, horrified at the mess she’s wrought.
“Good day, Lord Marsh.” Nick nodded to her uncle. He never looked at her again.
Wishing she could take back every awful word she had thrown at him, Jemma watched Nick's tall form leave the conservatory. As soon as she thought him gone, she promptly burst into a fit of weeping, burying her head in her lap.
“Come, stop your crying.” Uncle John patted her awkwardly on her shoulder. “I shall turn my back while you—” he waved his hand at her and turned around. “Be quick about it, we don't want a servant to hear. It would be disastrous were your aunt to get wind of this. The scandal would send her to bed forweeks. Thank goodness she took Petra shopping. I would never be able to explainthis.”
Jemma struggled to her feet. Hands shaking, she adjusted her bodice and her skirts and attempted to tuck her stray hair back into the bun at the base of her neck. Perching cautiously on the edge of the couch, Jemma cleared her throat to signal her uncle she was presentable.
Uncle John briefly glanced at her before striding to the sidebar. Pouring a scotch for himself and a sherry for her he walked back over to where she sat on the sofa. “Here.” He thrust the glass of sherry at her. “Not many have survived the wrath of the duke and lived to tell the tale." Uncle John gave a slight, sad smile. “I assume your discussion with the duke was,” Uncle John's ears pinked considerably, “mutual?”
“Yes,” Jemma whispered, wiping her eyes with the edge of her skirt, humiliated to the very core of her being. Uncle John, however, seemed to be handling the situation much better than she.
“We will speak of this once and never again. I should have told you sooner, but I hoped I would have no need, and His Grace begged me not to. How I wish you had just simply forgiven the duke and been happy. I should have known that was impossible, you are not the kind of girl who would blindly follow my instructions and ask for no explanation. Have you realized yet that your anger is misdirected?” Uncle John took a sip of his drink and sat down beside her.
“You know?” She looked her uncle in the eye, not believing that he could have kept such a secret from her.
Uncle John didn’t flinch. “I knew before His Grace did. I knew after I read that damn packet of letters you came to me with. William gave up all of his secrets in the end.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Jemma choked. “My father did those things, didn’t he?”
“Drink.” He helped lift the glass to her lips. “Your aunt says that sherry is good for a sudden shock.”
“You’re,” Jemma took a large swallow of the sherry and immediately coughed, “taking this all rather well, Uncle John.”
“I’ve had time to grow used to the truth, as awful as it is. William stole the letters from the Duke of Dunbar, the current duke’s grandfather,” he explained, “and sold them for a small fortune, though I suspect that Corbett put him up to it. William confessed everything to me in a letter he wrote as he fell ill.” Her uncle looked at her. “He was ill for months before the Devil of Dunbar found him and suspected he was dying. I loved my brother but William was a weak man. He committed treason. Men died.” Uncle John shook his head sadly. “He wished to marry your mother and father disowned him for it. But what did William expect?” Uncle John shook his head sadly. “Maureen was a servant at this very house.”
Her surprise must have shown, for her uncle reached out and patted her hand. “Do not worry, no one need ever know. That secret is safe as well.”
Another lie unveiled. Jemma's stomach twisted into knots. Her mother was a servant? She’d been told her whole life that Mama was from a good Irish family, that the marriage was objected to on the grounds her mother was Catholic. “I fear, Uncle John, that I may not be able to handle much more honesty.”
“But, you will.” Her uncle wrinkled his brow and drained his glass. “You and I know the truth, and no one else, except the Duke of Dunbar. Your marriage, though you fight against it, ensures that the Tremaine family will never seek to make the truth public. Never harm us.”
“I am to be a sacrifice to save our family?” She sucked at her sherry, hoping the liquid would chase away the sudden sense of bitterness she tasted on her tongue.
