Justin closed his eyes briefly and inhaled slowly.
“You quarreled with Mama,” Maria said, “because you were jealous that she had married an earl while you had been able to snare only a baronet.”
She was still speaking softly, but there was no doubt now that everyone in the room was listening.
“This is neither the time nor the place—” Justin said far too late, getting to his feet.
“And Mama hadnothingto do with your quarrel with Papa,” Maria said, rounding on him, her eyes blazing. “It is...despicableeven to suggest such a thing.Youknow why he sent you away and told you never to return. Those jewels you stole were Mama’s, gifts from Papa, costly in themselves but many times more precious to her because they were tokens of his love. Youtookthem and broke both their hearts. I hope you lived well on what you got for them during the years you were away.”
What the devil?
“Well, Aunt Bertha,” Leonard Dickson said in his hearty, booming voice, “you have opened a Pandora’s box right enough. Margaret and I need to go and change for luncheon. We probably all do. Though who will be able to eat anything so soon after those delicious Chelsea buns I donot know. Your cook is doing us proud, Brandon. I daresay my aunt has misremembered the events of that evening when my sister met your papa. It was many years ago, and whose memories can bear up for that long? I know I would rather believe the romantic version Maria heard. And whatever happened between you and your father, Brandon, was your business and is none of mine or anyone else’s. Tempers sometimes flare, as I know all too well from the mill, and people say things they wish afterward they had not said. It’s always best to pretend that indeed they were not said aloud. I am looking forward to seeing the state apartments this afternoon. I am sure they are grand, just as the rest of the house is.”
Everyone began to disperse.
Lady Estelle was approaching with a smile. “Come, Maria,” she said. “Let us go up to that sitting room between our two bedchambers, shall we, and relax until luncheon? I always love looking out upon rain, though it is not as pleasant to be caught out in it. “
Maria allowed her arm to be taken. Within a minute or two Justin was alone in the room with Lady Maple.
“What was your purpose in gathering us all here, Brandon?” she asked. “All are family to either you or Maria or both of you except for those handsome Lamarr twins. Did you intend that we all merely smile at one another and talk nicely and let old quarrels caused by a dead woman fester below the surface as though they had not caused lasting damage? I am sorry Maria overheard me. The feelings of the very young are tender things, and it is only just over a year since she lost her mother. I am sorry other people seem to have overheard me too. I suppose I was speaking too loudly. But if this family gathering is to have any real meaning, and ifyouever hope to have a real relationshipwith your sister, there needs to be some plain speaking, and it might as well be done by me. Did you take those jewels?”
“No.” Justin spoke curtly and frowned down at her.
“I would have been surprised if you had,” she said. “I think your father would have been surprised too. It would have been a silly thing to do and pointless, since I daresay your father kept you in funds and I never heard of your being an expensive young man. There needs to be some plain speaking in this family, Brandon.”
Justin felt rather as though he were in the throes of a nightmare. Disaster had struck—for the second time in one morning—and he had no idea how he was going to face his guests in just an hour or so to eat luncheon. It was altogether possible they did not know how they were going to face him either. Maria would quite possibly refuse to face any of them or even talk with anyone except her particular friend. And thank goodness for Lady Estelle, who had persuaded her to leave the room before she could become quite hysterical.
Beneath all his distress, one revelation thrummed in his head like a heavy drumbeat.
His father had beentrickedinto marrying Maria’s mother. He had not, after all, been just a foolish middle-aged widower of close to fifty who had been dazzled by the looks and charms of a girl only four years older than his son. Where, Justin wondered, had she hidden the key of that anteroom after locking the door? How had she lured his father there? He did not for one moment doubt that Lady Maple’s version of that story was the true one, though he had heard Maria’s version numerous times from his stepmother while his father had listened and smiled but neither corroborated her story nor contradicted it.
“Give me a hand and help me to my feet, Brandon,” Lady Maple said. “I was up early today. It must be the country air,though it is reputed to make a person sleep longer. I will go to my room and summon my maid—ifI can find my way to the west wing and the right room, that is.”
“I shall give myself the pleasure of escorting you there myself,” Justin said, offering his arm after he had helped her up. “This house can be confusing until one gets to know it.”
***
Estelle settled Maria in a comfortable chair in the sitting room and chafed her hands.
“I believe I missed the first part of what Lady Maple was saying,” she said. “I did understand, though, that she had upset you dreadfully by telling a different story than the one you have always been told of how Lady Brandon, your mother, met your father.”
Estelle had not missed much of it. She and Bertrand had been the last to arrive in the drawing room. After pouring two cups of hot chocolate, she had given her brother his, taken his arm, avoided his look of surprise—they usually went their separate ways after they entered a crowded room—and drawn him in the direction of Lady Maple. The Earl of Brandon was sitting with her, and it had seemed to Estelle that the very best thing she could do was go right up to them and make conversation. It would be far better than tiptoeing around him for the rest of the two weeks here. But shehadneeded her twin to give her the necessary courage. Poor Bertrand had not even had a chance to take a Chelsea bun.
Hence they had both heard almost everything. So had everyone else. Estelle’s personal discomfort over the Earl of Brandon had been forgotten in the greater disaster that had been unfolding before her.
“She is a wicked, evil woman, and I told her so,” Maria said as Estelle sat down beside her. “She told Brandon thatPapa was forced to marry Mama after she trapped him inside a small locked room with her during atonball until they were discovered sometime later. By then her dress was torn and her hair was disheveled. It isnot true. Papa fell in love with Mama when he saw her dancing with someone else.”
“I daresay,” Estelle said, “Lady Maple misremembers the details of what happened that evening. She is rather an elderly lady.” She did not for a moment believe Lady Maplehadmisremembered. It was a very distinct story, not the sort of thing one would get confused about in one’s memory. And she had not detected any sign of senility in Maria’s great-aunt.
“Shedoesmisremember,” Maria said. “But she is a guest here. I behaved badly, did I not? Melanie would scold me if she were here now.‘A lady owes unfailing courtesy to her guests, even when she has not personally invited them and they have been ill-mannered.’I can almost hear her say the words. I owe Lady Maple an apology.”
Estelle patted her hand.
“She also said it was Mama who quarreled withher,” Maria said, frowning as she gazed through the window at the rain. “But it was the other way around. She said it was Mama who quarreled with her brother and sisters, but again she got it backward. She said it was Mama who caused the rift between Papa and Brandon—the present Brandon.”
She never used her half brother’s given name, Estelle had noticed.
“That last was mean and cruel and absolutely untrue,” Maria continued. “She knows nothing about that rift. She had been estranged from Mama for years before it happened. It was Mama who was the greatest victim. She suffered the most, and she suffered dreadfully. She had loved him as a son and had trusted him utterly, just as I had, yethestolefrom her. All her most costly jewels, all herpersonalones, the jewels Papa had given her. She always said it was not so much their monetary worth that grieved her as their emotional value. To her they were irreplaceable. And he took them. Then he showed not a glimmering of remorse, though he had broken her heart and Papa’s. It was why Papa banished him. It is downright cruel to say it was all Mama’s fault whennoneof it was. She even pleaded with Papa not to be so harsh with him.”
