“She doesn’t want to seeanyone. I am the only one from her old life who knows where she is and I have never told another soul. Reginald used to beg me to tell him. He knew how close we were and that she wouldn’t go anywhere without letting me know where she was. I would only tell him that she was still alive, but I swore to her that I would never tell Reginald where she was. And I never did. She knew that if he knew, he would come and try and win her back. After what happened, she didn’t think of him fondly anymore. In fact, she does not care for the Breminsters at all now. She grew to hate Reginald.”
“So you won’t tell me where she is?” Catherine said. “Not even for Henrietta?”
Lady Trilling met her eyes. “I have never told anyone until now. Doubtless, my oldest friend will be furious with me for breaking her trust. But hopefully she will understand why I felt I had to.”
Lady Trilling handed Catherine a piece of paper. She looked down and found scrawled on it a direction, a few towns over—a simple, plain country place, where members of society almost never went.
“If you call on her tomorrow afternoon, I believe you will find her in the most ideal circumstance to receive you.”
Catherine nodded.
“You have to understand,” Lady Trilling urged, “I do not think she will be happy about your engagement to John. She may be very angry or even cruel. She’ll come to accept it. But it will be a shock.”
Now, Catherine knew she would see her aunt again. After all she had just heard, she only dreaded the prospect more.
Chapter Thirty
John and Catherinespent the next day planning, mulling over the best way to approach Mary Forster, given what Lady Trilling had told them. The good news was that they knew where Mary Forster was now. The bad news was that they very much doubted she would accept the annuity without some convincing.
They had barely had time to bid Montaigne, Leith, and Tremberley goodbye. John lent them one of his carriages to take back to London so that they wouldn’t have to bear the indignity of another hack. Before his friends left, he and Catherine relayed to them what had happened the previous night with Baron Falk.
“Shall we murder him?” Tremberley said, his teeth gritted. “I really wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t think it will be necessary,” Catherine said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Lady Trilling seems to have him in a subdued state.”
A half hour later, the Rank Rakes bowed out of the Hall, bidding adieu to Henrietta, who shed a tear at their departure. As they left, each gave Catherine quiet good tidings on the nuptials that they knew were now happening sooner rather than later.
After the departure of his friends, he and Catherine planned in bed, trying—and failing—not to get distracted by each other. Finally, after hours of talking it through, they had a plan they hoped would work.
*
The next morning,after a carriage ride of nearly two hours, they pulled up to a small, prosperous-looking farm in a sweet spot right near the bend in a river. This part of Dorset was outside of Edington and had very few high-ranking families in its vicinity. There was a local squire, Mr. Peckham, whom John knew by repute, but even he was not fine enough for theton.
John had been utterly nonplussed about the new information they had learned about his father and Mary. It had never occurred to him that, before he had even been born, his father had been involved with Mary Forster. That they had grown up together he should have perhaps suspected, but he had assumed that, despite the proximity of their properties, they had been like he and Catherine: barely acquaintances, only aware of each from afar. Now, he could see that he and Catherine had never been introduced as children because of what had transpired between Mary Forster and his father. In retrospect, that his family had been on such cold terms with their neighbors of an ancient, revered family did appear peculiar.
He imagined the childhood that his father must have had with Mary Forster. How they must have run through the apple orchards together and caught tadpoles in the ponds, how he must have been transfixed by her first as a little girl, her bright hair lit up by Dorset sunshine. It didn’t soften him exactly to his father, but it did give him a different point of view.
Now, they stood in front of the quaint little farmhouse, quite grand and genteel-looking for such a place, covered in vines and flowers. It was beautiful without being at all fashionable. The exact sort of middle-class, heart-of-England establishment with which the nobility had nothing to do. They were close enough to Edington that Mary could still easily monitor its goings-on, but far enough away that no one, in the normal course of her life, need recognize her. She had been hiding in plain sight.
“Are you prepared?” he said, looking at Catherine.
She looked up at him and nodded.
Once they dealt with this one hurdle, he thought, he and Catherine could be together, as they should have always been, as they always would be. They would tell Henrietta about Catherine’s real identity and they would announce their engagement to the world. He leaned down and kissed her, fortifying himself for this encounter, not caring if anyone in the farmhouse saw.
They walked down the quaint path to the door and knocked. His heart beat painfully as they waited. He wondered if Mary herself would answer the door, but instead a maid, in a neat cap, opened it.
“Is Mrs. Ryerson at home?” Catherine asked, the only indication of her nervousness a faint tremor in her voice.
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said, bowing. “Who may I tell her is calling?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Aster,” John said. They had decided on the ride over that, in the event of encountering a maid, they would use their old traveling pseudonyms, in case Mary Forster heard their real names and refused to see them.
The maid called them into a little parlor and asked them to wait. Earlier, he and Catherine had speculated that Lady Trilling had told them to call during Mary Forster’s normal receiving hours. Without even having to speak, he and Catherine exchanged a look that confirmed that their surmise had been correct.
Then, at the door that led to the rest of the house, John noticed a boy, around ten, peering in at them. He had bright blue eyes, light brown hair, and a curious expression. He nudged Catherine and she turned to look at the child, too. The boy pulled his head through the door and disappeared.
In moments, the maid returned and beckoned them into a parlor.
