“Lucasta can inherit nothing! She is illegitimate.”
Every neck in the room swiveled toward Lady Pevensey, who covered her face with her hands.
Jem watched the color bleed from Lucasta’s face.
“What?” She struggled to breathe. “Laurence Lithwick was—not my father?”
Her ladyship pressed her hands over her eyes. “He was your father,” she said with a moan. “But I gave birth to you.”
The stark, awful look on Lucasta’s face made Jem want to pull her into his arms. He wanted her to never have reason to wear that look of betrayal and horror again.
Her friends, ringed around her, grasped her hands, forming a wall of support before he could step forward. Even Cecilia reached out and clung to her cousin.
If he wanted to win Lucasta Lithwick, Jem realized, he would have to prove to her that his love was as steadfast, deep, and true as that of her loyal friends. And that he, too, would do whatever he could to protect her.
Was his love true? In the stunned silence that pervaded the room, and the weight of what this revelation meant for Lucasta, Jem finally saw his own heart clearly. He could be forgiven his slowness, he thought, as he’d never been in love before.
His siblings brought him joy, and his obligations to them were no burden. His mother had provided him shelter, protection, and affection, and he’d loved her as only a son could. But his relationships with women had always been passing, fraught with caution and to some extent a masquerade on bothparts. He’d never been willing to open himself heart and soul to a woman.
Lucasta Lithwick deserved nothing less. She herself would love whole-heartedly, an authentic, lasting, selfless love. She would be the companion he had never dreamed he might find. And she had his devotion for his whole life, whether she wanted it or not. He would never find another woman like her.
But could he, heir to a marquessate, marry a woman of illegitimate birth? He had an obligation to his family. Could he still claim the woman he loved?
The Baron groped for a chair, and finding none, sat down on a dainty stool meant for a much smaller person. “Lucasta is yours?” he said, horrified. “But that means…” His scowl deepened as he thought. “Trevor isn’t related by blood. They can legally marry.”
“It isn’t as you think, Peter,” his lady whispered. “Aunt Cornelia knows. A bastard cannot inherit, and she’ll never leave her estate to a natural child. You may be sure of that.”
“What possessed you?” The Baron stared at his wife as if he had never seen her before. His lip curled in contempt. “Patience! That ragtail vicar? Your sister’s husband?”
His wife gave him a pleading look. “Must we discuss it here?”
“If you can make such a declaration before this lot, you can damned well explain yourself!”
Lucasta stared at the woman she had thought her aunt. Jem studied her as well, but aside from their height and perhaps a certain natural aloofness, he could see no blood resemblance.
Lady Pevensey’s round face had turned doughy with indulgence and lined with an expression of bitter self-interest. Lucasta, in contrast, was refined and elegant, graceful in bearing and manner. Her straight, broad nose and the clean, firm line of her jaw reflected her strength of character and spirit, while the softness of her lips and eyes showed her compassionate heartand gentle nature. He had heard her speak of her father with adoration, but her mother—or the woman she had thought her whole lifetime was her mother—Lucasta had revered as a near saint. This would be a blow beyond fathoming.
“We can leave, if it will be helpful,” the Luneberg girl offered, “but Lucasta will tell us everything anyway.”
Lucasta, nodding, found her voice again. “That is true.” Her hands grasped her friends’ tightly.
“And me as well,” Cecilia said, placing her hand atop those of the other girls.
Her ladyship looked only at her husband, her expression desperate and pleading. “You’d broken things off with me,” she wailed. “You had told me when things began that since you had your heir, you and Cecily meant to go your separate ways. But then she found out about me and insisted you reconcile. I thought—” She gulped, the tendons standing out in her pale throat. Her eyes bulged with fear. “I thought, if there were a child…you could not cast me away.”
“But my father?” Lucasta exclaimed. “He and my mother were married. Unless my birth date is a lie as well?”
Lady Pevensey shredded a ruffle on her skirt with nervous fingers. “I tricked him,” she said, staring at the ruined lace. Her voice was low and hollow. “He was the nearest thing to hand, and I knew he’d never speak of it. Felicity and I looked much alike at the time, and in the dark, when I had encouraged him to tipple, which he never did…”
She closed her eyes for a long moment, then cast a look of piteous appeal at her husband. “When you wouldn’t take me back, I had to crawl to Laurence and tell him, tell my sister what I had done. They promised to take me in and claim the babe as their own. Felicity was so desperate for a child, she would forgive me anything, and she always said it—it helped her that it was Laurence’s child after all.”
“You told me it died,” the Baron said, still wearing a look of horror. “When I told you I would support it, but I could not divorce Cecily.”
His wife nodded, her face crumpling. “I-I wanted to tell you the truth when you finally proposed to me, after Cecily died. But Felicity was ailing, and they thought of Lucasta as their own, and we could finally be together in the open… I saw no reason to make it known.”
“No reason?” Lucasta echoed. “No reasonImight have been told the truth?”
Her ladyship refused to look at Lucasta, addressing the Baron in a pleading voice. “Aunt Cornelia visited once when I was…expecting, and she caught on. She guessed at the whole of it— You know what a fearful dragon she is for meddling. She promised to keep quiet, because of the shame, but I was never in her favor again.”
