“He never told me,” Lucasta said, bewildered. “Not even on his deathbed.”
“That was the condition upon which he let me live with them, when I had no one else to support me,” Lady Pevensey said. “I couldn’t tolerate my mother. She’s a worse harridan than Cornelia. I won’t apologize for that,” she added, casting a look at Frotheringale that held more spirit than she’d shown during the entire interview.
“No, you’ve got the right of it,” Frotheringale agreed, wide-eyed. “Frightful harpy, m’grandmother is.”
“I promised Laurence that I would regard the child as wholly his and Felicity’s.” Finally, her ladyship looked at Lucasta, or at least in her vicinity of her chin. “He didn’t want anything to shadow her joy in having a babe of her own to cherish. It was no loss to me. I was never motherly.” She shrugged.
“That is true,” Lucasta said. “Felicity Lithwick was my mother in every way that mattered. A child could not ask for better parents than I had.”
The Baron, Jem thought, looked like he had just been given a facer. The man dragged a hand through his hair. “We’ll say none of this to anyone,” he said, glancing around the crowded room. His eyes lit on his son, still lounging against the fireplace mantel, and the Baron watched him as if he now questioned even Trevor’s existence. “If we keep it hushed up,” he said slowly, “perhaps we can persuade Cornelia to leave Lucasta something anyway…”
Trevor straightened. “What if I agree with your wife and consider her bastard child beneath me?”
“It doesn’t matter tome,” Frotheringale said while the Baron spluttered. “I’ll still have you, Lucasta, even if you’re to inherit nothing.”
“Has everyone forgotten,” Jem said finally, “that Lucasta is to marryme? If you force her into anything, Pevensey, I’ll bring a suit against you.” He fixed a sharp eye on the Baron and then his son, the look he gave merchants he suspected of cheating him. “And you as well, Frotheringale.”
The Viscount paled under this threat, and the Baron gnashed his teeth. Trevor smirked. All three men understood that, with his deep pockets, Jem could wage a legal war that could last years and bankrupt them even if he didn’t win.
Lucasta rose. She looked ashen, but she held her chin high. When Jem went to her side she did not turn him away, but she didn’t look at him, either.
“If you will all excuse me,” she said, her voice steady and clear, though her lips trembled. “I have had a very trying—” She couldn’t finish the thought. Jem slipped his hand beneath her elbow and felt her shaking like the whiskers on a hare.
Everyone rose but her ladyship, who sat with her eyes fixed on her husband, frantic fingers mangling the lace of her skirt. Cecilia went to her brother, whispering something in his ear, while the Gorgons walked with them into the small entryway.
“We must discuss your forfeit, Queen Lucasta,” one of them said lightly.
“Not now, Annis,” Selina scolded.
Jem, with effort, drew his gaze away from Lucasta’s drawn, battered expression. “Forfeit?”
“For the first among us to accept a proposal of marriage,” Annis said.
“She must sing. In public. For money,” Minnie affirmed.
“No,” Jem said instantly. “Absolutely not.”
“Really?” Annis lifted her eyebrows in the haughtiest possible expression.
“You won’t allow it?” Lucasta gazed into his face with a questioning frown.
She looked at him as if she could see everything inside: his tangled guilt and loyalties about his family, the burden of worrying about their fates, the constant wearying decisions to be made about the business.
The fear that, with this new revelation, he could not in good conscience give Lucasta Lithwick his honorable name.
And the deeper, larger fear that, after all they’d been through, she would not find him the man she wanted, nor the man she wanted him to be.
No better than he was. Hadn’t she said that from the very beginning?
“Allow what?” Jem asked with apprehension.
“Allow me to sing. In public venues. Before an audience.”
His heart sank, and he pressed on her elbow to encourage her to continue up the stairs, away from the others. She went, pausing on a small landing above. Through an open door hesaw a small parlor filled with more musical instruments than he knew how to name.
The room breathed Lucasta in every aspect, from the soft watercolor landscapes on the walls to the way the drapes were thrown back to admit light, the bundles of music heaped in baskets and neat piles, with here and there a dried flower adding a delicate fragrance to the air. It was completely expressive of her mind, tidy but not rigid, and her personality, warm, gracious, welcoming, but also disciplined, ambitious, and possessed of a talent he couldn’t begin to comprehend.
“Lucasta.” He faced her, placing his hands on her upper arms. She was lithe and firm and strong, yet supple to the touch, and the urge to pull her against him was unbearable. “I will offer you the protection of my name. I will give you every material comfort you ask for. I—It matters not that your birth was irregular.” How could he possibly hold that against her, when he had accepted his natural born siblings into his home and his life?
