The duchess threw up her hands. “Don’t eat me, dear child. Evidently I misunderstood. You shall tell me it all presently.” She eyed Apple again. “But tell me this, if you please.”
Feeling begrudging still, Apple met her eyes boldly. “Tell you what?”
“Do you love him?”
Apple’s heart cracked. For the life of her she could not prevent the sob that leapt from her chest into her throat.
A pair of soft arms caught about her, and the velvet cheek of her mother was set against her own. “Hush, my poor girl! Oh, hush, my darling child! I know. Oh, I know how much it hurts.”
The spurt of tears did not last long. Insensibly comforted by a feminine touch she’d never before experienced, Apple let the gentle rocking soothe her into quiet. At length she was able to draw away and the duchess released her. Apple sniffed and groped unavailingly for a handkerchief.
“Here, take mine.”
She accepted the little square of linen and let out a giggle. “Alex is always having to give me one of his.”
A mellow laugh greeted this. “Fortunately, I always keep several about me.” Apple dried her cheeks and blew her nose, and then proffered the crumpled object. “Keep it. A memento.”
Apple crumpled it even more as her fist closed over it. She looked at the youthful countenance beside her. “I hardly remember my mother. I mean, my adoptive mother.”
“Then may I hope you will take me in that capacity?”
The words were uttered in a soft, tentative voice, a hopeful note within it.
“I don’t know. I dare say we shall never meet again after today.”
An astonished look greeted this. “Why in the world should you think so?”
“Well, I supposed you only wished to satisfy yourself that I truly am your daughter. And now that I know it for the truth…”
“You believe you must hide yourself away in shame?” Her mother sighed. “Sometimes I almost wish I had been sent away to make a life with you. It happens, you know. A young widow with a small child appears in a new area, with a new married name and an inexplicable allowance. We might have been very happy together.”
Apple quashed this notion without hesitation. “It’s of no use to think of that now, is it?”
The duchess laughed out. “Heavens, but you are so like your father! In character at least. Do you fly into rages?”
Apple flushed. “Now and then.”
“You have his temperament and my rebellious nature. You poor child, what a dreadful combination.”
An irrepressible giggle escaped Apple. “I must tell Alex. He will be perfectly in agreement.”
Then remembrance hit and her spirits plummeted. She forgot to compose her features and the duchess clucked at her.
“Oh, you are certain you must lose him, are you not?” She gathered Apple’s hands into her own and held them fast. “My dear little Appoline, cannot you tell I am determined you shall not be made unhappy? You shall not suffer for my sins any more, I promise you.”
Apple returned the pressure of her mother’s fingers, but her heart did not lift. “You can’t change the past. There is nothing you can do.”
“Oh, but there is.” To Apple’s utter astonishment, her eyes danced. “I may be a duchess, but I am at heart nothing more than a giddy girl in love, just as I was all those years ago. I care no more for the world’s opinion now than I did then, my child.”
“But you did care. Or you would not have given me up.”
“My dearest Appoline, I was but sixteen years old. I was forced to do as my parents dictated. But that is all at an end. There is only one difficult task before me, and that is to persuade my dear Godfrey.”
Mystified, Apple blinked. “Persuade him of what?”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Only slightly acquainted with Lady Mere, Alex remembered her vaguely from his childhood. She had been apt to live retired, unlike her old friend his mother, an active member of the social whirl. But that did not prevent him from taking her to task the moment he arrived in the Green Saloon.
