She was too distraught to eat and left the dining room to seek out Vanessa. She found her in the room she’d been given in the west wing. She didn’t even think to knock and realized too late that she couldn’t treat Vanessa as a child any longer. But she didn’t apologize. She had caught Vanessa in a pose before the mirror of an empty wardrobe, examining herself in a lovely aqua frock, not one of the twins’ colors.
Vanessa merely glanced over her shoulder and, seeing her mother, looked down at the ratty-looking boots she was also wearing. She casually said, “I forgot to fetch shoes when I grabbed the dress.”
“You don’t need to fetch anything. Your room was prepared for you the day your trunks arrived. Why didn’t you arrive with them?”
Vanessa shrugged nonchalantly. “I thought to see a bit of London first, since Father gave me full access to his house there.”
“I bought another house in London. I didn’t feel comfortable going back to that one.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Kathleen drew in her breath at her daughter’s disparaging tone. So much for keeping their discourse neutral. Or making peace, for that matter. That wouldn’t happen unless Vanessa would listen to the truth. William had refused to listen, but she really had no choice but to try with her daughter.
“Have you told the twins anything yet?” Kathleen asked.
“Have you? But when d’you think I had the opportunity? You think I sat down at the dining table dressed as I was? I came up here instead to change my appearance. I decided not to rub in my preference in clothes any further.”
“Thank you for that, but they can’t hear your version of why their father went away, Nessa. It simply isn’t the truth.”
“So Father didn’t find you in bed with another man?”
Kathleen’s face felt as if it were exploding with heat, but she couldn’t avoid this. At least Vanessa, who had it all wrong, had to understand that she’d had no choice.
“You’re being naive,” Kathleen said sharply. “But I should have known you were too young to understand that sometimes a woman has to take extreme measures to protect her family and all she holds dear.”
“And?”
“There is noand. I did nothing wrong!”
“Other than split our family apart? If that’s the rubbish you tried to feed Father, I’m not surprised he didn’t listen. But I know too much to listen to platitudes at this point, Mother. Save them for the twins. Maybe they won’t mind that you aren’t offering an actual defense for your indiscretion. You know, I think I would rather have heard the oldest excuse there is, that you fell in love with Henry Rathban and just couldn’t help yourself.”
Kathleen sighed. “No, that wasn’t it a’tall. Henry and I were old friends. He’d even competed with your father to win my hand all those years ago, though there was never any chance of that happening. I loved your father then, and I still do. But Henry and I became reacquainted when he came to London in the spring when I was visiting my friends as I usually did for a few weeks each year. Your father didn’t always join me, and that time I was there without him and was flattered by Henry’s attention. His family is old wealth, powerful, and held in high regard by theton. And he was amusing. There might have been some harmless flirtation but not the sort that would lead to anything.”
“Yet it did,” Vanessa said.
“No, it didn’t. He came to the London house and tried to kiss me, but I rebuffed him strongly and told him to get out. He was actually amused! And he told me, ‘Everyone will think we are lovers, I’ll make sure of that—unless we do actually become lovers, then I’ll keep it secret. Your reputation will remain sterling, our spouses won’t get hurt, and we can enjoy ourselves. I’m making it easy for you, Kathy. You know you want to.’ He was so confident. I think he really believed there was something more between us, when there wasn’t. But I was too shocked at the time to answer him and he left. But I realized because our acquaintances thought we were already friends, and we had been seen laughing together, dancing together, that if he did actually spread that rumor, it would cause a full-blown scandal because no one would doubt it was true. Henry had very cleverly set the trap for me by showing up at the events I attended and spending so much time at my side, almost as if we’d gone to those events together.”
“So you gave in?”
“No, I wasn’t going to! I left the house to go to his elder brother Albert, who I hoped would convince Henry to call off the threat. But Henry was waiting outside for me on the step. He’d guessed exactly what I’d intended to do. He laughed at me and said, ‘D’you think my brother will care? He’ll consider this such a trifle I’ll only get a slap on the wrist, but before you even reach Albert to tattle on me, the rumor about our affair will have been spread all over White’s. I’m going there now. You’ll be shunned by theton, Kathy. And you might want to think about your daughters and what a scandal like that will do to them.’ ”
“So you were going to engage in scandalous behavior to defuse a fake scandal?”
“The moment he mentioned you girls I knew I had no choice. Even if a scandal like that died down, it would rise up the moment you went to London for your come-out and ruin your chances for a good match, then the same thing would happen to your sisters. I couldnotlet that happen. Your father accepted his exile for the exact same reason, to protect you girls from scandal.”
“You could have denied all of it!”
“It doesn’t work that way, Vanessa. Once gossip like that spreads, it never really goes away. My friends might believe me, but no one else would. There would always have been whispers. And I would have lost your father anyway because he would still have challenged Henry. No matter what I did, nothing would be any different than it is right now. So I chose to protect you girls from that scandal.”
“And Father showed up instead?”
“Yes, but he didn’t give me a chance to explain. He kicked me out of the London house. When I returned the next day to explain, the servants wouldn’t let me in. I waited, but when William came home, he walked right past me without a word as if I were invisible. He was still too angry. So I went home to Dawton Manor and waited for him to come for an explanation.”
“Did you ever tell him what you just told me?”
“He never gave me a chance to in London. So I didn’t know he’d challenged Henry to a duel or the results of it until William came to Cheshire to gather his belongings and leave the country. But yes, I told him everything then, I just don’t think he heard a word of it he was so enraged. He kept saying I’d ruined his life. He didn’t consider that mine was also ruined by that duel. I even offered to leave the country with him, but he said he never wanted to see me again.”
“Because you betrayed him. No matter how you look at it, Mother, whether you did it or not, youwouldhave slept with another man instead of letting Father know about Rathban’s threat to ruin you in a scandal.”
