“She’s going to be your sister-in-law, Misha, just as soon as I am on my feet again. Good to have you back, by the way,” Dimitri added, just before sleep claimed him.
“I had the impression he wasn’t too keen on marrying.” Mikhail glanced at his siblings questioningly.
Nikolai and Anastasia were both smiling as they moved quietly out of the room, but it was Nikolai who suggested, “I guess someone changed his mind.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
“Lady Katherine, are ye receivin’ this mornin’?”
Katherine glanced up from the tally books with a sigh. “Who is it this time, Fiona?” When would her neighbors stop being so blasted nosy?
“She said she was the Duchess of Albemarle.”
Katherine simply stared at the girl while the color slowly receded from her face. Dimitri’s grandmother? Here? Did that mean… No, if Dimitri were in England, he would have come himself. Wouldn’t he?
“My lady?”
Katherine focussed on the maid again. “Yes, I’ll see her. Show her into the— Wait, she is alone, isn’t she?” At Fiona’s nod, she said, “Very well. On second thought, show the lady in here. My office is more informal. And bring some refreshments too, Fiona.”
Katherine didn’t move from behind her desk. She sat there, worrying the tip of her quill between her teeth, and growing more and more nervous by the second. Why was Dimitri’s grandmother coming to see her? There was no way she could know anything. No one knew the truth, not even her father.
The Earl had been so understanding in the one letter she had received from him before she left Russia, but that was in answer to the letter she had sent him, which was composed of elaborate lies meant to calm his concern and assure him she was fine, just not ready to come home yet. She couldn’t tell him the truth, for a father’s duty was to avenge his daughter’s honor, and she wanted none of that.
The tale about being kidnapped by mistake and ending up in Russia was as close as she came to the actual truth. She made use of the excuse she had given the Ambassador by claiming that shehadwritten immediately upon reaching Russia, but the letter must have become lost and she had only just learned that no one knew what had happened to her. And then in her indomitable way she informed him that as long as she had been forced on this trip, she was going to take advantage of it and travel a while more. He wasn’t too happy about that, but he wished her well and had included a tidy sum to see to her expenses.
Yes, he had understood, until she had arrived home with Alek three weeks ago. Alek he didn’t understand at all, nor why she refused to make excuses for him, saying simply that she had fallen in love and children were the usual result of such happenings. The biggest bone of contention between them was that she wouldn’t name the father, said only that she had met him while traveling through Russia, and no, she simply didn’t want to marry him. What were they to tell people? Absolutely nothing.
Katherine wasn’t the first to bring home a baby from her travels, but she wasn’t about to claim it was an orphan she had found. That excuse had been given so often by other highborn ladies that it simply would not have been believed. Since Katherine St. John wasn’t considered the type to indulge in an affair, she trusted that the rumors and speculation about her wouldn’t be too damaging. She was proved right. The general opinion, though she wasn’t aware that dear Lucy had started the rumor, was that she was a widow now, so devastated by her husband’s death that she refused to talk about him.
This amused her. It allowed her to ignore all inquiries about her son’s father without the least bit of embarrassment. Not that she was ashamed. She was, in fact, so proud of her son that she delighted in showing him to anyone and everyone who asked to see him. But anyone and everyone did not include Dimitri’s grandmother.
Alek unfortunately had that notorious Alexandrov face, as well as his father’s coloring. Not that Katherine wasn’t delighted with the way he looked, but he was too obviously Dimitri’s son. The Duchess would have only to look at him to see the resemblance. In some future meeting between Dimitri and his grandmother, Katherine’s remarkably Alexandrov-looking son would be mentioned, and then Dimitri would know that she had left him, knowing she carried his child; that she had refused to marry him, knowing she might be denying him his heir. He wouldn’t take too kindly to that. He might even try to wrest Alek from her. She could not take any chances.
At the sound of a throat being slightly cleared, Katherine jumped to her feet nervously. “Your ladyship, please come in.” She indicated the chair opposite her desk. “I understand you are acquainted with my father. He’s in London, if you came to see—”
“I’m here to see you, my dear, and please let us dispense with formalities. I would like it if you would call me Lenore.”
Lenore Cudworth wasn’t anything like Katherine might have expected, though what she had really expected she didn’t know, except that some ladies of the Duchess’s stature and age clung to the old ways, even to wearing outdated clothes, some even still powdering their hair. Lenore was dressed in a stylish traveling suit, vivid in color, her only concession to her age being her hair, which was done up neatly in an older style that quite suited her. It was silver-gray, though her face bore few wrinkles. She was still a very handsome woman, and Katherine was unnerved to see from where Dimitri got his dark brown eyes, for hers were exactly the same, if a little warmer, with infinitely more laugh lines surrounding them.
“You mustn’t be nervous.”
“Oh, I’m not,” Katherine quickly assured her. Blast, she was off to a bad start. “And please call me Kate. My family does.”
“And what does Dimitri call you?”
Katherine’s eyes flared, giving her away before she could ask, “Dimitri who?” “Why have you come here?” she asked instead, bluntly, fearfully now.
“To meet you. To satisfy a curiosity. I have only just learned that you have returned to England, or I probably would have come sooner.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you the type to sniff about for a scandal, your ladyship.”
Lenore laughed despite herself. “Oh, my dear Kate, how delightfully refreshing to meet someone who doesn’t mince words. But no, I assure you I’m not a scandalmonger. You see, I received a rather long letter last year from Dimitri’s aunt on his father’s side—we will agree you know my grandson?” When Katherine didn’t so much as blink, Lenore smiled, undeterred. “Well, at any rate, Sonya, Dimitri’s aunt, does so love to complain to me about his many amorous peccadilloes. For years she has written, undoubtedly trying to disillusion me into believing the poor boy is a lost cause, which I have never believed for a moment. I would have discouraged her letters if they weren’t so amusing. But this particular letter wasn’t amusing at all. She told me that Dimitri was now bringing his…women, shall we say? That he was bringing his women back from England now and that he had gone so far as to install one in his own home.”
Katherine had gone quite pale. “Did she happen to mention her name?”
“I’m afraid she did.”
“I see.” Katherine sighed. “She never understood why I was there, you know. It certainly wasn’t what she thought. And I doubt Dimitri ever did own up—oh, this is beside the point. You—you didn’t bring this information to my father, did you?”
