But Uncle Rafe and Aunt Emma were—and Uncle Ben and Aunt Diana. Uncle Marcus and Aunt Lydia. Charity and Anthony, Felicity and Ian, Mercy and Thomas.
In the end, she had been so very, very lucky to find her own place within this family. It was large and unconventional and so very messy sometimes. But it washers, and she wouldn’t havetraded it for anything. Every one of them had made room for her, welcomed her into the fold as if she had always belonged here amongst them.
Her fingers tripped through the paces of working the lock in her hands as if on instinct. Locked—tumblers tripped—open—locked again. The clicks and snaps seamless and rhythmic. “Uncle Rafe,” she said. “Would you happen to know anything about…about Lord Lockhart’s family?”
“Nothing but old gossip that isn’t worth repeating,” he said. “Why? Has he been haranguing you about Tansy again?”
“Not exactly,” she said sheepishly. “I was just wondering. I’d heard some rumors about his uncle.”
“Ah.” The faint scowl that tugged at his lips said more than words could have done. “I’d tell you that you ought not give much credence to rumors,” he said, “but in this particular case, I’d advise you to heed them. Mr. Marsden gives the appearance of being an affable sort, but—”
“He isn’t?”
“That would be a polite way of phrasing it. Suffice it to say that Lord Lockhart has got my sympathies, since Mr. Marsden will no doubt attempt to bleed him dry every bit as much as he once did Lord Lockhart’s father.”
Well, at least that was proof positive that Lord Lockhart had not misled her. “I suppose I must also sympathize, then,” she said. “Even if Lord Lockhart doesn’t like Tansy.”
Uncle Rafe chuckled. “Gracie, you’re the only one who likes that demon of a cat. And, more to the point, you’re the only one she doesn’t absolutelyloathe.”
“Speak of the devil,” Aunt Emma said, with an inclination of her head toward the drawing room doorway, “and she appears.”
Tansy entered the room with a particularly feline swagger, directing a casual hiss at Danny’s legs as she sauntered by. The people in the room parted as the Red Sea had done for Moses asshe passed, keeping well away from the reach of her claws. Even Rafe shifted closer toward the arm of the couch as Tansy stopped before it and coiled up to pounce.
“She’s not a demon,” Grace said as she patted her knee, and Tansy picked a delicate path across the cushions toward her, her grey tail swishing and flicking gracefully with each step. “She’s a perfectly lovely cat.” Tansy curled up upon her lap, settling in to nap as Grace rubbed her furry grey head affectionately.
“To you,” Aunt Emma said. “The last time I tried to pet her—onlytried, mind you—I thought she was going to take my finger off.”
“She ruined my cravat last week,” Uncle Rafe said. “Tore straight through it as if it were only paper. I’m fairly certain it was a warning that she could have gone for my throat, if she had had a mind to do it.”
Tansy blinked her large green eyes, the very picture of innocence. Turning onto her side, she tucked her face beneath one massive paw and began to purr.
Caught in between her claws was a single purple catmint flower, the evidence of a long and satisfying romp about his lordship’s garden. Grace plucked it out surreptitiously, crushing the petal between the tips of her fingers before it could be noticed by anyone else.
It seemed Lord Lockhart was a man of his word.
∞∞∞
It was a hell of thing to sit across the dining table from one’s mother and to know that you had been a mistake she regretted making. Henry listened with half an ear to Eliza’s animatedchatter as he furtively watched Mother eat her supper in the same mechanical way she did each evening—on those evenings she bothered to attend dinner. As if she were only going through the motions of life, with a sort of brittle fragility that suggested any cross word, any hint of strife or discord might splinter her to pieces.
She’d retreated within herself this last year. It had started the day Father had died, and with each day that passed, she had seemed to lose a little more of herself. Until her voice had dimmed to a whisper. Until she walked the halls like a ghost living out the repetitious cycles of the life that had once been hers.
Once, but no longer. Mother had surrendered it a bit at a time, and it had begun with the donning of her widow’s weeds. Though their mourning period had elapsed, she continued to wear them in tribute, he thought, to the husband she had loved so dearly.
He couldn’t recall the last time she had attended an event, though she had most certainly been invited. He couldn’t recall the last time a friend of hers had been admitted when they had come calling. He couldn’t recall even the last time she had left the house, except for the occasional walk in the garden.
The talk they had had just a few days ago, when she had tearfully informed him of his illegitimacy, had been the most they had spoken in weeks. Months, perhaps.
She simply did not know how to exist in the world without Father’s stalwart presence at her side. Father’s undeniable love and affection had, he thought, quelled the worst of the gossip about their relationship, and she had worn that adoration like a shield against the cruelty that theTonhad once slung at her.
They had once slung it at him, too. It had, thankfully, lost its traction before Eliza’s birth, but Henry remembered well enough just how many scrapes he’d become embroiled in during hisyounger days, in an effort to defend his mother’s honor. He’d always known his parents’ marriage had not come about under the best of circumstances.
He just hadn’t known exactly how dire those circumstances had been. How his very existence had led them to the precipice over which they were now precariously balanced. A fall from dubious grace that could come at any moment and ruin them all.
Mother couldn’t even bring herself to meet his gaze. He had never doubted that she loved him, but it was impossible to deny that his very existence had brought her shame. How many years had she agonized over those few days which had rendered him illegitimate in the eyes of the law? How many nights had she lain awake, this long-held secret burning in the back of her mind? Had she always wondered whether it would slip out, eventually?
Had Father also borne that shame? Had they regretted that they had never had another son—alegitimateheir who might inherit, should the truth of his birth reveal itself?
All his life, he’d striven to be the best son it was possible to be. To be honorable and good, of unimpeachable reputation and sterling character. To be upstanding and virtuous and moral. Only to discover he’d failed before he had even been born.
