He shook his head. “I’d heard rumors your father was unbalanced. Now I see it runs in the family.”
Rage shot through her at the comparison. “How dare you equate me to that man?”
“How dare you malign Miss White?” He raked a hand through his hair, anger clear in his face. “I think we’ve both said enough. If you’ll excuse me, Lady Madelina.” He offered a sharp bow and retreated.
Immobile, she watched as he strode from the room, shoulders rigid, head high. He didn’t halt. He didn’t look back.
If Mister Mclintock was so vile, why did each step that echoed down the hall feel as if it fell on her chest? Squeezing, crushing, until she could hardly breath. She raised a hand to her throat, half expecting to find something restricting the flow of air.
“Your beau did not look pleased as he departed,” Aunt Aubrey said, thumping her way into the room.
“He is not my beau,” Madelina whispered. Nor would he ever be.
Her aunt proffered a letter. “This came for you while you were having your row.”
Madelina took the folded paper with numb fingers. Attention fixed on the doorway as if she could conjure Mister Mclintock back, she cracked the seal and unfolded the page.
“You’ll have to look at it if you want to know what it says,” Aunt Aubrey said.
It took effort to drag her gaze from the empty doorway to the page.
I know what was revealed the night your mother died. Leave London or the world shall learn your secret.
Madelina stared at those two lines. Only she’d been there, and her parents and…the woman whose presence began her parents’ argument. Whose gasp made Madelina’s mother look away and given her father the opportunity for murder.
“What secret?” Aunt Aubrey’s voice was sharp.
Madelina looked up from the page to find her aunt leaning close, scanning those words. Dread snaked through her. Aunt Aubrey did not take well to secrets.
Eyes like granite met Madelina’s. “What secret?”
“I…I never told you what my father said before her pushed her.”
“You said they argued about the woman he had with him. His mistress. The one who gasped.”
Madelina offered a shaky nod. “But she didn’t gasp because Mother said she had lovers.”
Her aunt’s gaze flicked to the page, then back up. “Why, then?”
“Because my father admitted he and Mother were never truly married.” Madelina swallowed, her throat so dry, her words came out broken. “He said…he said William’s mother was still alive when he and my mother wed, so it wasn’t a real marriage. She wasn’t a marchioness and I…I’m not a lady. I’m a bastard.” Just like Mister Mclintock.
Aunt Aubrey’s gaze burrowed into Madelina, but Madelina refused to look away. It was Madelina’s secret. No harm had come from not sharing it. Her aunt did not need to know everything. Aunt Aubrey kept plenty of secrets from her, after all, like who’d shot her all those years ago.
“He didn’t even have the decency to legally wed my sister?” Aunt Aubrey hissed. Her visage twisted with such malice that, for the first time, Madelina felt relief that her father was dead.
She shuddered to think what her aunt would do to him could she but lay her hands on him. Undoubtedly, he would have deserved whatever horrors her aunt invented. No, a purely selfish fear roiled within Madelina. She didn’t want the nightmares that would come from knowing just how cruel her aunt could be.
Aunt Aubrey pulled the page from Madelina’s hand. She scrutinized both front and back, then turned and fed it to the fire. “Who was there that night?”
“I told you, I never saw her,” Madelina said.
“Yes, and I would believe you, if I didn’t know you keep things from me.”
“I don’t keep things from you.” At least, not many. To that list, Madelina would add the kiss she’d shared with Mister Mclintock. No good could come of mentioning that, and there was no reason to. No fear existed that it would ever happen again.
“Did you think I would look on you differently, girl?”
Biting her lip, Madelina studied the garish carpet. “I was ashamed. My birth is a sin. And, if I’m not truly a lady, not the rightful daughter of the marquess, who am I? I get no inheritance. I have no name. I am nothing.”
