The captain’s face burned scarlet. “Had my father lived, he would have far surpassed his sisters in greatness. But women dragged him low. And you broke his heart, refusing to marry him.”
Miss Darlington shrugged. “I would gladly have broken his heart, or even better put a sword through it, had I been able to find him.”
“Question,” Essie said, raising her hand. “What do you mean by ‘supposed father,’ Jem?”
Miss Darlington lifted her chin with a surfeit of dignity. “A lady does not lower herself to mathematics. Branwell Brontë might havebeen his father.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Or Chubber Darwin.”
“What?” exclaimed the entire company.
She shrugged. “Chubber Darwin. Nice chap, rather bookish; I think he went on to do something with animals.”
“You don’t mean Charles Darwin, do you?” Ned asked.
“Yes indeed,” Miss Darlington replied.
Morvath choked on a cry. He swallowed it with difficulty, his mouth twisting. “My father was ascientist?”
“Or Branwell,” Miss Darlington added. “Who really knows?”
The captain growled incoherently.
“I would have married either of them, but Chubber had just become engaged to his cousin and Branwell disappeared. I had no choice but to adopt you out.”
“Discard me,” he spat.
“Give you to a worthy couple who swore to love you with all they had.”
“All they had? Country peace, summers at the beach, rest on Sunday! What kind of life is that for a poet or pirate? I could have been captain of the infamous Darlington House!”
“Actually,” Petunia Dole put in, “Darlington House is entailed to the female, I believe? Unless you were a woman, it was never going to be yours.”
“Silence!” Morvath shouted. “You ruined my life—all of you! Depriving me of my birthright, stealing Cilla away from me, refusing me entry into your society.”
“Ourladies’society?” Olivia asked.
“But I will triumph!” Morvath went on. “I have all your houses. And soon the throne of England will be mine. No more queens! All women will return to the hearth where they belong, and men will once again be the masters!”
“Do you think he’s revealed his plot enough?” Petunia asked, slapping her jagged half-bottle against her hand.
“Yes,” Miss Darlington said. “Patrick, I’m sorry if you were hurt by me adopting you out, but the world makes love impossible for women sometimes, leaving us with no choice but loss and grief.” She shrugged. “Or rampant piracy. But I don’t want to hurt you, lad. I love you, always have, despite everything. Can’t we sit down over tea and—”
“No!”
“Very well. Cecilia, Plan B.”
Cecilia’s pulse stammered. She knew it was her duty to follow a senior member’s directive but could not so easily leave her aunt, or for that matter the old dream of defeating her father. Stepping from Ned’s hold, she reached into a pocket of her dress, pulled out the deadly item therein, and smashed it to the ground between Morvath and the Wisteria Society.
Everyone leaped back.
“Nooo!” Morvath howled. He raised a furious gaze from the cracked, rumpled volume ofWuthering Heightsto glare at Cecilia. “How dare you!”
“I have evolved beyond the point of wanting to read it,” Cecilia said.
“You—you are just like your mother—such a disappointment to me!”
“Thank God for that,” she replied.
Miss Darlington nodded briskly to her, and Cecilia almost smiled at such an effusive demonstration of approval.
