“Indeed, Lady Ellinwood.” On instinct, Kincaid bowed lower and longer than he should have, and was rewarded for the gratuitous act when he caught a glint of approval in Lady Ellinwood’s eyes as he straightened. “I am a private investigator, hired by a young woman to find any family ties she might have in England. Your name brought me here. It should not take more than a moment of your time to discover whether you are, in fact, the family she has been seeking.”
Instead of looking annoyed by his intrusion (as nearly every other person whose door he’d knocked upon had, their lives far too busy to be bothered by a random stranger, and a detective at that), Lady Ellinwood appeared resigned.
“She’s an American? This young woman who has hired you.”
“Yes, she is,” Kincaid said earnestly as anticipation gripped him. “How did you know that?”
With a sigh, Lady Ellinwood leaned heavily onto her cane. “Because I suspected she would come here eventually. Her mother did.”
“Anne Thorncroft,” he supplied.
Lady Ellinwood’s gaze sharpened. “My niece’s name was Pratt when I met her. The only daughter of my dear sister and her ne’er-do-well American husband. Joseph’s blood must have been strong, because Anne received most of it. A more rebellious, disobedient child I’ve never met. I won’t say I wasn’t glad when she left. In the dead of the night, like a thief. Fitting, I suppose, given what she had stolen.”
“What did she steal?”
Lady Ellinwood blinked. “Why, the Duke of Caldwell’s granddaughter, of course.”
Chapter Fifteen
Joanna Thorncroft wasthe illegitimate granddaughter of a duke.
The knowledge resonated within Kincaid’s head like a gun being shot, its bullet tearing through any number of bodies before it reached its intended target.
Over tea and cucumber sandwiches, Lady Ellinwood explained to him in brisk, no-nonsense terms of what had transpired when Anne Thorncroft came to London for her Season debut…and the fallout that occurred after she had left.
It was, Joanna’s great-aunt told him, the worst kept secret in all of theton. People had since forgotten, naturally. There’d been far too many scandals over the past two decades to keep track of this one in particular. But she remembered. And she had no compunctions in revealing everything she knew.
“I was glad when Mabel returned to London with Anne. My sister and I were always close, and I was devastated when she ran off with that American scoundrel. Mabel’s daughter deserved a proper come out. Shewashalf-British, after all. Unfortunately, I learned too late that that side didn’t take.”
“You did mention she was rebellious.” Although he’d placed a sandwich on his plate, Kincaid did not eat. Instead, he dined on Lady Ellinwood’s every word, using them to form a picture of Joanna’s mother. A woman who, for better or worse, had obviously passed her traits on to her eldest daughter.
“Oh, worse thanthat,” said Lady Ellinwood, rolling her eyes. “The girl was too independent for her own good. Everyone agreed. Mabel needed to take a firm hand with her, but she never did. Never dared to, if I am being honest. When Anne found herself caught up in an affair with the Duke of Caldwell’s eldest son, I wasnotsurprised.”
“What was his name?” Kincaid asked. “The son.”
“Jason Weston, Marquess of Dorchester.”
JW.
“He’d buried his wife a month before the Season began,” Lady Ellinwood continued. “She died in childbirth. Twins, you understand. A boy and a girl. They both survived, but Lady Dorchester, may her soul rest in peace, did not. A tragedy, really. Thetonagreed as a collective to give the marquess his year of mourning before he remarried. Even though there wereplentyof eligible young ladies who could have benefited immensely from such a match. But what are we, as a Society, if we do not uphold our word?”
A bunch of greedy lemmings,Kincaid thought silently.
“Quite right, Lady Ellinwood.”
“Well, as you can probably guess, Anne did not adhere to our unspoken agreement. Within a week of her arrival, she was seen everywhere with the marquess. In the park. At the theater. They attended a private musicale at Kensington Palace! In the presence of a chaperone, naturally, butstill.” Lady Ellinwood paused to take a sip of her tea. “It was the very height of scandal. Especially after it became clear that the little chit was expecting.”
“Why didn’t the marquess offer to marry her?” Kincaid frowned. He knew that in Lady Ellinwood’s retelling, the Marquess of Dorchester was the victim and Anne was the perpetrator, but he saw it in a very different light.
Kincaid saw a young woman in a new country. Who missed her home, and the sweetheart she’d left behind. Whose headstrong nature did not permit her to fit in with theton’ssimpering elite. Who was lost, and lonely, and so far out of her depth she was all but drowning. He saw an older man. Titled, experienced, a new father who should have been home with his infant children. Perhaps the marquess’ interest in Anne began innocently enough. A harmless flirtation to take his mind off the death of his wife. But as soon as he put his hands on an innocent, it had devolved into something else.
“The pregnancy was not common knowledge,” said Lady Ellinwood before she stuffed a cucumber sandwich into her mouth and use a linen napkin to neatly brush the crumbs from her chin. “I only suspected it because I accidentally walked in on Anne after she was sick in a chamber pot. Still, I’m certain the marquess would have done right by her had she not run off. Do you know Mabel didn’t even tell me they were leaving? I was humiliated.Humiliated.”
“I can only imagine how difficult this all was for you,” Kincaid said blandly. “What happened then?”
“You mean after my sister and deflowered niece returned to America?”
He gave a clipped nod. It was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain a passive expression while Lady Ellinwood besmirched Joanna’s mother, but he was doing his best. With the exception of the Marquess of Dorchester, he was unlikely to find another source of such credible information. Because of Lady Ellinwood, he already knew infinitely more than he had, and he intended to present what he’d learned to Joanna as soon as he figured out a way to soften the shock that was certain to come when she discovered who her real father was.
