After a Fashion (39 page)

“Besides having a dog named Peabody, I used to have a dog named Harriet,” Margaret said slowly. “It’s odd that you’d take the last name of Peabody, and have a niece who just happens to have the name of Harriet.”

“A peculiar coincidence to be sure,” Jane said. “But surely you know that’s all it is, Margaret.”

Margaret’s face suddenly paled as she raised a shaking hand to her lips. “What . . . have . . . you done?”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Don’t . . . lie. You were behind the ransom, weren’t you . . . Which means . . . you are not only a thief—you’re a murderer as well. You murdered my daughter, and then . . . your twisted sense of humor had you giving my dogs’ names to your niece—whatever the relation.”

“I’ve never stooped to murder, Margaret, and I can prove that, given that your daughter is standing right behind me.”

A collective gasp rose from the crowd right as Harriet felt the room begin to spin. She feared she was going to faint, but then Jane grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, giving Harriet a clear view of the duchess, who just happened to be . . .

Harriet’s thoughts came to an abrupt end, and the room stopped spinning when Jane let out a burst of maniacal laughter before she released a grunt, dropped her hold on Harriet, and . . . from her reticule pulled a pistol, which she began waving wildly around.

The room fell completely silent once again.

“Fine, so now you know.”

The duchess stared at Harriet for a moment, but then turned back to Jane. “Why?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Humor me.”

“I despised you, had always despised you. You had everything I ever wanted—loving parents, money, a beautiful estate in the country, and a townhouse in Mayfair. You were the darling of the London season the year you debuted, while I was forced to lurk on the sidelines as your companion. It wasn’t fair. I hated you because you had everything, while I had nothing but a gambler
for a father and a weak mother who pushed me out of the house and forced me to accept that companion position with you.”

“I considered you more than my companion, Jane. I considered you my friend.”

Jane stopped waving the pistol. “You were never my friend, Margaret. You had to have known that I wanted Richard for myself, pictured myself a duchess quite often, but then . . . you snagged his attention away from me the moment he caught sight of you, and he never bothered to look my way again.” She gestured with the pistol to the duke, who was inching his way closer to the duchess. “Stop right there, darling, or I swear to you, I’ll shoot your precious duchess and be done with this for good.”

The duke held up his hands and stopped moving. “There’s no need for more violence, Jane. You’ve caused Margaret and myself no end of suffering, but if you’ll lower your weapon, I swear to you that I’ll do my very best to—”

“To protect me from prosecution if I spare Margaret?” Jane finished for him before she turned the pistol directly on Margaret and smiled. “You and Richard underestimated me once, my dear. I suggest you don’t attempt that again.”

“When did you decide to ransom my daughter?” Margaret asked.

Jane pursed her lips. “I do believe, since we’re being honest here, that I came up with my plan right about the time you announced to everyone you were expecting. The happiness surrounding your news made me downright nauseated, as did the adoring looks Richard kept throwing your way. I decided I had to leave because it was unbearable for me to witness your love. I had no love, no happiness, and no hope for a prosperous future, given that gentlemen had no interest in courting me since I was nothing more than your companion.”

She smiled. “Obviously I was going to need money, and a lot
of it, so . . . once your daughter was born, I decided holding her for ransom was the only way to get the money I desired.”

“But you never returned her after we paid the ransom . . . and who was that baby girl we buried in the family vault?” Margaret demanded.

Jane waved the pistol around. “Oh, I have no idea who that brat was, but you can console yourself in knowing that you gave a poor little soul—abandoned at the morgue, no less—a fitting burial.” She lifted her chin. “If you must know, after I volunteered to deliver the ransom—a quick bit of thinking on my part since I was delivering the money to myself—I had every intention to return your daughter to you, but . . . then I got to thinking. I’d been made to suffer so much while I was in your employ that I wanted you to suffer as well. What better way could there have been to achieve that than for you to believe your daughter was dead?”

“You’re insane,” Margaret whispered.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to claim I’m mad, more just a lady suffering from unrequited love who decided to get back at her tormentors.” Jane smiled. “I didn’t want to take over the care of Harriet, but I thought it would be poetic justice indeed if I were able to turn your aristocratic daughter into nothing more than a common thief.”

Finally finding her voice, Harriet whispered, “No wonder you were so upset when I refused to go along with your plans.”

“Shut up,” Jane snarled before turning back to wave her gun at Margaret. “So, there you have it, the truth at long last. The only thing that would have given me greater satisfaction would have been to learn you were unable to have other children. Given that the young lady hovering on the edge of the ballroom bears a remarkable resemblance to the duke, well . . . I suppose all of my wishes didn’t come true.”

Margaret drew herself up and took a step forward but stopped when Jane turned the gun on Harriet. “Don’t hurt her, Jane.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I? Harriet has always been an extreme disappointment to me, always refusing to join in with my confidence schemes. Because of that disappointment, I find myself reluctant to see her happy, or to watch all of you have a joyful reunion.”

The truth began to burrow into Harriet’s head, but before she could truly grasp everything that had been said, the sound of a pistol being cocked drew her attention. Jane was pointing the pistol directly at her, her eyes burning with hatred, and in that moment—likely her last moment on earth—she threw out a prayer to God, asking for forgiveness and—

A hair-raising howl suddenly filled the ballroom, and she watched Buford bound across the room and leap for Jane right as the sound of the gun going off reverberated around the room.

Pain sliced through her, and the sight of what she now knew was her mother’s face flashed in front of her, right before she collapsed to the ground and darkness slid over her.

22

V
oices, spoken in a hushed tone, broke through the dark and silent place Harriet found herself in, but for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to open her eyes. Straining to identify the voices, she tried to make sense of the words being spoken.

“What I find amazing about this whole situation is that neither you nor Victoria recognized Harriet straightaway.”

“Honestly, Margaret, it’s not as if that thought would have sprung to mind. Even though now, upon closer inspection, it’s clear Harriet bears a distinct resemblance to you. I, along with everyone else, believed our daughter to be dead.”

“I felt an immediate connection with her, even though it never entered my mind she was my sister.”

“You tried to steal me away from her, Victoria, even though you were told I was her fiancé.”

Harriet felt her lips twitch as the conversation taking place around her drifted through her mind. She tried to open her eyes again, but they wouldn’t cooperate, and then another, more soothing, voice sounded, and she drew in a breath, wanting to hear what Reverend Gilmore had to say.

What if he was there to administer a last prayer?

What if the reason she couldn’t open her eyes was because she was at death’s door?

She didn’t feel as if death was knocking at her door, but then again, she’d never actually been close to death, so perhaps this was normal. How long had it been since the ball and . . . what had happened to her?

Had she been shot?

Had Jane gotten away, or . . .

“I must agree with your husband, Margaret, in regard to not recognizing Harriet straightaway,” Reverend Gilmore was saying, pulling Harriet back to the conversation swirling around her. “When a person is believed to be dead, another person really can’t be expected to be looking for that person, even if that person is sitting right across a table from him at Delmonico’s.”

“Besides, Father didn’t really get to inspect Harriet closely at Delmonico’s, considering she set the place on fire,” Victoria added. “I have come to realize my sister is a very unusual lady—one I’m looking forward to spending a great deal of time with in the future.”

Relief was immediate, because mention of the future certainly sounded more promising than imminent death.

“Can you ever forgive me for convincing Harriet to go along with my plan to pose as my fiancée in order to secure the deal with you, Your Grace?”

Ah, that was Oliver’s voice—such a wonderful voice, masculine but with just a touch of ruefulness mixed . . .

“Call me Richard, and yes, of course I forgive you. If you hadn’t convinced my daughter to go along with your plan, Margaret and I would have never found her again.”

“Harriet wasn’t comfortable with what we were doing, but I can be quite persuasive when I set my mind to something, and . . . well, my original plan seemed to snowball into some
thing neither of us expected—that being complete and utter madness.”

“I’ve recently come to the belief that you and Harriet were brought together because God was setting matters to rights,” Reverend Gilmore said softly.

“You believe God wants me to be with Harriet?” Oliver asked.

“As to that, I can’t say. I do believe the two of you came together so that Harriet could finally experience the love of a true family, and that her mother, father, and sister, could finally meet the lovely young lady they’d been denied for so very, very long.”

She wasn’t certain, but she thought Oliver released a huff.

What could that mean?

Had he wanted Reverend Gilmore to confirm that they were meant to be together, because . . . It turned out she wasn’t just a hat girl, in fact . . . she was a lady, an honest-to-goodness lady who had a duke and a duchess for parents.

Surely that would make it perfectly acceptable for her to be with Oliver, but . . . what if he didn’t want to be with her, what if . . .

“Is she awake yet? It’s been hours and hours.”

Was that Millie or Lucetta?”

“No, but we’ve seen her twitching every once in a while, and the doctor did say, given that she took a blow to the head, that it might be more than a few hours before she comes to,” Oliver said.

“She won’t like it if she wakes up and finds all of us staring at her.”

Ah,
that
was Lucetta—the first one was Millie.

“I’m not leaving.”

Warmth flowed through her.

That was her mother’s voice, a mother she’d thought was long dead, but a mother who’d never stopped loving her, even though
she’d
thought Harriet was dead.

“Her original name was Julia?”

Harriet’s ears perked up again.

“It was, but I barely spent any time at all with her before Jane snatched her away,” Margaret said. “I still cannot believe the woman stole my child from me. She then decided I hadn’t suffered enough, so arranged for a dead infant, swaddled in my baby’s clothing, to be delivered to our country estate. Then, after waiting what she apparently felt was a sufficient amount of time—holding my hand and crying with me over my loss, no less—she then went off, took Harriet from the miserable person she’d paid to watch over my baby, and spirited her straight out of the country.”

“I’m still not exactly clear why she arranged for a dead infant to be delivered to you,” Victoria said.

“Because she knew that if your mother and I had any hope she was alive we would never rest until we found our little girl,” Richard said.

Someone let out a small sob, the owner of that sob becoming clear when Margaret started speaking again. “Jane caused me more pain than I can even express, but the mere thought of all my darling girl must have suffered because of Jane’s evilness breaks my heart.”

The pain in her mother’s voice had Harriet concentrating as hard as she could to open her eyes. Light blinded her for a moment, but then, a face swam into view, the face of her mother.

Harriet licked dry lips, swallowed, and tried to smile, knowing she failed miserably when her mother released another sob.

“I don’t want your heart to be broken . . . Mother,” she finally said, stumbling just a bit on the word
Mother
. “I never knew what I was missing, which makes this business of finding you all so much more delightful.”

With tears pouring down her cheeks, her mother moved closer,
and the next thing Harriet knew, she was lifted up and cradled in her mother’s arms, the scent of violets tickling her nose.

How long she stayed there, Harriet couldn’t really say. She heard people leaving the room, most of them crying, but she couldn’t raise her head to offer them reassurances—she could only cling to the woman she’d never known, even as she sent a prayer to God, giving thanks for the gift He’d bestowed on her.