His Obsession (25 page)

Suddenly, Kate’s eyes widened. “Richard is in
London.”

“The earl?” Edgar inquired, reaching for a
biscuit on the tray.

“Did you see him there? Please tell me that
you didn’t,” Kate pleaded.

“No. Can’t say that we ever saw the
gentleman,” Edgar informed her. “Good thing, too. Sometimes, he’s
in a terrible mood. It would have spoiled your mother’s trip
entirely.”

“I don’t believe this,” Kate murmured,
clutching her aching forehead.

Edgar frowned at his daughter, not liking her
tone at all.

“Is it gone?” Kate whispered.

“Is what gone?”

“The money, Father,” Kate confirmed. “The
earl’s money. Have you spent it all?”

“Now, don’t you worry your pretty little head
about that. Everything is fine now,” Edgar assured her, finally
bending down to pick up the cup and saucer lying on the carpet.

“Now, perhaps. But what about tomorrow?” Kate
asked.

“Eh? What are you talking about?”

“I’m not stupid, Father,” Kate noted. “I read
the documents, too. You can’t possibly buy all of these things with
only the stipend the earl allotted you.”

“Well, I should say not!” Edgar heartily
declared. “It was a ridiculous sum. The man must be living in the
Dark Ages to think that things cost so little these days.”

“You weren’t supposed to buy anything but the
necessities,” Kate advised. “Don’t you see?”

“Yes, I see,” Edgar bristled. “What I see is
that you – you’re poking your head into our financial affairs,
that’s what! Did he send you here? Did that wretched husband of
yours tell you to give us a spot check or some such
foolishness?”

“It isn’t foolishness. Not when you’ve used
his money for these, these --”

“Trifles?” Edgar helplessly supplied.

Kate frowned at her Father’s choice of words.
“Hardly trifles. And my husband is not wretched. The earl bent over
backwards to help our family recover. Why he even fetched you out
of the county goal himself.”

Edgar’s eyes widened. “You know about
that?”

“Of course, I know.”

Edgar sat down hard and reached for another
biscuit to make himself feel better.

Kate sighed miserably. “How could you use him
so ill? You make me ashamed that I was ever a member of this
family.”

Edgar’s face reddened in anger.

“Now see here, my girl. You can’t just waltz
in here, pretty as you please, and insult the family,” Edgar
blustered. “After all, I am your father. I deserve your respect, no
matter what.”

Kate lowered her head. He was right, after
all. Perhaps she had come on a little strong.

“Besides,” Edgar continued. “What goes on in
this house is no longer any of your concern. You have a new life
with that – that – the earl. You’ll always be welcome, of course,
but you should be turning your attention to running your own
household, not ours.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate apologized.

“Well. So, you should be,” Edgar firmly
declared, once more in control of the conversation. “Dashedly
inappropriate, grilling your own father as though he were some sort
of common criminal.”

“But Father, what about all of these new
things? If the earl came in here, one look would be enough to give
it all away.”

Edgar surged to his feet.

“That gentleman is never to enter this
house!” Edgar angrily declared. “Do you understand?”

“How can you think that he won’t come to see
--?”

“You’re my daughter. Melanie made me promise
that I’d never turn you out,” he explained. “But the earl is an
exception.”

“Who is Melanie?” Kate inquired.

“As for that despicable devil you married, if
he sets one foot inside our front door now, I’ll have him thrown
out!” Edgar cried. “I swear, I will.”

Kate definitely might have debated that
possibility. The butler hardly appeared to have the strength to
evict such a young and vital man as Richard Warwick. The Earl of
Devonshire could easily turn the tables on the butler with one arm
tied behind his back.

“Who is Melanie?” Kate softly asked into the
silence.

Edgar sighed, his shoulders drooping with
sadness. Slowly, he walked to his desk and heavily fell into his
chair.

“I hadn’t meant for you to find out. Not like
this, anyway. Not when you’re angry,” Edgar explained. “But I
suppose that there is no good time, is there?”

Kate peered at per parent in expectant
confusion.

“Sit down, Kate. What I’m about to tell you
happened long ago, twenty years ago, in fact. Helen and Dorothea
don’t know. Hopefully, they never shall,” Edgar began.

Kate felt as though she were poised on the
edge of a precipice, on the brink of something that would change
her life. Slowly, she lowered herself into one of the chairs in
front of her father’s desk.

“Penelope had Helen two years before you were
born and we wanted another child. I wanted a son, you see. So, we
tried to have one. She lost three babies, one right after the
other. One was a boy. The other two – well, we never knew. She went
into mourning,” Edgar sadly told her. “The doctor said that if we
tried again, it would probably kill her.”

Edgar pushed back in his chair, almost
toppling one of the stacks of papers to the floor. Kate
straightened the makeshift pile of correspondence and bills, then
settled herself back into her chair.

“It was spring, a beautiful time of year.
Your mother was busy with Dorothea and Helen. She never came near
me any longer. We hadn’t even kissed for months,” Edgar
explained.

Kate blushed. It was difficult to imagine her
parents kissing each other and engaging in the same activities in
the bedroom as Kate had with Richard.

“Well, I was a young man back then. I didn’t
expect to – well, you understand, don’t you?” Edgar went on.

Kate silently lowered her eyes to her lap.
Now, at last, she did understand.

“I went to the theater with some friends one
night. There was a new play at Drury Lane and the leading lady was
simply marvelous. Her name was Melanie Pope. She was beautiful! She
had such large, expressive green eyes and her hair was as fiery as
a sunset. Brighter than yours, Kate, but not much,” Edgar
explained.

Kate shifted in her chair and finally looked
up.

“We ran into each other after the performance
and – well, one thing led to another. Melanie and I saw each other
often in the following weeks and we became quite close. We used to
meet after each performance. We talked long into the night about
our childhoods, our hopes and dreams. Even simple things.
Eventually, we fell in love,” Edgar continued. “That’s when she
found the baby.”

“A baby?” Kate gasped.

“Yes. Someone left a basket on her doorstep
with a baby inside. There was a note attached to it, too. It said
that in time, the mark on the baby’s hand would lead to its destiny
or something to that matter. It was all very mysterious,” Edgar
admitted.

Kate glanced down at the hourglass shaped
mark on her hand, but pulled her sleeve down to cover it. A shiver
of anticipation briefly shook Kate’s body.

“What happened?” Kate anxiously asked.

“Melanie kept the baby, of course. She
couldn’t abandon it like that when it was already an orphan. That
would have been cruel,” Edgar explained. “Then one day, Melanie
told me she was expecting a child - our child. As you can imagine,
I was ecstatic! She knew I was married and I couldn’t marry her.
Still, she desperately wanted our baby.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Kate
asked in puzzlement.

“I’m coming to that. Patience, my dear,”
Edgar requested. “Melanie worked for a while, but she stopped when
it became too difficult for her. We located a house nearby in a
modest neighborhood. She spent the rest of her confinement
there.”

Kate began to feel an odd tingling sensation
in the back of her neck. Her father was attempting to tell her
something in the most roundabout way possible. She sensed that it
was important, too, so she continued to humor him.

“When I was away on business, the baby came.
The child was early. There had been no reason to expect – It was
horrible. There was so much blood. Something was terribly wrong.
One of the servants ran for the doctor, but she was involved in an
accident herself. The doctor never came. By the time I found
Melanie . . .”

Edgar turned his head away, biting his lip to
stop it from quivering.

“Melanie was near death and the baby boy was
stillborn. All the same, Melanie made me promise to care for the
child she’d already been given.”

Edgar stared at Kate, pinning her with a
knowing gaze.

“I’ve never broken that promise,” Edgar
vowed.

Kate blinked at the implication in her
father’s eyes.

Edgar nodded and smiled at her. “Yes, Kate.
It was you.”

Kate paled, shaking her head in
disbelief.

“Penelope isn’t your real mother,” Edgar
confirmed.

Slowly, Kate rose to her feet and walked
toward the fire. Somehow, she needed to distance herself from this
startling news.

Kate’s thoughts were a jumble, confused by
the shock of what her father had just revealed. Somehow, as she
thought back, it all made perfect sense. Suddenly, it was very
clear why she looked and acted so differently from her sisters.

No wonder Penelope always seemed to favor
Dorothea and Helen, her own daughters, over Kate. No doubt,
Penelope had been forced to accept the child of her husband’s brief
association with an actress into her very own household. What woman
wouldn’t have resented that, much less tolerated it for over twenty
years?

Edgar reached into his bottom drawer and
carefully withdrew a small wooden box.

“She would have wanted you to have these,”
Edgar quietly explained. “Melanie wasn’t a wealthy woman, but they
were all she had.”

Slowly, Edgar brought Kate the box and held
it out to her. With shaking fingers, Kate accepted it and carefully
lifted the lid.

The jewelry inside the box was relatively
simple. Kate’s fingers gently sorted through a pearl necklace with
matching ear bobs, a small gold chain, a broach of silver with
paste stones set into it and a ring. The ring drew Kate’s attention
immediately and she lifted it into the light.

Edgar smiled, understanding Kate’s sudden
interest.

“Unusual, isn’t it?” he asked. “Melanie loved
that ring. It never left her finger in all of the time that I knew
her.”

The ring was indeed unique. Set into a
background of black enamel, a rearing silver lion roared his fury
at the world. Two small rubies marked his eyes, winking
mysteriously at Kate. The castle tower at the lion’s feet sported
an emerald of similar size. Kate rolled the ring over in her
fingers and noticed there was writing on the back.

“There’s some sort of inscription. It’s hard
to make out. There’s something, then it says ‘my love forever. B –‘
I can’t quite make it out.” Kate asked.

Edgar carried the ring into the light, but he
couldn’t read anything more than Kate had.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know there was an
inscription,” Edgar mused aloud. “You keep it now, Kate. The ring’s
yours.”

Kate sank into a chair, still shocked by what
her Father had revealed to her. Gently, Kate slid the ring over the
third finger on her right hand. It was a perfect fit.

“I can’t believe all of this. All this time
and you never told me. Why?” Kate asked.

Edgar shrugged his shoulders and chuckled.
“At first, you were too young to understand. Then, I didn’t know
how to begin. Time and again, I tried to tell you, but somehow the
words never came out.”

Thinking back now, Kate thought that she
remembered a few of those meetings. Most of them had occurred in
this very study, behind closed doors. Somehow, during every
conversation, they’d apparently gotten off track. Often, the
conversation veered in the direction of Kate’s latest discovery in
the garden or to her questions about geography, science or
mathematics. Edgar had eagerly embraced her inquiring mind. It was
now very clear why he had.

“My– my mother’s people – did the note say
where they came from?” Kate tentatively asked.

Edgar shook his head. “Melanie rarely spoke
of it. It seemed to be a sore spot. There must have been some
falling out before I met Melanie. From what I remember, however,
they came from Sussex.”

Kate nodded. Then she rose and reached for
her damp cloak.

“Where are you going?” Edgar asked.

“To London, Father. That’s what I came to
tell you,” Kate explained.

“Will you be gone long?”

“I don’t know,” Kate admitted.

“What about the wedding? You should be here
for your sister’s wedding,” Edgar reminded her.

“Step-sister,” Kate corrected. “Richard is in
London, too. I shall join him there. We shall try to return before
Frederick and Helen are married.”

“I should certainly hope so.”

Kate pulled the cloak around her shoulders
and turned for the door.

“Kate, I – I’m sorry. I never meant to upset
you. It was wrong of me to keep the secret for so long, but the
right opportunity never came up,” Edgar apologized. “Can you
forgive me?”

“For the accident of my birth and unexpected
arrival, perhaps, but not for wasting the earl’s money. If Richard
ever finds out what you’ve done – then God help us all.”

Kate, Elizabeth and Ellen departed for London
the following day. The morning mist soon lifted, revealing a
brilliant yellow sun, which cast an approving glow on everything
below. Kate took that as a good omen.

Elizabeth was in high spirits and Ellen’s
eyes were as round as saucers as they rolled through the unfamiliar
countryside. Elizabeth peered at her silent traveling companion
more than once, with questions lingering in her eyes, but Kate said
nothing of significance. The perceptive young woman eventually
discerned that it wouldn’t be prudent to reveal confidences in
front of Kate’s maid. So, other than commenting about the weather
and the countryside, Elizabeth wisely kept her thoughts to
herself.