'Twas the Night After Christmas (34 page)

Maisie flashed her a pitying glance. “It’s not his carriage. Though it’s quite a fine one, I don’t recognize it.”

“Well, then,” the countess said smoothly, “let’s go see who it is.”

The four of them headed out toward the entrance hall, reaching it just as two people entered. It was a gentleman about Pierce’s age and a woman of about the countess’s age, dressed entirely in deep mourning, down to her ermine fur muff. A very odd couple, who looked a bit startled by the foursome coming to greet them before they could even be announced.

The countess came forward with a smile. “Good day, sir. I am Lady Devonmont. May I help you?”

He gave a bow, and his gaze flicked briefly over Camilla and
Maisie. “My name is Dominick Manton, and this lady is Edith Perry, the Viscountess Hedon.”

Lady Hedon gave a quick nod to everyone. Camilla couldn’t tell if it was because she was haughty or shy. Mr. Manton, a rather handsome fellow with eyes of a remarkable green, seemed oddly uncomfortable with his surroundings, too.

He nervously scanned the entranceway. “I was hoping to find Lord Devonmont here. I was told, when I met with his lordship at his town house this morning, that he was heading here directly.”

“His lordship is coming! His lordship is coming!” Jasper burst out.

“Jasper, we have guests,” Camilla chided him. “Hold your tongue.”

“Yes, Mama.” But his smile didn’t fade.

Camilla’s heart began to pound, and her ladyship cast her a look of mingled panic and joy as she said to the man, “Are you sure he—”

“His servants told me that he was, and I saw his equipage being loaded. Plus, he said he had to head off. But perhaps I was mistaken in where he was going.”

“Perhaps,” Lady Devonmont said. “Is there something
I
can do to help you?”

Mr. Manton glanced to Lady Hedon as if for direction.

“I see no need in waiting for his lordship,” she said, her eyes darting from Maisie to Camilla, and then settling on Jasper most oddly.

“Very well.” Mr. Manton smiled at them all. “I assume that one of you other two ladies is Mrs. Stuart?”

Camilla blinked, then stepped forward. “I’m Camilla Stuart, sir.”

As Lady Hedon’s wan cheeks grew even more pale, Mr. Manton said, “Is there somewhere we can speak privately, madam?”

Camilla looked to the countess, who said, “Why don’t you take the small parlor, dear? I’ll have refreshments sent in.”

“You are Mrs. Stuart’s employer?” Lady Hedon asked, obviously bewildered by her ladyship’s manner.

Camilla couldn’t imagine what business it was of hers but was gratified when her ladyship said, “I think of her more as a friend than an employee.”

“That’s good,” Lady Hedon said, to Camilla’s surprise.

Camilla led the guests into the little parlor, burning with curiosity to know what this was all about.

After everyone was in the room, Mr. Manton closed the door. “Before I explain myself, Mrs. Stuart,” he said, “I wish to assure you that I didn’t intend for this to happen. After his lordship asked me to look into . . . er . . . how you came to be at St. Joseph’s—”

“He did
what
?” she asked, not sure whether to be outraged or touched. It vastly depended on his reasons.

“Oh, he thought better of it later,” Mr. Manton hastened to add. “He told me to halt my investigation until he could speak to you about it, but by then the wheels were turning.”

“What wheels?” she echoed, thoroughly at sea.

“What Mr. Manton is trying to say,” Lady Hedon put in softly, “is that some months ago, after my husband died, I went to St. Joseph’s looking for you, but they weren’t sure where you worked anymore. So when Mr. Manton came to the orphanage
this week asking questions, they arranged to meet with him and then hastened to me to ask if I wished to be there. I said yes, of course.” Her tone grew arch. “Mr. Manton didn’t show up for the meeting, so I went to his office, but—”

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Camilla said, becoming more bewildered by the moment. “But who exactly are you, and why are you looking for me?”

Lady Hedon swallowed, then stepped forward to seize Camilla’s hands. “I, my dear, am your mother.”

Christmas Day

I
t had been snowing now for hours. It was melting almost as soon as it hit the ground, but it still made travel more difficult. And Pierce had only himself to blame for his being so late.

His stops in London had taken more time than he’d expected, and then he had stayed far too long at Virginia’s. Uncle Isaac and his new wife, Hetty, had shown up for the occasion, and he’d been forced to attempt to explain what was going on between him and his mother, which he hadn’t done very well.

There was too much he had to leave out, too much he couldn’t say until he had more answers. He’d talked briefly with his uncle, hoping that he could shed some light on the past, but Uncle Isaac could say only what Pierce already knew. When Pierce was eight,
Mother had asked Titus to raise him with his other children, and Titus had agreed.

After Titus died, Uncle Isaac had been asked to take up the mantle, and he’d done so, hoping that Pierce could be like an older brother to Virginia and the late Roger. Pierce had done his best with that.

Indeed, it was precisely because Virginia was like a sister to him that he’d had so much trouble getting away. And baby Isabel hadn’t helped matters any. The child was so amazingly winsome. He kept holding her, thinking that he and Camilla might have a little girl, too. And marveling that for the first time, the thought of having a child didn’t completely terrify him.

But he shouldn’t have lingered so long with his cousins because he’d been forced to drive through the night. It was nearly eight o’clock on Christmas morning, and his coach-and-four was only now approaching Montcliff.

Were they at breakfast? he wondered as the carriage halted and he leaped out, carrying a box in his arms. Mother and Camilla tended to rise early, so he wouldn’t be surprised. And it was Christmas morn, so Jasper had probably been up with the chickens.

He strode into the house and stamped the snow from his boots but found it oddly quiet. “Where is everyone?” he asked the footman who took his greatcoat.

“Her ladyship is in the drawing room, milord. And Mrs. Stuart—”

“Thank you,” he said, hastening off in that direction with his box. They were undoubtedly all in the drawing room, if that’s where they’d put the tree.

He couldn’t remember what they’d said about that, but Mother used to put it there.

Evergreens were draped on every available space, but for the first time in years, the smell of fir and cedar didn’t plague him with bad memories. Not now that he understood so much more.

He walked into the drawing room, then halted. Mother was sitting at the table alone, drinking tea and eating toast. The tree was nowhere in sight, but its absence didn’t register nearly as much as Camilla’s.

She must be getting dressed or something, which was just as well. What he had to say to Mother would best be said in private.

“Pierce!” she cried, a smile breaking over her face. She rose, then seemed to remember the circumstances under which they’d last parted, and her smile faded a little. “We . . . didn’t expect you.”

“I tried to get here for Christmas Eve, but I stopped at Virginia’s and—” He was babbling, for God’s sake. Fighting for calm, he set down his box and went over to her. Might as well get right to the point. “Mother, I don’t know how to tell you this, but since you refused to tell me anything about Gilchrist, I had an investigator look into your friendship with him.”

He expected her to try to escape the conversation, as always, but she just stared at him, her eyes wide. “I see. And what did he learn?”

“That before you married Father, you attempted to elope with Gilchrist.”

She swallowed, then nodded.

“So I figured out what Father was holding over your head—
the fact that you’d married him while already married to Gilchrist.”

“I did
not
!” she cried. “I was
never
married to Edgar. And Walter knew it, too. His blasted investigators couldn’t find one shred of evidence that I was ever married to Edgar because I
wasn’t
! We didn’t get that far.”

“Then why—”

“Because your father never needed any proof to use something to his advantage,” she said bitterly. She began to pace, her color high. “You know how Walter was. He felt his honor was besmirched. He told me that if I didn’t send my ‘bastard’ away and never see him again, he would drum up whatever evidence he needed to prove a prior marriage. He would pay witnesses and he would stop at nothing.”

Tears sparkling in her eyes, she halted to gaze at Pierce. “And he was just the man to do it, too. He would have disinherited you entirely! You would have lost everything—the title, the estate, your legitimacy!”

“I wouldn’t have cared,” he choked out, his throat tightening convulsively. “I would have had you. I would have had one parent, at least.”

“You say that now, as you stand in one of the several properties you inherited, with the weight of your title behind you,” she pointed out raggedly. “But you wouldn’t have thanked me if I had let that bitter, resentful man plunge you into poverty and disgrace at the age of eight.”

She lowered her voice to a hiss. “I slid from riches to poverty as a girl, my boy. I knew what it was like. And I didn’t live in disgrace,
as you would have had to do. No. I wasn’t going to let
my son
endure any of that just because my jealous husband had some foolish notion that you weren’t his. You have
no
idea how cruel life can be.”

He stood there, buffeted by her words. Life had certainly been cruel to her. Who was he to sit in judgment on what methods she had taken to protect him? He had never been a woman, entirely dependent on the men in her life. Men who’d failed her, one after another.

Still, there were things he didn’t understand. “So I really
am
the earl’s son.”

She fought to regain her composure. “I told you before—of course you’re his son. You were born ten months after we married.”

“There wasn’t any leeway in that? Because if there wasn’t, I don’t understand why he thought me a bastard.” That was the crux of it.

Apparently, it was the crux of it for her, too, for she’d gone white, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Mother?” he prodded.

She started pacing again, this time wringing her hands. “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You had to start stirring up the past, looking under rocks.”

This time he refused to let his temper get the better of him, though she was sorely trying his patience. “What do you expect?” he said quietly. “You stood there in the study and told me to my face—”

“Because you were going to ruin everything!” she cried. “If
I had weakened even one moment, if I had let you know how I felt and you had started coming round, he would have done as he threatened. I could see it in his face. He would have cut us both off out of sheer spite. The money you inherited from your grandmother? Gone. Your position in society, your inheritance, your title? Gone! And all because I—”

She broke off with a sob.

His heart breaking to see her so overwrought, he walked up to pull her into his arms. “Shh, shh, you don’t have to tell me.” He held her trembling body close, cursing himself for bringing her to this pass.

“I do have to tell you,” she whispered. “Camilla was right about that.” She lifted a tear-streaked face to him. “But if I had guessed for one moment what my stolen afternoons with Edgar would cost me . . . ”

And that’s when it hit him. They’d been wrong about her. She
had
risked it all; she
had
stood up to his father. She’d had an illicit affair with her cousin—her lover—and had paid the price. A very high price.

So had he.

That’s
why she wouldn’t tell him this before, why she wouldn’t admit the whole truth. Because she felt deeply ashamed. And obviously deeply guilty, too.

She ducked her head and pulled away from him. “Your father . . . was very enamored of me. And at eighteen I found it rather flattering, even though I was still in love with Edgar. Even though I had . . . given myself to Edgar.”

Mortification reddened her cheeks. “When your father discovered
on our wedding night that I was not . . . ” She swallowed. “I made the mistake of confessing all, admitting to having run off with Edgar. But I told your father—and I believed it—that I was past my youthful indiscretion. That I would be a good wife to him. And he forgave me.”

Her voice hardened. “Or so I thought, for he sometimes taunted me with it privately. It was like a burr under his saddle in the early years of our marriage. But we had you, and I tried to be content.” She cast Pierce a quick smile. “You were the only bright spot in those years.”

Pierce could hardly breathe. He knew what was coming, and he knew he should stop her from telling it. But he couldn’t. She needed to tell it as much as he needed to hear it.

“Then I went to your grandfather’s funeral, and Edgar was there.”