A Compromised Lady (36 page)

‘I intend to marry her,’ said Richard. ‘What the devil did you think? That I would take her as my mistress?’

Winslow shook his head. ‘You might have more success.’ An expression of regret crossed his face.

‘She seems quite determined not to marry you.’

Aberfield broke in. ‘She’s taken a foolish notion to raise the brat herself.’

Richard inclined his head. ‘So I understand. Naturally I will acknowledge the child as mine.’

Shocked silence fell in the room.

Winslow straightened. ‘You care that much?’ His voice was oddly expressionless.

Richard didn’t bother to reply. He was watching Aberfield, who had turned grey.

‘You can’t!’ he whispered.

With a harsh laugh, Richard said, ‘I’ve no desire to find out how thin your blood is, Aberfield, but I’m a Blakehurst. I can.’

‘Damn your eyes, Blakehurst!’ lashed Aberfield. ‘You really must want that fifty thousand to counten—’

He broke off, backing away as Richard took a single step towards him.

With the speed of a panther Winslow got between them.

‘Better not, Blakehurst,’ he said, his voice tinged with regret. ‘Much as he might deserve it, we can’t afford the scandal if the servants get wind of anything.’

‘Hah! There’ll be scandal aplenty if he’s fool enough to take the brat!’ snarled Aberfield. ‘From the reports I’ve had, the whelp’s the spit of all the Winslows! Blue eyes, fair hair—you think people won’t remember and put two and two together?’

Winslow swore softly, his hard gaze coming back to Richard.

Keeping his expression impassive, Richard said, ‘You’d better hope they don’t.’ His voice hardened.

‘Otherwise I’d have little choice but to let the entire story be known. And you wouldn’t make a pretty showing, would you?’

It could only be a last resort. Unthinkable for the child to have the truth forced on her.

Something must have showed on his face, because Aberfield said with renewed confidence, ‘Gives you to think, doesn’t Blakehurst?’ His expression became cunning. ‘You persuade the girl to give up this ill-judged start and I’ll arrange to release her money. No need to have it too carefully tied up.’

Richard opened his mouth to make an explicit and blasphemous recommendation about where Aberfield could go and what he could do with his offer when he got there.

Winslow’s cool voice forestalled him. ‘Not an insurmountable problem, sir.’ He shot a steely glance at Aberfield, and turned to Richard. ‘If I might make a suggestion?’

Richard nodded curtly.

A cynical glint in his eyes, Winslow said, ‘What I propose, Blakehurst…’

Thea stepped out of the chaise and stared up at the narrow house. A shiver passed through her at the forbidding aspect.

The entrance hall was grey. Grey and respectable. A pall of silence hung over the house. She waited impatiently while the maid who had admitted her took her card to the headmistress.

Eventually the study door opened and the maid returned, dropping another curtsy.

‘Miss Dale will see you now, ma’am.’

Steeling herself, Thea entered. This woman’s opinion did not matter to her, could not harm her.

She did not care what the woman thought.

Miss Dale rose. ‘Miss Winslow? I understand from your letter that you are come to remove Sophie Grey.’

Thea nodded. ‘That is correct.’

‘You understand that she is under the guardianship of…’ The woman hesitated, plainly unwilling to divulge the child’s guardian. She primmed her mouth. ‘I cannot simply hand her over.’

Thea took a deep breath. She would not shirk any of this. Easy to hand over Aberfield’s letter, which merely told Miss Dale that Sophie Grey was to be given into the charge of the bearer, Miss Winslow, but she would not. Sophie should be acknowledged as her daughter.

‘She has been under the guardianship of Lord Aberfield. Here is his letter resigning the charge to me. I am Sophie’s mother.’

A frown creased Miss Dale’s brow as she took the proffered letter. It deepened as she read it.

When finally she looked up, her eyes were cold. ‘I see. Very well, there is nothing more to say. I will have the child sent for and a maid shall pack her belongings.’

She rose. ‘You will excuse me, I am sure, Miss Winslow.’

‘Certainly,’ said Thea. ‘There is one thing—Sophie will not be told who awaits her, just that she is to be taken away to a home of her own. You will leave it to me to explain who I am.’

A chilly nod was the only reply and Thea could have sworn the woman drew her skirts aside as she passed.

She waited, fear creeping through her tiredness. What if the child disliked her? What if she looked like her father? What was she to do if she could not love the child? Sophie; her name was Sophie.

She was not ‘the child’ any more. She was a little girl with a name, and soon there would be a face with the name, a personality…it was not possible to hate a child of seven, no matter what her father had done.

The door opened and the maid came in. ‘Miss Sophie.’ Then, over her shoulder, ‘Come along now, do. She’s not about to bite you. In you go.’

A small child came through the door with obvious reluctance, her eyes huge in a pale face.

The maid gave her a kindly push over the threshold. ‘There you are then, lass. Don’t be shy. The lady’s come to take you to a real home.’

For a moment Thea simply stared as the maid closed the door. The soft fair curls were familiar, blue eyes gazed back as a small hand crept to the mouth.

‘Sophie?’

A nod. Nothing more.

‘Did they tell you anything? Who I am?’

The head shook faintly.

‘No, ma’am. Just that…just that you are taking me away…to your home.’

At the wobble in the child’s voice, Thea’s heart shook. Would she hate being taken away from here, from her friends?

‘Shall you mind that? Living with me?’

A vigorous shake this time. ‘No, ma’am. Is it true? Will I have a real home like Lucy said? Not just here?’

‘Yes, Sophie. Your own home.’

‘With you?’

‘Yes.’ Her throat had developed a choking lump. There were things that must be said; but how to say them when her throat ached and her eyes stung viciously?

‘Why?’

And there it was. The question that could not be fudged, and certainly could not be put off.

And in the end, the words came easily enough past the choking lump, breaking, but clear.

‘Because…I am your mama.’

The child, Sophie, took two hesitant steps forward. And one back. The eyes were shuttered, suspicious. ‘I don’t have a mama. At least, not one who wants me. That’s what they said.’

‘No, Sophie,’ said Thea, blinking back tears. ‘That is not true. I do want you. But I didn’t know about you until a few days ago. They told me you had died.’

‘But I didn’t,’ said Sophie, plainly puzzled.

‘No. And I do want you.’

‘Are you really my mama?’

Thea shut her eyes, trying to hold back the tears.

‘Yes. I really am.’

Sophie nodded solemnly. ‘Am I allowed to call you Mama?’

No name had ever sounded sweeter, ever pierced so deeply. ‘Of course, Sophie.’

Two more steps forward. And two more. And a small, sticky, inky hand reached for hers, clutched tightly. Gently Thea drew her daughter into her arms for the first time; held her safely for the first time since the child had left the sanctuary of her body. This was right. Completely and utterly right.

Feeling, looking at the soft curls tucked beneath her chin, the small, warm body pressed against her, she knew, deep in her heart, that there could have been no other way.

For a moment there was a gentle silence, an aching regret for all the lost years, the lost achievements, the first smile, the first steps, the first words. And then came a fierce joy in this first meeting, in all the achievements to come. There would be other firsts to balance those which were gone beyond recall.

‘Will I have a papa, too?’ asked Sophie, lifting her head from Thea’s shoulder.

Thea breathed deeply. She had known this question must come. For now at least, a half-truth must suffice—that her father had died…

She began carefully. ‘Your father—’

‘Is disgracefully late,’ chimed in a familiar deep voice from the open door. ‘For which I beg your pardon most humbly.’

Dazed, the world and certainties she had built up so diligently on the journey shattering about her, Thea stared at Richard limping towards them.

Sophie took a step backward, pressing into the shelter of Thea’s body.

‘Is this…Mama, is this my papa?’

There were no words. Not for the questions, nor to express her confusion, and no words to lead her through the morass of uncertainty. She could only stare at Richard, his eyes suspiciously bright as he knelt down beside them. Sophie’s small hand clutched hers, hard.

He made no move except to hold out his hand to Sophie.

The child repeated her question, this time to Richard. ‘Are you my papa?’

He smiled, his dear crooked smile that melted glaciers and made her heart turn over. ‘Yes, sweetheart. If you will have me. And if your mama will have me. We have a home in Kent just waiting for the three of us and I suspect by now that there is a pony in the stable waiting for you.’

And finally Thea understood. Understood the depth of his love. The depth of her love. And the depth of understanding that had brought him to her. To them. There were no more questions.

Only his arms reaching out to encircle them. And hers, also encircling her daughter—no, their daughter at the centre.

An hour later in the chaise, Sophie lay sound asleep in Thea’s arms, lulled by the rocking and worn out by excitement.

‘Is she heavy?’ asked Richard. He sat back in the opposite corner, long legs stretched out.

Thea nodded. ‘Yes, but I don’t mind.’

He smiled. ‘No, but when your arm starts to mind, let me know.’

She finally gave voice to the question that had been plaguing her. ‘Richard?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Where are we going?’

He looked a bit surprised. ‘Well, home, of course. But first we are going to Blakeney.’

Several more certainties came crashing down. ‘Blakeney? But, your brother—surely—’

‘Is, and I quote, looking forward to having a niece to spoil, and acting as godfather to my next child.’ He leaned forward and possessed himself of one hand. ‘In the meantime, he has professed himself content to be my groomsman and Verity is more than happy to be your matron of honour.’

‘But—’

‘But we’re Blakehursts,’ he said with a faint grin. ‘If you ask me, Max is so disgusted that anyone could have a worse scandal than a Blakehurst scandal, he thought it my duty to marry it into the family.’ His smile deepened and he reached out to caress her cheek.

‘Richard, no one else will ever accept Sophie, you will be ostracised!’

‘For what? Acknowledging my daughter?’ he asked, smiling.

‘Your daughter?’ A glimmer of understanding came to her then, telling her just how far he was prepared to go.

‘My daughter,’ he confirmed. ‘As Max pointed out, society is very usefully hypocritical over this sort of thing. While condemning me for a heartless libertine, they’ll be turning you into an angel for accepting my daughter so graciously.’

For a split second joy sang through her. And then she saw the hitch. ‘It won’t work, Richard. Look at her! She is the image of—’

‘The Winslow family,’ agreed Richard. ‘So at the same time as I acknowledge Sophie there will be an even more scurrilous rumour making the rounds: that Sophie is actually neither your, nor mine, but your brother’s child and that by taking her in we have both behaved like saints. A bit embarrassing for your brother, but it was his idea. Apparently he has supported the child and her mother, but with the mother recently dead, he was at a loss.’

Her silence terrified him. ‘Thea, I understand that you want her to be yours, but this way she is safe—even with the rumor about your brother, officially acknowledged as my daughter she will be more readily accepted.’

‘You would do that for me?’ she whispered.

He went to her then, taking her into his arms, settling her where she belonged. It felt as though the jagged edges of a wound had come together and were knitting. There was still pain, but it was the pain of healing.

‘That and more,’ he told her. A man had betrayed her in the worst possible way and yet…he touched the soft cheek of the sleeping child with careful fingers. Soft, silken, utterly innocent…

‘There you sit,’ he said huskily, ‘with his child in your arms. You would have sacrificed everything for her.’

‘She had nothing,’ said Thea. ‘Nothing except shame and the knowledge that her family didn’t want her. I could not knowingly abandon her to that.’

‘No,’ he said, his arms tightening, ‘you could not. And when I understood that, I knew what a fool I had been to hesitate.’ Her sigh trembled through him.

‘I cannot think of her as his,’ said Thea softly. ‘She is mine, and…’ She hesitated, a tension he could feel creeping into her.

‘Mine,’ he affirmed. ‘Yes, love. I meant it. Not just legally, but in every way. That little girl in your arms is Sophie Blakehurst. Our daughter.’

He cradled them both in his arms, his heart full as he lowered his head to brush his mouth across hers. Hesitant, trembling, her lips parted, accepting his caress, offering her own. Joy singing, burning within, he took and gave in equal measure.

‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’

Thea smiled shakily up at David as he gave her into the keeping of the rector. He smiled back tenderly as Richard took her hand. Then he stepped back with a little nod of approval.

‘I, Richard Alexander, take thee, Dorothea Sophie, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse…’

Behind her, Thea was aware of Verity holding Sophie’s hand, and beyond Richard, Max, standing proudly at his brother’s side. And Richard himself, his voice deep and firm, pledging himself to her

‘…to love and to cherish, until death do us part…’

She could not help the tears sliding down her cheeks. They blurred her vision and choked her when it came to her turn to repeat her vows. In her heart the vows had already been made. Yet here in this old church, the words rang out, alive, burning between them, perhaps given more strength by being spoken and received.