A Kiss at Midnight

Page 18

“Oh, they didn’t. She saw him passing in Hyde Park, and inquired about his name. From there, her father took over.”
Kate felt even more depressed at that revelation.
“And of course I married as well,” Lady Wrothe said, swinging around to face Kate again. “You mustn’t think it was all sackcloth and ashes. I fell in love with my husband and I daresay Victor did the same with your mother. Over the years we saw each other occasionally. Not , I hasten to add, in any sort of clandestine fashion.”
Kate nodded.
“A few years later, I found myself dancing with him at Vauxhall. I had just lost another child; I was never able to carry a babe. I wept all over his shoulder.”
Kate would have patted her hand, but somehow Lady Wrothe was not the sort of woman one consoled in that fashion.
“Next thing I knew, Victor had wrangled it so that I and my first husband were your godparents.”
Kate smiled weakly.
“I wanted to kill him. Oh, we did the ceremony, of course. How could we not? But I was so angry at his blindness, thinking that godmothering his child with your mother would somehow make up for my own lost children. His child of all people!”
“My father was not very perceptive,” Kate said, remembering how cheerfully he had told her that he was bringing home a stepmother, at a time when she was still grieving her mother’s death. “But surely he was well-meaning?”
“Of course . . . but at the time I was so heartsick about losing another babe that I couldn’t see it. I’m afraid that I put you out of my mind after the ceremony. In fact, in a fit of pure spleen, I pretended you didn’t exist. But here you are!”
Which reminded Kate. “I’m not actually here as myself,” she confessed.
“Really?” Lady Wrothe glanced at her reflection and then powdered her nose reflectively. “I wish I weren’t, too. Sometimes I get so tired of Leo. I’d love to be someone else, although if it meant I had to wear a purple wig, I might rethink it.”
“The purple wig is part of it,” Kate said. “I’m here as my half sister, Victoria, who . . .” and she blurted out the whole story, largely because Lady Wrothe didn’t look in the least sympathetic, but just kept nodding and saying things like “Victor, what a loose fish,” in a tone that didn’t seem judgmental, just definitive.
She neatly summed up the situation. “So at the moment you’re playing Victoria, who’s betrothed to a fatheaded man named Algernon, who’s dragged you here because he needs the prince’s blessing for the wedding that has to happen because Victoria is as much of a light frigate as her mother.”
“That makes her sound like a trollop,” Kate protested. “She’s not, she’s just in love.”
“In love,” Lady Wrothe said moodily. “For God’s sake, don’t ever fall in love before you get married. It’s just too messy and leads to appalling consequences. The only time I ever fell in love out of wedlock was with your papa, and that’s because I couldn’t stop myself, though I fought it tooth and nail.”
Kate smiled. “I’m not planning to fall in love, Lady Wrothe.”
“Henry.”
“I can’t call you Henry,” Kate protested.
“Why not? Because I’m too old?”
“No—well—”
“I’m old enough to demand a name I prefer,” she said, waving a diamond-encrusted hand in the air. “Forget this talk of love; it’s all a pile of nonsense. I wish Leo and I had been in London for the season, rather than on the Continent. I would have met your trollopy relatives and demanded to know where my goddaughter was. At any rate, the real question is whom you should marry. After you finish this little charade, of course.”
Kate felt a great easing in the area of her chest. There was something about Henry: She was all luxurious curves with a great expanse of white bosom, but her big blue eyes were steady. You could trust her.
“You aren’t going to cry, are you?” Henry demanded, looking suspicious. “I can’t abide tears.”
“No,” Kate said.
“So whom do you want to marry, then? I trust you’re not planning to steal away your sister’s Algernon. He doesn’t sound like much of a bargain.”
“I know just whom I’d like to marry,” Kate said promptly. “That is, I don’t know precisely who, but I know the sort of man. Someone like my father, but not, if you see what I mean. He wasn’t home much, and I’d prefer someone who likes the country. I loved our house in the country. It’s beautiful, and just the right size, big enough for lots of children.”
“You want your father but without the wandering eye,” Henry said, going straight to the heart of it. “Victor had a snug estate, thanks to your mother’s dowry, but nothing—”
“It’s just the right size for me,” Kate interrupted. “I don’t want to marry an earl or anyone like that. Just a squire would be lovely. Or even a merchant who’d moved to the country.”
“No goddaughter of mine is marrying a merchant,” Henry stated. “For goodness’ sake, girl, you’re the granddaughter of an earl. And your mother was no country bumpkin, for all that she couldn’t get out of bed. She was a lady and so are you.”
Kate hadn’t been a lady for years, not since her father died and Mariana moved her into the attic. She felt her throat tighten. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I am going to cry.”
“Ah well, happens to the best of us,” Henry said philosophically. She got up and went over to a little silver tray and poured out glasses of pale liqueur. “I cried buckets after your baptism. I was so convinced that you should have been my child, you see.”
“You did?” Kate mopped up her tears and tried to concentrate.
“After that I turned my back on Victor and never spoke to him again.” She added, a little gruffly, “I didn’t stop thinking of him, though. Devil that he was.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “He really didn’t have a very good moral character, as it turns out. I’d rather my husband was quite different in that respect.”
“Here, drink your liqueur,” Henry said, tossing back her drink. “I carry it with me everywhere because it’s the only kind of drink that Leo doesn’t like, so there’s a chance I’ll still have some tomorrow.”
Kate sipped hers. It tasted like lemons, fierce and cruel to the nose.
“Limoncello,” Henry said with satisfaction. “Isn’t it brilliant? I learned of it from a man I knew in Sorrento once, Lord Manin. I left him behind, but I’ve brought limoncello with me ever since.
“So you want a gentleman with a snug estate and a righteous nature. It shouldn’t be much of a problem. I’ve tended that way myself, though I must admit that I choose men with rather more than a snug estate. Still, if there’s any wandering to be done, I always do it myself. That way I know no one will get hurt.”
Kate sipped her limoncello again, and found herself smiling at her godmother. She was so funny and frank. “I don’t have a dowry,” she said. “That is, I have a small nest egg left to me by my mother, but it’s nothing much.”