Hugo picked up his cup and looked down at the dark liquid. If anyone belonged in an asylum it was the two of them.
“Yes, but there is a little problem,” Dorelia added, “and that is that the trustees are perfectly dreadful, and we were hoping that nice Mr. Gostrain could fix them for us.”
Mr. Gostrain raised his eyebrows at Hugo, and Hugo shrugged. “Oh, do go ahead,” he said. “Why not waste your valuable time? Otherwise we’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Very well,” the solicitor said, taking his cup and saucer and moving over to an armchair next to the sofa where the Mabey twins perched. “Tell me, who established this trust?”
“Well, dearest Linus—that’s the late Lord Eliot—willed us everything he had, as he had no heirs,” Dorelia replied cheerfully. “He told us to do with it as we wished, since he knew how much we enjoyed investing his money. Ottoline is particularly good at foreseeing events on the ‘Change.”
Hugo closed his eyes. So Coldsnap had been right about that. No wonder Linus Eliot had been nearly bankrupt when he died.
“Sister is absolutely correct,” Ottoline said, looking extremely pleased with herself. “But you see, the trustees have no idea how clever we are, and because we are aged females they do not think us responsible. They refuse to do anything but dole out handfuls of pennies to us—really, they are so aggravating. They continue to put all the income except for our handful of pennies back into investments, thinking they can increase the principal better than we can. Ha!”
“I see,” Gostrain said, tapping the ends of his fingers together. “I can certainly look into the matter of the administration of the trust; you are entitled to the full income to use as you please. If the trustees have been legally amiss in their duties, they can and should be replaced.”
“I told you so, Sister,” Ottoline said gleefully.
“It was
I
who told
you”
Dorelia retorted. “Or have you forgotten?”
“Don’t be absurd, Dorelia. I never forget anything, and if you do not mind, I would like Mr. Gostrain to get on with the matter at hand, and so should you, seeing as our Sign is sitting right in front of us.”
Hugo shuddered. If Meggie ever turned into one of the Mabey sisters, he was going to personally escort her back to the Woodbridge Sanitarium.
“I must tell you, however,” Mr. Gostrain continued, “that although you may will the money to whomever you please, you may not dispose of the principal unless Lord Eliot made a highly unusual stipulation, and I very much doubt that, given what you’ve said.”
“Never mind, never mind,” Dorelia said, waving her hand. “It is not a crushing blow. All that matters is that Madrigal receives the money in the end, seeing as it does come from her family. In the meantime, I am sure dear Hugo will find the income useful, if you are able to arrange the correct dispersal.”
“I will do my best. Ah, how large is the trust, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Not at all,” Ottoline chirped. “The last accounting put it at three hundred fifty thousand pounds.”
Hugo dropped his teacup.
M
eggie came in from the garden with a basket full of roses, delighted with the way her meeting with the vicar had gone and even more pleased because he’d been delighted about it, too. She hadn’t needed her gift to know that, although the waves of approbation that had come from him made her feel particularly happy.
She thought she was beginning to do quite well at behaving like a lady, which was exactly what Hugo had hoped for. Meggie had worked hard to learn, observing everything around her and tucking away the smallest details. She was determined to make Hugo proud. Since he’d stopped criticizing every move she made and every word that came out of her mouth, she thought she must be doing an adequate job.
“Hello, Cookie,” she said merrily, putting the basket down on the kitchen table. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”
“There hew be, yer ladyship, and owd dog, too. Saved a nice bit o’ bone for him, I did, full ‘o juice an’ marrow.”
“Cookie, you do spoil him,” Meggie said with a smile. “It’s a good thing Hadrian is getting so much exercise these days, or he’d develop a paunch.”
“Aye, like this ‘un,” Cookie replied, cheerfully patting his stomach. “Took me years to grow.”
“You did a magnificent job, Cookie.” Meggie fetched a vase and began to arrange the roses. “Do you know if my husband has returned yet?”
“Aye, thass right, an’ he be takin’ tea in the study wi’ a strange gentl’man and the misses, and them two in a proper frap ower suffin’.”
“Oh, dear,” Meggie said, pulling off her gardening gloves and apron. “That’s interesting—we weren’t expecting anyone. I’d better go see what it’s all about.”
She quickly set off for the study, knowing that Hugo found the aunties very trying when they were in a flap.
She stopped abruptly in the open door, taking in the scene before her.
The shattered remains of a teacup lay on the desk. Hugo was hopping up and down, cursing as he swatted at the dark wet patches on his coat and trousers. Dorelia and Ottoline both hopped around him, jabbering and flapping their arms as they were wont to do when overexcited. Only the man sitting in one of the armchairs next to the sofa appeared relatively composed.
He immediately stood as he saw her. “Lady Hugo, I presume?” he said, crossing the room.
“Yes,” she replied, wondering at the combination of anxiety, agitation, and anticipation that emanated from the stranger and belied his calm exterior.
“I am James Gostrain, Lord Hugo’s solicitor,” he said bowing over her hand. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”
“Thank you,” she said absently, looking back over at Hugo. “Is everything all right? My husband does not look quite himself.”
Mr. Gostrain smiled at her. “I daresay your husband is not feeling quite himself, either. He has just received some extraordinary news. If you would care to sit down, I imagine he will want me to share it with you when he recovers his composure.”
Meggie nodded, thoroughly baffled. She took a chair, folded her hands in her lap, and prepared to wait. She didn’t have to wait long. Hugo spotted her almost instantly.
“Meggie—ah, sweetheart, thank God you’re here. You won’t believe what’s happened. I’ve had the shock of my life, and so will you when you hear what Mr. Gostrain has come to say.”
She regarded him neutrally, unable to tell if the news was very good, very bad, or somewhere in between. She couldn’t even sense anything helpful from the aunties, since they were in such a twitter. “Perhaps you had better tell me,” she said, squeezing her hands together hard, praying that whatever the news was, it would not affect the happiness that she and Hugo had found together. That she truly couldn’t bear.
“Well. I hardly know where to begin. Mr. Gostrain—oh, I beg your pardon, Meggie. You have been introduced?”
Meggie nodded again, wishing Hugo would get on with whatever he had to say. She’d never seen him so rattled, and she was beginning to feel exactly the same. Her heart pounded painfully hard in her chest and she had to fight to appear calm.
“Yes, well, you see, Mr. Gostrain is the senior partner in the legal firm that looks after my family’s affairs. I wrote to the firm after our wedding to request that a marriage settlement be made for you, to protect you and our future children.”
“A settlement?” she repeated, relaxing slightly to hear the problem was nothing worse. “But you needn’t give me anything, Hugo. I have everything I need—more than I need. You have already been overly generous.”
“Never mind that, just listen, Meggie,” he said, his voice quick with impatience. “I included a few details about you in my letter so that—well, never mind why, but it seemed a good idea.”
All the blood drained from Meggie’s face. She’d known her marriage was too good to be true, that she didn’t deserve such happiness. Mr. Gostrain had found a loophole, a reason that the marriage was not valid and thereby saved Hugo the humiliation of having a base-born social outcast for a wife. “What sort of details?” she asked in a near whisper.
“Just the basics,” he said in an offhand manner. “Who your mother was and how she’d died, what happened to you after that. Mr. Gostrain put the rest together.”
Meggie wanted to die of mortification. What must Mr. Gostrain think of her? What must the aunties think? No wonder they were in such a tizzy. Their dear little Madrigal Montagu, who was supposed to be a replacement for Lally in every way, including respectability, was a bastard.
“The rest?” she asked, wondering how long it would be before the rest of the world knew the truth about the unfortunate wife poor Lord Hugo Montagu had taken—and discarded.
“Yes, sweetheart.” Hugo said very gently. “He made some inquiries and discovered who your father was, which is the crux of the matter.”
Meggie stared down at her hands. A marriage couldn’t be invalidated just because one of the parties had been born out of wedlock, could it? She didn’t think so. There had to be something else, something really terrible—something to do with her father, maybe a terrible crime he’d committed. “Oh,” she said, feeling sick to her stomach. No wonder no one had ever told her anything; the truth was too awful, even more awful than leaving her mother unmarried and pregnant.
“He didn’t die as you thought, sweetheart.” Hugo crossed the room and knelt by her chair, taking her hand in his. “I’m sorry. You are going to find this difficult to hear.”
Meggie squeezed her eyes shut. It really was bad. The only thing she could think of was that her father had committed murder and received the ultimate punishment.
“Was he hanged?” she asked, trying very hard not to cry.
“Hanged?”
Hugo stared at her. “Where on earth did you get an idea like that?”
“You said—you said that I wouldn’t like it. That he didn’t die the way I thought.” Meggie pressed a shaking hand against her mouth. “If he didn’t hang, then what happened to him?”
“Darling Madrigal is not so far off, you know,” Dorelia said, speaking up for the first time. “David
was
a wanted man. That is why he had to leave the country as quickly as he did, poor boy—such a shame he had to spend all those years in exile, but never mind, at least he made a fortune, which is all he ever wanted to do.”
Meggie, stunned, clenched her fingers on the arms of her chair. “Do you mean he
didn’t
die before I was born?”
“Certainly not. He was much too clever for that,” Dorelia said, looking smug as could be.
“Wanted for what?” Hugo demanded, his eyes blazing. “By God, I could throttle the two of you for keeping this to yourselves.”
“Temper, temper,” Ottoline said. “You won’t hear another word if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head.”
“Don’t you threaten me,” Hugo snapped. “Get on with it, woman. What was David Russell wanted for?”
“He was a smuggler, dear,” Ottoline said. “He was a dashing smuggler, but a smuggler nevertheless, and His Majesty’s excise men knew all about his activities. The very night they were going to apprehend him he escaped, and by the skin of his teeth, I might add.”
“Oh, marvelous,” Hugo said, pressing his index fingers against the comers of his eyes. “Simply marvelous.”
Meggie leaned her head against the back of the chair, her hands over her face. Her father had been a smuggler wanted by His Majesty’s government. Perfect. Mr. Gostrain train must be thrilled by that additional tidbit about her unsavory background. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Hugo was going to have to say about it later, but given the thunderous expression on his face, quite a lot.
“You cannot leave them hanging there, Sister,” Dorelia said. “Madrigal will want to know why her father left the country without her mother.”
“I was going to tell her, Dorelia. I do wish you would stop rushing me.” Ottoline settled her skirts and placed her hands together in her lap, making Meggie want to scream with impatience. “Now then,” she continued, “the truth of the matter is that Cousin David knew Meg Bloom was with child and he intended to marry her, only Meg’s parents interfered.”
“What?”
Meggie’s hands dropped and she sat up very straight, glaring at both Dorelia and Ottoline. “Aunties, just what have you been keeping from me? You both said that you didn’t know a thing about my mother—and what is this nonsense about ‘Cousin David’?”
Hugo took her hand again and held it tightly, as if he could check her shock. “It transpires that your father, David Russell, was Lally’s brother.”
“He was
who
?” Meggie croaked in disbelief. She already thought the circumstances of her new life impossible, but this information went beyond anything plausible, beyond any reasonable bounds.
“Meggie, love, I know the story must sound outrageous, but I’ve only just learned of the connection myself,” Hugo said very gently. “It is the truth, however.”
“Oh, aunties,
how could you lie to me so thoroughly?” Meggie said, so outraged that she shook from head to foot. “My father was Lally’s brother? Did you not think that worthy of mention, given that you knew all about it, especially when I asked most specifically if you knew my mother? How could this be? How could this
possibly
be?”
“Now, Madrigal, do not fly into the boughs,” Dorelia said in a soothing voice. “We
didn’t
know your mother; we didn’t even know about her, not until much later. We certainly didn’t know what David had been up to, naughty boy, not until after he’d left the country. If I’d known he was smuggling, I’d have walloped his bottom, grown man or no. Imagine such nonsense—and getting an innocent village girl with child? Well. He might have thought to marry her before bedding her if he wanted her so badly.”
Meggie felt like wringing both their necks for keeping such important information from her. “I think,” she said slowly, her eyes narrowed on the aunties, “that you had better come out with all of it, every last detail, no matter how dreadful. I have a right to know, and so does Hugo. He was good enough to marry me even though I was illegitimate, but this—this is beyond anything he could have anticipated, and I won’t have him kept in the dark.”
Hugo’s hand froze hard on hers and she looked at him in startled question. “You didn’t know?” she asked. “Sister Agnes made it clear that you were aware of the circumstances of my birth and that you didn’t mind.”
He nodded, but he looked miserable. She couldn’t blame him, given what else he’d just discovered about her. “I told her I understood,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “I did. I do. Meggie, listen to me sweetheart. None of this is your fault. It is your story, but not your fault.”
“Madrigal’s fault indeed,” Dorelia said with a sniff. “As if anyone said it was. I lay all the blame at David’s door, since he should have had the good sense to keep his nose clean. His problem was a need for high adventure and an endless supply of money—that’s what led to all the smuggling trouble, and to the tragic ending.”
Ottoline nodded vigorously. “Tragic. Truly tragic. Poor young Meg, thinking him shot dead when he actually made it away safely.”
“Shot—shot dead?” Meggie said, her head reeling with each new revelation. For twenty-three years she’d lived with no answers at all, and now she was getting more answers than she’d ever imagined existed—and so far each one was progressively more awful.
“Shot dead. That was what the poor girl’s parents told her, the meddlesome fools,” Dorelia said. “They didn’t approve of their daughter’s involvement with David, and little wonder, given his unsuitable occupation, never mind his high social rank. Most liaisons like that end up with the girl ruined and the man off willy-nilly after another conquest; your poor mother was certainly ruined, even if that hadn’t been David’s intention.”
“Oh … oh, how awful for her,” Meggie said, trying to imagine how her mother must have felt, alone and pregnant, believing her lover dead.
“I can understand the Blooms’ concern when they found out about their daughter’s attachment,” Ottoline hastened to add. “But what they did was unconscionable. Truly unconscionable.” She shook her head, sending her white puff of hair bounding from side to side. “Of course, they didn’t know she was with child, since she hadn’t bothered to tell them. If only she had, it all might have ended differently, but you know how foolish young girls can be about that sort of thing.”
Hugo wrapped an arm around Meggie’s shoulder, as if to give her comfort. “We know that Margaret Bloom ended up alone in Bury St. Edmunds,” he said. “I can only think she must have gone where she could be certain no one would know her.”
“Oh, dear,” Dorelia said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “So very, very tragic. If we’d only known, we would have taken dearest Madrigal to our bosom in an instant, isn’t that right, Sister?”
“Oh, yes indeed. Family is family, no matter which side of the blanket it comes from, but you see, we didn’t know. No one knew that there was a child at all. We didn’t even know that David had been carrying on with Meg until he wrote a long time later, once he’d settled in India, and asked us to find Meg and her child.”
“He did?” Meggie frowned. “Why? Why did he bother to do that when he’d abandoned us?”