Gail Whitiker (25 page)

Hannah sent Robert a quick glance, wondering why he hadn’t introduced her as his sister. ‘I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Kilkerran.’ She sank into a graceful curtsey, and then, rising, gave him her most welcoming smile. ‘And may I wish you a very Merry Christmas.’

The gentleman stepped forward and bowed. ‘Merry Christmas to you, Miss Winthrop. But I can assure you, the pleasure is all mine, for I see now that everything Lord Winthrop told me about you is true.’

His voice was deep, the Scottish lilt unmistakable, but something in his tone caused Hannah to glance at Robert in confusion. Both men were watching her, and there was a feeling in the air that Hannah couldn’t describe. It was almost as though they were waiting.

Puzzled, Hannah looked at Lord Kilkerran again. Really looked at him.

And the moment she did, she knew.

‘Oh, dear God!’

She took a step backwards, felt the room begin to spin as though a giant hand had suddenly picked it up and twirled it around. She was aware of Robert saying something to her, aware of his arm reaching out to support her, but beyond that, she could make no sense of what was going on around her.
Because she was looking at a
ghost.
Or at someone she’d always
thought
of as a ghost. Until this moment, Hannah hadn’t been able to give him any more substance than that. But now, standing here, she couldn’t deny the evidence of her eyes.

She was face to face with the Earl of Kilkerran. A Scottish peer. A man who had haunted her dreams for the last six months.

A man who could not be mistaken for anyone but her father.

R
OBERT
suddenly appeared to have difficulty hiding his smile. ‘Might I suggest we retire to the drawing-room?’

Infinitely grateful for the reassuring presence of his arm at her waist, Hannah nodded her agreement, her throat too tight to permit any kind of speech. She could only stare at the two men in astonishment, and in particular at the older man Robert had just introduced as a Scottish earl.

Was he truly just the Earl of Kilkerran? Or was he, as she suspected, so very much more?

Robert said something to Mr Mudd and then led the way to the drawing-room. Once there, he settled Hannah into a chair and then proceeded to pour them each a generous glass of brandy.

‘Thank you, Lord Winthrop.’ Lord Kilkerran smiled as he watched Robert hand a smaller glass to Hannah. ‘I suggest you drink that down, Miss Winthrop. I’ve always found brandy to have a wonderfully restorative effect.’

Still at a loss for words, Hannah did as she was told. She didn’t usually partake of strong spirits, but she was grateful for it now. As expected, the taste made her gasp, and the fiery heat brought tears to her eyes. But she had to admit it had a remarkably recuperative effect.

‘I’m sure this has come as quite a shock,’ Lord Kilkerran said gently. ‘It certainly did to me when Lord Winthrop told me why he’d come.’

Hannah waited for her heart to stop pounding. When
she realised it wasn’t going to, she took a deep breath and did her best to talk over it. ‘But…is it true? Or are my eyes deceiving me?’

‘It’s true,’ the older man said. ‘I am the Earl of Kilkerran. I am also the man who has the great honour of being your father.’

Hannah choked back a cry. He’d said it. There was no longer any need to wonder. The truth was out in the open. She had a father. And he was a member of the Scottish aristocracy.

‘My lord, I hardly know…what to say,’ Hannah whispered tremulously. ‘I certainly didn’t expect…anything like this.’ She looked at Robert, not sure whether to be angry with him, or to get up and throw her arms around his neck. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? You must have known about this when you left here.’

‘In truth, I had absolutely no idea,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t know that Lord Kilkerran was your father until I arrived in Scotland.’

‘But the information you told me you’d received…the letter…’

‘The letter wasn’t from Lord Kilkerran. It was from the woman who left you in Mama’s carriage.’

Hannah’s mouth fell open. ‘
What?
But how did she know…how did she find us?’

Recalled to Miss MacKinnon’s interesting remark about her late sister’s gentleman friend, Robert merely smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter how she found us, my dear, only that she did. As it turned out, however, Mary MacKinnon died a few weeks before I arrived. It was her sister who gave me the information I needed to uncover your father’s identity.’

Your father.
Hannah felt as though she was still awash in a sea of discovery. ‘But why did you not write to tell
me what you had discovered? I would gladly have come to Scotland and gone with you to meet Lord Kilkerran.’

‘I know, and that is precisely why I did not write to you. Until I’d had a chance to speak to the earl myself, and to explain the situation, I had no way of knowing how your father would react. I didn’t know how he would feel about revealing his identity to you, and it would have been the cruellest disappointment of all to have you travel all the way to Scotland, only to be denied an introduction to him. Lord Kilkerran,’ Robert said to their guest, ‘please make yourself at home. Mr Mudd will be here shortly with refreshments.’

‘Oh, Robert, forgive me,’ Hannah said, instantly contrite at having neglected her duties. ‘I should have seen to that.’

‘That’s all right, my dear. Under the circumstances, I can understand your being somewhat preoccupied.’

The butler did arrive shortly with the promised tray of refreshments, and set them on the side table.

‘Thank you, Mr Mudd,’ Hannah said, moving to take her place beside it. ‘I shall look after the gentlemen. Go and enjoy yourself with the others.’

‘Thank you, Miss Hannah. But if you need anything further, you have only to ring.’

‘Thank you, Mr Mudd,’ Robert said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to manage.’

The elderly servant inclined his head. ‘Thank you, my lord. And Merry Christmas to you all.’

Robert waited until the elderly servant had retired before telling Hannah that he and Lord Kilkerran had ridden through the night, hoping to reach Gillingdon in time for Christmas morning. They had been fortunate, and even the unexpected snowfall had not impeded their journey. Meanwhile, Hannah kept casting surreptitious
glances at the Earl, hard pressed to believe that she was actually looking at her father.

‘It must seem very strange, my sitting in your drawing-room like this,’ the peer said as if reading her thoughts.

Hannah blushed deeply. ‘Forgive me, Lord Kilkerran. I know that it is terribly rude of me to stare, but…I truly never expected to meet you. When I found out the truth, that…Lord Winthrop’s father was not my father, I was horrified beyond belief. But I never truly thought, for all my assertions to the contrary, that I would one day meet the man who was.’

Hearing the wonder in her voice, Lord Kilkerran laughed. ‘I am hardly any the less astonished at finding out that I have such a beautiful daughter, Miss Winthrop. When Lord Winthrop sent a note asking to see me, I had no idea it would be to tell me that I had a daughter I knew nothing about.’

Hannah glanced down at the floor. There was so much she wanted to ask him she hardly knew where to start. How did one go about asking one’s father about his life?

‘Ask what you will, Hannah,’ Lord Kilkerran prompted quietly, again as though reading her mind. ‘There is much, I suspect, you would like to know.’

‘Perhaps the two of you would like to be alone for a while,’ Robert said, getting up to leave.

‘There is nothing I would say to Hannah that you cannot hear, Lord Winthrop,’ the Earl assured him. ‘In fact, given that you are likely to become my son-in-law, I think it probably best that you do hear it directly from me.’

A furious blush swept over Hannah’s face.
Dear heavens, never say that Robert had told Lord Kilkerran how he felt about her?

‘Do not be embarrassed, Miss Winthrop,’ the Earl said. ‘Lord Winthrop’s willingness to reveal his love for you made it much easier for us to say what needed to be said. The reason he’d come to see me was to set your mind at rest. Loving you as he does, he knew he risked losing you if he could not take back news of your birth. He told me that you were unwilling to compromise his future by agreeing to marry him when you knew nothing of your background.’

The admission eased Hannah’s mind somewhat, but what of all the other things she needed to ask him? Some of them excruciatingly simple. ‘What shall I call you?’

The eyes so much like hers twinkled with amusement. ‘Father would seem to be the most appropriate, but I can understand why that might seem a little strange. My first name is Andrew. Perhaps you could begin by calling me that.’

Hannah smiled, liking the man’s sense of humour. Liking
her father’s
sense of humour.

‘Perhaps until I get used to the idea of your
being
my father, that would be the best. Calling you Lord Kilkerran does seem rather inappropriate. I hope you will call me Hannah.’

The Earl inclined his head. ‘I should be honoured to do so.’

‘Does your—’ Hannah swallowed hard ‘—your wife not accompany you?’

‘My wife died four years ago,’ Lord Kilkerran said. ‘I live at home with my youngest daughter now. Kate is fifteen, and remarkably like you in appearance. But truly, the resemblance between you and your mother is the most striking. When I look at you, I see how Ellen must have looked at your age.’

There was something in his voice, a kind of reverence
almost, that gave Hannah the courage she needed to ask him what she so desperately wanted to know. ‘Tell me about…my mother.’

‘Ah, my sweet Ellen.’ Lord Kilkerran’s face changed, his expression softening as his mind drifted back into the past. ‘She was just sixteen years old when I met her, and so beautiful. Just as you are now. We met, at of all places, a local fair. She had come up from St Boswell’s with her family. Her uncle had come to fish in the Tweed, and her aunt to visit her sister, who lived somewhere in the area.’

‘She was not with her parents?’ Hannah asked in surprise.

‘Sadly, her parents had died several years earlier. Ellen went to live with her aunt and uncle immediately after, but she was not happy in their house. Her uncle was a dean, and he had hopes of Ellen making a good match with the local minister, whom she despised. I had ridden down from Edinburgh with some friends. We were a rather rowdy bunch, I’m afraid, as young men often are, but the moment I saw Ellen I knew that my wild days were over. But I had to be careful. Her uncle did not like his niece associating with the likes of me. I might have been the only son of an earl, but he did not care for the life of debauchery he felt I had been living.’

A shadow of alarm touched Hannah’s face. ‘And had you been leading such a life?’

‘I’ll not say I was an angel, but I was never as bad as he made me out to be. Still, in the end, his feelings had little bearing on the situation. Ellen fell in love with me in spite of his objections. But we were both young and foolish, and our behaviour was that of irresponsible children. Mine more than hers, no doubt, since I was older and supposedly wiser.’ Lord Kilkerran’s mouth twisted.
‘But I wonder if any man is ever truly wise when it comes to the woman he loves.’

‘Did you know she was…with child?’ Hannah whispered.

Her father sighed again, and regret edged the sound. ‘No. Had I known, I would never have let her go. It would have been difficult, of course. My father would not have approved of the match because of the disparity of our social positions. And her uncle would likely have fought it because I’d led Ellen into sin. But somehow I would have made it happen. Unfortunately, I completely misunderstood Ellen’s feelings.’

‘But…you just said she loved you.’

‘Yes, but as I also said Ellen never told me that she was with child. I only saw her a few times after that fateful, though I might add blissful afternoon, and on the occasion of our last meeting she was very quiet. Distant, almost. Looking back now, I realise she must have known that she was with child and was afraid to tell me, though I had no idea at the time. With the naïveté of youth, I simply thought she regretted what had happened. I thought she no longer wished to see me. I did send her letters, addressed to her uncle’s house, but they were all returned unopened. When my father chanced to read one of them, he absolutely forbade me to see Ellen again. He was appalled that I would associate with a woman so far beneath my own class. Shortly thereafter, he arranged for me to marry the eldest daughter of our closest neighbour. A lady he felt to be my social, if not emotional, equal.’

‘How cruel,’ Hannah cried.

‘Perhaps, but in all fairness, I could not object,’ Lord Kilkerran went on. ‘After all, what did I care who I
married? Ellen would not see me, and I had no way of knowing if she even loved me any more.’

‘But did you not seek her out?’ Hannah asked.

‘I would have, had I known where to find her. But it was almost as though she’d vanished from the face of the earth.’

‘Ellen ran away from her aunt and uncle’s house and went to stay with the MacKinnon sisters,’ Robert said, filling in the part of the story he’d learned from Cora. ‘Apparently Mary MacKinnon had once worked for Ellen’s parents, and she and Ellen had developed a close friendship, social positions notwithstanding. When Mary left to find work after the death of Mr and Mrs Chamberlain, Ellen secretly kept in touch with her. And when she discovered that she was with child, she ran away to Mary’s house and begged her to let her stay there, at least until she gave birth, at which time she intended to go away and seek a position herself.’

‘But surely her aunt and uncle searched for her?’

‘Whether they did or not I cannot say,’ Robert said. ‘Suffice it to say, they never found her. For who would think to look for a gentleman’s daughter in such a place?’

‘Exactly,’ Lord Kilkerran said in a grim voice. ‘And because Ellen had become so difficult to find, and because I heard nothing more from her, I assumed, rightly or wrongly, that she did not
wish
to be found. At least, not by me.’

Hannah found herself blinking back tears. ‘Then…you really did love her?’

‘Oh, I loved her,’ Lord Kilkerran admitted in a hushed voice. ‘With all the misguided passion of youth and all of its attendant idiosyncrasies.’ He sighed again, pausing for a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘The lady I married
was a good woman, and she loved me all the years of our life, but I cannot say that I loved her as I should. I was a faithful husband and a good father. I provided for my family well. But I was never able to give her what she deserved, for she was never able to take Ellen’s place in my heart.’

‘Did she know that?’ Robert asked quietly.

‘I suspect she did. She too, found one of my letters to Ellen. We never spoke of it, and I never gave her reason to doubt my fidelity once we were married, but I think she always knew that she was not my heart’s first choice.’

‘How terribly sad,’ Hannah whispered. ‘To live your whole life wishing you were with someone else.’

‘It is sad indeed, Hannah,’ Lord Kilkerran admitted. ‘And it was a terrible waste. But I did what I had to do. I was my father’s only heir, and not long after I married, he died and I ascended to the earldom. But with the title came responsibilities. I became a man of position, with lands and tenants to look after. I had no time to dwell on my own unhappiness when I had the lives of so many others to concern myself with.’

‘Your children must bring you happiness.’

‘My children
became
my happiness,’ Lord Kilkerran admitted. ‘My son, Sean, is to be wed in the spring, and my eldest daughter, Faith, has been married nigh on six months and is already expecting her first child. They are beautiful children, and I rejoice in their good fortune at having found mates whom they can truly love. Kate is presently in the care of a governess, but she will make her come-out next year.’ He looked at Hannah and smiled. ‘I’d thought myself a fortunate man to be blessed with three such fine children, Hannah. But today, having met you, I consider myself even more blessed. For in
you I see my beloved Ellen. In you I see all that she was, and I rejoice that God has chosen to smile upon me again and bring us together.’