Lady Revealed (15 page)

“Still… “

“It is not your fault, Jordan.” She squeezed his hand. “You were simply teasing your younger sister, as big brothers are supposed to do. It was your father who was to blame.”

Maman looked at those gathered around. “I tried to make him stop striking you. My stomach churned each time he picked up that willow switch. None of you ever did anything that deserved such harsh punishment. In fact, you rarely did anything that you should be disciplined for. You were the sweetest and nicest boys I had ever had the pleasure of knowing but your father was hard and had his version of perfection for each one of you.”

“It was different?”
Genviève
asked.

Her mother swiped a tear from her cheek. “Yes. Matthew would be struck if he didn’t do well on his Bible memorization.” She indicated to the auburn-haired man. “Yet Jordan could fail all of his subjects and his father wouldn’t care. He expected different things from each one of his children so they could grow into the men he expected them to be.”

“So you abandoned us to protect your daughter?” The quieter one demanded.

“I know it feels like I abandoned you,” She drew out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “I would have taken each of you with me if I thought I could have gotten away with it, but there was more than Julia at stake.”

She glanced at the two young women sitting on the opposite sides of the room. “I was expecting. If I bore another girl, he would be livid. If I bore a son, he would be groomed to be whatever your father decided and make sure it happened if he had to beat the boy every day. I couldn’t live like that.” She looked up at Bentley. “The four of you would be gone from home soon. Sent off to school where you would be safe. I would not have that option and I couldn’t live another day wondering if another child was being beaten and if he would take it too far one day.”

“Did father know you were expecting?” Matthew asked.

“No. Had he, I doubt he would have let me go.”

“I am still surprised he did,” the one who Juliette still did not know the name of said after a moment.

Adele shrugged. “He didn’t care for me and thought I was worthless. He wanted someone to give him sons and who would not interfere. I was neither of those.” She glanced over at
Genviève and Hélène. “When I gave birth to twin girls I knew I had made the right choice in leaving.”

“How did you end up in Paris if that was not your intention,” Bentley asked.

“He decided that was where I was to be.”

Juliette was glad she did not remember the man who had sired her and even though he had been a titled man and she may have had privileges beyond what she could comprehend, she was glad her mother had left and for the life they had lead. It was much better than living with a tyrant and in fear.

“He sent you and his own daughter into probably one of the most volatile cities in the world, with no one to protect you?” Bentley demanded.

“There was someone.” A gentle smile came to maman’s lips. “My grandmother lived in Paris. My mother was French. My father had met her during a visit, fell in love and brought her back to London.”

“You lived with your grandparents in Paris?”

She chuckled. “I never had a grandfather.” She looked pointedly at the brothers in order to make her message clear. Juliette’s face heated and she looked away. “My daughters are well aware of the past. My grandmother was a courtesan.”

Jordan frowned. “Father knew, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Maman frowned. “He told you?”

Jordan shook his head. “No. He said something once, which I won’t repeat, but it makes sense now.”

“Yes, your father had hoped her talents would have naturally fallen to me. He was rather disappointed.”

“Mother!” Juliette hissed.

Maman ignored her. “But in Paris I found the best way to survive was to follow in her footsteps.”

“They don’t need to know everything,”
Genviève
warned.

“Yes, they do,” Maman insisted. “I shielded my daughters the best I could but as they grew older, they began to suspect. We lived well. Your father sent funds to keep us comfortable and my lovers were very generous. I was able to provide a secure and good life for my girls and keep them safe.”

“Maman had no choice,” Juliette said quietly, remembering the warnings the soldier had issued that one late night long ago.

“There is always a choice,” Bentley bit out.

Juliette marched up to him. “An English woman in the middle of Revolutionary France was a very dangerous situation indeed.” She turned and glared at all four gentlemen in the room. “Those men who visited maman knew exactly who she was and that her husband had been a lord. It was their threats of imprisonment and potential death to us all,” she gestured to her sister, “that prompted Maman to take the only option open to her.”

“How did you know?” her mother asked quietly.

“I didn’t at the time. I was hiding at the top of the stairs the night the first man arrived. I heard you speaking with him and watched as you took him to your room.” Tears stung Juliette’s eyes. “I didn’t comprehend what was being asked of you until I was older.” She wheeled back around and stared Bentley down. “Maman was given no choice!” she bit out. “Not if she wished for us to live.”

Matthew cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the discussion. “Did father ever learn about the twins?” He glanced between Helene and Genviève.

“No.” She smiled lovingly at the two young women. “One to resemble me and the other a Trent.” She focused back on Matthew. “I went to great lengths to keep them a secret.”

“It must have been a great inconvenience to leave Paris after establishing yourself so well,” the quieter one said. Juliette wished someone would tell her all of their names.

“It was, but when your father wrote and insisted that I send Julia home and that he was sending someone for her I knew we couldn’t remain.”

“He sent for me?” Juliette asked.

“He wanted to arrange a marriage for you to a Lord Purlingham.”

“You objected to me marrying?” Juliette demanded. Juliette had only wanted two things in life. One was to dance. The other, a stable life, a respectable life. A home of her own, love from a husband and children.

The young woman leaned forward. Juliette suspected she was the wife of one of her brothers and until she moved, had forgotten she was in the room. “Purlingham is ancient. Or at least he seems so. He is older than father was so it is best you were not forced into that union. I doubt he would have been a more attractive match even eight years ago.”

As much as Juliette wished for marriage, she would rather remain a spinster than be made to live with someone thirty years her senior.

Juliette studied the young woman. Was she a sister? She didn’t say “my father” but “father”. How can there be a sister younger than her when maman and father had never divorced. Unless they had, and no one told her. It wouldn’t be a surprise to Juliette since there was much she hadn’t been told.

“I am Madeline,” she announced with a brilliant smile, though it still didn’t explain who she was and how the young woman was related to her.

“I remembered Purlingham from London,” her mother said. “He and Bentley were of a same age and mind. I would not subject my daughter to such a marriage.”

“Where did you go when you left Paris?” Bentley asked.

“Milan,”
Hélène
answered.

Mother sighed. “I hated to leave Paris. Juliette had just begun to dance.” She glanced around the room. “She is a beautiful dancer, natural, and had received lead roles in the ballet at Opera d’Paris, even though she was only seventeen.” She looked at the twins. “
Hélène
is an actress, as if she were born to the stage and can become anyone she wishes, even a man, and nobody would know the difference once her costuming and makeup is complete.
Genviève
has the voice of an angel but refused to work in the theater.”

“And, did you continue in your profession?” Bentley asked.

Adele frowned at his disapproving tone. “No. It was no longer necessary and a chance to start anew.”

“Why return to England now?” Jordan asked. The anger was gone from his tone and eyes.

“Like I said, I found out he died.”

“Father had been alive all of this time?”
Genviève asked in surprise.

“Yes,” Maman answered.

“So you thought to march back into London as if nothing had happened and you hadn’t been supposedly dead for over twenty years?” Jordan asked with irritation.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be dead,” Maman argued as she used a cane to help her to her feet. “I did not know he had remarried and had another daughter until we arrived in Dover. It changed everything.”

Bentley arched an eyebrow as if he didn’t quite believe her.

“Even though I did not know his wife, or daughter, I was certain they did not know the truth about me.”

Juliette glanced around at her siblings. Their expressions didn’t reveal anything. However, Madeline glanced down at her hands, folded neatly on her lap. Had she known? Madeline must be her sister. Were there more siblings she had yet to learn about?

“I knew what my appearance could do to a young lady new to society. She would be ruined and I would not take that away from her. I suspected her life had already been difficult enough so I made the decision to travel to Scotland and await the news of her marriage.”

“Why didn’t you call on one of us when you arrived in London?” Jordan demanded. “The secret would have been kept.”

“I had hoped to return to Milan without you ever knowing we were here.”

“Yet, when you registered at an inn in Oxford, you used the name Lady Bentley,” Jordan reminded her.

Juliette glanced at her mother. She hadn’t known and rarely paid attention when mother requested rooms.

“I was ill and so tired. I wasn’t sure how serious my illness was and I didn’t want to die without my daughters being protected. I regretted the decision the following morning and hoped no one would learn.”

Bentley nodded as if he accepted the explanation.

Juliette stared at her mother, as did
Genviève and Hélène. Her behavior became stranger and stranger.

“You had no intention of calling on me, any of us?” Bentley demanded.

“No.” She answered frankly. “Why should I? I was supposed to be dead.” She glanced around the room. “The life I knew here was gone and I doubted you would remember me, or that you would care to have me back in your life.” She shrugged. “Then there was your step-mother to consider. Once I learned the circumstances of her marriage, at the age of fifteen, I could not present myself because then all of society would realize her marriage was never legal. She was free for the first time in her adult life and what right did I have to ruin everything for her?”

The brothers shared a look that bespoke they agreed with her. Juliette assumed she would never be acknowledged in public as being their sister and that their lives would continue much as it was up until now. In truth, she did not need them, even though it was nice to know her family was larger. Madeline was younger and of Society. If their secrets became known, it could destroy her.

Juliette sipped from the glass as thoughts churned in her head. Madeline’s mother had married at fifteen. What kind of family would do that to their daughter? As she estimated Madeline’s age to be no more than twenty then her mother may not be above six and thirty, only eleven years older than Juliette. Was if fair to upset that woman’s life now? She had lived with father all those years and if he was as cruel as mother described then she deserved peace and Juliette did not really need any more family than she had already known.

Maman crossed the room and stopped before the gentleman who had barely spoken. Her mother placed a hand against his cheek. “John, you were so young when I left.”

He blushed slightly and nodded.

“Always getting into scrapes, climbing trees. I was surprised you didn’t break more bones or require more stitches.”

“Not much has changed,” Matthew muttered.

Maman then approached him. “And you, Matthew, did you become a vicar? It is what your father wanted.”

“Yes, though I am not any longer.”

The smile dropped from maman’s face and confusion marred her brow.

“It was what father wanted, not I. When he died, I was free to do as I wish.”

Her mother’s smile returned.

“And you, Jordan, what have you become? I know what your father wished and hoped you to be. I am almost afraid to ask if he succeeded.”

His faced turned a deep red and Juliette wondered what exactly father wanted him to do.

“He did as father expected, for a time,” Madeline giggled.

Bentley shot her a look.

“I secretly became a solicitor and now openly work as one.”

Maman smiled and nodded in approval before she focused on Bentley. He was the only one who made Juliette uncomfortable. There was something unforgiving about him. “You are the one I was concerned with most. You were so like your father. I expected you to turn out just like him.”

Bentley’s jaw tightened for a moment. “I am ashamed to admit that for a time I was exactly like him.”

Maman’s shoulders slumped.

“Thankfully, I met my wife and everything changed.”

Her mother seemed to relax at these words. “I am very happy for that.”

She turned and looked at the brothers once again. Tears sparkled in maman’s eyes. “I am glad I got the chance to see what fine gentlemen you have turned out to be, despite the circumstances.” She sniffed and turned, slowing making her way back to the settee.

Her mother should have not been walking around. It tired her and maman needed to get her strength back. She had just settled when her body was racked with deep coughs. Juliette rushed forward and pushed a handkerchief into her hand. Please, don’t let them see the blood. Let them think maman is only older, not weaker and in a position where they could take advantage of their situation.

As the coughs subsided, Juliette picked up her mother’s glass of brandy and placed it against her lips. Maman took a few sips and relaxed back against the settee.