The Romany Heiress (20 page)

“Absolutely. We have options. We just need to select
the right options based on our circumstances,” Tristan
said staunchly.

No one said anything else, but Giles found himself
comforted by Tristan’s words. The vicar was only the
next of many steps in unraveling the mystery Cate had
laid before them. He wasn’t going to lose Spelthorne, at
least not today, and for the present, that seemed to be
enough.

The vicar arrived promptly at 10:00 and met by them
all in the formal drawing room. Giles had changed out
of his riding clothes into proper morning attire. It
would have passed as ordinary in London, but for the
country, the Spanish blue morning coat with waistcoat,
buff inexpressibles, polished Hoby’s, and the cravat
tied in a “mail coach” knot bespoke of sartorially wellturned out gentleman.

Giles wanted it that way. He did not remember the
vicar well since the man had received the offer up north
during Giles’s youth. Likewise, the vicar did not know
him beyond any recollection he might have of a lad at
the manor. Giles wanted to make a solid first impression, one that indicated the kind of man he was, the
kind of man who ran Spelthorne. He was pleased to
note that Alain and Tristan had also taken time to turn
themselves out to best advantage. The three of them
looked like gentlemen to take seriously. The women
were turned out well too in their morning gowns of jaconet muslin.

The picture the five of them presented was formidable, if the vicar’s face was any indicator. The vicar was
a tall, thin man with a beaky nose and kind eyes. Fading
brown hair edging toward sparseness was evident when
he removed his hat and handed it to the butler.

Giles came forward. “I am Spelthorne. I am pleased
you could undertake the journey and meet with us. I felt
that our conversation should take place in person instead of a series of letters for the sake of clarity and resolution. I trust your journey was pleasant? The weather
has held remarkably well for fall. The inn is highly recommended, and I’ve told the innkeeper to send your bill
straight to me”

“Thank you,” the man said nervously, glancing
around the elegant gold and cream drawing room.
“Spelthorne is much as I remember it years ago under
the previous earl and yet, it seems somehow changed
for the better. I am Vicar Robert Waring. It has been years. Twenty two of them since I was a young man
here, early in my calling to the church”

“I hope during your stay, you’ll make free of the
grounds and reacquaint yourself.” Giles gestured to a
chair between Alain and Tristan’s. “Tea shall be served
shortly, and then we can begin to unravel the situation.
I shall send for Cate. It is time for her to be down here
as well since this concerns her.”

“There’s no need, I’m right here” Cate entered the
room before Giles could send off a footman. To her
credit she looked nervous, and Giles was struck with a
pang of selfishness. While he’d been languishing in the
study, he’d had the comfort of his friends’ presence.
She’d had no one. Surely, she was as nervous about the
vicar’s visit as he was. Both their lives seemed to hang
in the balance of the man’s words, of his remembrances. She didn’t know, as he did, that the ending was
a happy one for her either way. At worst, she’d walk out
of here today with the lease on a nice property and an
allowance for life.

Once tea was poured out, Giles turned to Robert
Waring. “Cate has in her possession two documents
that are at the source of our conundrum” This was her
cue and she took it, producing the birth certificate and
the diary.

“The birth certificate is of main interest to you, Vicar,”
Giles went on, “since it bears your signature as witness
to the birth of a Catherine Celeste Moncrief on the seventeenth day of September.” Inwardly he marveled at
how calm he sounded. After the emotional strain of the morning, he hadn’t been sure he would be up to conducting the interview with his usual savoir faire. Across from
him, Cate was pale, her green eyes looking larger than
usual against the whiteness of her face.

“The diary is of less importance although it is the
source that suggests the baby girl was switched at birth
for a boy born the same day” Gingerly Giles handed
over the worn red diary, opening it to the entry regarding the events of the fateful night.

The group sat in silence, giving the vicar time to assess the documents and gather his thoughts. “What is
that you want to know from me?

Giles cleared his throat. “I want to know if it is true.
Did the countess bear a daughter but never a son?”

The vicar looked from Giles to Cate. “I would encourage you both to realize that what I am about to disclose to you does not necessarily affirm anything. It
only affirms what I know, which may only be a part of
the puzzle. Hypothetically, if I say there was a daughter, it does not prove that this woman here,” he gestured
to Cate, “is that daughter.”

He drew a deep breath and began. “What I know to
have happened agrees with the entry in the diary. In order to procure a birth certificate, I had to be shown the
baby. Since the labor was not going well, I had been
called to the abbey to be on hand should the worst happen. I saw the child as soon as it was born. It was indeed a girl. I did not suspect anything was afoot. I was
given my transfer up to York shortly after the child’s birth when Spelthorne returned home. I knew nothing
of this duplicity until your letter arrived. You must believe I would not have kept quiet about such goings on.
But yes, the countess bore a daughter.”

He sighed and peered at them all. “I can see that you
expected more from me but that is all I know. I signed a
birth certificate for Catherine Moncrief. Was this baby
switched for a male child? I don’t know. Was the countess capable of that? I can only speculate. She was
lonely, desperately in love with a husband who did not
pay attention to her. I did not know her well enough to
make judgments about her.”

The vicar picked up the birth certificate again and
held it to the light of a window. “There it is. My watermark. I can tell you the certificate is not a forgery. See
here, the watermark seal? It was on all of my official
documents for the accuracy of record keeping.

“Is the doctor still alive?” he asked.

“No,” Giles responded tersely. The long-awaited
vicar had not really helped resolve the situation. His information was at once sparse and yet highly informative.

“Too bad. The doctor would perhaps know something
of use, a clear clue like a birthmark or a family resemblance,” The vicar mused. “My lord, you have golden
hair like your father. Miss, you have the dark look of the
countess. She had the blackest hair I’d ever seen. But of
course, many people in this world bear those traits.”

“But no one has this,” a stern voice from doorway
called.

Everyone turned to see the woman they knew as
Cate’s maid standing there, from her hand dangled a
heavy emerald pendant.

Voices erupted at once.

“You. You’re the woman who was at the birth!” exclaimed Waring.

“The Spelthorne emerald!” Giles cried in disbelief.
“Where did you get it? It was recorded missing ages ago.”

“Magda!” Cate’s voice rose above the rest.

Giles’s head whipped in her direction. “Magda?”
How had they overlooked that? The gypsy healer was
here, had been here in this house for weeks. “Why didn’t
you tell me?” Anger tinged his voice. He felt betrayed.

“Where did you get that?” Tristan said, providing the
voice of reason.

Magda strode toward them. “The night the countess
gave the child into my keeping, she gave me this as
well, to keep safe as part of her birthright. For years I
have kept the secret and discharged my duty.” She
whirled on Giles. “Now it is time to do your duty and
step down.”

Tristan cut in sharply and seized the necklace. “This
may be a fake. If it hasn’t been seen for years, how do
we know this is the one? No one living would be likely
to recognize it,” he challenged. “Are there any papers
regarding the authenticity of the gem?” he asked Giles.

Giles drew a deep breath. “I believe they are in the
safe in the study where all papers of authenticity are
kept for the Spelthorne heirlooms. But it will not be
necessary” He reached out a hand to steady himself on the arm of the chair. “It was my father’s wedding gift to
her. It was customary to give it to each countess as a
day-after gift. That necklace is in the portrait of my
mother hanging in the gallery. She was painted wearing
it shortly after their marriage.”

Giles paced the gallery later that afternoon after all
talk had been exhausted downstairs in the sitting room.
Hours of discussion hadn’t established anything new or
helpful in terms of resolving the situation, and he found
he simply had to get away from it all. So here he was,
alone at last, pacing the long hall that served as the informal gallery at the abbey. Alain had come by once ostensibly to see if he needed any food or drink, but Giles
had sensed he’d come to talk things over once again, to
be a supportive friend if need be. Giles, while grateful
for the offer, had turned him away.

He knew Alain and Tristan had strategies and plans.
Most likely those plans would secure Spelthorne for
him and shut off any further avenue of pursuit Cate
might take. However, this tangle was something he had
to resolve on his own, in his own way. What Alain and Tristan didn’t see or perhaps didn’t fully recognize was
the emotional layer beneath the legal surface. There
was a family, a history at stake here.

He paused before his father’s portrait, an elegant oil
done in the tradition of Joshua Reynolds. It was difficult to reshape his viewing of it. This was not a picture
of his father but of the man he’d believed was his father,
right up until that morning. The man in the portrait was
in his full prime, perhaps thirty-five years of age, not
much older than Giles was now. His hair was glossy
and golden, his eyes intelligent if hard in their shrewd
assessment of the world they viewed. He was outfitted
in the best of fashion at the turn of the century.

Giles had been told throughout his growing up how
much he resembled his father physically and in mannerisms. He had both warmed to those compliments
and quietly rebelled against them. His father had been a
man Giles had respected at a distance. An earl had responsibilities to people that superseded obligations to a
family or to a single son. As much as Giles would have
preferred more time with his father growing up, he had
been taught not to expect it. As he grew older, he often
found himself thankful for that early lesson.

Watching the deteriorating marriage between his
parents, he understood that his father was incapable of
establishing close attachments. He was coldly courteous
to Giles’s mother but nothing more even though her adoration and attempts to reconcile with him were painfully
obvious. Giles had believed and feared that he was like
his father in that regard.

That fear became a double-edged sword as he entered
his twenties and entered the world of the ton. As the scion
to a prestigious title, he was expected to have his affaires
de coeur while he sowed his oats and looked for a respectable wife. Fearing that he lacked the ability to have
a meaningful relationship, Giles did not let himself put it
to the test. Thus he’d arrived at the age of thirty, still unattached, still looking for a grand passion. Of course, he
was still in the process of realizing that if this man wasn’t
his father, then he might indeed be capable of loving
most intensely.

Light footsteps sounded at the gallery entrance.
Giles resisted turning around. The footfalls indicated it
wasn’t Alain or Tristan. He worried they’d conspired to
send Bella. He wasn’t ready for her either.

“Giles”

It was Cate. He wondered if Tristan had driven her
from their presence. If so, she’d be devastated. He didn’t
have to be told how much Cate had come to rely on the
guidance of Bella and Cecile over the past weeks. Losing them would hurt her although she’d have to have
known the loss of their friendship was inevitable under
the circumstances.

He turned to face her. One glance at her face told
him all he needed to know. She was suffering too. He
was suddenly glad she’d been the one to come. She was
the one he needed to be with. Any resolution could
come only from them. He’d decided early in his pacing
that there were certain stratagems he would not embrace. He held out his hand to her, inviting her to join him on the low bench against the long windows opposite the portraits.

“Am I intruding?” Cate asked quietly.

“No,” Giles tendered a brief smile. “Did they run
you off?”

Cate shook her head. “No. Your friends are far too
well-bred for that. But I sensed their unease and went
to my rooms shortly after you left. However,” she
paused here and pleated the skirt of her gown between her fingers, “I found I needed to talk with you,
alone. I have made decisions during the course of the
afternoon but they are useless without your collaboration.”