White Lace and Promises (27 page)

Beth cringed and her face heated.

They were sitting in Nellie’s elegant parlour and they were having tea and cakes. It was her first time out of the house since recovering from her fall. Since that afternoon at Red Oaks, Grey had resumed his aloof preoccupation. No—he’d been even more distant, more unreachable. And he hadn’t returned to her bed since. The days had dragged by in a haze of loneliness and uselessness. With Grey gone to Salem for several days, she’d decided to do some visiting.

Nellie’s lined face wrinkled with concern. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”

“I lost my temper and did something stupid,” Beth admitted. “I am always doing something rash. I fear my mother’s reckless blood shall be my undoing as well.”

A small peal of laughter burst from Nellie. The normally dignified lady looked so overcome with mirth that Beth was shocked. Then Nellie put her hand to her lips, as if trying to stop the bubbles of laughter from coming forth. “Sorry, but your mother was not wild.” She shook her head. “Whoever put that idea into your mind?”

“Mrs Hazelwood said she was.”

“Alice was a little mouse of a thing. Quiet and biddable.” Nellie snorted. “As if Cornelia would have accepted any other kind of girl for a servant.”

“But Mrs Hazelwood said—”

“Oh, my sister has such strange notions. The best thing to do is placate her and never take anything seriously. It is the only way to deal peaceably with her.” Nellie’s expression turned thoughtful, then she reached out and squeezed Beth’s hand. “If anything, your mother was too passive and too susceptible to the charms of a certain young man.” Her blue eyes twinkled merrily.

Beth’s breath caught. “You know who my father is?”

A sad light in Nellie’s eyes juxtaposed her answering smile. “Yes. Cornelia thought the truth should be kept from you. To prevent you from getting ideas above yourself. I never agreed, but then one does not often successfully disagree with Cornelia.” She patted Beth’s hand and sighed heavily. “But you are of an age now and I do not see how the truth may be kept from you any longer. Indeed, if you are in society, someone is bound to recognise the resemblance.” She stood and walked over to her writing desk and opened a drawer.

She came back and handed a gilt-edged miniature to Beth. “See the truth for yourself.”

A handsome young man with a shock of silver-blond hair stared back at Beth, his sky-blue eyes blazing with passion, his mouth quirked up with careless amusement.

Except for the strong, masculine jaw, she might have been looking into a mirror.

Chapter Fifteen

Beth almost dropped the frame. “Who is he?” she asked.

“He is your father, dear,” Nellie replied with maddening obliqueness.

“Yes, yes, of course, but
who
is he?” Beth struggled to keep the impatience from her voice. She’d waited her whole life to know. Why must Nellie drag it out like this?

“He is my younger half-brother, Peter van Moerdijk.”

Beth pulled the frame closer and gazed hard at the portrait. Peter? Really? Yes, she remembered Peter. A tall, blond man with a ready laugh—but how time had muted that shining silver blondness and those piercing sky-blue eyes. She remembered a man. The handsome face staring back at her was almost boyish. A boy in a man’s body.

Peter?

But then—

“Peter…but he can’t… That means…” Beth placed her fingertips to her temples. Mrs Hazelwood’s Peter was—“Oh, I don’t understand.” Surely, Mrs Hazelwood couldn’t have kept this truth from her? She would be the woman’s blood relative. A niece, just as Joshua was a nephew.
Oh, God
—she would be Joshua’s cousin. He had seduced and betrayed not just the daughter of Mrs Hazelwood’s wanton servant, but his own cousin. It was too much to take in at once. Had Joshua known? Beth’s head was spinning. She thrust the frame back at Nellie. “It can’t be. It just can’t.”

The older woman—her aunt—thrust the picture back at her. “I think you should have this now. You’ve been denied your past—your truth—for too long.”

“I don’t understand at all. Mrs Hazelwood would not have—
could
not have—kept all of this from me. She spoke of her brother Peter all the time. She never betrayed the least clue to me. She just couldn‘t have done that. She wouldn‘t.”

“I know—it is new and it is a shock.”

“Tell me,” Beth breathed. “Tell me
everything
.”

A wistful smile curved the older woman’s lips and she sighed. “When I was thirteen, my father married a quiet woman with hair as silver-gilt as yours. She was a Swede. She died when Peter was two. My sisters and I were overwhelmed to have a young brother to lavish attention on—we quite spoilt him. Everyone loved Peter. He was a charming rogue—and only became more so as he grew.

“When he was twenty-seven, while visiting Cornelia in Philadelphia, he fell into the water. He was skating on the Schuylkill when the ice was too thin—on a dare, you see. He was always game for a dare, or a wager. He caught a horrible lung fever and had to spend time recuperating at Cornelia’s. Your mother was still a very pretty woman for being over forty.” Nellie laughed softly and shrugged. “I am afraid there isn’t much more to tell. When he recovered, he went home to his young wife. Pretty, willing women were plentiful in his life and your mother was nothing special. You mustn’t be angry with your mother. Peter just had a way with women—they could not resist him.”

Beth gaped at Nellie. All this time, she’d assumed that no one had known who had fathered her. She had suspected that perhaps not even her mother had been able to ascertain which man’s seed had taken root. Because if anyone had known, then surely they would have told her. Yes, surely. No one could be so cruel as to have kept this knowledge from her.

No one who truly cared for her.

“Well, your mother certainly found herself at a loose end with Mr McConnell, let me tell you. He was not a happy man. As you know, he was many years older than your mother and I am given to understand they had not been on intimate terms for many years by then so there was no hiding the deed. Oh, Cornelia was furious with Peter—for all the good it did her. No one stayed angry with him for long.”

The chamber seemed overheated and Beth’s head swam. She held up her hand. “Wait.” She paused and swallowed, struggling to put the terrible truth into words. “He
knew
?” Her throat constricted, forcing her voice into a squeak. “Peter knew?”

Nellie’s brows shot up. “Well, of course he knew.”

“Oh God, he
knew
.” All this time Beth had thought her father hadn’t known. That if he had known, he would have come for her. Claimed her as his child. Taken her to live with him and cared for her and cosseted her.

Nellie frowned. “Child, you must understand. You were not unique in his life. There were several children—several that
I
know of.”

A hard lump settled in her stomach. Heavens, she’d been fathered by a man who had no more care for where he scattered his seed than a tomcat.

“He was quite proud of you. He said you were a pretty, taking little thing.”

“H—how did he die? Mrs Hazelwood never spoke of it.”

Nellie nodded. “He died in a duel over some hasty and thoughtless insult he’d levied at someone in a card game. He could be so careless. All the broken bones and the wild visions and silly plans he had—oh my goodness.” She smiled and wiped at her teary eyes, then gave a little sniff. “I vow that boy was left on the doorstep by elves. When Cornelia speaks of the wild blood you inherited, she is really speaking of your father.”

Beth shook her head. “She never told me. How could she keep this from me? I thought she cared for me, in her own way, but she couldn’t have. Not if she would keep this truth from me.”

Nellie smiled and touched Beth’s face. “You were a spirited child—oh, good Lord, how you gave Cornelia fits. She worried you would be like Peter and come to a bad end. She never really got over his death, you know. She hates the things she cannot control.”

* * * *

As she rode back to Broadway in the carriage, Beth stared out of the window, seeing everything differently. She was not a pretender to this world. Not entirely. And the wildness in herself that she’d fought her whole life was not from the servant side of her parentage but from her well-born father.

Her hand clamped tenaciously on the miniature frame, as if it would vanish into thin air if she slackened her grip. She hadn’t been able to stop glancing at it. Each time she saw those sky-blue eyes and the features so like her own, it made her head light. Here was the truth she’d waited her whole life to know.

But what did it mean?

Had he cared for her at all? Had he considered the pain he’d brought to her by siring her so fecklessly? She glanced at his devil-may-care expression and suspected he had not.

She was connected to Mrs Hazelwood by blood. Had been denied the love of her own family, even as she’d lived in their very midst. It was too much to accept in one lump like this.

Who was she? The child of a servant wench, a member of the lower sort? The child of a disreputable rake? Elizabeth or Beth?

She didn’t know.

* * * *

Three days later, Beth sat in the parlour, trying to read but seeing none of the words on the page. With Grey gone, she’d been alone with all the new revelations and it still felt unreal to her.

“Mrs Sexton?”

Beth looked up. “Yes?”

Mary stood in the doorway. “Madam, Dr Joshua Wade and Mrs Ruth Allen are here.”

Beth’s mouth dropped open in pure surprise. She stood and her book dropped to the floor. “Well, show them in,” she said coolly.

“Right away, Mrs Sexton,” Mary said, her lace cap fluttering as she hurried away.

Beth’s spirits lifted. Ruth was here. God, she could use an understanding face.

Joshua came in first. He was losing his looks. Truly he must be, for he no longer possessed the devastating handsomeness that had once made her heart squeeze each time she looked at him.

She fixed him with a fierce look. “What you doing here, Joshua?”

“I am accompanying Aunt Cornelia here.”

His words jolted her low in the stomach. She couldn’t help flinching. “Mrs Hazelwood is here, in New York?”

“Yes.”

What were the chances of that? Just her luck to have this now. “What are you doing here in my house, Joshua?”

The skin strained over his cheekbones and his lips pursed. He tilted his head ever so slightly and his brows rose. His special look of chastisement for her.

Once it would have sent her scurrying to please him. Today it just left her cold. She lifted her chin and met his look levelly. He was her cousin. A man who should have protected her. Instead he had seduced and betrayed her.

He let out his breath in a long, almost whistling exhale. “Well, that’s a fine thank you.”

Her mouth fell open. “Thank you?”

“I asked Ruth and her two chits to come along with us here.”

Warmth blossomed in her chest. She had missed Ruth so much, but she’d missed her nieces most. “Her daughters are here, too?”

He nodded. “Yes. I brought her in my new well-sprung carriage.” His brows drew together and his lip curled upwards. “Well, not quite so new now, after your nieces puked all over the inside on the first day out.”

How prissy Joshua is.

Had he always been that way?

A smile tried to force its way across her mouth. She exerted iron control and made her voice cold. “I am grateful to you for escorting them all the way from Philadelphia, of course.” Joshua’s sensual mouth compressed.

“Aunt Elizabeth! Aunt Elizabeth!” the two little girls piped in their lisping voices as they exploded into the parlour. Their sandy brown curls bounced as they ran towards her.

Beth dropped to her knees and held out her arms. They threw themselves at her and she wrapped their tiny bodies in her embrace. A rush of love melted all the coldness from her heart and she closed her eyes with the pleasure of their closeness. They had all been parted for far too long. Ruth must make her home in New York now—that was all there was to it.

As she came into the room, Ruth’s eyes shone with excitement and two spots of bright red coloured her cheeks. “Oh, Elizabeth! The trip was so exciting. Dr Wade was such a gentleman with the girls. I don’t know how to thank him.”

“Yes, he’s an utter Sir Galahad,” Beth said dryly.

Joshua frowned and adjusted his cravat with a flick of his hand. “Aunt Cornelia asked me to fetch you to her.”

Beth smiled pleasantly, placidly. “Amy, Charley, why don’t you let Mary take you to the kitchens for some cake.” Beth made eye contact with her servant. “Mary, please bring coffee and cake for us.”

Mary nodded and led the little girls from the parlour. Beth waited until she had returned with the cake and coffee, then she rounded on Joshua.

“Let me understand this. Mrs Hazelwood wouldn’t come to my house, not even when it is Mr Grey Sexton’s fine house on Broadway?” Bile soured her stomach and her lip curled up.

Joshua’s face froze, then he blinked. “Good God, you sound so hard. What’s happened between you and Aunt Cornelia?”