A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(49)
Author: Tessa Dare

“How much more?” She stood and flung her arms wide, taunting him. “Pretty? Beautiful? Rapturously stunning beyond all words and comprehension?”

“The third,” he shot back. “Something like that third. When you’re not flapping like an outraged chicken, I sometimes think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

She let her arms drop.

After an awkward pause, she said, “I’m not, you realize. I’m not even the most beautiful woman in Spindle Cove.”

He held up a hand. “Let’s just go back to desirable. I found you very desirable.”

“Fine. So you recognized me and found me desirable.”

“Very.”

“Yet rather than speak to me about any of this, you decided to intimidate and avoid me for an entire year. When you knew I thought myself to be an abandoned orphan. When you must have understood how desperate I was for any connection to my past. How could you do that to me?”

“Because it was best. Your dim memories are a blessing. We lived in a place most would wish to forget. I didn’t want to inflict that unpleasantness on you now.”

“That was not your choice to make!” She gestured angrily toward the unseen ocean beyond the castle walls. “I can’t believe this. You would have left for America, having never said a word. Leaving me to wonder forever.”

As he looked on, she paced back and forth. Badger chased the flounce of her skirt from one end of the room to the other.

“If the Gramercys hadn’t found that painting and come looking for—” A horrid thought struck her. “Oh, God. Were they looking for me? Did my mother look like the portrait? Did she wear a pendant of deep blue stone?”

“I can’t say. My memories of her aren’t a great deal more reliable than yours. When I saw her, she was usually made up with rouge and kohl. Later on, pale with illness. Ellie Rose was—”

“Ellie Rose.” Kate took a pouncing step in his direction. “My mother’s name was Ellie Rose?”

“That’s what she went by. I don’t think it was her real name.”

Ellie Rose. Could she have been the same woman as Elinor Marie, or was she some other unfortunate soul?

Oh, Lord.

Who was Kate? The daughter of a marquess? The child of a whore?

Both?

She crumpled to the floor, numb everywhere. Badger pounced in her lap, as though he’d won whatever game they were playing. She ignored him. Not even puppy kisses could make this moment better.

Out of habit, her fingers went to the mark at her temple. A child of shame, Miss Paringham had called her. A child of shame who ought to live ashamed.

Be brave, my Katie.

At her loneliest, most despairing moments, that voice had given her hope. She couldn’t abandon that hope now. Someone, somewhere had loved her. Even if that someone had been a fallen woman, and that somewhere had been a seedy brothel—it didn’t change the essence of love.

Thorne said, “Do you see? This is why I tried to protect you from the truth. Leave the past forgotten, Katie. Look at your life now. All you’ve accomplished, all the friendships you’ve made. You’ve found a family to accept you.”

The Gramercys.

“Oh God,” she breathed. “I have to tell them.”

“No.” Thorne tapped the table with his good fist. “You can’t tell them anything of this.”

“But I must! Can’t you see? This could be the link. If Ellie Rose was Elinor . . . then they would know for certain I’m Simon’s daughter.”

“Aye, and they’d know for certain that you spent your first four years in a bawdy house. They’d cast you out. They’d want nothing to do with you then.”

Kate shook her head. “The Gramercys would never do that. Family above everything. That’s what they always say. They’ve weathered many a scandal.”

“There’s high-class scandal, and then there’s this. It’s not the same.”

She knew he was right. It wasn’t the same. If her mother had been an elite courtesan, then maybe the scandal wouldn’t be too much. But coming from a low-class Southwark brothel?

Nevertheless . . .

“I owe the Gramercys the truth. I can’t let them accept me into their family if there’s a chance it’s all a mistake.”

A new thought struck her. She caught and seized it.

She rose to her feet. “Maybe you’re mistaken, Thorne. Have you thought of that? So you knew a little girl with a birthmark once. But that was twenty years ago. You can’t be sure it was me.”

“What about the song, Katie?”

She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “The song is just a silly little song. What of it?”

Never mind that in all her years at Margate, all her years of music instruction, she’d never met another soul who knew it.

For a moment he looked as though he’d argue the same point. But then he seemed to reconsider.

“Fine,” he said, lifting his good shoulder in resignation. “You’re right. I must be mistaken. I never knew you as a child. You were never the daughter of a whore. All the more reason why you shouldn’t tell the Gramercys anything about this.”

“But I have to,” she whispered. “I must. They deserve to know. They’ve been so kind to me, offered me so much faith. I have to tell them. Today.”

He struggled to his feet. “Then I’ll go with you.”

“No.” She sniffed. “I don’t want you there. I don’t want you anywhere near me.” She jabbed a finger to her breastbone. “I tried to see the best in you, despite all your surliness. I defended you in my heart, even in the face of your callous rejections, and yesterday . . . I was ready to marry you, you heartless man. I foolishly thought I was coming to love you.”

Her voice broke. “And you were lying to me. All along, from the very moment you walked into this village and saw me singing in that borrowed India shawl. You lied to me. You forced me into this joke of a betrothal. You made me a fool in front of all my friends, as well as the people I hoped to call family. All this, when you knew—you knew how much it meant to me. I can’t keep letting you hurt me, Thorne. You were right, that day in the churchyard. I need someone capable of sympathy and caring. I need a better man.”

“Katie—”

“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that again.”

He caught her by the arm. “Katie, I can’t let you walk away. Not like this.”