Page 12 of To Catch a Viscount

To think Society declared her an Incomparable.

The shine is certainly off this diamond, as her family’s secrets and the truth of her birthright mark her as nothing more than a pasty fake.

With a rush of movement, her father stalked over and grabbed that newspaper. Wordlessly, he returned to the hearth and tossed the pages atop the logs on that grate.

The lightly burning fire immediately licked at the corners, painting them black, and they slowly curled before catching in a fiery conflagration.

As if burning them might somehow undo the truth and make all of this go away.

Her parents still hadn’t learned, had they?

The truth always won out and found its place in the world, while secrets and lies were vanquished.

“Is it true?” she asked quietly when it appeared neither her father nor her mother would find the courage to speak. “Is Lord Atbrooke… my father?”

Her mother’s lips flattened into a pained-looking line. Then, slowly, she nodded. “He is.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me aboutanyof this?” That same question had dogged her since she’d first seen her name printed in the special edition that waited for them on their arrival from the church.

If possible, her mother turned a deathly shade of white.

Her father was immediately at her mother’s side. Taking a seat beside her, he caught her fingers and gave a light squeeze.

Marcia stared on at that tender touch, a loving show of support between husband and wife.

I almost had that…

Her heart shuddered and ached in her chest all over again as she grappled with what she’d lost. At what she’d been so very close to having. “I had a right to know,” she said, her voice catching. Marcia pressed a fist against her breast, thumping it once. “I had a right to know,” she repeated. “And not to find out from some”—she slashed that same hand in the direction of the hearth—“gossipcolumn.”

Husband and wife shared a look. They had an unspoken language between them, while Marcia was left sitting there, attempting to decipher the indecipherable exchange.

Then her father drew her mother’s knuckles to his mouth, kissed lightly and held her fingers there a moment longer before mouthing the words, “I love you.”

Her mother looked over at Marcia once more. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and the uncertainty and agony in her eyes had faded.

But then, love did that, she thought bitterly.

It made one feel one could do and be anything.

“I never told you the truth… about the man who sired you,” her mother began.

Marcia firmed her mouth. “No, you haven’t.” Instead, she’d let Marcia believe there’d been some grand soldier who’d been the love of her mother’s life, who’d gone off to fight Boney’s forces, only to never return. A laugh that sounded bitter to her own ears spilled from her lips and poisoned the air. “I think we’ve confirmed as much this day. That is, unless you intend to say that the Marquess of Atbrooke was in fact a soldier at some point.”

Her mother turned white again. Her fingers shook, and her father covered them with his other palm. “No,” her mother said quietly, her voice steadier than those trembling digits. “He was never a soldier. He was a…” She paused, as if searching for proper ways to describe the man partly responsible for giving Marcia life. Suddenly, her mother straightened, and she brought her shoulders back and her chin up. “He was a scapegrace. He was the worst sort of scoundrel. A terrible cad.” She spoke like one at last freed by the ability to speak freely.

At last, it made sense. Before her mother had loved her father, she’d loved a rogue.

“He seduced you,” Marcia said as understanding dawned.

Her mother’s lips curled inward until they formed a thin, flat line, like she was biting them on the inside. She gave a slight, tight shake of her head. “No,” she finally said on a faint whisper so soft that Marcia thought for a moment she’d merely imagined it.

Marcia’s brow dipped. “I don’t—”

Her mother held her eyes, and something in those blue depths froze the words on her lips as the same pit of dread that had formed in her belly that morn and swelled at the church grew all the more.

“He… took advantage of me… in a different way.”

Marcia wished her mother hadn’t spoken. And she proved a coward in that instant, not wanting the details of that day, but forcing herself to take them in anyway. “I don’t understand.” She didn’t wish to, because she didn’t want to find out that any of this was somehow even more sordid than she’d first believed.

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