Page 86 of The Last Debutante
Daria threw her arms wide in disbelief. “Yes, of course! If this isn’tenoughmadness, then we’ll add a devastating family secret! What is it, Mamie? What possible secret could we have?”
“Oh, Daria,” Mamie said sadly, and gazed at Daria as if she were about to walk up on the gallows. “I never wanted to tell you this. I—we—had hoped there would never be a need. But as you’ve grown up and wanted more from life... ItoldBeth that this was inevitable, and she wouldn’t listen to me!”
“What?”Daria snapped. “Say whatever it is now, or I will walk out the door for good. I have been held for ransom because of this secret! You shot an innocent man because of it! You will tell me, or I will walk out the door and you will never see me again.” She angrily swiped at a tear that was sliding down her cheek.
“I am telling you the truth now, Daria.” Mamie slowly gained her feet and reached for Daria’s hand. “Have you ever wondered why your parents came to live in Hadley Green? Why your grandfather and I followed?”
“Mamma said they came to Hadley Green for the air.”
Mamie swallowed. “They came to Hadley Green to escape an awful scandal, and the earl was happy to help them. Your father was a jeweler, did you know? He had helped a broker sell some of the countess’s jewelry for the earl. And when scandal came to your father, the earl offered your parents refuge.”
“Refuge,” Daria repeated.
Mamie swallowed again, as if the words were stuck in her throat. “He knew that your father was married...” She looked away. “He was—heis—married to someone else.”
It took a moment for Daria to understand what Mamie was implying, and then she gasped. “Good God, have you any idea what you are saying?” She tried to pull her hand free of her grandmother’s, but Mamie tightened her grip.
“Listen to me. I was very unhappy with their relationship, obviously, for he was a married man. I didn’t care that he was trapped in an unhappy union with a wife who refused to agree to a divorce. I cared only that my daughter—who was younger than you are now—was throwing her life away by courting such a scandal. Oh, but she was stubborn. She said that she loved him.
“But when Richard’s wife found out that he esteemed Beth and had been meeting her privately, she threatened to ruin him. Your grandfather and I wanted to send Beth away, to spare her such a ruinous scandal, but it was too late. She had already conceived you.”
Daria sank onto a chair, suddenly unable to breathe.
“That’s when your father sought the help of his friend the earl, and the earl brought him to Hadley Green and established him there. It was awful—Richard and Beth left in the dead of night, slipping out of their homes, out of his marriage, out of society. Out of even his name! They chose the surname Babcock from a grave marker! All these years, they have lived as man and wife, while his true and lawful wife was living not one hundred miles away.”
“I don’t believe you!” Daria cried.
“That is the reason they have kept to themselves, my love. They thought you would be content to live in that house with them, but I told them you were far too spirited, and sooner or later they would have to tell you the truth—”
“That I am a bastard?” Daria said, nearly choking on the words.
Mamie did not deny it. “We protected you all these years... but then the earl began to blackmail us. That’s why I came to Scotland. I tried to reason with him, but he isrelentless. He wants more and more until he has taken everything, and then he wants evenmore—”
“So it’s true, then! You stole from Uncle Hamish.”
“No! The earl befriended Hamish Campbell at the horse races. When he understood how addled the poor man was, he asked for the money, and Hamish agreed. I met Hamish in Nairn to receive the money and deliver it to the earl. I suppose he forgot that he agreed to give it to the earl.”
“It was not his to give,” Daria said flatly. “Nor was it yours to take, Mamie.”
“I haven’t sought more from him; I just delivered it! I’ve sold things—Oh, what is the use? The truth is that there is not enough money to satisfy that beast. He bets it all on the ponies.”
“But why have you allowed it?” Daria demanded. “Why have you not told the authorities?”
“Because your father’s wife is still alive,” Mamie said bitterly. “If she knew where he was, she could bring about criminal proceedings for abandonment.”
“Let Pappa face what he has done,” Daria said bitterly.
“But it’s more than that now, darling. You would be ruined, your chances at a match destroyed. Even if you had married before now, such news would give a man grounds to claim fraud if the truth were to come to light. Don’t you see?”
Daria felt light-headed. She drew a shallow breath, and then another. She had almost single-handedly worked her way up in Hadley Green society without any help from her family, all with the hopes of marrying and having children one day. That was what she wanted, and this—this was devastating. She couldn’t imagine how they could keep the truth from coming out.
She turned away from her grandmother, her thoughts racing, nausea building. She thought of Charity, surrounded by opulence but imprisoned by society’s conventions, a path she’d been put on when her father was falsely accused of stealing the Ashwood jewels. Daria’s familyhadactually stolen, had lied and dissembled—and she would be completely disgraced. No self-respecting man would have her.
She suddenly thought of Jamie. A laird, an upstanding man of honor. She couldn’t bear to look at him, knowing what she knew now.
Daria turned away from her grandmother and walked to the door.
“Daria? Where are you going? Come back!” Mamie begged her.
