Page 78 of Surrender to the Earl
“Nay, I didn’t say … I didn’t mean … oh, dear, this is so hard to say. I’d hoped you’d never need to know, never need to be so … hurt.”
“I’llbe hurt?” Audrey said with confusion, putting a hand on the kitchen worktable as if to find something solid to hold on to. “Just tell me, Mrs. Sanford. I need to know the truth.”
“The extra money is for me daughter, Louisa,” the woman whispered, and her voice cracked at the end. “She … she used to work here as a maid. But she can’t anymore. The babe—” Another sob seemed to clog her voice.
Audrey said nothing, waiting with barely leashed patience and a growing sense of unease.
“Mr. … Mr. Blake said she was to have the money,” Mrs. Sanford admitted brokenly. “That’s all he would give her.”
And then Audrey realized what the woman had been dreading to tell her, and it crashed over her with waves of pain and betrayal—but not shock. No, she couldn’t be shocked anymore by anything her late husband had done.
Including father a child on an innocent, young housemaid.
The babe, little Arthur, was Martin’s bastard, and he was the same age as their own child would have been.
Martin had said good-bye totwowomen before going off to war, she thought bitterly.
But was that the whole truth?
“Mrs. Sanford, did my husband force his attention on your daughter?” she asked with quiet resignation.
“I wish I could tell ye yea,” Mrs. Sanford said with her own bitterness. “But Louisa was a foolish girl with stars in her eyes, far too flattered that a gentleman would be noticin’ her. She admits, to her lastin’ regret, that she allowed it all to happen.But—she cannot regret little Arthur. He is such a good boy, Mrs. Blake,” she said pleadingly. “He bears no blame in this.”
“Of course he doesn’t,” Audrey snapped. “And I wouldn’t blamehim,or take out my anger on him—or on your daughter. Mr. Blake was not a kind man. He used me for my dowry, and he used your daughter for his pleasures.”
She could hear the cook’s quiet weeping.
“We’ve been so frightened,” Mrs. Sanford said raggedly. “We didn’t know what ye’d do if ye knew the truth. We tried to … make ye leave your own home, and the shame of that will be with me forever.”
Her sobs grew louder, and Audrey winced as footsteps tapped quickly down the hall.
“Mother?” Evelyn cried. “What is it? What has happened?”
“Is it Louisa or the babe?” Francis demanded.
The back door opened, leaving a whiff of brisk autumn air and decaying leaves as Francis called for his father across the yard. Feeling suddenly so tired, Audrey reached beneath the table until she found another stool, then sank onto it and bowed her head.
For a moment, they seemed to ignore her as they gathered around their mother. The door opened again, and boots clomped across the kitchen floor.
“Mrs. Sanford, stop this weepin’,” her husband commanded, not unkindly. “What has happened?”
And then there was a silence, as if they all realized that Audrey was still sitting there.
“She knows,” Mrs. Sanford murmured, her voice hoarse now. “She knows everythin’, how her husband betrayed her, and how we did the same with our lies.”
The renewed silence was stifling with old grief and rising fear. Audrey couldn’t bear it anymore.
“What my husband did is not your fault,” she said heavily. “I regret that you’ve born the burden of his thoughtless selfishness. I’m relieved that he at least tried to provide Louisa with the money she needs to support little Arthur. That will continue, of course, as will your employment, if you all promise never again to lie to me.”
Mrs. Sanford started to weep again, and she could hear Mr. Sanford clearing his throat several times.
“Mrs. Blake,” he said huskily, “we don’t deserve yer kindness, but we appreciate it.”
“What is going on?”
Audrey heard her sister’s bewildered voice, and the servants went quiet once again. “I’ll speak with my sister,” she said, rising her to her feet. “Go on with luncheon preparations, Mrs. Sanford.”
“Thank ye, ma’am,” the woman said.
