Page 136 of The Seaside Homecoming
“Has this something to do with Lord Bertram?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Go on.”
“First of all, I am sorry. You advertised for a respectable female, and I misled you by replying. I once was respectable. Then, I met him. He said he wished to marry me, but like my own father, his father wanted him to marry someone else. He assured me that once the fact of our union could not be changed, then his father would accept it. I don’t know what came over me. I had always been responsible, obedient, and dutiful to my parents. I suppose I was flattered. Swept off my feet. I was six and twenty at the time and starting to fear I’d end up on the shelf. And suddenly here was my chance. Perhaps my last chance. This aristocrat—handsome, confident, wealthy, or so I thought—assured me he loved me. And fool that I was, I believed him. I left my family and put myself under his power....”
Mr. Hammond’s mouth slackened. “You eloped with him?”
Claire nodded. “I hastily packed a valise, and we set out together in his coach, bound for Gretna Green.” She swallowed. “We never made it that far.”
He looked away. “So that’s what she meant.”
“Who?” Claire’s throat tightened, that familiar sense of betrayal slicing through her yet again. Had Sonali said something, told him what she’d overheard?
“That Mrs. Harding creature,” he replied. “She passed me on her way out and said something about how broad-minded I must be to take on a woman of your background.”
“Oh.” Relief that it had not been Sonali warred with the shame balling in her stomach. “If it helps, I don’t think it is widely known. Mrs. Harding’s brother is a friend of Lord Bertram’s, and he confided in him.”
Mr. Hammond considered, then asked, “You said earlier that he changed his mind when he learned you were not the heiress he thought you were. Was that true?”
“Yes. He’d heard my dowry was fifteen thousand pounds, but that was the amount settled on all five of us girls together.”
Mr. Hammond scrubbed a hand over his face. “Tell me the worst, and let’s have done. I gather you are not a maiden?”
Again shame washed over her. She was tempted to evade his question. Yet if there was any hope of a future for them... No. There would not be. Not after she told him the truth, which he deserved. Oh, how she wished things were different, that she had waited.
“I wish I could tell you it was not true, that I am still an innocent. But I am not.”
He grimaced. “Was it worse than that? Had you a child by that man?”
“No. I don’t share Mary’s predicament. There but for the grace of God go I. Lord Bertram and I shared a bed on the way to Gretna Green. Please remember, I thought he was about to be my husband. Not that that is an excuse, yet I never guessed he would abandon me as he did. He... he was drunk that night, truth be told, and it was not...” She winced againstthe unpleasant memory. “At all events, when I awoke the next morning, he was gone.”
He flinched. “What a nightmare. I am sorry. For you, and for your poor family.”
“Yes. My father had an apoplexy soon after hearing the news and died a few months later.”
“You blame yourself?”
Claire nodded. “And my family blames me too. At least my mother. Poor Mamma.”
“So that is the reason for the rift between you.”
“Yes. Before he died, my father declared I was dead to him and made my mother promise not to harbor me, help me, or even speak my name.”
“That seems harsh. As a father, I can understand his anger and disappointment, but I don’t think anything would shake my love for Mira. Though I would find it hard not to throttle the man.”
“He probably would have, had the first apoplexy not laid him low before he could.”
“And now this Bertram fellow has repented and wants to make things right?”
“Nothing so noble. In fact, it’s rather humiliating. My great-aunt—the woman I lived with in Scotland after he abandoned me—has offered him a sizable inheritance, on the condition he marries me.”
He stared. “You must be joking.”
“I wish I were.”
Again he grimaced, whether in disdain or empathy, she did not know.
