Page 50 of Fortune Favors the Frivolous
“I see you’ve found what you were looking for.”
With a gasp, Venetia swung round. Aunt Pike was standing in the doorway, a cold smile on her face. She wore a dressing gown of dark burgundy that made her look like a figure of vengeance in the dim light.
“I-I’m sorry, I—” Venetia stammered, but her aunt cut her off with a sharp gesture.
“I’ve been expecting this. You, who are never satisfied. You, who wouldn’t have believed me otherwise? So I am glad that now you see how charitable I have been to you all these years.” Aunt Pike stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. “Well? Are you satisfied? Have you found your answers?”
Venetia bit her lip, barely able to answer. “My father—he loved you first?”
“Loved me?” Aunt Pike laughed harshly. “Oh, he did more than love me, child. As I told you, we were to be married. All was arranged, all was perfect.” Her face contorted with bitter remembrance. “And then your mother—my own sister—ensnared him.”
“No,” Venetia whispered, but her aunt continued relentlessly.
“You think she was so innocent? So pure? Let me show you the truth.” Aunt Pike reached into the desk drawer and withdrew another packet of letters, these tied with black ribbon. “These arrived after their hasty marriage. Your father, confessing all to me.”
She thrust a letter into Venetia’s hands. The paper crackled as she unfolded it, her eyes scanning the damning words:
“Dearest Eliza, I write to you in the deepest shame. Your sister has informed me she carries my child—the result of a moment of weakness for which I shall never forgive myself. Honor demands I marry her, though my heart remains with you. Forgive me, if you can…”
“No!” Venetia’s tears fell onto the page, smudging the ink. “This cannot be true,” she choked out.
“But it is true. Every word.” Aunt Pike’s voice was triumphant. “You were the reason he married her. You destroyed what should have been. And now you sit there, with his eyes looking out at me, a constant reminder of what was stolen from me.”
“I-I didn’t know.” Venetia could barely speak. Everything she had believed about her parents, about herself, was crumbling around her.
With a bitter laugh, Aunt Pike gathered up the letters and replaced them in the box. “And there’s something else you don’t know which might just help you in your choice of future husband.”
Venetia shook her head. On this, she was determined, and not even this discovery would change her mind.
“I will not wed Lord Windermere,” she whispered. “Not on any account.”
Her aunt appeared to consider this a moment. Slowly she walked to the window where she rested an elbow upon the sillas she carefully went through all the letters, one by one, as if committing them to memory.
Then, apparently finding what she was looking for, she glanced up at her niece. “There is one secret that I have been keeping, Venetia. One secret that no one else knows because to disclose it would destroy all your future prospects.”
Venetia clasped her hands to stop them trembling, but it was fruitless. Her whole body felt as if it was succumbing to the ague. She couldn’t even speak to ask what it might be.
Her aunt looked as if she relished the opportunity to tell her.
And of course, the telling was delivered with all the venom of which her aunt was capable.
“Your father did not marry your mother until after you were born.”
Venetia blinked, frozen, as she processed the ramifications. When she said nothing, her aunt put her head on one side and asked, “Do you realize what I’m saying, Venetia?”
Still, Venetia couldn’t answer. Her tongue felt swollen in her throat, while tears of shame stung her eyes.
“I’m telling you that you are illegitimate. Technically, you are a bastard. And you know how bastards are treated by society?”
“But my parents were married!” Finally, Venetia was able to burst out her defense. “I know that’s true! How else could they have been received in society?”
“Oh, you are correct, my dear. They were married.” Her aunt gave another of her bitter little laughs. “But not in time to legitimize you. No, they were married abroad, and they brought home their little bundle of joy with all the world assuming they had eloped and were joyfully returning.”
Her aunt began to pace. “Naturally, my sister Cassandra and I were estranged after they returned. Your father had no contact with me.” She tapped the bundle of letters. “These are what I existed on. The fine, noble sentiments he’d pouredout before Cassandra, four years younger, threw herself at him, seducing him, before running away in shame when she discovered she was with child. He did not want to marry her. Why would he have waited so long—all those months—before he followed her?” Aunt Pike sighed, and her shoulders sagged. “When the newlyweds returned to London and set up home, they entertained as if I had never existed. And you became their world. Why, I believe your father even doted on you. As if he’d forgotten you were the reason he’d had to give up his true love—me!”
Venetia cast her mind back to her eight-year-old self, to the days when she and her parents had lived happily together under the same roof. Just like any other family.
They had been happy. Hadn’t they?
