Page 92 of Rules for a Bastard Lord
Dead silence greeted her words. It should have been gratifying. That stunned horror was exactly what she’d wanted. Except a moment later, it all turned to pieces.
Lord Cavener shoved up to his feet, his facial hair quivering, with an icy stare for Lady Eleanor. “What is the meaning of this ridiculousness? How dare you—”
Eleanor shot to her feet as well. “Please, please, Lord Cavener, I know this is sudden. We haven’t even had tea.”
“Bollocks on the tea and you! Such schemes are beneath you, Lady Eleanor. I knew your family had sunk, but this is disgusting—”
“You will control your tongue, sir,” Eleanor snapped, and if tone alone could freeze a person in place, hers would have done it. Unfortunately, it could not.
Lord Cavener spun on his heel, held out his hand to his wife, and spat a frigid, “Good day,” over his shoulder.
Except his wife had not moved. Maybelle hadn’t noticed at first. His lordship was commanding all the attention. But when his wife did not move so much as a muscle, all eyes went to her. And she was…
She was gazing at Maybelle.
“Sarah!” his lordship snapped, but his wife tilted her head to see more clearly around her husband.
“Maybelle was my mother’s name,” she said. Her words were soft, almost inaudible. After his lordship’s booming voice, her quietness seemed to lift her words to everyone there.
“Any jack-a-dandy would know that,” her husband growled.
His wife’s eyes glittered bright as she drank in Maybelle’s face. “Tell me your parents’ names.”
Maybelle reached to the floor behind the settee. She’d set the items there for safekeeping. First the letter from the vicar.
“Anna and Oscar Ballenger. They were married in Oxfordshire, and I am their daughter.”
“Ridiculous!” the earl spat, whirling back to face her. “My son would never marry a chambermaid.”
“And this is the picture he drew of my mother.” She pulled out the framed sketch. “You can see his signature there.” She pointed and repeated his name. “Oscar B. My father.”
The countess lovingly stroked the signature scrawled on the sketch. “I’d forgotten that he had talent with charcoal.”
“He did not!” the earl said. Then he snatched up the vicar’s letter. He didn’t even look at it as he ripped it to pieces. “There was no wedding. There was no child. You are a scheming whore.”
Maybelle didn’t think. She leaped to her feet, her hands clenched at her sides, and her words came faster and faster as her accent slipped in thick and hard. “I am as pure a Christian woman as there ever was. It’s you oo are a lying ’ypocrite. You tossed off me mum like she were rubbish, but she was strong. She raised me alone. Educated me better than anyone. And she waited all ’er life for her ’usband. Ever day, ever night praying that he’d come find ’er. But ’e’s dead, ain’t he? And you never bothered to even tell us!” It was that last bit that had her words choking off. The years her mum waited for a man who was dead and gone. Years.
Meanwhile the earl’s face had purpled with rage. “You insult the very air,” he bellowed. Then he rounded on Eleanor who sat statue still, her hands flat on her lap. “How dare you upset her ladyship like this? How dare you bring this woman—” He spat the word. “Into her presence?”
Eleanor tilted her head, her expression so smooth it didn’t appear real. “Oh look,” she said, pointing over his shoulder. “Seelye has brought the tea tray. Do sit down, my lord. I find everything much clearer with tea, don’t you think?”
“No, I do not!” Then he snatched the framed picture out of his wife’s hands and slammed it on the table. The cheap woodframe broke into splinters, and Maybelle cried out, but she was too late. Too slow.
“No!” she screamed.
Then a male voice cut through the air. It was so familiar, and yet so cold as to be unrecognizable. And it froze everyone in place the way Eleanor had failed to do.
“Touch that drawing, my lord, and I will hurt you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Bastard or lord, every man has hisprice.
Bram was runninglate. Lady Eleanor’s elegant home was in a vastly different neighborhood than his bachelor rooms. He’d used a hackney, but had chosen badly. He was carried to Grosvenor Square by the slowest, oldest, most rheumy hack he’d ever seen. But it was better than walking, so he’d tapped his foot, kept patting his pocket, which held a blank piece of foolscap, and counted the seconds until he could get to the tea.
He wasn’t invited. He knew that. The last person Lord and Lady Cavener would accept was a known bastard. But as he’d stewed in his rooms, he realized that there was no way he could avoid this meeting. Bluebell and her grandparents were an explosive combination. She was headstrong, and they were arrogant. He doubted that even Eleanor could keep the situation polite.
So he’d rushed over, cursing the slowest hackney in London, and then slipped in the servants’ entrance. He didn’t want to intrude if he wasn’t needed. He’d walked into the hallway in time to hear Bluebell baldly state her identity. And he’d stayed quiet there—with Seelye balancing the tea tray beside him—as they’d listened to the horrifying scene. Lord Cavener was a big man in a temper. Which meant he had to interfere.
