Page 68 of The Duke's Bride in Disguise
The actor, seemingly unable to stand, stumbled across to the leather sofa, and collapsed onto it.
"You knew what?" Ava asked urgently, "That Emily and I are your...daughters?"
"Daughters?" McCasey sat up straight in his seat, "No, my dear, you are my nieces. Let me explain..."
The story fell out of McCasey's mouth in a rush; his younger sister had fallen under the spell of an aristocrat, some twenty years ago. She had not listened to McCasey's warnings, and soon had found herself with child. On the night of the twins' birth, Ava McCasey had tragically died, and the maid who had attended to her had taken her body back to the aristocrat, who had had Ava buried and shown no interest in taking his offspring from the Lambeth Asylum.
"I only learned of this a few weeks after Ava's death," McCasey said bitterly, "The maid sought me out and told me that my sister had borne twins, but when I went to the Asylum to claim you as family, I was told there were no twins there."
"Because there weren't," Ava breathed, "Emily was already gone, adopted out by the marquess, but I was still there."
"When I heard that man scream out the name Ava," McCasey said, "I knew that you had to be her daughter—the resemblance is uncanny."
Ava remained quiet as she digested this; in one afternoon, she had gone from having no family, to having two. It was all rather overwhelming for a girl who had, for years, thought herself alone in the world.
"I thought that we might be related," she confessed to McCasey with a smile, "Though I got rather mixed up trying to unravel the mystery of who my mother was—I thought you and the missing Lady Anna Darlington had been romantically involved. How wrong I was."
"Not quite," Mrs McCasey interjected, with a wry smile to her husband, "Iam the missing Lady Anna Darlington—though these days, I go by Annalise."
Well, Ava thought with surprise, this was a turn up for the books.
"So that is why Lady Darlington argued with you that day in the park?" she asked, feeling a small tickle of pride that her intuition had been somewhat closer to the mark than she had thought.
"Yes," Lady Anna gave a sad smile, "I ran away from home some twenty years ago, to pursue my passion for the theatre. My mother was horrified and told thetonthat I had simply vanished—she would rather they believe me dead, than an actress. She bribed my lady's maid, who had found my letter explaining where I was, in order to keep her silent, and to this day, no one knows what happened to me."
"Your secret is safe with us," Ava said seriously as Lady Anna finished, glancing at her sister and Lord Fairfax, who both nodded their agreement.
The clock on the mantelpiece above the fireplace chimed the hour, shattering the strange, yet comfortable, atmosphere in the room.
"Lud," McCasey said as he glanced at it, "I have a performance at nine. Perhaps I will cry off?"
"No," Ava shook her head, for though she was delighted to have discovered McCasey, her head still ached and she was bone tired; "Don't. The show must go on, and we have the rest of our lives to catch up."
McCasey nodded, and he and Lady Anna left in a flurry of hugs, tears, and promises to call for tea. Once they were gone, Ava allowed herself to collapse onto the settee in exhaustion.
"To bed, young lady," Lord Fairfax said firmly, as he caught sight of her tired face.
Unable to muster the energy to argue, Ava allowed Emily to lead her upstairs to her—their?—bedchamber. They found Mary waiting in the dressing room, but despite her obvious wish to discuss what had happened, she instead remained silent as she helped them both into fresh night-gowns.
"Tomorrow we shall pick out a room for you," Emily said, as she crawled into bed beside Ava, "But for now, you'll have to make do with sharing a bed with me."
The two girls, despite their exhaustion, managed to stay awake for a few minutes, discussing their time apart.
"How was Hemsworth?" Ava asked curiously, wondering how her sister had found life with a different duke.
"He was..." Emily paused, a faint blush staining her cheeks, "A man of his word."
"Oh?" Ava raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Unfortunately, that word is 'unreliable'," Emily deadpanned, before giving a large yawn, "Now off to sleep sister dearest—I dare say we will have quite a few callers tomorrow."
Ava watched as her twin sister closed her eyes and promptly fell asleep. Sleep did not come as easy to her, however, and she lay on her back, staring at the velvet hangings above her head.
You should be happy, a voice chided her, not one family, but two, in the space of a day. Ava knew she was being a tad ungrateful, but despite all her blessings, there was one person who still occupied her thoughts; the Duke of Kilbride.
The image of the hurt in his eyes, was the last thing she saw before she fell asleep—and the memory of the hurt in her heart as he had echoed her—"a nobody"—was the last thing she felt, before sleep overtook her.
Fairytale endings were all well and good, but they only happen in books, she thought sadly, as she drifted into slumber.
