Page 77 of The Counterfeit Scoundrel
“Don’t turn on the gaslights, as what needs to be said is best done without brightness,” her aunt ordered.
Daisy wanted this confrontation done with quickly, a hasty explanation provided so she could absorb and reflect upon the truth within Bishop’s embrace, but her aunt had mothered her for twenty years, and thus, Daisy felt she owed her a little patience. She sank into the chair she normally occupied when they were together in this room and waited as her aunt offered her a small glass of the dark wine before gracefully lowering herself into the chair opposite her. The lamp had been left on the sideboard, the flame turned up, so they weren’t completely hidden from each other.
“Firstly, I would like to know how it is that you called upon him,” Aunt Charlotte said in the tone she’d used when Daisy was a child and she’d suspected her of any wrongdoing.Cook has reported that three biscuits are missing. Have you any notion as to where they might have gotten off to?
Only Daisy was no longer a child. Nor was she the guilty party here, the one who’d done wrong. “I hadfollowed Mrs. Mallard to his residence. I found her actions suspicious, so I later returned and knocked on his door. He lied then regarding who he was. But tonight, our paths crossed again. At her residence. The truth bore out. My father. Risen from the grave. The grave in which you put him. Why did you lie to me?”
Her aunt took a sip of her sherry before lacing her fingers around the stem of the glass as though it gave her courage. Her eyes were watery when she met and held Daisy’s gaze. “I didn’t lie exactly. I never actually told you he wasdead. I claimed he wasgone. Gone from your life. And he was. Your uncle saw to that. You’d been in my care for all of three months when Lionel suddenly showed up one day and demanded you be given back to him. Bellingham offered to pay him a thousand quid per annum if he would stay away from you. If he made contact with you even once, the funding would stop, and we would take him to court to ensure I retained custody of you. Lionel was agreeable to taking the money. Extremely. Very quickly. I always believed it was his plan all along, a way to manipulate us into paying for his indulgences.”
Dead. Gone.Semantics. However, the actions they’d taken were as false as the words. “But you had a headstone carved for him.”
“Yes, I suppose that was terribly deceptive, but we were trying to spare you any further hurt. You were having nightmares and screaming in the dark. We didn’t want you asking for your father whenever you visited your mother’s resting place, and we weren’t going to forbid you spending time at the cemetery when it might bring you some comfort or solace. You were just a child, and you wept for her. So often while in myarms, it was her you wanted.” A lone tear trailed along her cheek. “There is a bond between mother and child that I believe it is cruel to deny. I wanted to offer you a haven where you could feel close to her, without wondering where your father was. Over the years, there were times when I wanted to tell you the truth about him, but at what age would it not have hurt to learn that he chose pound sterling over you?”
“Did he ever come to you in secret and ask about me?”
“No, darling. But if he had, I would have told him that you were remarkable.”
Hot tears burned her eyes at her aunt’s words. She loved this woman so incredibly much, and it made the lies hurt all the more. “He spied on me from time to time. That was how he recognized me.”
“Perhaps he loved you in his own way, then, and missed you. I would like to think he came to regret the bargain he’d made. You do look very much like your mother.”
“He mentioned that tonight. When he told me how much he loved her and assured me that I was responsible for her death.”
The fury was back in her aunt’s eyes, and Daisy imagined that an avenging angel had the same mien about her. “Don’t you dare believe such rubbish. It’s exactly like him to shift accountability for his actions to someone else. You were a babe. How in God’s name are you to blame for what happened?”
“She was in agony after birthing me. She needed laudanum and then the opium to get through it.”
“Poppycock. Countless women endure pain after childbirth, and they don’t make their way to an opium den. He partook as much if not more than she. No. Hewas striving to manipulate you, to throw off the guilt like a cloak that is too heavy, to make you pity him. It’s what he does. He has always placed himself first, above all else.”
She thought of his running out of the residence while his lover lay bound and gagged. Perhaps he’d have come back for her. Perhaps he’d have devised a plan to rescue her. But if he’d truly cared for her, would he not have stood and fought for her? Bishop had not left Daisy. He’d come for her. Even if her father had gained the upper hand, she knew Bishop would not have dashed off, intent on escape, but would have remained in the battle until he drew his last breath.
Her aunt scooted to the edge of the chair cushion. “He’d have never taken proper responsibility for you. I know at the moment you must hate me”—she held out her aging and slightly wrinkled hand, absent of jewelry because she’d been abed—“but you must understand that Bellingham and I believed we had no other choice if we were to keep you safe.”
Daisy studied that hand that had comforted—and smacked on a rare occasion. But she couldn’t reach across the widening chasm to take it. Was it too much to expect the truth from those she loved? She was floundering, her foundation crumbling beneath her. What she’d known to be her past wasn’t actually her past. She felt as though the truth was reshaping her into someone she didn’t know.
Her aunt withdrew her hand, her eyes a well of sadness. “I fear, from the way you’re looking at me, that I’ve lost you.”
Daisy shook her head. While it made no sense, shewas feeling abandoned, unsure of her place. Unable to trust that anything her aunt had told her since she’d walked into this room was true. “I’m feeling a bit untethered, I’m afraid.”
Tears welled in Aunt Charlotte’s eyes. “I think we both are. I prayed this moment would never come. I also prayed that if you ever learned the truth, I’d find the right words, but they escape me. Perhaps they simply don’t exist.”
They did, but Daisy thought she might choke on them if she uttered them.Betrayal. Deceit. Lies.They were a cacophony shouting through her mind.
Her aunt set her glass on the table—slowly and very carefully, as though it might shatter when it made contact with the cherrywood. Although perhaps it was Aunt Charlotte who was in danger of shattering. “Why don’t you stay here tonight and get some needed sleep? Everything always looks better and brighter in the morning.”
“I can’t stay. I don’t know if I can ever stay here again. I love you, Auntie. But I have to wonder what else have you not been entirely truthful about.”
Her aunt’s face crumpled, while another tear escaped and rolled along her cheek. “I always feared this day would come. Still, my darling, it breaks my heart to have broken yours.”
Bishop moved inside her, slowly and with purpose, as though he was fully aware that Daisy was somehow broken, but he had the means to carefully piece her back together.
He hadn’t been waiting within the carriage, but standing outside of it, tall and proud, even if he didlook a bit rumpled from his encounter with her father. He’d taken her into his arms and held her securely as they’d journeyed to his residence.
But it wasn’t until the pleasure danced through her, reaffirming that they were both alive, both unharmed, and she was nestled protectively against his side that the tears surfaced. She did nothing to stop them; she doubted she could have anyway. They were a force of nature, like lava flowing from a volcano, or a tempest tossing about a ship. They would have their way. They would conquer. And they would leave devastation in their wake.
He had to have been aware of the tears because they seemed to encompass her entire body, causing her to quietly shake with the potency of them. He held her all the tighter with those arms that he’d molded into power. If she believed in fate, she’d think that his efforts through the years had been leading to this precise moment when she was sapped of strength, when she was able to take some from him.
She was struggling to come to an understanding of who she was. The daughter of a murderer. What a legacy. Certainly not one to be shared. She wondered if Bishop’s legacy, being the son of a murderer, was the reason that he’d decided to never take a wife. The reason that it hadn’t mattered to him if his reputation kept respectable ladies away.
