Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (37 page)

He glanced at the ceiling; he glanced at the window. He stared at the rack of toast cooling near Maggie’s plate. When he spoke, it was with lethal quiet. “And what is to stop Cecily from producing some other red-haired lovely and claiming that she is His Grace’s daughter, as well?”

“Gracious God.”

Maggie rose, this possibility making the half slice of toast she’d eaten abruptly threaten to reappear.

“She’d do it, Maggie. She’d do it with a smile. She’d blackmail Westhaven for a time, wait until the girl was old enough to take up whoring, then set about Their Graces’ ruination with great good cheer.”

Outside, in the gardens beyond the breakfast parlor’s window, Millie was playing fetch with the hound, a pretty and happy picture of what life ought to be like.

“Maggie, we need to tell your parents what’s afoot. For one thing, your father deserves to know if he has another daughter, and for another, you need their help.”

He’d come up on her side, and she hadn’t heard him leave the table. She shook her head. She did not need her family’s help. She’d managed thus far without them, and that was how she’d carry on. She just didn’t know quite yet how she was going to go about it. “Sending me running to Their Graces is not the sort of help I expected of you, Benjamin.”

He heaved out a sigh of such proportions his shoulders lifted and dropped with it. “You should have gone running to Their Graces when Cecily first threatened you, and why you didn’t remains a mystery to me.”

His tone was honestly puzzled and a little weary.

“Were you up late listening at keyholes, Benjamin?”

“I was up late thinking. Will you walk with me in the garden?”

The same patience that had so comforted Maggie the previous evening was now a greater source of alarm than all his imperiousness or even the kisses intended to distract her. It suggested he was as determined on his course as she was on hers.

When they gained the garden, Millie bobbed her curtsy at them, but it was a pretty day, so Maggie bade her leave the dog outside.

Benjamin took Maggie’s arm and steered her toward the fountain, while the dog chased a butterfly in the opposite direction. “You like him, then?”

“He’s a good fellow,” she said, wondering what the dog had to do with anything. “He has sense and doesn’t get excited over nothing, as a puppy is wont to do.”

“Good.” More silence, until Benjamin gestured for Maggie to take a seat on a shaded bench. He came down beside her, and Maggie resigned herself to waiting.

“I wrote to both of my sisters last night.” He spoke quietly, while Maggie resisted the urge to peer at him. “I realized I owed them both apologies.”

“Whatever made you realize that?”

“You. You made a decision when you were just a girl, and you’ve abided by that decision ever since. You’ve gone to great lengths to maintain your position, to appease Cecily without bothering anybody, but Maggie, it’s time to reevaluate your options.”

“What do you mean?”

“Years ago, just about the time you were making your come out, my sisters suffered terribly at the hands of men without honor. I was too young, too unwise, to know what to do about it. My sisters made me promise not to spread the stink of scandal by calling out their malefactor, and the bastard left hot foot for the Continent.”

The very quiet of his voice told her this recitation was costing him. “Benjamin, I am so sorry. For you, for your sisters.” She linked her fingers with his and squeezed, then made no move to withdraw her hand.

It felt good to touch him, to offer comfort to him for a change, no matter how small the gesture.

“I was sorry for them, too.” He brought their joined hands to his lips and kissed Maggie’s knuckles. “So sorry that when they said they needed privacy and peace, I left them alone at Blessings and went off to spend time polishing my Town bronze. When Alex declared she was going for a governess, I felt sorry enough for her not to make a fuss, though she’s an earl’s daughter, a lady in her own right, and entitled to so much more than drafty schoolrooms and other people’s children.”

Maggie was almost distracted by the pleasure of watching his mouth form words, but he was leading up to a point she sensed would not sit easily with her.

“For years I did as my sisters had requested: I left them more or less alone, I left them in peace, but, Maggie,
it
solved
nothing
. What might have been a decision made out of consideration for them became an unwillingness to admit I hadn’t known what to do. I realized I acted to avoid my guilt at failing to protect them.”

He fell silent while Maggie’s heart tripped:
my
guilt
at
failing
to
protect
them
…

“That is low, Benjamin.”

“It is honest. You deserve the truth from me, even if it scares the hell out of you to be truthful with your parents. They won’t hold you accountable for Cecily’s schemes, Maggie. You will not lose your family over this.”

The dog came trotting up then took a seat at Maggie’s feet, his head resting on her thigh. She smoothed her hand over his silky head and tried to breathe.

“They will hate me. If it wasn’t for me, Cecily would have no hold over them.”

“They love you. If it wasn’t for them, Cecily would have no hold over you.”

Benjamin had put his finger on an essential, miserable truth: It was very likely that instead of protecting her parents, Maggie’s unwillingness to turn to them was in some fashion a way to protect
herself
.

Her pride, her ducal connections, her heart—which in some particulars remained that of a child, even in the body of a mature woman.

“There’s something you should know, Maggie.”

She nodded but didn’t meet his gaze. The forbearance in his tone was burden enough.

“Your mother intends to consign Bridget to the protection of the highest bidder tomorrow night.” If he had plunged a dagger into her heart, his words could not have wounded Maggie more deeply. “Cecily has assembled a dozen or so of the randiest, wealthiest bachelors and invited them to a gathering, the express purpose of which is to determine who among them will be Bridget’s first protector.”

Well, of course. And then, when Bridget was ruined beyond all repair, Cecily would reveal to His Grace what had befallen his youngest, most innocent, and most blameless daughter.

“Take me to His Grace, Benjamin.” She scooted off the bench and wrapped her arms around the dog. “Before I lose my nerve, please send for the closed carriage and take me to Their Graces.”

***

A woman gone quiet with her troubles was enough to unnerve most men. Benjamin Portmaine was not just any man—he was the one fellow in the land who did not believe that the competent, independent, pragmatic appearance Maggie Windham showed the entire world was the sum total of the woman. He was the man who wanted not only to know Maggie’s dreams but to make them come true.

“It will be all right.” He offered words of comfort, the same words he’d offered her on another coach ride just a few short weeks in their past. Then, as now, she let herself lean into him, if only physically.

“You can’t know that.”

“I can. I wish you knew it, too.”

He based his sanguine prognostication on what he knew of Percy Windham, what he suspected about Esther Windham, and what he simply hoped was true about Maggie Windham.

She was still wearing his ring, for example, and he did not for one moment believe she was simply preserving a piece of jewelry from an absentminded maid.

And despite Maggie’s muttering about packet schedules and foreign shores, he would not entertain the idea of her departing with her sister,
and
without
him
. In any case, he did not believe such an outcome was consistent with Maggie’s dreams.

He also did not believe Cecily was going to back down unless faced with a veritable ducal armada of opposition to her scheme—because arranging an accident for the woman wouldn’t serve. She was Maggie’s mother, and Maggie was capable of prodigious feats of guilt.

Maggie frowned out the coach window. “Westhaven must be calling. I don’t recognize that other carriage.”

“It’s Deene’s.”

“You arranged for them to be here?”

He considered—for one instant—not lying, but prevaricating. “I did, both of them. If St. Just and Lord Valentine had been in Town, I would have summoned them as well. Sindal, too, since he’s my half brother and married to your sister Sophie.”

She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “This is a private business, Benjamin. You had no right to go rousing the entire regiment. Their Graces will not thank you, and I do not thank you.”

“You will, but before we go in there, I’ve a little more gossip to impart.”

She opened her eyes, and Ben had never seen such a combination of despair and beauty. “What?”

“Some people are concluding that Bridget is your daughter. Deene suggested if that were the case, somebody ought to be calling the girl’s father out.”

She cocked her head. “
Lucas
said that?”

“To my face. And we need Westhaven’s legal training, because no matter how much you trust Kettering, I’ll not bring the lawyers into this situation unless you demand it.”

She shuddered. “No lawyers.”

“We are agreed on at least that much.”

Before he climbed out of the coach, he paused to kiss his intended. “For courage, Maggie Windham, which you have in glorious abundance.”

She searched his gaze, her eyes luminous with trepidation. “You have a plan.”

“I have several, depending on what we learn from your parents. All that’s required of you is that you trust me to see the best one implemented.”

When she might have argued, he ducked out of the coach and handed her down. She emerged from her carriage with all the grace and dignity of a lady raised under the ducal roof, while Ben offered his arm and prepared to make good on promises he had no clear idea how he’d keep.

***

“You say Hazelton summoned you here?” Percival, Duke of Moreland, perused first his heir and then the Marquis of Deene. “Both of you?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Deene answered. Westhaven merely nodded, and to his papa’s expert eye, looked a trifle worried.

“For a man who has only recently acquired Maggie’s consent to marriage, that’s a bit high-handed. My love, do you know what this is about?”

When his duchess might have answered, the butler appeared at the drawing-room door. “Lady Maggie and Lord Hazelton, Your Graces, my lords.”

While Her Grace handled the introductions and discreetly signaled for tea, His Grace regarded his oldest daughter and the way Ben Portmaine hovered around the girl, clucking and fussing like a mother hen—or a particularly smitten rooster. His Grace passed on tea—never could abide the stuff unless crème cakes were in evidence, as well—and waited for Hazelton to get down to business.

Though a man could wait only so long.

“Hazelton, if you’re here to inform us that we’re to be grandparents ere a few months are gone, I hardly see what Deene’s presence adds to the gathering.”

That earned him a slight frown from his duchess, but he’d weathered many of her frowns—most in good cause.

“Deene has information that will be relevant to the discussion, Your Grace.” Hazelton’s tone was just deferential enough for politesse. “I believe Lady Maggie can trust Lord Deene’s discretion.”

“She can.” That from Deene where the handsome dog lounged against the mantel. “The Windham family can trust my discretion, and that should be beyond doubt.”

Oh, it was. Deene had been the one to convey the sorry circumstances of Bartholomew’s passing in a Portuguese tavern, the details of which had never once become the subject of gossip.

“Stand down, Deene. I’m too old even to serve as a second anymore.”

Another frown from Her Grace, this one more pronounced.

“Your Graces,” Maggie spoke very quietly, “I have some things to tell you, and I’m not sure how to start.”

“Best state it plain, my girl. Her Grace and I are made of stern stuff, and whatever it is, we’ll sort it out.” But for all his bluff tone, His Grace felt a frisson of tension in his chest. Maggie had never given them one spot of trouble—not one—and yet, Her Grace’s expression had become a deceptively polite mask.

Maggie’s gaze went to Hazelton’s, and something seemed to pass between them.

“I don’t know quite how else to tell you, but my mother—Cecily—claims I have a sister.” Maggie was watching Her Grace now. “A full sister.”

“Oh, for the love of God.” Her Grace rose from before the tea service and began to pace. “When did she reveal this supposed sister to you?”

Maggie watched the duchess cross to the window. “I’ve known since shortly after Bridget was born. She’ll be fifteen years old tomorrow.”