Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (38 page)

Between trying to do the math, keeping an eye on his daughter, and watching his wife’s usually serene countenance fill with ire, His Grace—for one of the few times in his life—did not know what to say.

“My love, perhaps you’d like a moment—”

Hazelton interrupted. “If Your Graces would let Lady Maggie finish, please.”

Maggie looked grateful for this intervention, so His Grace held his tongue and sent his wife a visual plea for patience. Her Grace went one better, crossed the room, and slipped her hand into his.

“Bridget is very pretty,” Maggie said, “and her mother intends to launch her on a career of… vice, and I don’t know how to stop her. I’m sorry… I’m just so sorry. I didn’t want to bring this to you, but Cecily is shrewd and she knows the law and I just…”

Hazelton tucked an arm around Maggie, and the room went silent. Westhaven was trying to look anywhere but at his parents, Deene was frowning, and His Grace could feel the duchess holding back a boiling vat of indignation.

“Esther.” His Grace spoke very quietly, and he most assuredly did not wheedle. “It isn’t what you think.”

“More to the point,” said Her Grace through clenched teeth, “it isn’t what Maggie thinks.”

He turned to peer at his wife, but his duchess had aimed a green-eyed glare on dear Maggie.

“Maggie Windham, you are exceptionally bright, probably brighter than all your brothers put together. When was the Peace of Amiens?”

Maggie turned a puzzled gaze on Her Grace. “For the most part, the summer and fall of 1802.”

“And when was this Bridget born?”

“Spring of…” Maggie’s brows knit in a ferocious scowl. “1803. But you and Papa went to Paris during the Peace, along with the rest of Polite Society. You were gone for months.”

“This girl, this Bridget, she is very likely your sister—your half sister,” said Her Grace in a terribly stern voice. “His Grace is not her father.”

Maggie’s brows drew down. “Cecily will claim she followed Papa to France. It’s possible she did follow him.”

“The woman speaks not a word of French,” His Grace retorted. “And I assure you, I can produce all manner of witnesses who will report she remained in London. One hears things in the clubs, and that creature cannot bear to stir far from her preferred hunting grounds.”

Maggie’s gaze swiveled from the duchess to His Grace, her expression uncertain. “You’re sure, Papa? Sure of these witnesses?”

She wasn’t asking about the witnesses, not just the witnesses. It broke a father’s heart to see the doubt in her eyes, but it warmed his soul to see the hope.

“Daughter, I am certain.”

The doubt ebbed, replaced by profound, visible relief. His Grace let out a breath he’d been holding for quite some time. “I gather you are concerned for the girl nonetheless, which does you credit, Maggie.”

“And with the child in the hands of that viper,” Her Grace spat, “Maggie should be concerned. I cannot believe the woman had the temerity to approach you.”

Hazelton got to his feet just when His Grace would have served up a soothing platitude.

“At the risk of differing with my future mother-in-law, I believe Your Grace well knows the temerity Cecily is capable of.”

Before His Grace’s eyes, his lovely duchess transformed from a woman seized with indignation to a lady with haunted green eyes.

“Lord Hazelton.” Her Grace drew herself up to her considerable height. “You will choose your words carefully in this house.”

Hazelton glanced down at Maggie, whose hand he held before her own parents. Then he looked up and speared his future mother-in-law with a look of ominous compassion. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but how long has Cecily been blackmailing you?”

***

Oh, the hurt in Percy’s beautiful blue eyes, the confusion. Esther dreaded to see it.

“It isn’t blackmail, exactly.” As she spoke, Esther saw Westhaven watching her from across the room, or perhaps watching both his parents, his expression unreadable.

And Maggie… dear, precious Maggie appeared torn between relief and consternation, while Deene looked bored and Hazelton looked worried for his fiancée.

“Duchess,” said His Grace. “You owe no explanations. None.”

How
she
loved
Percy
Windham.
His gaze held steadfast understanding, and perhaps some worry—for her—but no reproach, not a hint of reproach.

“I think perhaps I’ve been silent too long,” Esther said. “And if I don’t owe explanations, I certainly owe apologies.”

“Not to me—” began His Grace stoutly, but Esther quieted him with a look.

“Yes, to you, and to Maggie, at least. Cecily approached me very soon after Maggie came to live with us.”

“But we paid the blasted woman off! We adopted Maggie, and that should have been an end to it.”

“Should have been,” Esther said. “Shall we sit?”

“Of course, my dear.” He seated her then glared at their son. “Westhaven, stop lurking at the window like the family duenna. Deene, fetch a man a drink, and you, Hazelton, pour Maggie a spot of tea before the girl faints into your waiting arms.”

While the younger men complied with the duke’s orders—issued to give her time to compose herself, Esther was sure—Her Grace arranged her skirts and tried to find a way to explain a poor decision turned disastrous.

“Cecily crossed her path with mine a few weeks after the adoption was final and seemed genuinely interested in Maggie’s welfare. In the course of the conversation, she also conveyed that she’d like to see Maggie herself, to spend time with her daughter.”

Esther made herself meet Maggie’s gaze, hoping to find at least tolerance there. Forgiveness might come someday—Maggie was that good-hearted—but for now, the truth was the least she owed her adopted daughter. “I did not trust Cecily’s intent, and it soon became clear if I wanted her to keep her distance from me and my family, then I’d have to make it worth Cecily’s while.”

“My God…” His Grace, perched on the arm of her chair, scowled mightily. “This is why you lost all that jewelry, isn’t it?”

Westhaven addressed himself to the tea service. “And why my mother, who is as intelligent as a woman can be, had such trouble keeping track of her pin money.”

“You’re both right, and I do apologize, but I considered Cecily to be my responsibility. I became Maggie’s mother when we adopted her, and that gave me the right to protect her.”

“Oh, my love…” His Grace raised her fingers to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “My dear, I wish you’d told me. I want to throttle the damned woman or perhaps throttle myself for not managing her more astutely.”

“Papa, what could you have done?” Maggie spoke up, and her defense left Esther pleased and surprised. “Cecily is even now claiming Bridget is yours. Any dealings you had with Cecily would have only given her more ammunition to use against you, and if she thought Her Grace could produce impressive sums of money, only think how deeply she might have stuck her fingers into a duke’s pockets.”

“Those are valid points.” His Grace patted Esther’s hand, his expression troubled. “But I rather think we must inquire now of you, daughter, regarding the dealings you’ve had with this—I blush to descend to cliché—scheming Jezebel, and your reasons for doing so.”

“You don’t have to answer us, Maggie,” Esther said, knowing full well she’d come very close to contradicting her beloved spouse before others. “Tending to Bridget’s situation is of greater import than rehashing old news.”

Maggie’s hand remained in Hazelton’s, and Esther saw the earl squeeze Maggie’s fingers, and yet the man remained silent.

“I need to explain,” Maggie said, “because Bridget’s situation is entangled with my own. Cecily has been demanding money from me since my come out, and I’ve produced it.” She named a figure that had His Grace swearing softly under his breath and Westhaven’s jaw clenching. Deene—clever lad—topped off His Grace’s drink and passed the decanter to Westhaven, while Maggie’s knuckles were white where she clasped Hazelton’s hand.

“Go on,” said Her Grace. “What was all that money in aid of?”

“It was in aid of my brothers’ education—I have twin half brothers younger than me—and Bridget’s comfort. Cecily is forever moving, I suspect to avoid her duns. Her quarters must be beautifully finished and her dresses in the latest fashion. Occasionally she would allow me to spend time with Bridget, and she let us correspond. I assumed Bridget would eventually come live with me. I just never quite figured out how I was going to bring that about.”

His Grace stared at his drink. “This is quite a coil, but Hazelton, you’re the one who convened this assemblage, I assume you have some ideas as to how to foil Cecily’s schemes? Throttling is too good for such a… creature.”

Esther hurt for him, hurt for his inability to show disappointment in his duchess, and hurt for the paternal heartache he’d just been dealt—and by the daughter about whom they tried the hardest not to worry.

“Benjamin has plans,” Maggie said, rising, “but I need some air. Your Grace, will you walk with me?”

Esther was on her feet in an instant. “Of course. Percy, my love, no shouting. A cool head is what’s called for now.”

She kissed his cheek, murmured a heartfelt apology, then left the room with all the tattered dignity of a mother expecting a royal set down from her adult daughter.

***

“How did you do it?” Maggie linked her arm through Her Grace’s as they passed along a walk lined with bright red tulips. The temptation to walk too quickly, to run forever and forever, galloped around in Maggie’s brain despite her mild tone.

“How did I pay Cecily?”

“No, how did you deceive Papa? How could you stand to do it?”

The duchess frowned. “Is this really what you brought me out here to ask, Maggie? I expect you want to ring a peal over my head, to put it politely.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

They walked along, arm in arm, a picture of serene feminine repose, but inside Maggie’s chest, her heart would not stop pounding.

“I had to find a way to protect you both,” Her Grace said. “I know you think I kept you from your mother, the woman who carried you and cared for you as an infant, but in my bones—in my heart—I knew if I let her see you, let her have you for an afternoon, then
I
might never see you again. Even if she didn’t keep you in the physical sense, she would… contaminate you. With self-doubt, with confusion, or something worse. I don’t expect you to agree with me, but please believe that I’m being honest.”

This woman strolling along beside Maggie looked like the Duchess of Moreland. She had the same green eyes, the same patrician beauty, the same faultless bearing, but she was more human than the duchess had ever been, and she radiated a particularly dignified and believable form of sadness.

“I don’t disagree with you,” Maggie said slowly. “Cecily has no honor.”

Her Grace passed an unreadable glance over Maggie’s features. “Your dear papa, whom I love more than life itself, would say women are exempt from the demands of honor. Between you and me, Maggie, I beg leave to disagree with him. You were right when you said I could not turn this matter over to him.”

“Did you think Cecily would entangle herself with him again?”

The question would have been unthinkable only an hour before.

“Not in the sense you mean.” Her Grace bent to sniff at a late daffodil. “But you put it accurately: Any dealings he had with her, she would have somehow perverted for her own ends. Your father is not always subtle.”

He was
never
subtle. “He would have dealt with her directly, you mean?”

“Very likely, and she would have arranged to be discovered in his arms or with her hands in inappropriate places on the ducal person the very same week you were making your come out.”

Maggie walked along beside the duchess, feeling as if her very world was spinning off its axis. “You were trying to protect me from her, and all along I thought I was the one protecting you and His Grace.” And still, Maggie’s heart was thudding dully in her chest, some nameless tension coiling tighter and tighter. “I don’t know what to think, but I do know Cecily cannot be allowed to send my sister, my
half
sister, into a life of debauchery, and yet, she cannot be given the means to further abuse this family, either.”

“Maggie.” Her Grace blinked at the lone daffodil. “Would it not be enough if Cecily were prohibited from ever again abusing
you
?”

“I have plenty of money,” Maggie said, something she’d never admitted to either of Their Graces. “Pots of it, in fact. Taking my money was not abusing me.”

“My dear girl.” Her Grace shifted her gaze to meet Maggie’s, and Maggie was horrified to see tears in the duchess’s eyes. “It makes sense to me now: You would not entertain any offers because Cecily’s blackmail would follow you into marriage. You do not socialize as befits your station because the threat of that woman using any associations against you haunts all you do. You even left your father’s house, the better to deal with her scheming. I see this, Maggie, and I see that you could not trust me or your father to protect you from it, and, my dear, I am so very exceedingly sorry.”