The Heiresses (36 page)

The duke did not speak for some time and, instead, stared at a point on the rug beneath his chair.

“Please,” Ro begged. “I would not ask, but I do need to know.”

Perhaps he heard something in her voice, because his face softened then and he cleared his throat before continuing. “Yes. I’m not sure how you know it is so, but, yes, that is true. We tried to stay away from each other on my return, but it proved to be impossible. We were so happy to have found each other again and Demeter was miserable with William. I’m sure I will burn in hell for it, but it was truly one of the happiest times of my life.”

“And then she conceived.”

He frowned now. “Yes. Hestia has told me some of what happened. That William denied his children had survived and ferried them away to other families to raise. You must believe I had no idea about this.”

“No one did,” Ro answered. “Only Hestia, and she was, like my mother, manipulated to within an inch of her life.”

“Yes, I see that now. I wish I had known. I could have done something. As it was, I went abroad once more, immediately following Demeter’s death. It took me some years to marry myself. That’s my wife, Emily, and my daughter, Penelope.” He gestured toward a photograph encased within a silver oval frame.

“A Greek name!” Ro’s eyebrows rose as she glanced at the image.

The duke smiled slightly. “No one has ever worked that out before now—a silent nod to your mother. My wife, of course, knows about Demeter and what happened between us, even though it was long before I ever met her. There are no secrets between us.”

A stillness fell over the room, in which the tick of the clock on the mantelpiece was all pervasive.

“So,” said the duke, finally fracturing the quiet in the study. “You have something to tell me…”

“May I?” Ro held an outstretched hand toward the photograph of the duke’s wife and child.

“Of course,” he said as he passed it over to her.

Ro’s eyes were transfixed by the photograph for some time, her hands gripping the cold, curved edges tightly. Penelope and Clio really were one and the same. All these years Clio had believed she looked like no one else in this world, when the truth was she resembled two people very much indeed. Finally, Ro glanced up at the duke. “Your daughters are very similar.”

“But you must be mistaken,” he said as he shook his head. “I only have the one daughter.”

“That’s what I’m here to tell you, Your Grace.” Ro pulled a photograph from her own pocket now—a photograph of Clio from a few years back—and handed it over to the duke. “You do not have one daughter, but two.”

*   *   *

“I … I don’t understand,” the duke said as he clenched the side of his armchair with the hand that wasn’t holding on to the photograph as if his very life depended upon it. He was visibly pale. “This can’t be true.”

“Please.” Ro sat forward in her chair. “Let me explain. You knew Demeter gave birth to twins.”

“Yes, of course. And that she and the twins died. I even saw the memorial portrait.” He did not look up from Clio’s photograph, his eyes drinking her in.

“Which you know is not true, as you said before—you mentioned Hestia told you we were all born healthy and that there were, in fact, three of us. Also, that we were all sent to live with relatives.”

“Yes.”

“Well, this is a photograph of the three of us, including the third triplet, whom you have never seen before now.” Ro located the image she had brought with her and passed it over as well—a photograph of the three girls taken a number of weeks ago. The duke took it from her willingly. “And this is why William was so angry. He knew, you see. He knew immediately on seeing her that Clio was your child and not his, with her darker skin and black curls. That is Thalia, on the left of the photograph, I am in the middle, and Clio is on the right, of course.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Clio, did you say?” Again, he did not look up.

“Yes.”

“And this one … Thalia?” He reached out a shaky finger to point her out, seemingly fearful that doing so might somehow make the picture spring to life. “It is like … looking at your mother all over again.”

“So I believe.”

Finally, the duke raised his head. “But how? How is such a thing possible?”

Ro explained scientifically how such an occurrence was possible. When she had finished, her companion seemed no less shocked.

“But this must be extremely…” He was suddenly at a loss for words.

“Rare?” Ro finished his sentence for him. “Yes, it is. It is very unusual. But it is true. I was very careful about researching how this situation might have come about and did at first wonder whether Clio was related to Thalia and me at all. But there is overwhelming proof now. I have spoken to the midwife who was there at the time, and quite impartial. She was forced to participate in the memorial portrait and cared for all three of us after birth. Clio even has the scar that matches one the third triplet received at birth, as well as the same small token that the midwife hid in all of our swaddled clothes before we were sent off to different relatives.”

The duke stood up suddenly, making Ro jump slightly in her chair. He began to pace the room. “And does Hestia know about this? About my … involvement?”

“Yes, of course. I’ve told her. She knows everything.”

“Everything?” He turned on the spot, to look at Ro. He examined her expression closely.

“Well, yes. Unless there is something else. Is there something else?”

The duke shook his head and returned to his brisk pacing. “No, of course not.”

Ro wasn’t sure if she believed the duke, but didn’t think now was the time for her to question him too thoroughly. After what she had just told him, she needed to be answering questions, rather than introducing additional ones.

For want of something to say, Ro continued with her story. “The three of us never met until a few months ago, just before our eighteenth birthdays, after our father’s death.”

The duke ceased his pacing for an instant to inspect the photograph once more. “I have an eighteen-year-old daughter,” he said, as if speaking to himself. “Demeter and I had a daughter. Clio. Where is she now?” He glanced over at Ro.

“In London. Her mother is still in the country, but Clio is living with Hestia for the moment. We all are, actually.” Ro felt the situation did not justify elaborating on Thalia’s current situation or whereabouts. “Hestia and I thought, perhaps, you would like to meet Clio? We did not want to bring her here today. We thought the shock might be too great for both of you.”

The duke bobbed his head soundlessly, returning to the photograph once more. It was as if he could not bear to drag his eyes from it for even a second. “A daughter,” he mused again. “She is the very image of Penelope. It is amazing. If I did not know Hestia as I do, I would think this some kind of elaborate hoax.” He managed to meet Ro’s gaze now.

“There have been many times over the past few months where I have thought the same thing,” Ro answered him. “But I now see that where my father was involved, almost any kind of duplicity was possible.” She stood from her chair. “I will leave the photographs with you, Your Grace,” Ro said, seeing that if she were to take them with her, she may very well have to wrestle the man to the ground in order for him to part with the images of his newfound daughter. “Would the same time tomorrow be all right to call? Ten o’clock?”

“Yes, yes. That would be fine.” The duke barely acknowledged Ro’s obvious departure.

“Thank you, Your Grace. I’ll see myself out,” Ro replied quietly, already starting to slip as unobtrusively across the room as she possibly could. She did not want to disturb his reverent gaze for even another second.

*   *   *

In her vast bed, Clio turned for what felt like the five hundredth time that night, dragging the lavender-scented sheets with her. It had been what would most likely always rank as the strangest evening of her life. Thalia had returned from the nursing home in the afternoon, which had led to a rather strained evening meal, with Hestia, Ro, and Clio trying to be jolly, while Thalia made her usual cutting remarks at every twist and turn of the conversation. After they had eaten, Thalia said she was going for an evening stroll. This, of course, had set everyone on edge, with Thalia telling them they didn’t trust her (which they didn’t) and that everyone was welcome to join her if they so wanted. In the end, she had closed the front door behind her with a bang, after telling the other women that if she wasn’t back in an hour, they might send the police after her.

Clio had thought, perhaps, that either Hestia or Ro would have called Thalia’s bluff and walked with her, but they had instead used the opportunity of Thalia’s absence to inform her that they had located her real father. Hestia had even managed to find a photograph of him in the newspaper. Clio had had to sit down upon seeing the photograph. There was no mistaking the likeness—the hair, the eyes, the skin. Ro told her that his young daughter’s looks matched her own even more so.

While Clio sat, trying very hard to take this all in, Hestia had burbled on about what a good man he was, this father of hers, the causes he supported, how they had been friends for a long time, about some odd family disagreement involving some pistols of all things, and how the situation had come to pass between him and Demeter. Clio had frowned ever harder as she listened, her mind striving to place each fact on top of the other, rather like building blocks, but whenever she thought she was getting somewhere, she had then seemed to remember something else and the whole pile tumbled once more. “Does Charles know?” she had finally asked, for want of something to say.

“I don’t think so,” Ro had replied.

“So…” Clio had exhaled. “It would seem my father is a duke. At least we know the truth. And he has admitted to his affair with our mother, which is something.” Clio had left the rest go unsaid. Even she knew enough about the aristocracy to realize that the illegitimate child of a duke was no lady and never would be.

Now, in bed, this evening encounter swirled in her head, along with the knowledge that today she would meet her father. Her
other
father. Even though Clio now knew she was most certainly illegitimate, at least her father sounded like a better man than Ro and Thalia’s. And how incredible that she seemed to have picked up yet another relation along the way to add to her menagerie. Ro had mentioned her father had a young daughter, which meant that she could now claim three half sisters
and
a father. Would this odd collecting of relations here and there ever end?

And then, of course, there was the added shock of Hestia taking her aside after Thalia had returned home and both Thalia and Ro had retired for the evening. Hestia had informed her Edwin had been to see her to ask for Clio’s hand in marriage.

Clio had gasped at this news. Edwin’s proposal had seemed such a spur-of-the-moment thing—almost as if it had popped out unknowingly. But now she saw that it was quite the opposite—it had popped out after being bottled up for some time. How extraordinary. “What did you tell him?” she asked Hestia, her eyes like saucers.

“I told him you were a grown woman with a mind of your own and that you could make your own decisions as to with whom you would like to spend the rest of your life,” Hestia had told her. “Has he asked you?”

Clio had nodded, dumbly.

“And?”

“Well, he asked me in the garden of Thalia’s nursing home. I thought that it was all highly inappropriate. In fact, I first thought he was joking.”

Hestia had raised her eyebrows. “So you turned him down. Well, perhaps that is for the best. He does have quite the reputation you know, my dear.”

Clio had nodded again. “It’s a shame. Because … well, I do believe he is quite a good man under all the silliness and the truncheon stealing.”

“You can always change your mind,” Hestia had said to placate her.

“Maybe,” Clio had replied, uncertain. “But I don’t think so.”

*   *   *

Meanwhile, in her own bedroom, Ro woke to the distinct sound of breaking glass in a nearby room. She sat upright in her bed, her hand over her racing heart, then ran straight for the door. Was it Clio’s room? Or was it Thalia’s, across the hall? She wasn’t sure.

In the corridor, all was still. Just as she was about to call out, Thalia appeared, rounding the stairs. She wore a nightdress and was carrying a bowl of grapes. “What was—” Thalia began, as Ro caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

“Who’s there?” She saw Thalia’s door, slightly ajar, move a touch. “Who is it?” Had someone broken Thalia’s window? Did they have an intruder in the house? Footsteps ran across the darkened room, away from the door, confirming her thoughts. Was it that woman again? The one who had attacked her and scared Clio?

Her heart beating with anticipation of what she might find, Ro crossed the hall in two long steps, kicked the door open with her foot, and flicked on the light switch.

But what she saw in the then illuminated bedroom was not what she expected to find at all. There was no broken window, only an accidentally pushed-over bedside lamp. There was no strange, frenzied, dark-clothed woman, no thief with a pillowcase full of stolen silver and fine jewelry.

What Ro saw was something even more shocking.

Because there, in the middle of the room, wrapped in nothing but one of Thalia’s bed sheets …

… was Vincent.

A Father’s Sins

Ro took a quick step forward and slapped her sister sharply across the cheek. “How could you?” she asked Thalia. “How could you do that to me?”

Thalia inhaled sharply before stepping backward, pulling her peach silk dressing gown tighter with one hand as her other reached up to touch her reddening cheek. “I will admit I deserved and expected that, but really, darling, what a question! How could I?” Thalia actually had the audacity to look slightly cross. “The truth is, as much as you’d like to think I did, I
didn’t
sleep with your silly little boyfriend. Not that he didn’t want to. He would have, believe me. Why do you think I ran off to get these?”—she held up the bowl of grapes—“I had to get him off me somehow. Honestly, this is the biggest favor I’ll ever do for you. You could at least be slightly grateful.”