Once a Mistress

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  The morning of the marquess of Templeston’s funeral dawned clear and cool. Wren, heavily veiled, stood with Kit alongside Drew as the pallbearers lowered George’s coffin into the open grave. She watched quietly as the upper servants filed past carrying their staffs of office, which they ceremoniously broke and threw onto the coffin lid.

  Despite Drew’s best attempts to keep it small and quiet, the late marquess of Templeston’s funeral was the grandest event the county had seen in ages. The death of a marquess was news. The scandalous death of a marquess was bigger news, and many people thought that George’s alliance with his young mistress, and her death with him on his yacht, was scandalous.

  People came from London and all over the rest of England to pay their last respects. Although custom usually dictated that a man of George’s rank be allowed to lie in state for a fortnight or more, Drew decided that his father and Mary Claire would be laid to rest after only three days.

  They had been dead nearly a month now and Drew refused to keep his father or Mary Claire on display a moment longer than necessary. The time to bury them was at hand. The guests had been arriving in droves and the tenants, neighbors, farmers, tradesmen, the local gentry and clergymen, and the staff of the late marquess’s homes had been filing past the coffin for two full days. Members of the House of Lords and of Brooks’s, George’s gentlemen’s club, even the members of the Trevingshire hunt, had come to offer condolences and pay tribute to George Ramsey.

  But along with the crowds of guests and the personal and private tributes came the whispers.

  Everyone knew the new marquess was a bachelor so who was the woman standing beside him? And who was the boy? Were the rumors to be believed? Was he the late marquess’s bastard son or the new marquess’s?

  Ignoring the whispers, Wren slipped her gloved hand into Drew’s and squeezed it. He was burying his father today and nothing would ever be the same.

  Kit shifted his weight from foot to foot and fidgeted. He looked up at Wren and tugged on her sleeve. She bent to lift him, but Drew intervened. Leaning forward, he lifted Kit into his arms and began to explain the significance of the ceremony. Kit rested his head on Drew’s shoulder and listened until the last staff of office had been broken and the last words had been spoken over the fifteenth marquess of Templeston.

  When it was over, Mr. Smalley, the undertaker, herded the crowd of mourners toward Swanslea Park and the funeral feast that awaited them.

  Drew and Wren and Kit, along with Martin, Ally, and the archbishop, remained at the cemetery waiting as Mary Claire O’Brien’s coffin was lowered into a grave directly above George’s. The hired mutes and several other mourners—mostly women from the opera company—waited with them. There was another funeral to attend.

  Her funeral service was much shorter than George’s, not because her life was any less important, but because they knew so little about her. She was a stranger surrounded by Ramseys and Munnerlyns, but her right to be there was unquestionable. George Ramsey had loved her and that, Drew decided, was reason enough to welcome her into the family plot.

  As the service ended, the mourners said their last good-byes to George and Mary Claire and made their way to the waiting carriages. The undertaker signaled the gravediggers, who had retreated to a respectful distance, to move forward and begin the sad task of shoveling the earth back into place.

  Drew escorted Wren and Ally into a carriage, then leaned forward and deposited Kit onto Wren’s lap.

  “I want to ride with you,” Kit grumbled.

  “I’m riding in the coach with His Grace the archbishop and Mr. Smalley,” Drew told him.

  Kit wrinkled his face.

  “Exactly,” Drew said. “Boring company for a little boy, especially since we’ve business to conclude. You go with Mama and Ally and I’ll come up and see you before you go to sleep.”

  Kit nodded. “Can we go to the barn and see Lancelot and Jem when I wake up?” The barn and carriage house had been extremely busy during the past few days and Drew had had to declare them off limits to Kit for fear that the boy would get hurt during the hustle and bustle of moving carriages and horses around.

  Drew glanced at Wren and Ally, awaiting their nods of approval before answering, “I don’t see why not.”

  “Can I ride Lancelot?”

  Drew ruffled Kit’s blond hair and smiled. “We’ll see.”

  “Capital!” Kit exclaimed, using Jem’s favorite expression, copying it right down to the lad’s Cockney inflection.

  “Yes,” Drew agreed. “Capital!” He leaned close to Wren and said, “I have to make an appearance at the funeral feast.”

  “I know.”

  Drew sighed. “After hearing the whispered speculation, I’ve no doubt that attending the feast will be an ordeal for you. I want nothing more than for you to stand beside me, Kathryn, but I’ll understand if you change your mind about attending.”

  “It’s no more of an ordeal for me than for you,” she said. “And my place is beside you.” She favored him with a dazzling smile. “I’ll join you as soon as Ally and I get Kit fed and settled into the nursery for his nap. The plan is for Ally to prepare a luncheon plate while I get him out of his formal clothes and into bed.”

  “All right,” Drew said. “I’ll see you when you’re done.” He brushed his lips against the silk of her veil.

  The buffet tables set up in the ballroom were loaded with food. The crush of people surrounding them appreciated the largesse of the new marquess of Templeston and the talents of his Swanslea Park kitchen staff and the army of caterers hired to provide the delicacies for the mourners.

  Wren made her way down the stairs from the nursery after tucking Kit into bed and reading him a story. She paused on the staircase and scanned the crush of black-garbed mourners, looking for Drew. He looked up, spotted her, and smiled. Wren returned his smile and started toward him.

  She was passing the open door of the study when someone reached out, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her inside.

  “You!”

  Wren recognized the voice and the venom in it and turned to face the person who had her by the arm. “Lady St. Jacque.” She stared down at the gloved hand on her arm. “Please take your hand off my arm.”

  “I cannot believe you have the nerve to show your face at Lord Templeston’s funeral after what you did to his son. And I cannot believe that the new Lord Templeston would allow you to set foot on Swanslea Park, much less ask you to stand up with him at the funeral.”

  Wren stared at the older woman. “What did I ever do to you to earn your enmity?”

  “You’ve kept our grandson away from his father and his grandparents.”

  The air left Wren’s lungs in a rush. Her palms grew clammy and she became so light-headed she was sure she’d faint. “You are mistaken.”

  “No, we’re not.” Lord St. Jacque stepped from behind the door. “We saw the boy at the funeral. With his blond hair and brown eyes, he’s made in Julian’s image. There’s no doubt that he’s a St. Jacque and we want him. We heard the rumors about your condition shortly after you left young Templeston standing at the altar, and your hasty marriage to a man old enough to be your father only served to confirm them. Our only son is dying. We want our grandson.”

  “You cannot have him,” Wren said, “because Kit is not your grandson.”

  “Of course he is,” Lady St. Jacque insisted. “We know the truth. Julian told us all about it and about you.”

  Wren swallowed the bile forming in her throat and prayed she wouldn’t disgrace herself by vomiting at their feet. “I barely knew your son. What could he possibly tell you about me?”

  “He told us that you weren’t the proper innocent miss you appeared to be.” Lady St. Jacque spat the words as if they were poison arrows. “He told us how you teased and tormented him, how you pitted Julian and Drew— two best friends—against one another. He told us that he fell in love with you and you with him and that the two of you carried on an inti
mate affair beneath Drew’s nose.”

  Lord St. Jacque took up the tale where his wife left off. “Julian told us that he begged you to marry him, but you chose Drew because he possessed an older, more exalted title and a much larger fortune. He said you laughed at him and proclaimed that you’d rather be the countess of Ramsey and the future marchioness of Templeston than the Viscountess St. Jacque.”

  “I’m very sorry, Lord St. Jacque, but everything that your son told you was a lie,” Wren said, forcing her voice to remain steady.

  “Before he left with Wellington, Julian came to us and told us that if we should hear that you were with child, that child would be our grandchild and if anything happened to him, we should lay claim to it as his heir.” Lord St. Jacque stared at Wren. “Our son is dying. You have our grandson. It’s time you gave him to us.”

  “I can’t do that,” Wren said, “because the little boy you saw is not your grandchild. He’s hearty for his age, but he’s not even old enough to be your grandson. He’s the son of the late Lord Templeston.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Lady St. Jacque announced.

  “He has to be our grandson. Why else would Julian tell us that he was? Why else would you fail to appear at your own wedding? If what Julian told us wasn’t true, then why didn’t you marry Drew Ramsey six years ago?”

  “Tell them, Kathryn. Because I’ve asked myself that question for the last six years and I think it’s time I learn the answer.”

  Wren whirled around at the sound of Drew’s voice. He stood in the open door of the study and she had no idea how long he’d been standing there or how much of the conversation he’d overheard.

  Drew crossed the threshold into the study and closed the door behind him. The color had left Kathryn’s face. She was trembling and white as a sheet. Drew could tell from the expression on her face that the St. Jacques knew some of the truth, if not all of it. And he knew, in his heart, that whatever the rest of the truth was, he wasn’t going to want to hear her answer. Or have anyone else hear it.

  “Why didn’t you marry me six years ago, Kathryn? Why didn’t you come to the church? Why wouldn’t you see me when I came to your house?”

  “I-I c-couldn’t.” Although she struggled mightily to control it, her voice shook as badly as her hands. “I-I j-just couldn’t.”

  “So, you changed your mind about marrying me,” he said softly. “Why didn’t you tell me face-to-face?”

  “Oh, Drew, I didn’t change my mind about marrying you,” Wren cried. “I wanted to marry you more than anything in the world. But if I had gone to the church you would have found out and I never wanted you to know.”

  “That you had a love affair with my best friend?”

  “That he raped me.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The web of our life is of mingled yarn, good and ill together.

  William Shakespeare, 1564—1616