“Prob’y down on the docks by now, gettin’ in a boat. The Queen Mary sails for London in a minute or so. They’ve already pulled the anchor.” The sailor jerked his head at the largest ship in the harbor, a schooner with three masts and too many sails to count. Men swarmed the top deck shouting orders to each other while seagulls squawked loudly overhead. As the last ropes were yanked from the water, the grand ship began to inch away from the pier.
Slanting a hand against her temple to block out the sun, Joanna’s gaze flew across the wooden gangplanks for a sign of the thief. There were just so many people. Crewmen, merchants, passengers. Finding the little rapscallion would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Then, by some small miracle, she noticed a slim figure scaling the side of the Queen Mary.
“There! He’s right there!” she yelled. “We need to stop him. Can you help me?”
The sailor followed the direction of frantic pointing and snorted. “Aye. Good luck with that, luv. The Mary’s good as gone.” Then his gaze dropped to her breasts, and his lips peeled back in a leer. “If ye need someone to console ye…”
Why was it, in times of great desperation, men’s thoughts always seemed to center on one thing?
With a pinched expression of disgust, Joanna shoved past the sailor. She reached the docks just as the schooner’s sails were released. They caught the wind with a deafening snap and she was forced to watch as the Queen Mary, bound for England, surged towards open waters.
“No,” she whispered, pressing her hand to her mouth. “No, no, no.”
Joanna was not accustomed to failing, and the weight of this defeat nearly sent her to her knees. Because it was more than a lost ring. It was a lost hope. It was a lost dream. It was a lost future.
How could this have happened?
How could she have let it happen?
Turning around, Joanna staggered up the gangplank on legs that were numb from exhaustion and disappointment. When Evie and Claire found her, she was sitting on a bench, staring blindly out at the harbor.
“It’s gone,” she said before they could speak a word. “The ring is gone.”
Chapter Four
Ruth was waiting up for them in the parlor. Flickering candlelight illuminated the sisters’ bleak faces, alerting their grandmother at once that something was amiss. Alarmed, she rose from her rocking chair as they filed stiffly past her.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“Someone stole the ring,” Evie said flatly. It was the first time she’d spoken since they’d left Boston, and her quiet fury rolled across the room like a wave. Slipping out of her shoes, she gave them an angry kick across the room. “It’s on a ship heading to London. We’ll never get it back.”
“I’m going to make us all some tea,” Claire murmured, flitting away to the kitchen.
“Joanna?” Ruth asked, turning to her eldest granddaughter with knitted brows.
Exhaustion seeped into Joanna’s bones like lead. Sinking down onto the sofa, she dragged a blanket over her lap and in dull, halting tones, told their grandmother everything that had happened, beginning with taking the ring to Mr. Bernard and ending with watching it sail away on the Queen Mary. When she’d finished, she could only shake her head in bewilderment. “I just don’t understand. Of all the people in Boston, why would a thief choose me? How did he know I even had the ring? And why take it to England, of all places? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I am going to bed,” Evie announced. “This was a horrific day, and I should like very much for it to end.”
“I’ll join you,” Claire said as she returned with the tea. Setting it on a table, she kissed Ruth on the cheek, glanced sadly at Joanna, and then followed Evie up the staircase.
Joanna dropped her head into her hands.
“They blame me,” she said, her voice muffled. “And they’re right. It’s my fault the ring was stolen. I should have protected it better. I should have had us go straight home. Then none of this would have happened.” Biting hard on the inside of her cheek to quell the tears that threatened to spill off her lashes, she lifted her chin and gazed helplessly at her grandmother. “What are we supposed to do?”
“First of all, you are going to stop blaming yourself. Because what happened is not your fault. It’s mine.” Ruth helped herself to a cup of tea before she sat back down in her rocking chair.
“What do you mean?” Joanna blinked in confusion. “Grandmother, you weren’t even there.”
A faint smile softened the stern brackets on either side of Ruth’s mouth as she turned her gaze to the painting of Joanna’s parents on the mantel. “Jacob was always handsome, even as a young boy. And he so did love your mother.” Her smile slowly faded as her gaze darkened. “There are things you are not aware of, Joanna. Family secrets I’ve kept from you and your sisters at the request of your father. Secrets that are tied to that damned ring.” She took a long sip of tea. “I selfishly thought that if the ring was sold then its troubled past would go with it. Clearly, I was mistaken.”
Uneasiness prickled along the nape of Joanna’s neck like tiny, little needles. In all her life, she’d never known her grandmother to hide anything. Ruth was honest to a fault, and blunt along with it. But clearly there was something she’d been hiding. Something that had begun unraveling the moment her grandmother suggested they sell the ring.
“What secrets?” she asked.
Ruth stared at the portrait for a long time. When she finally looked away, there was a glint of sadness in her eyes Joanna had never seen. “Painful ones. I am going to tell you the truth, my dearest, and leave it to you to decide if you wish to tell your sisters.”
Now, Joanna was more bewildered than ever. Yes, she and Evie could go at each other like cats and dogs, but when the dust settled, there was no one she trusted more. Except for Claire, of course. They were a bonded trio, their sisterhood forged by love and loss. There was nothing she would keep from her siblings, and nothing they would keep from her.
Surely, their grandmother knew that.
“Go on,” she said, even as part of her was tempted to plaster her hands over her ears and not listen to a word. She had no inkling as to what her grandmother was going to say, but she did know one thing: it wasn’t going to be good.
Secrets never were.
“I suppose I should start at the beginning.” Ruth paused. “But before I do that, I should like you to remember that you were truly the apple of your father’s eye. He adored you beyond measure, my dear. Nothing I say is going to change that.”
Joanna remained silent, dread and curiosity rising within her in equal measure.
“Your parents were childhood sweethearts. I honestly believe that from the first moment they met, they were in love. After your father graduated medical college in New York, their plan was to marry and settle here, in Somerville. He already had the house in town picked out, and your mother was all but decorating the nursery. But then…then things changed.”
“What things?” Joanna said warily as a rippling unease made its way down her spine. She knew her parents had fallen in love when they were very young. And she knew they’d married soon after her father became a doctor. Shortly thereafter, they had her, and then Evie, and then Claire. She’d heard the story a hundred times. Mayhap even a thousand. Yet in all its various retellings, there had never been a “but then”.
“While your father was in his last year of medical school, your mother traveled to London.”
Stunned, Joanna could only stare blankly at her grandmother. “She—she did?”
“Indeed.” Ruth clasped her hands together in the middle of her lap. Her fingers were clenched. Her knuckles white. “Her mother, your other grandmother who passed right before you were born, was born and raised there.”
“Her name was…” Joanna hesitated as she searched her memory. “Mabel. Mabel…Ellin?”
“Ellinwood. Your grandmother’s maiden name was Ellinwood. Mabel was the daughter of a viscount,
and it seems her family was quite disappointed when she chose to marry an American and move to Boston. When your mother came of age, Mabel decided she wanted her to have a traditional coming out in High British Society. An attempt, I would assume, to reconcile with her family.”
Joanna’s head was spinning. She’d known—vaguely—that her Grandmother Mabel was from England, but she’d never given it much consideration. Her mother’s side of the family had always been a bit obscure. Especially given she and her sisters had never had the opportunity to meet any of them.
“Neither of your parents wanted Anne to travel overseas,” Ruth continued. “But Mabel was adamant, and gave little choice in the matter. Jacob wrote to her nearly every day and, at first, she wrote him back, but gradually the letters slowed, and then stopped.” Once again, Ruth looked to the painting. She stared at it for several seconds. Then she sighed, straightened her spine, and met Joanna’s wide gaze. “When your mother returned, some nine months later, she was carrying a child.”
Had Joanna been drinking something, she would have spat it out, so great was her shock. She threw the blanket over her legs aside, but paused shy of leaping to her feet. “What are you saying? Mother was—Mother was pregnant when she returned from London? But…Father wasn’t there.”
“No,” Ruth said quietly. “He wasn’t.”
“I don’t understand. I—we—have a brother or a sister? A half-brother or sister we’ve never known about? That’s the secret?” As a wave of relief cooled the fires of Joanna’s disbelief, she slumped in her seat. All things considered, a hidden sibling wasn’t such a terrible thing. And if the indiscretion had occurred before her parents were married, well, then, it wasn’t even really an affair. Certainly it was not preferable. But neither was it wrong. Except…
“Why?” she asked. “Why would Father have kept this a secret? Why would he have kept our sibling from us? Were they taken back to England to be raised with the Ellinwoods?”
“Not exactly.” Ruth’s eyes glistened. “The baby, a girl, was kept here.”
“Then why have we never met her?”
“Because, my dear, that baby is you.”
“No.” Joanna’s denial was swift and immediate. “No, that’s not right. That’s not true.” Auburn curls whipped across her face as she shook her head wildly from side to side. “I was born after Mother and Father were married.”
“Yes, you were.” Pushing out of the rocking chair, Ruth walked to Joanna and sat down beside her. She gently took her granddaughter’s trembling hand. “When your mother came home and shared that she was expecting, your father married her the very next day. It was a lovely ceremony. Sweet, and simple, and full of love. After it was over, your parents never spoke of Anne’s indiscretion ever again. You were, for all intents and purposes, their firstborn child, Joanna. And they made the decision to raise you as such.”
There was a ball of ice in the middle of the Joanna’s chest, growing larger and larger with every inhalation. Her breath hitched. Tears swarmed, stinging the corners of her eyes like the jabs of angry hornets. Her skin felt alternately hot and then freezing cold. Her teeth began to chatter. “But I wasn’t…I’m not…I’m not my father’s daughter. I’m not your granddaughter.”
Ruth slapped her.
The sound was like a gunshot.
Joanna’s head whipped to the side. She gave a sharp gasp and gently cupped the side of her face where the throbbing outline of Ruth’s hand was burning to the touch.
“You—you hit me,” she accused.
“And I’ll do it again,” Ruth said evenly, “if you ever dare speak such nonsense. I am your grandmother. You are my granddaughter. Maybe not by blood. But in every other way that matters, we are a family, Joanna. You, and I, and your sisters. And we will continue to be a family. This changes nothing.”
Except it did.
It changed everything.
If there was one thing Joanna had always been certain of, if there was one thing she had always believed in, it was where she came from. Those ties, those roots, made her who she was. She had red hair and blue eyes because of her mother. She had an inherent stubbornness because of her father. She had an iron will because of her grandmother.
Or at least, that was what she’d always assumed.
But how could she inherit a trait from someone she was not related to?
How could she be part of a family when her very existence was a secret?
How could her father and grandmother have lied to her all these years?
Her heart felt as if it had been cleaved in two.
One piece from before she knew the truth.
One piece from after.
And they were both bleeding.
“Who is he?” Unable to sit beside Ruth any longer, Joanna sprang to her feet. At the moment, she didn’t know what was worse. Learning she wasn’t who she thought she was…or the knowledge that the truth had been withheld from her for all these years. “My…that is to say, the man who my mother…”
“The man who sired you?” Ruth said gently.
“Yes.” Her hands curled into fists. “Him.”
“I don’t know. I don’t,” Ruth repeated when Joanna’s eyes flashed. “Your mother never shared his name with anyone. Not even your father. After your parents were married, they never spoke of your mother’s time in England ever again. It was as if it never happened.”
“But it did.” Because she wanted to throw something, Joanna pinned her hands behind her back and started to pace. “It did happen, or else I wouldn’t be here.”
“I understand you’re upset—” Ruth began.
“Upset?” Joanna interrupted. “Upset? I’m upset when Evie beats me in a game of checkers! I’m upset when it rains on a day I’d planned to go walking. This is more than being upset, Grandmother. This is…this is…I don’t know.” She stopped short. Threw her arms wide. “I haven’t a word for it.”
Or maybe she had too many words.
Distress.
Anger.
Confusion.
Betrayal.
Her mother, her father, her grandmother…they had all conspired to keep this from her. Together, they’d buried the truth of who she was. And that pain cut the deepest.
Joanna had been hurt when her father died. She still hurt to this day. But this was different. This was…this was dishonesty, and duplicity, and she found it difficult to meet Ruth’s gaze.
“Why now? Why tell me all this now, and not before? Or not at all?” She looked at the painting. But even that, too, felt like a lie. Her parents, their beaming smiles disguising the fact that her mother was already carrying a child. A child that was not her husband’s.
“Your parents asked for my silence shortly after you were born.” And if the slight tick of a muscle in her jaw was any indication, Ruth had not been overly pleased to give it. “I went along, because it was their choice to make. Over time…over time, it became an easy thing to forget. You are the mirror image of your mother. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of you out of the corners of my eyes and have to remind myself that you’re not her. And ever since you were a born, you had your father wrapped around your adorable little finger. My son loved all of his daughters. But you, my dear…he always had a special bond with you.” Ruth smiled fondly. “To watch the two of you, peas in a pod, talking about books you’d read and the grand adventures you were going to take together. It was a special thing to behold.”
Which was exactly why Joanna felt flayed to the very bone. Because she did have a special bond with her father. And now to learn he wasn’t her real father…to learn that he’d lied to her all these years…
It was incomprehensible.
“That all being said,” her grandmother went on, “I knew the day you unearthed that ring in the attic we would have this conversation. I hoped that if it could be removed from our keeping, once and for all, the past might finally rest, and your mother’s secret along with it. But now that the ring has been stolen…I am afraid I ha
d no choice but to go against your parents’ wishes and tell you the truth.” She closed her eyes. “I can only hope they forgive me.”
“But what does the ring have to do—wait.” Joanna’s mind flashed to the inscription carved into the band of the ring. An inscription she’d never understood…until this second.
Anne, my love ~ JW.
“It was from him, wasn’t it?” she demanded.
“Yes.” Ruth gave a clipped nod. “The only remaining clue to the identity of the man with whom your mother had her…liaison.”
Something in her grandmother’s tone gave Joanna pause. “You don’t think…you don’t think he stole it, do you?” She couldn’t bring herself to call him her father. Even “sire” sounded wrong, as if she were describing some breeding stallion. She wished she had a name. Instead, all she had were two initials. J and W. Letters that were meaningless without context.
“Or he had it stolen.”
“Are you saying, all these years, he has just been waiting for the ring to resurface?” Joanna gave a short, incredulous shake of her head. “That would be impossible.”
A humorless smile laid claim to Ruth’s lips. “I should think nothing about this situation should be considered impossible. I’d remind you that as we speak, your mother’s ring is on a ship bound for London. That’s an awfully large coincidence, don’t you agree? Added to that, I’ve known Mr. Bernard for nearly three decades. His behavior towards you girls was highly out of character. I have to wonder if you would have met a similar outcome at every other jeweler in Boston.” She hesitated. “I told you I do not know the identity of your real father, and I don’t. But I’ve long suspected, from little things your mother accidentally shared here and there, that he was a person of great wealth and power. And people of great wealth and power are capable of extraordinary things. Particularly when they wish to acquire something not in their possession.”
Bewitched by the Bluestocking Page 6