daughter of lies

by Kenley Davidson

  Louise Seagrave held court at one end of the room, her satin skirts spread about her ankles, her hands folded demurely in her lap. Brenna’s seven housemates were collected at the opposite end, regarding the former countess much as they might have regarded a roach, or a rat in the larder.

  “Ah, Brenna, my love, there you are…” Louise stopped and her eyes widened just a trifle. “Rom? Whatever are you doing here?” Her gaze darted around the room. “Is there no rule against gentlemen callers?”

  “Aye, but there’s also a rule against prating harridans, and we’ve already broken that one,” a tall, grim-looking brunette ground out. “Now say your piece so we can kick your arse back onto the street again.”

  “I am only here for my daughter,” Louise said, her dignity slightly marred by a welling of tears. “All I want is to take her home. I have gone on for too long believing her dead, or worse, and I could not bear to leave her here in wretchedness and squalor when she should be with me.” She wiped her eyes with a lacy, white handkerchief that promptly disappeared again back into her sleeves, or wherever else ladies kept such objects. “I had to rescue her,” she went on, glancing up at Rom beseechingly. “Did you come to help me?”

  A grimace spread across Brenna’s face. “Rescue me, Mother? You caused a riot at The Bad Apple and then left me to their tender mercies. If you wanted to rescue me, that would have been the appropriate time.”

  “I only wanted you to see how uneducated and vulgar and base such men could be,” Louise insisted. “I never dreamed they would actually hurt you.”

  “Well, they did, and you didn’t stay to find out, did you?” Brenna pointed out. “You abandoned me to my fate and came here so you could intercept me when I ran home in tears. You hoped after all your efforts I would fall neatly into your loving arms and trot off home where you could have me at your mercy once more.”

  “I…” Louise looked shocked. “Of course I want you to come home! Brenna, my love, there is so much left to do. So much more for you to learn.” She turned to Rom. “Please, you must help me convince her, Rom. You know I can be of help to her, and how ruinous it would be for her to stay here. You’ve seen how much she needs me! I cannot allow her to be further corrupted by the manners and morals of the lower classes, which, under the present circumstances”— she cast a glance at the seven women across the room—“would be inevitable.”

  “Yes, Rom,” Brenna said sweetly, “do help her convince me to go home. After all, Mother says it was you who told her where to find me. Apparently you were so concerned for my welfare that you went to her and told her everything.”

  Rom turned a cool stare on his neighbor. “Really, Louise? And how can it be that I don’t remember telling you any such thing? How did we have an entire conversation that then somehow completely slipped my mind?”

  Louise lifted her eyebrows and shrugged delicately, appearing unconcerned but for the clenching of her hands in the silken folds of her skirts. “I haven’t the smallest idea how you could have forgotten. You came to me last evening and told me you’d seen her here when you visited the pub. Perhaps the strain of the past days has been too much for you and your memory has grown hazy, but I remember.” She smiled up at him with warmth and feeling. “I don’t know that I can ever thank you enough for your efforts on behalf of my poor daughter. Without you, I might never have known she was so close, and that I still had a chance to take her home and love her as a mother should.”

  “Enough,” Rom growled, barely suppressing a shudder. How Brenna could have such a poisonous creature for a mother would never cease to amaze him, and he was done playing the fool for the sake of her vanity. It was time for her to know that the game was over and she’d lost.

  “I know you think me a buffoon, Louise, but that’s because I wanted you to think it. I have forgotten nothing. The very last thing I would have told you is the whereabouts of your daughter.”

  The former Lady Seagrave merely looked perplexed. “I don’t understand, Rom. We’re friends, you and I. We’ve discussed my hopes and dreams for Brenna many times. Why would you claim now that you would hide her from me?”

  “Because I know exactly who told you where to find her,” he said, letting Louise hear every bit of the vast well of his contempt. “It was Quinn. The man you paid to assassinate your daughter because you couldn’t live with the knowledge that you’re not the countess anymore.”

  Louise froze, and her eyes darted from Rom to Brenna, and back again. “I don’t understand,” she said at last, confusion beginning to give way to cool withdrawal. “Who could even invent such a story? It’s positively barbaric, to imagine that I would hurt my own child. Why would you insinuate such a thing?”

  “It’s not insinuation, Louise,” Rom said coldly. “It’s the truth. We finally have all the proof we need to accuse you of attempting to murder the Countess of Hennsley, and it’s only a matter of time before we find proof of the rest.”

  “The rest?” Brenna said, turning on him sharply.

  Louise burst out laughing. “You can’t possibly have proof of something I haven’t done,” she said. “And no matter what lies you choose to tell, who is going to take your word over mine?”

  Rom met her eyes and let his lip curl in disdain. “You mean, who is going to believe the word of a great, lumbering ox of a man who cannot tell when he’s being played for a fool by a conniving harpy in pursuit of a title?”

  Her face grew pale and her eyes glittered dangerously, while her hands shifted in the folds of her dress. It seemed she had at last begun to perceive that the conversation was not going quite the way she’d hoped.

  Brenna interrupted. “Rom, what did you mean by ‘the rest’?”

  He didn’t take his eyes off Louise as he answered. “As you suspected, I was sent here by the Crown to investigate certain suspicious coincidences that seemed to occur all too often in association with Louise Seagrave. Lady Norelle believed she was never the silent, unwilling partner in Stockton’s schemes. When we discovered that she purchased Crestwood in secret over five years ago, using funds that mysteriously vanished from the estate’s accounts, it set us on the trail of other, not-quite-legal activities. Like tax avoidance, transportation of illicit substances, forgery… I could give you quite a list.”

  “You can prove nothing,” Louise said, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “And buying a house is not a crime. Protecting myself from my husband’s numerous ill-advised ventures and embarrassing infidelities might, in fact, be called prudent.”

  “Yes, it might,” he agreed. “If you’d stopped there. But you were the one who arranged for your firstborn child to be switched so that you would have a male heir. It was you who convinced Stockton to hide the truth, you who encouraged him to disappear rather than suffer the consequences of your actions, and you who ensured that he disappeared permanently from a ship to Thalassa last year.”

  Brenna took a step back and looked at Louise, her eyes narrowed. “Is it true?”

  The woman held herself with fragile dignity as she faced them, still seated but uncowed. “I would never hurt my child,” she said softly. “Whatever I have done, I can only beg you to believe that I have done out of a mother’s love. I want only what is best for my heir, and right now, the best is for you to come home where I can give you the future you deserve. If you stay here, among the lower classes, your vulgarity will only be encouraged and you will never gain acceptance at court. Is that what you want?”

  She turned to their audience, who were watching with expressions of mingled horror and fascination. “If you call yourselves her friends, is that what you would want for her?”

  Rom winced. Louise was apparently looking for a repeat of what happened at The Bad Apple, but the seven women only regarded her with folded arms and stony glares.

  “And I thought my mum was harsh,” one of them said with a derisive snort.

  “The best place for your daughter is wherever she wants to be,” the grumpy-looking brunette
said. “We’re not kicking her out on your command. When she’s ready to leave, that’s fine, but you’ve no right to tell us who lives in our house.”

  “But I’m trying to save her,” Louise insisted. “Someone has already tried to kill her once, and it could happen again.”

  “So we should send her back to you, where she almost died the first time?” the brunette said sarcastically. “Seems to me, she’s been safer here than with you, unless you know something we don’t.” There was a challenge in her voice and a glint in her eye, but Louise wisely decided not to take the bait.

  “You must know that her presence here could be putting you all in danger,” she insisted instead, leaning forward in her chair with a pleading expression. “If Brenna goes with me, everyone will be safer.”

  “Everyone except me,” Brenna retorted, hands on her hips. “Louise, we know it was you who hired Quinn to kill me. We have proof. His letter was found. You can keep prating forever about how much you care for me, but no one will believe you. It’s over.”

  Louise rose to her feet at last and regarded them all as though she were a queen, not a disgraced former countess. All pretense of solicitude seemed to fall away from her face, to be replaced by a mocking sneer.

  “You?” she said incredulously. “I, care for you?” Her laugh was razor sharp and pointed. “I have never spared a moment’s affection for the pitiful thing my husband planned to pass off as our heir. You are nothing but living proof of Stockton’s feebleminded scheming and serial infidelity.”

  Rom’s gaze darted to Brenna, and he saw her eyes go wide as the blood drained from her face. She jerked forward with her hand outstretched, the motion appearing almost involuntary, and Rom reached for her arm just a moment too late.

  Louise had finally concluded that her charade was entirely useless. Her hand darted out from the folds of her dress holding a jeweled dagger—not the fake, decorative sort, but a true weapon with a deadly sharp blade. She took two quick steps forward, grasped the front of Brenna’s shirt in one tiny fist, and held the razor edge of her weapon to Brenna’s throat.

  Brenna stopped the instant she felt the cold metal brush against her skin, and met Louise’s murderous stare with icy calm, despite gasps and cries of alarm from the women now ranged behind her. “Are you going to stab me with that, Mother? Slice my throat? Or drive it through my heart, as you hired Quinn to do? Are you so obsessed with revenge that you would rather kill me than see me take your place?”

  “This has nothing to do with revenge!” Louise hissed, the blade trembling in her hand. “This was never about me! Everything I am, everything I have done, is for the sake of my beloved child. My only child. The title, the lands, the power—all of it should be his!” Her eyes narrowed as she leaned closer. “My Kyril is the rightful Earl of Hennsley and I will never stop, never rest, never be at peace until justice is done and you are exposed as the illegitimate pretender you truly are!”

  Brenna’s jaw would have dropped, but there was the knife and Louise’s hand was already shaking. Any movement would be a bit of a risk.

  But even the knife felt unimportant next to Louise’s words.

  Could she be telling the truth? Kyril… her only child? If so, Brenna’s life was about to be turned upside down once again.

  If Louise was not her mother, then Brenna was not a countess after all. She might not even be a Seagrave. So many months she’d spent wallowing in self-doubt and insecurity over the Hennsley title, and for what? So she could lose her identity once again? And not only her identity—her home, her source of income, her brother…

  Brenna’s heart suddenly seemed to be trying to pound its way out of her chest, and she wasn’t entirely sure of the reason. Was she afraid of losing the wealth and position she’d spent the better part of a year learning to live with? Afraid of losing Kyril? Or was she desperately hoping to find that she shared no part of Louise’s blood, even if it meant she was once again penniless and alone in the world?

  The older woman’s steely blue eyes left no doubt that she, at least, believed with every fiber of her being that Brenna had no part in her life.

  “Is it true?” Brenna whispered.

  “I would have known,” Louise said, her lip curling in contempt, “if I had given birth to something like you. But if you want proof, I can provide it. I kept the record of your birth because I knew this day might come.”

  Truth. In spite of all Louise’s lies, Brenna’s instincts screamed that this, at least, was no deception, and all she could feel was an overwhelming sense of relief.

  A tight, hard knot in her chest loosened and she took a breath, feeling lighter than she had in months.

  Breanne Seagrave did not exist. Had never existed. Somehow, she was just plain Brenna Haverly again, just as she’d known herself to be for the first twenty-seven years of her life.

  She thought she should probably feel something more than just relief. Bereavement, regret, sadness… She should be angry. She should feel betrayed, but all her heart was capable of was emptiness and confusion.

  “Then why?” she said softly. “Why did you ask me to come here? How did any of this ever happen? I believed for most of my life that I was the illegitimate daughter of Stockton Seagrave. If that was true, why didn’t you say so ages ago and end this charade?”

  “I couldn’t,” Louise said, clearly frustrated by the restriction. “Not without losing my place at court forever. I had to plan everything perfectly so I could be there to see it when my son came into his rightful inheritance. This was the only way.”

  Brenna opened her mouth, but Louise pressed the knife closer to her neck as her eyes darted to Rom.

  “No closer,” she hissed. “Or I slit her throat here and now.”

  “Why haven’t you?” Brenna taunted, shifting her feet to give herself the best chance at evading a sudden strike. She could most likely disarm Louise if she chose, but not until she’d gotten the full story. She needed it too much to stop now. “If you’re not going to explain yourself, just do it. Kill me here and now. Then Rom will strike you down before you’ve had a chance to tell anyone the truth. No one will ever know why you did what you did, and Rom will make sure you’re remembered as a mother so twisted that she murdered her own daughter out of spite.”

  Louise laughed and twisted her grip on Brenna’s shirtfront. “Oh, my dear, do not make the mistake of assuming that either you or Rom have any power here. I will take your life when I’m ready, and then I won’t care what becomes of me. My main goal will be achieved. I did plan to regain a title for myself so I could stand by my son’s side as he rises to power, but it is enough to know that the earldom will be his.”

  Rom interrupted, his voice low and urgent. “It could still be his, without the need for murder. Why not just tell everyone the truth?”

  “Because I’m the one who told His Majesty about Brenna in the first place,” Louise snapped.

  Brenna heard rustling and whispering from behind them, but she ignored it. “That seems a trifle shortsighted,” she said, putting as much sarcasm into the comment as she could muster. “Why not tell them then and there that Kyril should be the heir?”

  Louise looked as though she’d bitten into something sour. “I faked my first pregnancy,” she announced bitterly. “I thought I couldn’t have children, so when I found out Stockton’s mistress was expecting, we decided to claim the child as our own. At least until we found out it was a girl. Fortunately, the mother died in childbirth, so I convinced Stockton to exchange it for a male child and we went on pretending.”

  Brenna almost couldn’t draw breath as she contemplated the full truth of what Louise had revealed. Brenna’s real mother, the woman who’d given birth to her, was dead—had been dead for twenty-eight years—and Louise could only call it “fortunate.”

  She somehow managed to control her disgust and contempt long enough to ask another question. “But if you couldn’t have children, where does Kyril fit in?”

  “When I became
pregnant with him,” Louise said, her expression softening, “it was a miracle. I wanted to get rid of Eland even then, but Stockton wouldn’t let me. He’d grown fond of the brat, despite the fact that he was no blood of ours, though I suspected he could have been one of Stockton’s that he’d never bothered to mention. Stockton even threatened to cut off my allowance if I ever gave so much as a hint that I favored Kyril. He was so worried about being found out that he forced me to treat Eland like a prince, and my own flesh and blood like a useless second son.”

  She’d wanted to get rid of Eland. By this point, Brenna didn’t even try to talk herself into believing that Louise meant something other than murder.

  “So you just went on as you were, for years,” Brenna prompted, “and I was raised as an orphan, though the earl must have told someone the truth because I at least knew he was my father.”

  “Yes.” Louise looked as though the admission pained her. “He told the woman in charge of the home that you were his daughter, gave her extra money to make sure you were well taken care of. I warned him it was too dangerous, but he never listened to me. And then?” She grimaced. “Everything fell apart. The woman who raised you talked to someone who actually listened. About Eland, and about you. Stockton came to me in a panic, and Eland heard us talking. He was furious, and said that he wanted to meet you. To see if it was all true.” A smirk crossed her face. “You can believe that I made sure that woman wouldn’t be talking to anyone else, but the damage was done, and the only way to salvage the situation was to tell the Crown myself that Eland was a fraud and you were the real heir.”

  A chill ran down Brenna’s spine. That woman had a name. Mrs. Orrin. The woman who raised Brenna until she was twelve. She hadn’t had much warmth to spare for her charges, but she’d been the first mother Brenna knew and she’d been murdered to further Louise’s twisted ambitions.

  “How can you say that was the only way?” Brenna demanded furiously. “There was no need to kill Mrs. Orrin! You could have told the truth and then Kyril would have been the heir just as you wanted!”