Discovering Miss Dalrymple (Baleful Godmother Historical Romance Series Book 6)

by Emily Larkin

  Her gift told her that Vickery had been born in a farmhouse on the Cornish coast.

  Georgie swallowed, and gripped Vickery’s hand tightly. Where are this man’s parents?

  Her gift showed her a churchyard in Cornwall and a simple headstone with names inscribed on it.

  “Are you certain?” Vickery asked, concern creasing his brow. “You really are very pale, you know.”

  Determination stiffened Georgie’s spine. I will not be the vehicle to destroy Vic’s life. She lifted her chin and smiled and said brightly, “I’ve never been better!”

  Vickery didn’t look convinced.

  “Was that what you wished to talk to me about? The dreams?” Georgie kept the smile on her face, the brightness in her voice. “I promise I’ll do my best.”

  “Thank you.”

  Georgie released his hand and stood. “Will you come riding this afternoon?”

  Vickery stood, too. “If you’d like me to.”

  “Of course,” Georgie said cheerfully. “I enjoy our rides.”

  She walked back to the house with Vickery, talking with determined buoyancy about her brother, Oliver, who was now managing the Dalrymple estate in Somerset, and his wife and the baby they were expecting, light, meaningless talk that allowed no time for silence between them. They parted on the terrace. Georgie watched Vickery stride out of sight. The boy she’d grown up with; the man she’d come to love.

  Alexander Aubrey St. Clare, seventh Duke of Vickery.

  Except that he wasn’t the Duke of Vickery.

  Chapter Three

  Georgiana’s parents were still in the library. They both looked up when she entered.

  Georgie closed the door and stood with her back to it.

  “Darling?” Lady Dalrymple said. “Where’s Alexander?”

  “He’s gone.”

  Lady Dalrymple’s eyebrows twitched down. “Gone?”

  “May I ask your advice about something?”

  “Of course,” her father said.

  Georgie turned the key, locking the library door. Her father’s eyebrows lifted; her mother’s drew even further down.

  Georgie crossed to the sofa, with its damask upholstery and lion-paw feet, and sat in the very middle of it. Her father came to sit beside her. Her mother stayed standing, hands on her hips, frowning.

  “What is it?” her father asked.

  “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  “You have my word,” her father said.

  “Mama?”

  Her mother made a brisk, dismissive gesture with one hand. “Of course.”

  Georgie organized her thoughts and then said, “Vic found his father’s diaries last night. Just before he died the old duke was worried that he’d rescued the wrong child and that Vic was someone else’s son.”

  There was a moment of silence while her parents took this in, then Lady Dalrymple said, “What? Of all the nonsensical things I’ve ever heard! Leonard had a bee in his bonnet if he thought that.”

  “Alexander’s concerned, is he?” her father said. “Would you like us to speak with him? Set his mind at rest?”

  Georgie shook her head. “There’s more, Papa. Vic asked me to dream about it tonight, like I did with Hubert. And I said I would.”

  This time the moment of silence went on for much longer.

  “Well, that’s a little unexpected,” Lady Dalrymple said. “But I fail to see where the problem lies. You tell Alexander that he’s Leonard’s son, and that’s the end of this foolishness.”

  Georgie took a deep breath. “The problem is that Alexander St. Clare is dead. He drowned in a creek on the Vickery estate in Kent. His body must have washed out to sea; his bones are on the seabed.”

  Lady Dalrymple opened her mouth . . . and then closed it. “Oh, dear,” she said weakly and came to sit on Georgie’s other side.

  “Gypsies stole the boy and drowned him?” There was shock in Lord Dalrymple’s voice, disbelief, revulsion.

  Georgiana rearranged her father’s question in her head. Where are the men who drowned Alexander St. Clare? The answer wasn’t what she’d expected. She tried again. Where are the people who abducted Alexander St. Clare? And then a third time: Where are the gypsies who were in the woods on the Vickery estate in Kent on the day Alexander St. Clare drowned?

  “No one drowned him,” she told her parents. “Or stole him. There weren’t any gypsies in the woods that day.”

  “But . . .” her mother said, and then fell silent.

  Georgie asked herself another question: Where were Alexander St. Clare’s nurserymaids when he drowned? She saw a grassy glade in her mind’s eye. It was nowhere near the creek. “I think the nurserymaids lost him. They weren’t with him when he drowned.”

  Her parents considered this statement for a moment. “Did they know he’d drowned?” her mother asked.

  Georgie rephrased this question. Where are the nurserymaids who knew that Alexander St. Clare had drowned? “No,” she said. “They didn’t know.”

  “If you were a servant,” the viscount said quietly, “and the child you had charge of vanished, what would you do?”

  Georgie didn’t know what she’d do, but she knew what Alexander St. Clare’s nurserymaids had done: they’d lied.

  “Dear God,” her mother said. She pressed her hands to her face. “Poor Leonard. If he’d known . . .”

  Georgie looked down at her lap. She pleated a fold of muslin between her fingers. “Vic is a farmer’s son. He was born in Cornwall and both his parents are dead. I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t want to ruin his life.”

  Lady Dalrymple lowered her hands and looked at her husband. “Francis?”

  Georgie’s father was silent for the best part of a minute. “Alexander has taken his seat in the House of Lords. At this point it doesn’t matter who his parents were. He’s the Duke of Vickery.”

  “Even if he’s not the last duke’s son?” Georgie asked.

  “Legal challenges have to be made before a man takes his seat in the House. It’s too late now.”

  Some of the miserable tightness in her chest eased. “You’re certain?”

  “Absolutely,” her father said. “The House of Lords can’t reverse peerage decisions. Alexander legally is the Duke of Vickery.”

  “Then it’s clear what you should do,” her mother said. “Tell Alexander that he’s Leonard’s son. It will be easier if he doesn’t know the truth.”

  Easy? To look Vickery in the eye and lie to him? No, it wouldn’t be easy at all; it would be quite unbearably painful.

  “So everything’s all right, then,” her mother said. “Thank God for that.”

  No, Georgie thought sadly. Everything’s not all right.

  Her mother’s smile faded. “Darling? What’s wrong?”

  What’s wrong was that she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with Vickery, and stupid enough to imagine that he’d fallen in love with her. “Nothing,” Georgie said.

  Her mother gave an unladylike snort. “Pish pash.”

  “What is it, sweetheart?” her father said. “You can tell us.”

  The urge to cry ambushed her suddenly, triggered by her father’s tone of voice, the gentle concern on his face. For a dreadful moment Georgie thought she was going to burst into tears. She clenched her jaw. I am not a watering pot.

  “What is it?” the viscount said again, laying his hand on hers.

  That was all it took: her father’s hand on hers. Despite her earnest desire not to, Georgie found herself crying.

  Her father put an arm around her and gathered her close.

  Georgie leaned against him and sobbed into his shoulder, choking on a painful mix of emotions: grief, loss, loneliness. Some of the emotions were because of Hubert. Hubert who had loved her and asked her to marry him, and had been dead these past five years. The rest were because of Vickery, who hadn’t asked her to marry him, and whom she loved quite as deeply as she’d ever loved Hube
rt.

  Finally the storm of tears quietened. Her father handed her his handkerchief. Georgie mopped her eyes and blew her nose.

  “Darling,” her mother said. “Please tell us what’s wrong.”

  Georgie inhaled a shaky breath. Her breath hitched in her throat. “It’s just that I want to marry Vic,” she whispered. “And I don’t think he wants to marry me.”

  “You want to marry him, do you?” her father asked. “Even knowing what you do about his parentage?”

  Georgie nodded miserably against his shoulder.

  “Then it’s just as well we gave him our permission, isn’t it, Miranda?”

  Georgie lifted her head. “What?”

  “He spoke to us yesterday about it, asked for leave to pay his addresses. Most proper of him.”

  “Vic did that? He truly did?”

  “He truly did,” her mother said.

  The library suddenly seemed much brighter, as if it were flooded with sunshine. “Oh,” Georgie said. She almost burst into tears again. And then a dreadful thought struck her. “You won’t change your minds, will you? Now that you know about his birth?” And then she remembered that she was twenty-four years old and she didn’t need her parents’ permission to marry.

  Her mother pursed her lips thoughtfully and then gave a little shrug. “He’s wealthy, that’s all I care about.”

  Georgie gave a gasp of outrage and sat bolt upright. “Mother! How can you say such a thing?”

  “Your mother’s having a little joke,” Lord Dalrymple said mildly.

  “It wasn’t funny!” Georgie said. “I don’t want to marry Vic because he’s a duke; I want to marry him because he’s Vic.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, my dear.” Lord Dalrymple put his arm around her shoulders again. “We’ve watched that boy grow up. He’s a good man, and he’ll be a good husband. Which is all we want for you.”

  Her mother patted Georgie’s knee. “Yes, dear. We just want you to be happy.” And then she said, irrepressibly, “And wealthy. And a duchess.”

  This time Georgie didn’t rise to the bait.

  Her mother waited a moment, hopefully, and then abandoned her teasing. “Don’t worry your head about Alexander,” she said briskly. “I have no doubt that he’ll propose once you’ve set his mind to rest.” She shook her head and tutted. “The poor boy. What a shock that diary must have been for him.”

  Georgie looked down at the wet, crumpled handkerchief she was gripping and came to a decision. “I’m going to tell him the truth. About everything.”

  She felt her mother stiffen beside her on the sofa. “I beg your pardon?” Lady Dalrymple said.

  “I’m going to tell Vic about his parents, and about my magic.”

  “You most certainly are not going to tell him about your magic,” Lady Dalrymple said in her most quelling tones. “I utterly forbid it! How many times do I have to tell you how dangerous it is, Georgiana? You could be hanged as a witch!”

  Georgie met her mother’s gaze squarely. “You told Father before you were married.”

  “I had no choice! He saw me walk on air.”

  “I won’t lie to Vic,” Georgie said, lifting her chin.

  “The risk—”

  “I won’t lie to him!” Georgie said fiercely. “And I don’t think you would have lied to Father, either, even if he hadn’t seen you.”

  Lady Dalrymple closed her mouth.

  “Could you have lied to him your whole life?” Georgie demanded. “Could you?”

  Lady Dalrymple looked past Georgie at her husband. Her expression was one that Georgie had never seen her wear before: uncertainty.

  “I don’t think you could have, Mama. I think that if you love someone and you lie to them, it must taint everything. I think such a marriage would be like . . . like an apple that looks perfect on the outside, but has a rotten core.”

  Her father huffed out a faint laugh. “Our daughter has a way with words.” And then he said, more soberly, “She’s right, Miranda. I would hate to think there’d been a secret of such magnitude between us.”

  Lady Dalrymple said, “But . . .” and then halted.

  “I wouldn’t have known you had a secret,” Lord Dalrymple said. “It wouldn’t have altered my feelings for you in the slightest, but you would have known, and it might have altered you.”

  Lady Dalrymple eyed him.

  “I agree with Georgiana on this,” her father said. “We can trust Alexander. He won’t send either of you to the gallows.”

  Lady Dalrymple blew out her breath. “Very well,” she said, with a gesture of defeat. “When?”

  “Today,” Georgie said. “This afternoon. After our ride.”

  Chapter Four

  The Dalrymple estate lay on the Dorsetshire coast, near the village of Eype. It was a stark coastline, with pale, shingly beaches that stretched as far as the eye could see and crumbling cliffs riddled with fossils and huge, wide skies. Some people found it barren; Georgie thought it beautiful.

  Vickery had eight estates and a palatial residence in St. James’s Square, London, but Dorsetshire was where he was happiest. He’d never told her so in words, but she’d seen him stop often enough on the clifftops and gaze out with a faint half-smile on his face to know that he loved it here. He wasn’t wearing that half-smile this afternoon, though, as they rested the horses after their gallop. He looked tired. Tired and worried.

  She knew why: his father’s diaries.

  Maybe I shouldn’t tell him the truth? Maybe I should lie to him? It would be kinder.

  Vickery turned his head and looked at her and something in his eyes—an intensity, an intention—made her breath catch in her throat.

  Vickery didn’t say anything, he just looked at her. The sea breeze tugged at Georgie’s hat and blew a strand of hair across her cheek. She heard the distant cry of a seagull, heard the sound of the surf far below, heard the creak of her saddle as the mare shifted her weight. She discovered that she wasn’t breathing. How could she breathe when Vickery looked at her like that? Her heart thudded loudly in her ears. She felt quite lightheaded.

  Vickery drew breath as if to speak . . . and then closed his mouth and looked away.

  Georgie clutched her reins tightly. “Vic? What is it?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.” He nudged his horse’s flank with a knee, easing the stallion into a walk.

  Georgie fell in beside him. It hadn’t been nothing. Whatever Vickery had been about to tell her had been important. Very important. She knew it with the same certainty that she knew he wasn’t the sixth duke’s son.

  The horses broke into a trot when they reached the familiar path homeward. Georgie stopped wondering what Vickery hadn’t said and started worrying about the conversation that loomed ahead. Nervousness churned in her belly. How would Vickery react when he saw her mother walk on air? What would he say when he learned the truth about his parentage? Perhaps I should wait another day to tell him? Perhaps I shouldn’t tell him at all?

  They cut across Baron Cathcart’s land. Her father’s estate came into view. Georgie glanced at Vickery riding alongside her, reins held lightly, muscles flexing in his thighs as he moved. It would be kinder not to tell him about his parents, wouldn’t it? And then she imagined living the rest of her life with that secret between them and knew that she couldn’t do it.

  Vickery deserved to hear the truth. And he deserved to hear it today. Even if her stomach tied itself into a knot at the thought of telling him.

  Georgie took hold of her courage. “Will you come inside for a moment, Vic? My parents would like to take a cup of tea with you.”

  Georgie’s parents were waiting in the front drawing room. “Alexander, darling. Have a seat.” Lady Dalrymple patted the sofa alongside her.

  Vickery laid his hat and gloves and riding crop to one side and sat.

  Georgie took a seat beside her father. Her ribcage was tight with nervousness. Her fingers fumbled slightly as she removed her riding gloves.r />
  A footman entered with a tea tray, set it down, and departed.

  Georgie’s mother poured with her usual briskness, but there was tension in her arm. The clink of the teacups in their saucers seemed louder than usual. Her mother’s voice was ever so slightly off pitch.

  Georgie had never seen her mother nervous before. It made her own nervousness intensify sharply. She gripped her hands tightly in her lap.

  Georgie’s father quietly stood, crossed to the door, locked it, and resumed his seat. Vickery didn’t notice—his attention was focused on his hostess—but Georgie noticed. Her stomach tied itself into an even tighter knot.

  Lady Dalrymple took a sip of tea, and a second one, then she put down her cup and said, “Alexander, there is something that Francis, Georgiana, and I wish to speak to you about in confidence.”

  “Oh?” Vickery said. The note in his voice—slightly cautious—made Georgie wonder if he’d noticed her mother’s nervousness, too. He looked like a man braced for bad news.

  “Do you believe in Faerie godmothers?” Lady Dalrymple asked.

  Vickery blinked. “Uh, no. No, I don’t.”

  “Or magic?”

  Vickery gave an awkward laugh, as if he didn’t know quite how to respond to this question. “No, ma’am.” He raised his teacup to his lips, and sipped.

  “Hmm,” Lady Dalrymple said. She stood. “Your attention, please, Alexander.”

  She walked across the room. Her first two steps were on the Savonnerie carpet; her next were on air. She climbed steadily, as if ascending an invisible staircase. By the time she’d taken a dozen steps she was six feet above the floor. She marched around the drawing room, her head nearly brushing the ceiling, her stride jaunty.

  Georgie, who had seen her mother do this many times, looked at Vickery. He was staring up at Lady Dalrymple, his teacup half raised, his mouth open, his eyes wide.

  He didn’t look horrified; he looked stunned. Transfixed. Unblinking and unbreathing.

  Lady Dalrymple halted in front of the fireplace, her feet planted on air. She crossed her arms over her bosom and looked down at Vickery. “Still don’t believe in magic, Alexander?”