by Olivia Drake
Lady Milford’s eyebrow arched higher. “I daresay I should be thanked for sweeping up the damage done by your family!”
She stared imperiously until the countess harrumphed and went to plop her bulk into a chair by the door.
“I would like some answers,” Damien said in a grim tone. “Starting with the key that Lady Anne apparently has in her possession.”
All eyes turned to the slender woman in dove gray who stood beside the Earl of Pennington. Seeing Lady Anne tremble under all the attention, Ellie hastened forward and guided her to the green chintz chaise in front of the fireplace. “Come, my lady, there’s nothing to fear. I shall sit right here beside you.” She took the woman’s cold hands in hers and gently rubbed them. “You said that you’d found the key. The one with the crown on it. Pray tell, how did you even know about it?”
“The earl sent me out of the room the last time Lady Milford was here, when you’d been abducted. But I—I heard them quarreling. They were speaking of—of the Demon Prince. And the key.” She cast a distressed glance up at Damien, who stood frowning at her. “It was the first time that I realized … that I even suspected … and even so, I still wasn’t quite certain…”
“Eavesdropping!” the earl muttered. “If I had known you would repay all my benevolence with such treachery—”
“It would behoove you to remain silent, Pennington,” Lady Milford said, seating herself on the other side of Lady Anne. “This is not your story, though I will allow that you do figure into it.”
“Will someone kindly tell me what is going on here?” Damien said in exasperation. He stood by the fireplace, his hands on his hips.
“It may be best if I relate the course of events,” Lady Milford said. “Nearly thirty years ago, a young lady of sixteen was permitted by her indulgent older sister to attend a house party at which members of the royal family were present. The occasion was in honor of a visiting delegation of Russian diplomats. Among them was Prince Rupert, a cousin to the czar.” Lady Milford glanced at Lady Anne, who had dropped her gaze to her lap. “Prince Rupert was a very handsome man of one-and-twenty and quite dashing to a girl still in the schoolroom. He swept her off her feet, and it was shortly after the delegation left England that she discovered she was in a delicate condition.”
Lady Anne lifted her head. “Rupert loved me,” she murmured, looking up at Damien. “He did.”
Still holding the woman’s hands, Ellie felt a tremor that shook the foundations of her world. She didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. She couldn’t believe it. She glanced up at Damien to see him standing stock-still, his expression taut, his gaze focused on Lady Anne.
“Love, bah,” the earl snapped as he paced back and forth. “The prince was a bounder, that’s what.”
“We’ve no need of such commentary!” Lady Milford reprimanded before returning her attention to Damien. “When I discovered that Pennington had threatened to cast his own wife’s sister out on the street, I placed Lady Anne into the care of a trusted friend, the widow of a vicar. And when Anne’s son was born, the earl insisted the child be fostered under a false name, never to be seen or heard from again. Having no real authority in the matter, I could do nothing but entrust the boy to Mrs. Mims and pray for the best.”
Granite-faced, Damien stared at Lady Anne. Yet still he said nothing. Ellie’s heart went out to him. How utterly shocked he must be. She herself could hardly wrap her own mind around the revelation.
Lady Anne … Damien’s mother. It just didn’t seem possible.
“But you did continue to interfere, Clarissa,” Ellie’s grandmother said resentfully from her chair against the wall. “You arranged for the boy to be admitted to Eton. You should have left well enough alone!”
“What?” Damien snapped, his eyes shifting to Lady Milford. “You paid for my tuition? I was told it was charity.”
She turned a kind smile up at him. “I stipulated to the provost that you were to believe so. You see, I could hardly allow a boy of high birth—indeed, royal birth—to be denied a proper education.”
He fell silent again, his jaw tight, his gaze brooding.
Ellie was trying to fit all the pieces together, as much for his sake as her own. “Uncle Basil, did you know that Damien was at Eton? Did you tell Walt to steal that key from him?”
The earl gave a start of surprise. “No! I knew nothing about any blasted key until Walter brought it home. Didn’t even know Anne’s brat was at Eton until Walter told me there was a bastard there claiming to be a prince. When I found out his name, you can be sure that I confiscated the key at once!”
Lady Anne drew a shaky breath. “You never knew that I’d slipped the key into my baby’s blanket, along with a letter.”
As if seeing her for the first time, Ellie clutched the woman’s slender fingers. She had always viewed Lady Anne as a dear aunt, even though they were not blood relations. To think that the tenderhearted woman had hidden such a secret all these years. And now, she had to relive the terrible memory of her newborn son being taken from her.
“Mrs. Mims told me there was a letter,” Damien said in a clipped tone. “She’d promised to give it to me upon reaching my majority. Yet I never saw it.” He swung toward the earl. “My guardian died shortly before you found out about the key. And all of her effects mysteriously vanished. Did you steal them?”
Pennington glared back at him. “The woman disobeyed my strict order not to speak of anything that you might use to trace your family and make demands on us someday. Naturally, when I learned that she’d blabbered about you being a prince, I had to see if she’d left any written proof as well. So, yes, I found the letter and I burned it.”
“What did it say?” Damien demanded. “And what does it have to do with the key?”
“Anne wanted to present you with the deed to an old hunting box in Berkshire,” Pennington said dismissively. “A ramshackle place on a small piece of acreage, nothing of significance.”
“It was an inheritance from my grandfather,” Lady Anne said, her voice vibrating with emotion. “And it was all I had to give to my son. But you’re wrong to think the key fits that door.”
Withdrawing her hands from Ellie’s, Lady Anne reached up to the cameo on its gold chain around her neck. Opening the back, she plucked out a key and reverently cradled it in her palm.
“When I overheard Basil speaking of a key belonging to the Demon Prince,” she went on, “I knew that I had to find it, to see if it was the same one. I searched for weeks. It was only three days ago that I discovered it tucked inside a box on a high shelf in the earl’s study.”
“Three days ago!” Ellie exclaimed. “That’s when you came to call on me. You must have been hoping to catch a glimpse of your son.”
“Yes.” Lady Anne lifted her yearning gaze to Damien. “I had to be certain. And now I am, finally. He looks ever so much like Rupert—especially his beautiful eyes.”
Damien took a step toward her. His expression intent, he said, “Where is this old roué now? Did you ever write to him about me?”
“I did, but … my letter was returned with a note from his secretary.” She glanced away, biting her lip. “Rupert succumbed to a fever onboard ship. He died before ever reaching his home.”
Damien prowled in front of the hearth. “So this knave was my sire? He seduced an underage girl. By God, I would like to have confronted him for abandoning you.”
“But Rupert did not abandon me,” she said earnestly. “He was returning to Russia to seek the blessing of his parents on our wedding. You see, before he left, we were married in secret.”
“Bosh!” the earl broke in. “The marriage was invalid. I was your guardian and you did not have my permission.”
“Perhaps I did not, Basil,” Lady Anne said with uncustomary passion. “But Rupert did persuade the archbishop to issue a special license and a vicar did perform the ceremony. I secured our marriage papers at the hunting box. This key fits a small coffer hidden inside the ch
imneypiece there.” She held out the key to Damien. “I wanted you to have proof that you are indeed the son of a prince.”
Damien stood unmoving for a moment. Then he came slowly forward and took the key from her. He held it up to the light, and Ellie could see the crown stamped into one end, just as he’d described to her.
He gripped his fingers around it. “I’d always hoped the key would lead me to my parents,” he said, gazing down in wonderment at his mother. “I dreamed about that for so long, it’s difficult for me to believe it has actually happened.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Damien,” she whispered. “I am so very sorry that I was not a mother to you. They took you away shortly after you were born. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of you, pondered where you might be, and what you were doing. I should have been there for you in your childhood. Can you ever forgive me?”
The harsh mask left his face and Damien graced her with a smile. Sinking to one knee, he drew her into his arms and held her close, his hand moving over her slender back. A sheen of tears lit his green-gray eyes before he closed them momentarily and kissed his mother’s cheek. “There is nothing to forgive … Mother. You’ve done nothing wrong. The wrong was done to you.”
Watching them, Ellie felt tears spring to her own eyes. All those years he’d been searching for his parents. He’d been so determined to retrieve the key that he’d even abducted her out of desperation. Now, at long last, he had solved the mystery of his past. And she could not imagine a more perfect mother for him than kind, gentle Lady Anne.
Lady Milford sat watching with a gratified smile. “Well! This reunion has been long overdue. I finally realized that, Pennington, when Damien’s wife came to call on me today. I was coming here to tell you that I intended to break my vow to keep your dreadful secret.”
“I hope you’re satisfied,” the earl said bitterly. “No doubt, he’ll spread our family dirt hither and yon.”
Sitting back on his heels, Damien looked at Pennington. “You hid my connection to this family because you feared I’d extort money from you. Well, I shall indeed demand my just due. I’m taking my mother away from here to live in my house.” He kissed Lady Anne’s hands. “If the arrangement is acceptable to you, Mother.”
Her delicate features glowed. “Oh! Why, I would be honored—”
“This is intolerable!” declared the countess, rising from the chair. “Anne must stay here to chaperone Beatrice. How are we to find a replacement in the height of the season?”
Ellie had put up with her family’s selfishness for many years. But they would not stand in the way of Damien’s happiness. She surged to her feet to glare at her grandmother. “Pay someone,” she said tartly. “For it appears you have finally run out of poor relations to misuse.”
Chapter 28
Two days later, Damien drove Ellie and his mother in his open phaeton into the rolling green countryside of Berkshire. Birdsong blended with the clopping of the horses’ hooves and the jingling of the harness. It was the perfect day for a drive. The air was balmy for April, and the breeze felt soft and fresh against Ellie’s face. All around them, an artist’s palette of spring flowers bloomed in the wooded valleys, beside the hedgerows, and along the edges of the fields.
Although Ellie tried to enjoy the ride, the memory of that quarrel still loomed like an insurmountable wall between her and Damien. She yearned to beg his forgiveness, yet she had been hesitant to intrude on his reunion with his mother. Even now they couldn’t speak of the matter, though from time to time, his enigmatic gaze lingered on Ellie.
Lady Anne sat in between them. Her blue-gray eyes sparkled as she and Damien chatted freely, having nearly thirty years of catching up to do. Ellie was pleased to see that the shy woman had blossomed with the happy disclosure of her long-held secret. It was obvious how much Lady Anne adored her son and her granddaughter. Lily, in turn, had been ecstatic to discover she had a grandmamma.
Sitting with them at tea in the nursery the previous afternoon, watching them laugh and talk, Ellie had felt awash with yearning. Damien had his happy family at last, and she could think of no one more deserving than him. She wanted so badly to belong with them, too.
It was dismaying to realize that she had willingly cast herself out. Caught up in her own foolish fears of being hurt, she had clung to her dream of independence. But now Ellie knew that all she really wanted was to stay with the three people that she loved most in the world.
How had she ever imagined that living alone would be preferable?
“There is where you turn,” Lady Anne said, pointing to the road ahead. “Between the two stone columns.”
Damien guided the horses around the bend and down a narrow track. Thickets of beeches and oaks formed a cool tunnel surrounding the drive. As the carriage emerged into a clearing, a lovely stone house appeared on a slight rise, surrounded by a riot of wildflowers.
Ellie was transfixed by the sight. It was not at all what she had imagined a hunting box to look like. In her mind, she had pictured a rugged masculine lodge built of dark wood, perhaps with a deer head nailed above the door. Not this charming, two-story cottage with a thatched roof and a white-painted door.
Her husband drew the pair of grays to a halt, and the groom jumped down from the rear seat to hold the horses. Damien carefully lifted his mother down first, and then Ellie. The feel of his strong hands clasping her waist rendered Ellie quite breathless. How she longed to slide her arms around him, to lift her face for his kiss …
But he was already turning toward the spacious cottage, offering each woman an arm. As they proceeded up the walk, the door opened and Ellie was startled to see the MacNabs step out, Finn holding a paint brush and his wife drying her hands on the apron tied around her stout middle.
Sunshine gleamed on Finn’s bald pate as he grinned at Damien. “’Tis spit-spot, just as ye ordered, laird.”
Ellie and Lady Anne both looked questioningly at Damien. He patted his mother’s hand. “I sent them ahead yesterday morning to clear away thirty years of dust and cobwebs.”
They all proceeded into a sunny chamber with gleaming windows open to the spring breeze, and a faint smell of paint and beeswax, overlaid by the delicious aroma of Mrs. MacNab’s scones. The servants vanished through a back doorway, presumably leading to the kitchen.
What a cozy room, Ellie thought, as she untied her bonnet and let it fall onto a writing desk by the door. She turned around slowly to view the sapphire-blue chairs by the fireplace, the glass-fronted cabinet of books, the table by the window where one could drink tea and gaze out over the valley. She had dreamed of a place just like this …
“The house looks exactly as it did all those years ago,” Lady Anne marveled. “Rupert and I spent our wedding night here, you know.” So saying, she went to the mortared mantelpiece and grasped a loose stone with her kid-gloved hands.
“Allow me,” Damien said.
She stepped aside to let him wiggle the stone free. Reaching into the space behind it, he pulled out a small coffer enameled in jewel tones, which he brought to the table by the window. Then he found the crown-topped key in a pocket of his charcoal-gray coat. Fitting it into the keyhole, he opened the box.
“Rupert gave me this coffer as a wedding gift,” Lady Anne said. Misty-eyed, she took out an old document, the penmanship spidery and somewhat faded. “There is his signature, Damien. Your father, Prince Rupert of St. Petersburg. Oh, I do wish you could have met him.”
“I’m glad that he made you happy. True love is all too rare.”
As he spoke, Damien’s gaze flitted to Ellie, and her heart catapulted in her breast. It no longer mattered if he considered her merely a convenient wife. She loved him enough for both of them. More than anything, she wanted to be a permanent part of his life.
But that was assuming he would grant her another chance. What if it was already too late to repair the damage she had wrought with her cold rejection of him? The thought was so very daunting …
Lady Anne smiled at them. “Would you mind leaving me in here for a bit? I should like to look around by myself and remember.”
With Damien at her side, Ellie walked back out into the sunshine. She was very conscious of his hand pressed warmly at the base of her back. Though wanting desperately to talk to him, she felt tongue-tied and anxious. The groom was tending the horses on the grass alongside the front drive, and Damien steered her away up a pathway on a slight rise through the trees. They walked in silence, surrounded by birdsong, until reaching a place overlooking the valley with its squares of farmland.
Ellie glanced back to see the stone cottage some distance behind them, like a lovely painting in a frame of green leaves. She released a sigh. “For so long I dreamed of a place like this. But—”
“It’s yours,” Damien broke in. He turned to her, his hands on her shoulders, his green-gray eyes intent on her face. “My mother has given it to me, and in turn, I’m giving it to you.”
“Pardon?”
“When she described the place to me, Ellie, I knew it would be the perfect cottage for you. And it’s close enough to London that perhaps you might come and visit us at times. Lily will miss you…”
She hardly dared to move. “And you, Damien? Will you miss me?”
The dappled shade played over his handsome features as he gently caressed her cheek. “I’ll miss you every moment. I love you, Ellie. Abducting you by mistake was the best stroke of luck ever in my life.”
He loved her? A thrill of joy induced her to take a step and close the small distance between them. “Oh, Damien, I—”
He placed his finger lightly over her lips. “I know I don’t deserve your trust, darling, so let me prove myself to you. I’m selling my club. I’ve already found a buyer, and you have my word that I’ll never again set foot in any gaming establishment.”