A Diamond for a Duke : Book 4: Camellia: Clean Regency Romance (A Duke's Daughters - The Elbury Bouquet)

by Arietta Richmond

  Setford looked at Lady Prunella as he answered.

  “I believe that your mother paid Lady Prunella to ensure that the disgrace of her sister stayed secret. That no one of the ton, including Lady Prunella, would have any contact with Lady Augusta, so that the whole thing would fade from the memory of any who knew.”

  “But why did those payments continue for all of those years?”

  Lady Prunella answered, her voice full of bitter anger which Damien recognised as so very similar to his own. It was a recognition which shocked him, and made him wonder what he might be like, in twenty years, if he continued to feel so. It was not a pleasant thing to imagine.

  “Why? Because I demanded it. Because, in the first discovery of Augusta’s condition, she came to me, and I supported her to the rest of our family. They cast her off, horrified at what she had done, at what that would do to the family name. And they cast me off too, for supporting her. I hadn’t even had my Season yet, for we were not wealthy, and I had been made to wait another year. After that, with no dowry, and no family to support me, I could never have found a man to marry me. Instead, I faded into spinsterhood in isolation, with the funds from the Duchess of Blackwater the only thing that I had to survive with. It has been a grey and uninspiring life, which my sister and your father doomed me to.”

  Her words were so bitter, and so sad, that Damien felt a small grain of sympathy growing within him. Indeed, his father’s betrayal had reached further than he could ever have imagined.

  “I see. But I still do not understand why you have tried to blackmail us now? My mother is dead, Lady Augusta is dead, my father is dead – what cause could you possibly have to blackmail us?”

  Lady Prunella laughed, and the sharp, brittle tone of it was shocking.

  “They are dead, yes – and that is exactly the point. When your mother died, Blackwater, the payments stopped. I had known that would happen one day, and put aside what I could, but it was not enough – nowhere near enough. I had no other source of income, and though I have become a little accepted in society, amongst the older widows and spinsters, my family still refuse to acknowledge my existence. So, I was faced with starvation – I still am. And the only thing I had, with which I might convince anyone to provide me funds, was information. About the past – but which might, at a stretch, apply to the present.”

  She turned away from them, and her shoulders shook with sobs, which she attempted to stifle with a handkerchief.

  Silence fell, and all in the room looked to each other, wondering what they could possibly say in the face of such a confession. Lady Camellia hesitated for a moment, and then, casting Damien a defiant glance, went to Lady Prunella and put an arm about her shoulders. Yet again, she astounded him with her kindness.

  He met Thomas’ eyes, and something passed between them, some sense of a shared grief for the past, and a shared need to somehow make things right. But there was one thing he needed still to understand. He turned to Setford.

  “Lord Setford, how did you know that the woman who came into the pawnbroker’s was Lady Prunella Danby?”

  Setford smiled, as if pleased that Damien had asked.

  “Ah, well, apart from the fact that she asked for a package just after you had delivered one according to the blackmailer’s instructions…” Georgette and Marie gasped, beside him, and Damien turned to them, quickly.

  “The package was mostly full of plain paper, not money – I just wanted to see what happened.”

  His sisters released a simultaneous sigh of relief, but Lady Prunella sobbed even harder, obviously having heard his words. Setford went on.

  “…apart from that, I knew what she looked like, thanks to Lady Camellia’s sister’s love of art. I overheard a conversation in which Lady Primrose mentioned an early portrait of Lady Prunella’s family – which I was able to examine.”

  “What! Where?”

  “It seems that Lady Prunella’s sister Anne is now Lady Wells, and had enough of a fondness for her childhood to have kept a portrait of the whole family, which was painted when Lady Prunella was about seventeen. During her soiree recently, I studied it, and imagined how age might have changed Lady Prunella’s face, so that I would know her if I saw her.”

  At those words, Lady Prunella lifted her head, and looked at Setford.

  “Anne has kept it? On public display? Even though it shows both Augusta and me? Oh…” It was barely a whisper, but it was filled with such an intense combination of poignant sadness and hope that it made Damien’s heart ache in sympathy. After a moment, Lady Prunella wiped her eyes again, and stood straighter, although still leaning on Lady Camellia’s arm a little. “I… I want you to know that, in the end, I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to spread those lies about you, because, even as I did so, I could see that you were not like your father – everything you did showed me that, despite the initial rumours about you, Blackwater, when you returned from the continent. But I did not know what else to do. Augusta and your father stole so much from me, and your mother, Blackwater, compounded that theft a thousand times. I lost my sister, I lost the chance to know my nephew, I lost my family, and I lost all hope of a marriage. But I see now that I was wrong to try to visit revenge for the past on you children. It was not your fault, after all.”

  She turned her head into Lady Camellia’s shoulder, and began to sob in earnest again. Something she had just said tugged at Damien’s mind.

  “My mother… Thomas, what did our father say in his bequest to you? Something like ‘I did what my wife asked, not what I wanted, and I have regretted that, at least in part, every day since’. That means… that means that my mother manipulated everyone – that my father wanted to see you, to be in your life, yet could not, even as my mother also made sure that everyone would forget you, by bribing Lady Prunella into silence and isolation. All this time, since the first Will reading brought this to light, I have blamed the entirety of this tangle and its consequences on my father – but now… now I see that my mother was just as much to blame. It is not a pleasant realisation. But it does allow me to forgive our father at least some of this, even though it was his wrongdoing in seducing Lady Augusta which truly began everything.”

  Georgette and Marie looked at him, stunned, and the room fell into silence, broken only by Lady Prunella’s quiet sobs.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Damien watched as Georgette absorbed his words, then turned to look Marie in the eye. Across the room, Lady Prunella’s sobs made it clear that the situation was far more complex than any of them had imagined. He watched as the sisters, without words spoken, came to terms with the fact that their mother was as complicit in the situation as their father, just in a different way.

  He suspected that his sisters shared the sadness he felt at the thought that their parents had lived with this terrible secret between them, for so many years. Compared to Lady Prunella’s more than twenty years of suffering, and Thomas’ life without ever knowing his father, their fear and distress of the last few months seemed a far smaller burden, no matter how terrible it had all been at the time.

  The sisters had always had an understanding between them, without many words needed. As Damien waited, Georgette turned back to him, and spoke the thought which was foremost in his mind, and apparently hers as well.

  “What will you do now? What will happen to Lady Prunella? For now that I have heard her story…”

  Damien looked to Lord Setford, who waited quietly, as if willing to allow the situation to play out without his further intervention.

  “Lord Setford – you obviously know far more about such matters than any of us – what is your advice? For I admit that, no matter my anger at the blackmail, now that I have heard the truth of what lay behind it, I believe that I would prefer that this matter was dealt with as quietly, and as kindly, as possible. It seems that both of my parents were foolish, and acted in ways that have caused a great deal of suffering – suffering I would not perpetuate.”

  Se
tford measured him with those unnerving eyes for a moment, then nodded.

  “It is up to you, Your Grace. You have no obligation to Lady Prunella in any way, and what she did was, obviously, against the law. Yet at this point, no one knows of it except those of us in this room, and Lady Camellia’s brother-in-law, who works with me on such matters at times. Should you choose to be kind, rather than vengeful, then no one else will ever know of it, and the past – at least the unkind and unpleasant parts of it, can be truly forgotten. Should you choose to pursue a legal solution, and have Lady Prunella charged, then, of course, it will all end up in the press – which I do not perceive as benefitting anyone in this instance.”

  Damien considered the words, and looked to Thomas – for he had as much reason to care deeply about the choice made here as did Damien and his sisters.

  Thomas met his gaze, then smiled.

  “Thomas, what do you think on the matter? Lady Prunella is, after all, your aunt.”

  “I think that pursuing this in court would be cruel. I know that I was not the one who suffered blackmail, so you may feel differently, but I cannot help but think that Lady Prunella was placed in an impossible position. Your father’s bequest to me is something which I see as a first step towards righting the wrongs of the past. Perhaps, here, we have an opportunity to take another such step?”

  An odd and unexpected warmth filled Damien, as he realised that his half-brother was a truly kind man – a man he found himself proud to be related to, no matter how improper the ton would find that sentiment.

  “I believe that you are right.” He turned towards where Lady Camellia still held the sobbing Lady Prunella, and a different kind of warmth filled him at the sight of her unassuming kindness. He spoke gently, and Lady Camellia assisted Lady Prunella to lift her head and turn to face them. “Lady Prunella, will you answer some questions for me?”

  Tear-filled eyes met his, eyes full of despair and sadness, but the woman managed to swallow her sobs long enough to speak, her voice shaky.

  “I will, if I can, although I do not know what good it can do now.”

  “How did your sister come to be in my parents’ house? Was she a companion to my mother, as Thomas believed?”

  “She was.”

  “But why? As an Earl’s daughter…”

  “Because we were never wealthy, and after Augusta had a Season, and did not find a husband, our father insisted that she find other ways to be useful, so that he could attempt to find me a husband. I do believe that, at that point, there was not enough money for a dowry for both of us. And your mother was a distant cousin of ours, so my father prevailed upon her to take Augusta as companion, at least for a year or so, while you, Blackwater, were small. Augusta was not happy about it, but she went.”

  “Then that makes it even more strange, to my mind, that my mother chose to bribe you to silence in such a manner, when you were her own cousin.”

  “Don’t you see – that is exactly why she did it – because the shame, had it all come out, would have not only reflected on her through her husband’s disgraceful behaviour, but through Augusta’s, because Augusta was her relative. She would have been doubly tainted by disgrace – and she was not willing to face that. My family had cast both Augusta and me off, and would not speak of it, she had demanded silence from her husband, and required that he never see Augusta, or her child, again – I was the only risk, for I had stood up for my sister at the start, and been cast aside by my family as a result. There was nothing to stop me from bringing them all to disgrace if I had chosen too. So the Duchess bought my silence too, so that she could be sure that nothing would damage her perfect life. And whilst the money arrived, to put it vulgarly, I stayed bought – for I had no other way to survive.”

  “I see. Lady Prunella, where do you live?”

  Lady Prunella gave a small bitter laugh.

  “In a suite of rooms, in a house owned by Lady Weatherby and her husband, which also houses three other poor spinsters. Whilst Lady Weatherby is generous and patient, I fear that the rent which I paid in advance from the last payment I received from your mother, has long been used up. I owe her for some months now, and I have feared, every day, that I would end up with nowhere to live, before I ended up starved to death.”

  “I suspected as much. My Lady, if you had adequate funds, and security in your place of residence, what would you do? Would you go about in society more? For I do not remember having seen you very often, anywhere - perhaps once or twice. If I could offer you that security, would you help us undo the damage that you have done, in the form of gossip?”

  Lady Prunella gulped, and brought her handkerchief to her lips. She wavered a little where she stood, and Lady Camellia supported her.

  “I have long given up all hope of such security, Your Grace. But yes, if I might be in a position to dress in less worn gowns, to be able to invite others to tea,” as she spoke the word tea, such longing shone in her eyes that Damien wondered at its cause, “then yes, I would go about more, and yes, if there is a way for me to survive, then I will gladly work to undo the damage that I have done. I… I do not think that I wish to live the rest of my life in bitterness, as I have lived this last twenty years and more.”

  “Then I believe that I can give you the opportunity to make that change. As it was the actions of my parents which brought you to these straights in the first place, it seems only fair that I change that, and redress the wrong they wrought.”

  Lady Prunella staggered at his words, and Lady Camellia assisted her the few steps to a couch, and gently deposited her on it. Georgette, whom Damien had not noticed move, appeared by her side with a cup of tea and a plate of cakes.

  “Lady Prunella, you look like you need some tea to steady you.”

  Lady Prunella looked at Georgette, and her eyes filled with tears again.

  “Thank you. I do not deserve your kindness.”

  She lifted the cup, and sipped, and for a moment, her face transformed, as if the tea was quite the most wonderful thing that she had ever tasted in her life. Damien waited a moment, then spoke again.

  “Lady Prunella, I am willing to settle an annuity on you, of ten thousand pounds a year. An unconditional annuity – funds which you may use however it suits you.”

  Thomas stepped up beside Damien, and spoke into the stunned silence which had filled the room.

  “And I have just become the owner of a respectably sized house on Swallow Street – which has, as far as I have been able to determine, gone unoccupied for twenty years. I am most willing to offer you the chance to live in it, in return for your assistance in putting it to rights. After all, you would never have been in this position had you not tried to help my mother. There is also a house in the country, which I have not yet seen, which you might live in if you preferred that to London. I have a comfortable set of apartments above my shop, where I have lived for many years now, so I do not need to immediately live in the house on Swallow Street.”

  Setford, watching it all, simply smiled, then poured himself some tea, and settled into an armchair.

  Lady Prunella took another rather large mouthful of tea, her hand shaking as she lifted the cup, then looked at the people surrounding her.

  “I… I don’t know quite what to say. After what I did to you, for you to offer to do this for me…. I am ashamed, so very ashamed, of everything that I have done. I do not deserve any of you, or what you offer – but I am also desperate, and far past being anything but practical. Yes, I will humbly accept what you offer, and I will do my best to counter the gossip I started, and to assist all of you in any way that I can.”

  <<<>>>

  Camellia watched quietly as everyone came to terms with what had been revealed. Lady Prunella sobbed on her shoulder, and she patted the woman’s back occasionally, knowing that, until she had cried enough to release at least some of the decades of misery which she had been holding in, she probably would not be capable of sensible thought.

  For a
few moments, after Lady Prunella had first explained the miserable history of it all, Camellia had wondered if Blackwater and his sisters would wish to pursue handing Lady Prunella over to the law. After all, she had committed a crime against them. But Camellia hoped that would not happen, for she found herself feeling nothing but pity for the small woman who crumpled against her shoulder.

  Moments passed, and very little was said, then Blackwater and his sisters appeared to come to a decision, with very little discussion. She understood that, she often found herself in accord with her own siblings, without discussion being necessary. As Blackwater asked for Lady Prunella’s attention, Camellia supported her, then settled her onto the couch when it all seemed too much for her.

  Watching Blackwater, and hearing his words, seeing the kindness in his eyes as he offered to transform Lady Prunella’s life in a positive way, rather than extract vengeance, made her heart swell. Not only was he handsome, not only did he make her heart beat faster just by being nearby, but he was kind as well – he had just demonstrated, unequivocally, that he cared more for others than for money.

  It was, she realised, the perfect combination – the one she had thought could not exist in a man of the ton. He had not only not been horrified by her investing, but now, this - he was startlingly, magnificently, perfect. Then his half-brother stepped forward, and added to the kindness of the response. This was a family she wanted to spend more time with – a lot more time… She felt herself blush at the logical conclusion of that direction of thought.

  Soon they were discussing the practicalities of changing Lady Prunella’s situation and Camellia was drawn into the planning, to assist with arranging visits to modistes and the like, whilst the men set things in motion to pay Lady Prunella’s debts, and arrange her move into the house which Thomas had inherited.

  With dizzying speed, the day had gone from an investigation of the mystery of the blackmailer, to the complete transformation of a woman’s life.