Chapter Fifteen
Beth almost dropped the frame. “Who is he?” she asked.
“He is your father, dear,” Nellie replied with maddening obliqueness.
“Yes, yes, of course, but who is he?” Beth struggled to keep the impatience from her voice. She’d waited her whole life to know. Why must Nellie drag it out like this?
“He is my younger half-brother, Peter van Moerdijk.”
Beth pulled the frame closer and gazed hard at the portrait. Peter? Really? Yes, she remembered Peter. A tall, blond man with a ready laugh—but how time had muted that shining silver blondness and those piercing sky-blue eyes. She remembered a man. The handsome face staring back at her was almost boyish. A boy in a man’s body.
Peter?
But then—
“Peter…but he can’t… That means…” Beth placed her fingertips to her temples. Mrs Hazelwood’s Peter was—“Oh, I don’t understand.” Surely, Mrs Hazelwood couldn’t have kept this truth from her? She would be the woman’s blood relative. A niece, just as Joshua was a nephew. Oh, God—she would be Joshua’s cousin. He had seduced and betrayed not just the daughter of Mrs Hazelwood’s wanton servant, but his own cousin. It was too much to take in at once. Had Joshua known? Beth’s head was spinning. She thrust the frame back at Nellie. “It can’t be. It just can’t.”
The older woman—her aunt—thrust the picture back at her. “I think you should have this now. You’ve been denied your past—your truth—for too long.”
“I don’t understand at all. Mrs Hazelwood would not have—could not have—kept all of this from me. She spoke of her brother Peter all the time. She never betrayed the least clue to me. She just couldn‘t have done that. She wouldn‘t.”
“I know—it is new and it is a shock.”
“Tell me,” Beth breathed. “Tell me everything.”
A wistful smile curved the older woman’s lips and she sighed. “When I was thirteen, my father married a quiet woman with hair as silver-gilt as yours. She was a Swede. She died when Peter was two. My sisters and I were overwhelmed to have a young brother to lavish attention on—we quite spoilt him. Everyone loved Peter. He was a charming rogue—and only became more so as he grew.
“When he was twenty-seven, while visiting Cornelia in Philadelphia, he fell into the water. He was skating on the Schuylkill when the ice was too thin—on a dare, you see. He was always game for a dare, or a wager. He caught a horrible lung fever and had to spend time recuperating at Cornelia’s. Your mother was still a very pretty woman for being over forty.” Nellie laughed softly and shrugged. “I am afraid there isn’t much more to tell. When he recovered, he went home to his young wife. Pretty, willing women were plentiful in his life and your mother was nothing special. You mustn’t be angry with your mother. Peter just had a way with women—they could not resist him.”
Beth gaped at Nellie. All this time, she’d assumed that no one had known who had fathered her. She had suspected that perhaps not even her mother had been able to ascertain which man’s seed had taken root. Because if anyone had known, then surely they would have told her. Yes, surely. No one could be so cruel as to have kept this knowledge from her.
No one who truly cared for her.
“Well, your mother certainly found herself at a loose end with Mr McConnell, let me tell you. He was not a happy man. As you know, he was many years older than your mother and I am given to understand they had not been on intimate terms for many years by then so there was no hiding the deed. Oh, Cornelia was furious with Peter—for all the good it did her. No one stayed angry with him for long.”
The chamber seemed overheated and Beth’s head swam. She held up her hand. “Wait.” She paused and swallowed, struggling to put the terrible truth into words. “He knew?” Her throat constricted, forcing her voice into a squeak. “Peter knew?”
Nellie’s brows shot up. “Well, of course he knew.”
“Oh God, he knew.” All this time Beth had thought her father hadn’t known. That if he had known, he would have come for her. Claimed her as his child. Taken her to live with him and cared for her and cosseted her.
Nellie frowned. “Child, you must understand. You were not unique in his life. There were several children—several that I know of.”
A hard lump settled in her stomach. Heavens, she’d been fathered by a man who had no more care for where he scattered his seed than a tomcat.
“He was quite proud of you. He said you were a pretty, taking little thing.”
“H—how did he die? Mrs Hazelwood never spoke of it.”
Nellie nodded. “He died in a duel over some hasty and thoughtless insult he’d levied at someone in a card game. He could be so careless. All the broken bones and the wild visions and silly plans he had—oh my goodness.” She smiled and wiped at her teary eyes, then gave a little sniff. “I vow that boy was left on the doorstep by elves. When Cornelia speaks of the wild blood you inherited, she is really speaking of your father.”
Beth shook her head. “She never told me. How could she keep this from me? I thought she cared for me, in her own way, but she couldn’t have. Not if she would keep this truth from me.”
Nellie smiled and touched Beth’s face. “You were a spirited child—oh, good Lord, how you gave Cornelia fits. She worried you would be like Peter and come to a bad end. She never really got over his death, you know. She hates the things she cannot control.”
* * * *
As she rode back to Broadway in the carriage, Beth stared out of the window, seeing everything differently. She was not a pretender to this world. Not entirely. And the wildness in herself that she’d fought her whole life was not from the servant side of her parentage but from her well-born father.
Her hand clamped tenaciously on the miniature frame, as if it would vanish into thin air if she slackened her grip. She hadn’t been able to stop glancing at it. Each time she saw those sky-blue eyes and the features so like her own, it made her head light. Here was the truth she’d waited her whole life to know.
But what did it mean?
Had he cared for her at all? Had he considered the pain he’d brought to her by siring her so fecklessly? She glanced at his devil-may-care expression and suspected he had not.
She was connected to Mrs Hazelwood by blood. Had been denied the love of her own family, even as she’d lived in their very midst. It was too much to accept in one lump like this.
Who was she? The child of a servant wench, a member of the lower sort? The child of a disreputable rake? Elizabeth or Beth?
She didn’t know.
* * * *
Three days later, Beth sat in the parlour, trying to read but seeing none of the words on the page. With Grey gone, she’d been alone with all the new revelations and it still felt unreal to her.
“Mrs Sexton?”
Beth looked up. “Yes?”
Mary stood in the doorway. “Madam, Dr Joshua Wade and Mrs Ruth Allen are here.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open in pure surprise. She stood and her book dropped to the floor. “Well, show them in,” she said coolly.
“Right away, Mrs Sexton,” Mary said, her lace cap fluttering as she hurried away.
Beth’s spirits lifted. Ruth was here. God, she could use an understanding face.
Joshua came in first. He was losing his looks. Truly he must be, for he no longer possessed the devastating handsomeness that had once made her heart squeeze each time she looked at him.
She fixed him with a fierce look. “What you doing here, Joshua?”
“I am accompanying Aunt Cornelia here.”
His words jolted her low in the stomach. She couldn’t help flinching. “Mrs Hazelwood is here, in New York?”
“Yes.”
What were the chances of that? Just her luck to have this now. “What are you doing here in my house, Joshua?”
The skin strained over his cheekbones and his lips pursed. He tilted his head ever so slightly and his brows rose. His special look of cha
stisement for her.
Once it would have sent her scurrying to please him. Today it just left her cold. She lifted her chin and met his look levelly. He was her cousin. A man who should have protected her. Instead he had seduced and betrayed her.
He let out his breath in a long, almost whistling exhale. “Well, that’s a fine thank you.”
Her mouth fell open. “Thank you?”
“I asked Ruth and her two chits to come along with us here.”
Warmth blossomed in her chest. She had missed Ruth so much, but she’d missed her nieces most. “Her daughters are here, too?”
He nodded. “Yes. I brought her in my new well-sprung carriage.” His brows drew together and his lip curled upwards. “Well, not quite so new now, after your nieces puked all over the inside on the first day out.”
How prissy Joshua is.
Had he always been that way?
A smile tried to force its way across her mouth. She exerted iron control and made her voice cold. “I am grateful to you for escorting them all the way from Philadelphia, of course.” Joshua’s sensual mouth compressed.
“Aunt Elizabeth! Aunt Elizabeth!” the two little girls piped in their lisping voices as they exploded into the parlour. Their sandy brown curls bounced as they ran towards her.
Beth dropped to her knees and held out her arms. They threw themselves at her and she wrapped their tiny bodies in her embrace. A rush of love melted all the coldness from her heart and she closed her eyes with the pleasure of their closeness. They had all been parted for far too long. Ruth must make her home in New York now—that was all there was to it.
As she came into the room, Ruth’s eyes shone with excitement and two spots of bright red coloured her cheeks. “Oh, Elizabeth! The trip was so exciting. Dr Wade was such a gentleman with the girls. I don’t know how to thank him.”
“Yes, he’s an utter Sir Galahad,” Beth said dryly.
Joshua frowned and adjusted his cravat with a flick of his hand. “Aunt Cornelia asked me to fetch you to her.”
Beth smiled pleasantly, placidly. “Amy, Charley, why don’t you let Mary take you to the kitchens for some cake.” Beth made eye contact with her servant. “Mary, please bring coffee and cake for us.”
Mary nodded and led the little girls from the parlour. Beth waited until she had returned with the cake and coffee, then she rounded on Joshua.
“Let me understand this. Mrs Hazelwood wouldn’t come to my house, not even when it is Mr Grey Sexton’s fine house on Broadway?” Bile soured her stomach and her lip curled up.
Joshua’s face froze, then he blinked. “Good God, you sound so hard. What’s happened between you and Aunt Cornelia?”
“I just think it’s very telling that she won’t even visit me here.”
His dark red brows shot up. “She’s fatigued from the journey—she’s not a young woman, Beth.”
“It’s not that and you know it. It is that she has always considered me nothing but an unwanted obligation.”
“How can you say that? She saved you from the foundling house, out of the generosity of her heart.”
“No, she didn’t. She raised me because I am her brother’s own child.”
Joshua gaped at her—his brown eyes seemed nearly like to pop their sockets. Ruth paused with a piece of cake lifted halfway to her lips.
“Peter?” Joshua asked, drawing his thick crimson lashes down as he flexed his hands together.
Ha! She knew that gesture. He was lying.
“You knew—“ She took a hitching breath. “You knew, you buggering bastard!”
“Elizabeth!” Ruth cried.
Beth didn’t even flinch, she just kept staring at Joshua. “You knew.”
His eyes were still closed and a slight smile spread over his lips. He gave a little shake of his head. “Now, Beth, you have to understand something.”
“What do I have to understand?”
“My mother made me swear—on the souls of my yet-to-be-created children—that I would never tell a soul.”
Disbelief slammed into Beth. It was one thing to know he’d lied, that he’d withheld this information. It was quite another to hear him say it. “When did she tell you?”
“She told me the night I asked if I might marry you.”
“You asked her permission to marry me? Ha! You knew she’d never, ever give it. Can’t have the golden boy, our brilliant physician marry the dirty servant’s bastard.”
Joshua flinched. “Beth, please don’t use that word in regards to yourself. I’ve asked that repeatedly.”
“When did you ask her?” Beth had to know. Everything had been kept from her and she couldn’t bear another secret.
“You wily cat. You know the night I did it.” His voice was accusing.
Beth shrugged. “I can’t say that I do.”
He opened his eyes and narrowed them. “You play so innocent. You remember as clearly as I do the night you made your little ultimatum and stretched me over that rack.”
“You couldn’t possibly have imagined I’d always be your meek little fool?” She shuddered with disgust. “Or did your lust blind you that much?”
Joshua’s elegant face went rigid. “Love, not lust. I—”
A loud handclap startled Beth. She turned to Ruth and found her sister’s face marred by a deep frown.
Bugger. She had forgotten Ruth was even in the parlour. Oh well, what did it matter now if Ruth knew she and Joshua had been lovers?
Ruth shook her head. “Shut up the two of you and someone explain to me. I don’t understand, Beth… So you’re saying this Peter fellow was your father?” Beth took a moment to calm herself, then she told Ruth all that Nellie had said. When she had finished, Ruth stared back in silence, as if the shock had stunned her. And didn’t she know exactly how they felt?
She could bear the suspense no longer. “Well?”
Ruth laid her empty plate aside. “Well, I can scarcely believe Mrs Hazelwood wouldn’t have told you. In all these years, how could she not tell you?”
“She doesn’t care about me and never has,” Beth said through the burning in her throat. She coughed and cleared her voice but the scratchiness lingered. “If she had cared—cared anything at all—she wouldn’t have kept this from me.”
“Now, Beth,” Joshua said in his paternalistic tones. “That’s not the way of it at all. I don’t know why or exactly how she kept this secret from you all these years, but she cares for you. She’s done nothing but fret over how you have fared settling into your new life.”
“She is my aunt and she never let me know it.” Beth shook her head. “I cannot see her now. You must make my excuses.”
Joshua sighed and shook his head. “You always have been stubborn to a fault.” He got to his feet and walked from the parlour.
Beth turned a bright smile on Ruth, but her sister slumped in the chair, frowning. Oh, no. Not this again. “What is it, Ruth?”
Ruth let her breath go, loud and long. “Charlie—what else?”
“What else, indeed.” Beth replied, picking up her forgotten glass of claret. “How bad this time?”
“Bad, Elizabeth, bad. He could lose the shop.”
Beth nodded slowly. “We knew it would come to this.”
“You have to help him. He’ll be nothing without his work.”
But Beth had written to Charlie when she’d previously sent money and told him it was for the very last time. Sending money now couldn’t help—it would merely go the way of all the other loans she’d made him. And it was causing too much friction between herself and Grey. She would no longer put her own affairs at risk for Charlie.
“Ruth, he’ll have to sort this out for himself. I can no longer send him funds.”
“You mean your husband has decreed it?”
Beth nodded. “Yes, but I agree with him. You’ll stay with me here. I’ll take care of you. However, it does no good to help Charlie.”
Ruth’s eyes flickered over her. “You’ve grown col
d, up here in New York.”
Chapter Sixteen
Grey paused at Beth’s door with his hand on the knob. He’d just arrived home from Salem, by way of Harvard and a tense meeting with the headmaster and Jan’s teachers. He’d been dead tired and longing for his bed. But a brief chat with the housekeeper had changed all that. He’d never sleep now. Not until he’d heard Beth’s explanation for why Dr Joshua Wade had come calling here—Ruth or no Ruth.
With resolve, he pushed the door open. Candlelight flooded her chamber. She sat propped up against the headboard with a glass of claret lifted to her lips, her silver-gilt hair spilt over her shoulders in disarray.
Her eyes met his, full of sadness. No, more—it was more than sadness. Total disillusionment.
All his righteous anger vaporised.
She knew.
Oh God, she knew.
Mrs Clark had finally told her.
He almost wished she hadn’t. But Beth had had to know, sooner or later, no matter the pain.
Her sadness poured into him, burning his insides out until his chest was an aching chasm. If only he could have spared her all the pain of her life. If only he could do something to eradicate it now. God, he would. He’d do anything, pay anything.
But he could do only one thing. He sat on the bed and took her hand. “Mrs Clark told you. Told you about your father.”
Over the rim of her glass, her eyes widened. He caught his breath. She was going to hate him for not telling her. Christ, she was never going to forgive him. But what else could he possibly have done? He hadn’t wanted her to learn the truth. He had wanted to spare her the pain.
She put the glass down on her bedside table and nodded. “So you knew, too?”
There was a world of accusation in her voice.
“I guessed,” he admitted. “As soon as I knew you were connected with Mrs Hazelwood. Anyone who knew Peter van Moerdijk would have.”
He chose not to tell her that it was whispered gossip. Everyone who had known Peter van Moerdijk could recognise his daughter once they connected her to Mrs Hazelwood’s house. He couldn’t fathom why no one had ever told her, except that she’d taken herself from Mrs Hazelwood’s house just when she would have been of an age to mingle with adult guests. As for the servants, they had likely feared Cornelia Hazelwood’s wrath too much to say anything.
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