Only she wasn’t.
“I-I—” she stammered, trying to find some way to avoid the truth when it was now bubbling inside of her, threatening to boil over at last. “Oh, leave it be. It will only cause pain. I came here to see you, to show you all that I was well. I didn’t come to rehash old stories.”
“Not good enough, Claire,” Audrey said, pressing a hand to her belly, as if trying to soothe herself by connecting with her child. How well Claire knew that feeling. It made her think of Francesca, and the room started to blur around her.
“I need to know,” Mrs. Gray added.
Claire looked at her. There might be no avoiding this, just as she had feared all this time. If only she could reduce the pain it would cause.
“Then let’s talk, just you and I,” she suggested, casting another brief glance around the room.
“No!” It was Gabriel’s sharp voice that answered now, and Claire let out her breath in a shuddering sigh as she forced herself to look at the family member she had always been closest to. Her brother moved toward her, anger in his eyes. Love too, so powerful and undeserved. “Damn it, Claire, I have devoted my life to finding you. I almost destroyed a hell of a lot to find you. So I think we all deserve to know your answer to Mama’s question.”
“Gabriel,” she breathed, wanting so much to go to him, to whisper to him in the secret “twin” language they had once created so many years ago. But she could see he didn’t want that from her right now. His jaw was set with anger. Slowly the beautiful woman he’d stood with earlier came up to touch his hand. To Claire’s surprise, some of the tension bled from Gabriel’s face.
At least he had that. It was a comfort.
“I’m not trying to deny you what you deserve,” she said, addressing the room at large. “But what I say will only serve to hurt everyone.”
Mrs. Gray moved closer again. “I think that has been the truth for a long time, Claire. There can’t be more in store than what we’ve already felt when we lost you.”
Claire spun on her, her own long suppressed anger rising in her chest. “Oh no? Does that mean you want me to tell them about Lila Elsworth?”
All the color bled from Mrs. Gray’s face in nothing more than a flash of a second. Her eyes widened and she stared at Claire. Her expression made it very clear she knew exactly what Claire was referring to. And perhaps she now guessed the reason why Claire had run in the first place.
“I’ve heard that name,” Gabriel said. “You wanted Jude to look into her before you left. We’ve never found any information about the woman. Who is she? What could she possibly have to do with you going away with Jonathon Aston?”
“Oh, Claire,” Mrs. Gray said, ignoring her son. “Oh, my poor Claire.”
“What is going on?” Evan burst out, exchanging a look with Edward. “You two are talking in riddles!”
Claire looked around, finding War. He was starting at her, far more sympathetic than the rest, but just as seemingly confused. He surprised her by moving toward her. As he got closer, her heart rate slowed, her breath grew easier. When he took her hand, for a brief second, she felt peace. She knew it was fleeting, but she clung to it.
“This is why I wanted to stay away,” she whispered as she looked up into his dark eyes.
“Explain yourself, Claire,” Edward said, and she jerked her gaze to him. For a moment he had sounded exactly like their father.
She shook the disconcerting image away and looked at Mrs. Gray again. She nodded.
“Claire, secrets have torn this family apart for far too long. I don’t deny this will hurt. But it has clearly already hurt for so very long. Tell them.”
Claire drew back in surprise. What she was going to say would damage this family to the core. Could Mrs. Gray really think that was better than keeping the secret, staying away so she didn’t harm anyone else?
But she looked firm in her opinion. So Claire drew a breath.
“It was just after Christmas,” she began, her voice shaking. “Almost three years ago. Audrey had a cold and Gabriel was doing some kind of scientific fiddling. Evan and Edward were out and about, and you—” She faced Mrs. Gray. “—were on a few calls. I was bored. And I thought perhaps I would go into Papa’s old study. It had been locked up for years and years, since his death. I wondered if I might look at his things, feel a little closer to him. It was the holiday and I suppose I was melancholy.”
“Where did you get the key?” Mrs. Gray asked.
Claire shrugged. “I knew where you kept it. I went into your chamber and pilfered it. Then I went into his office. It still smelled the same, despite the dust cloths spread over everything. When I started to pull them down, it was like it was the day before he died again. Only I wasn’t a little girl anymore.”
Around her, she saw the sadness on the faces of her siblings. They all loved and missed him as much as she had that day. And she was going to destroy their memories of him as surely as her own had been damaged.
“I don’t know if I should say these things,” she whispered, looking at Mrs. Gray again. In some ways they were now partners in this. After all, only they knew who Lila Elsworth was. What she meant to this family, to her.
“Go on,” Mrs. Gray encouraged. “Now you have begun. We can’t go back.”
Oh, how Claire knew that. She had wanted to go back so many times. But there was no back. Only forward.
“I-I opened up his drawers, looking at his sloppy handwriting, trying to picture him sitting at that desk for the last time. And when I found some letters, I looked at them. In the middle was a letter from a woman named Lila Elsworth.”
Mrs. Gray’s eyes shut slowly, a whisper of pain on her face that cut Claire down.
“Who was she?” Jude asked. “You wanted me to research more about her and yet I couldn’t find her.”
“She was…” She looked at Mrs. Gray again, but her face was impassive. “She was a-a lover of our father.”
Audrey got back to her feet. “That’s a lie! That’s a dirty lie, Claire. Papa loved Mama. He was faithful to her.”
Claire bent her head. “I wanted it to be a lie too. I could only console myself with the fact that it was a very, very old letter. From almost twenty-five years before. This woman, Lila, she was writing to him to tell him that she knew their affair was over. That she wouldn’t bother him again. That she appreciated his financial help with a complication. That she wouldn’t ruin his family.”
“Complication,” Gabriel breathed. “What kind of complication?”
“I had my suspicions,” Claire said, not looking at her brother. “As I’m sure you all do. But I hoped they weren’t correct. I dug deeper and found other letters in reference to this issue from a solicitor. They were dated a few months after Lila’s letter. The lawyer was trying to convince my father that he had no obligation to the…the child his philandering had produced.”
Edward’s face twisted in horror and he took a long step back from Claire, as if distancing himself from her would put a wall between him and the truth. Claire flinched at that action. She hated being the one who had to do this. The one who destroyed them all.
And she wasn’t even finished yet.
“So there is another child,” Audrey breathed. “A brother or sister out there somewhere. Do we even know which one? Do you have any idea where that child went?”
Claire swallowed. Sweet Audrey automatically wanted to find this wayward child. But would she be so accepting in a moment?
“Yes,” she whispered. “You see, Papa sometimes recorded what his response to important correspondence was, copying letters he wrote so that he could attach them and prove to himself, or perhaps to others, what he had said. This time the letter he sent to the solicitor said, in part, ‘You will cease any implication that Claire is not my true and legitimate child. She is with us now.’”
It was easy to repeat those words. They had rung in her head for so long.
Gabriel shook
his head. “This woman had a child and also named her Claire?”
Juliet took his hand again, but she met Claire’s eyes. Claire could see her new sister-in-law understood. In truth, she knew her brilliant brother also knew what she was saying. He was simply trying to reason his way out of it. She couldn’t blame him. She had done the same.
“I am Lila Elsworth’s daughter,” she whispered. The entire room seemed to gasp at once, and her stomach turned. She forced herself to continue, “I never belonged in this family. I was never one of you.”
Audrey let out a long, low moan of pain. “Claire,” she breathed.
Claire forced herself to look at Mrs. Gray once more. She was staring at Claire, her lips thin and her expression unreadable. “I tortured you for so many decades, calling you Mama. It must have hurt you so deeply to be forced to be exposed to the proof of your husband’s betrayal. I’m so sorry.”
Mrs. Gray folded her arms. “Are you quite finished, Claire?”
“Yes,” Claire whispered, hating the steely tone in the voice of a woman she had loved for so long. Hating that her existence was such a pain to her. She had hidden it well, good woman that she was. Now she no longer needed to.
“Good,” Mrs. Gray said. “Now come and sit with me. And the rest of you, stop gaping at Claire, stop forming arguments on the tips of your tongues. Everyone just hush.”
She held out a hand and Claire stared at it. How could this woman bear to touch her now that the truth was out and she no longer had to pretend? Yet that extended hand was like a lifeline and she couldn’t help but take it.
Mrs. Gray led her to the settee and they sat together. For a long moment, there was only silence. A silence Gabriel broke.
“This cannot be true,” he murmured.
Mrs. Gray shot him a look. “I understand this is difficult, my love. Probably for no one more than you. But quiet now. I will explain.”
“How can you explain?” Claire asked, hating how her voice cracked. She had no right to cry, not when she was the one who had damaged so many.
“Easily,” Mrs. Gray said. “Your father was a good man. But he was not perfect. Our marriage was arranged and we did grow to care deeply for each other, but we had both left behind people we loved before.” She glanced across the room at her new husband, and he smiled sadly. “I couldn’t begrudge him that, though we both vowed we would be true to each other. We loved each other. But Edward and Evan came so close together, just under two years apart. I was tired, I was sometimes very sad without understanding why. He tried to help, but it was a hard time for us. It was then he bumped into the woman he’d once cared for, Lila Elsworth. And yes, they did engage in a brief affair.”
Claire shut her eyes, trying to block out the pain that truth inspired, trying to make the soft moan of her sister disappear. “I’m sorry.”
“So was he,” Mrs. Gray said. “He came back to me after ending the affair and eventually he confessed it all. He was too truthful a soul to keep the secret. I admit I was very hurt by his betrayal. But I forgave him because I could see he was truly remorseful. We soon found out we were expecting yet another child. It bonded us together and we moved forward.”
“And then you found out she was also having a child,” Claire said dully.
“No,” Mrs. Gray corrected. “I didn’t know. Your father didn’t either until very late in her pregnancy. That was the subject of the letter you found from her. He had discovered the truth and made financial arrangements for the baby. He didn’t tell me, probably for fear it would hurt me even more deeply. But on the day I gave birth, he was distracted. He disappeared for a while and when he came back he had been crying. I confronted him and he told me that Lila had also had a child. And that she had died giving birth. The baby was now alone in the world. He didn’t know what to do.”
“You must have despised him,” Claire whispered.
Mrs. Gray took a rough breath. “I was upset, of course. But there was a child to think of. We determined together that it would be best if the baby went to live with a trusted family on one of your father’s far-flung estates. The head of that family was in London at the time and could come to fetch the child the next day. But there was a problem with the meeting. I woke up to hear your father in the hallway, crooning.”
At that word, the faces of all the other siblings lit up. Their father had been known to sing to all his children, both murmured tunes from current days and also funny little songs he made up. Claire’s favorite had been about how she was a princess brought in by the sea.
“I called him in and he was holding a bundle. The baby.” Mrs. Gray’s face was bright as she told the story, not dark or sad as Claire would have thought. “He tried to apologize, explain, but the baby was crying. Hungry, I knew. I opened my arms and took the blanket from him. It fell away and there was your face, Claire. Your beautiful face with those green eyes that always held such life. You looked at me, you reached for me, and I knew. I knew you were mine. I knew I could never let you go. I loved you, Claire, from the moment I touched you. Just as I loved and love all my children.”
“Mama,” Audrey breathed, her voice choked with tears.
“What did you do?” Claire asked, staring at her mother, disbelieving and hoping all at once.
Mrs. Gray shrugged as if this story was unremarkable. “I fed you, of course. You were hungry. Then I cuddled you up next to your brother and announced to your father that we had just had twins and he should let the staff know in whatever way he felt was best. He asked me if I was sure, and I was. We never spoke of it again.”
“How could you not hate me?” Claire breathed. “How could you not look at me and see only the proof of his betrayal?”
Mrs. Gray wrinkled her brow as if the question confused her. “Because I looked at you and saw my Claire. Yes, sometimes your eyes would flash and I would get a glimpse of a woman I’d never met. But I never hated you for that. I couldn’t even hate her. Because of her I had you. I never regretted it.”
“How is that possible?” Claire asked.
Her mother caught her hands. Her mother, who had chosen that path. Her mother, who she could see was telling the truth when she said she loved her.
“You are my daughter.” Her mother touched her face. “Perhaps I should have told you. God knows, I know I should have now. But you adored your father and I didn’t want to harm the memory or harm you. But by holding this back, I hurt us all more. Especially you. So can you forgive me? Can any of you forgive me?”
“Oh Mama,” Edward said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “I cannot believe this is true. That you’ve had to live with this secret for so long.”
“I cannot imagine what you went through,” Audrey agreed. “I forgive you.”
Gabriel had said nothing for some time. He stared not at his mother, but at Claire. She felt his dark stare boring into her. And she feared he saw her as a stranger now, not as the twin sister he had adored. The sister he had risked almost everything to find. Did he regret that now?
“This is why you ran,” he whispered.
Claire nodded. “Once I knew the truth, I was torn to pieces. I needed to get away. I needed to escape. And Jon was there. Offering me just that.”
“Did he know the truth?” Gabriel asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve never told anyone the truth until now.”
“It must have been horrible to carry that secret alone,” Audrey said, stepping toward her. “But you are still Claire. Still our sister. You don’t think that has changed, do you?”
She looked around the room, at the faces of those who had loved her all her life. They still loved her, despite what had just come out. But she could also see they looked at her differently. The secret had changed their family. Her running had done the same.
And the weight of it pushed on her shoulders until she could hardly breathe.
“War,” she gasped as she pushed to her feet. “War.”
He moved
on her instantly, putting his arm around her to support her, holding her in place. “I’m here,” he said close to her ear. “I’m here just as I said I would be. I won’t let you fall.”
She knew the others were watching them. She saw how her brothers all exchanged looks at the intimacy of this exchange. In that moment, she didn’t care. She just needed to be out of this room. Out of this moment.
“I have to go,” she gasped. “Please.”
“No!” Gabriel burst out. “You can’t run again, Claire. You can’t.”
“She won’t,” War said, holding her more firmly. “She won’t. But this is overwhelming her now. Just as I’m sure it is all of you. Let her go with me, let me take care of her. Let yourselves digest what has happened. And we’ll come back. Tomorrow, perhaps?”
Mrs. Gray got to her feet. “Yes,” she answered for all of them.
Gabriel rushed forward. “No. No, that is not acceptable.” He grasped Claire’s hand and tugged as if he would take her from War’s arms. “You aren’t doing this to me again.”
She looked up and met his stare, seeing the pain she had caused in him. It was like being stabbed in her heart, even though she knew now they didn’t truly share the bond that twins shared. That had been an illusion all along.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please let me go.”
“This will have to be discussed, War,” Edward said even as he reached out to touch Gabriel’s arm, to draw him away. “We aren’t finished.”
“No,” War agreed. “I think that is obvious to everyone. But let us go now. I will vouch for Claire. If her word means nothing, I hope mine still does.”
Evan looked him up and down. “I guess we’ll see.”
Claire turned into his chest and he moved her toward the door. “Tomorrow,” he promised. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”
Then he guided her outside, past the gaping servants who had obviously been eavesdropping and to the carriage that already awaited them as if by magic. He loaded her inside, but she barely felt the action. And when the door shut and they finally began to move, she collapsed against the carriage seat and wept.
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