The vicar stood for several seconds with his back toward William before turning to face him. “Please excuse my wife.”
Feeling more uncomfortable than ever, William forced his feet to move. The vicar’s study looked like one would expect. A small but cheery fire burned in the small grate on the far wall. Two square windows were carved into the thick plaster walls, and naught but a cross and a small painting of a woman with a lace cap hung on the space between. The vicar directed him to a seat, but William preferred to stand.
William was in no mood to exchange pleasantries, and there was no need to attempt to hide the reason behind his visit. “I suppose my visit is overdue.”
The vicar took the chair behind the tiny desk, the fire’s light hitting the sleeve of his severely cut black jacket.
William cleared his throat. “I need to speak with you about Isabelle.”
“I figured as much.”
William shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “And I need to find out what you know about this.” He pulled the brooch from his pocket and leaned forward to place the jewelry on the desk. It sparkled and shone in the fire’s modest light. “Have you seen it before?”
The vicar paused, picked up the piece, turned it over in his hand, and then returned it to the desk. “Yes, I know it.”
The man’s responses were slow and frustratingly short. “We did not leave this topic on good terms all those years ago. I am no longer trying to find Isabelle, but since finding this brooch at Rosemere, I do need answers. I implore you. Once and for all, please tell me what you would not tell me then so I might make peace with it.”
The older man rubbed the whiskers on his square chin. His eyes seemed to darken, and he pushed his spectacles up farther on his nose. “Sit down, Sterling.”
Optimism surged at the change in the man’s tone. Perhaps finally he would hear the answers he sought.
The vicar’s voice was low. “I regret the way things were left. But the reason we would not tell you where Isabelle had gone was for her good . . . and yours.”
“Mine?”
“Yes.” The vicar stood and moved to the window, his back to William. “Do you know why Isabelle came to stay with us, Mr. Sterling?”
“She was visiting for the summer.”
“Yes, but that is not the entire truth.”
The distinct feeling that he was about to hear news he would rather not hear seized him, making him feel ill. And yet he had come too far to stop.
“Isabelle was sent to us by her mother, who is my wife’s sister. You see, Isabelle had been involved with a gentleman in Southampton, and when their indiscretion was discovered, scandal ensued. The young man refused to marry her, so her mother sent her to stay with us until the scandal passed.”
William tried to remember, but no, Isabelle had never mentioned a past love. Ever.
Hammond said, “She came to us under protest. She was angry and defiant. And then she met you. After her history, you can imagine why Mrs. Hammond and I were so concerned at your relationship. You were both such vibrant people, and with Isabelle’s troubled past, we did not want her to make the same mistake twice. Then, when you proposed, we were naturally concerned, so we sent word of the engagement to her mother. The news made it to the other gentleman, and within days Isabelle received a letter with an offer of marriage.”
William was having trouble with the sequence. “This man proposed after I did?”
The vicar nodded. “I believe Isabelle was never able to let go of the other gentleman. After receiving his letter, she made her decision. She said nothing to us, just ran away during the black of night.”
William felt almost dizzy. The news, which should have brought peace and clarity, only muddied his thoughts, stirring up emotions that time had muted. “So she did not love me as she professed.”
“Remember, she was a troubled young woman. I do not believe she knew her heart. Which is why, when you tried to find her, we would not reveal her location. At the time, Mrs. Hammond and I believed that the other gentleman was a better choice.”
Half angry, half remorseful, William could not bring himself to look at the man. His chest tightened, his lungs refused to expand, not so much from the news but from the buildup of eight years of wondering. Eight years of regret.
So it had not been him.
Isabelle had a secret past—one she never trusted him enough to tell him about.
He should feel relief. But instead a weight pushed down on him. What had happened to Isabelle in all those years? Was she happy? Did she ever think of him? He needed to know. “Where is she now?”
The vicar hesitated. “She died, Sterling.”
The words hit harder than the blows that Rafertee’s men had delivered. Heat crept up his neck, choking him. “Died? How? When?”
“She died four years ago of a fever.”
William had to remind himself to breathe. To blink. “Why, then, did you not tell me as much? Let me make peace with it. How difficult would that have been?”
The vicar remained calm. “Because there is more to tell. And it is time you know the truth.”
“Truth? What truth?” William jumped from the chair and paced the small room, growing increasingly aggravated. “Everything I thought was a truth I am learning was a lie.”
“I understand you are angry. I would be too. But perhaps when you hear what I have to say, you might understand.”
William continued to pace, his teeth clenched so tightly that his entire jaw was beginning to ache.
The vicar picked up the brooch. “After Isabelle married, we learned soon after that she was with child. The child—a baby girl—arrived five months later. You see, she had only been married five months when the baby came, and yet the baby was fully developed. Of good size and sound health. It was obvious. The child was not her husband’s.”
Beads of sweat formed on William’s brow. Isabelle bore a daughter.
He squinted in confusion, then slowly, as the words came together in his mind, he knew. He had been with Isabelle in the months before she left.
“Her husband quickly figured out Isabelle’s deceit and threw her and the child from his house. She took the child to her mother’s, but the scandal was great, and her mother, too, would have nothing to do with them. When the little girl was not yet four, Isabelle wrote to us. She’d fallen ill, and Mrs. Hammond and I went to visit her in the days before she died. She asked us to care for the child, to keep the child free of scandal. And on her deathbed, she named the child’s father.”
William looked up and met the older man’s eyes, his mind swimming with a certainty that he already knew what the man was going to say.
“She named you as the father.”
The news should have been a shock. And it was. But he knew it was the truth. He could not deny it. Emotions swirled within him. Isabelle bore a child. His child.
He was a father.
Anger took hold. It bubbled low within him and grew with every passing second. “Why was I never notified?” William shouted. At a vicar. He should stop. “You knew this and you kept it from me! What gave you the right?”
“She asked us not to tell you.” Hammond’s voice was frustratingly calm.
“And why would she do that? Did she think I would not take responsibility? Did she not know that I loved her? That I would still care for the child?”
“She was ashamed. She confessed that she knew she was with child when she left you and married another. She had been blinded by what she thought was love for another and made a selfish decision.”
“Wait.” William held up his hand to stop the man. “She knew she was carrying my child and still she married?”
“It pains me to be the one to tell you.”
William ignored the apology. “Did she think I would abandon our child?”
“To be fair, Sterling, the life you were living at the time Isabelle died was hardly one of a family-centered man.”
“And what qualifies you to
make that decision?” William thundered.
“Nothing, other than experience. For if you had decided not to care for the child, what then? Is it fair that the child be exposed to a life of rejection when she could be happy and well cared for in a girls’ school?”
The words hit with a force that almost stopped his next breath. The vicar’s words held merit. After Isabelle left, he had spiraled quickly into a dark, lonely place. Intoxicated every day. Up all hours of the night. Asleep all day. “Perhaps I would have acted differently had I known.”
The vicar returned to his desk and sat down. He leaned forward, his voice still low and controlled. “Perhaps, but rightly or wrongly, I made a promise. And for the child’s welfare, I kept it. Forgive me if I have wronged you. But I made the decision with the information I had at the time.”
William forced his breathing to slow. Beads of perspiration lined his brow and dampened his shirt.
The vicar’s voice was calm. “And that brings me to the brooch.”
The brooch. William had almost forgotten about it.
“When the child entered our care, Mrs. Hammond and I placed the child at Rosemere, which is why you found Isabelle’s things there.”
“You mean to tell me that my child has been living on my own property for all these years?”
The vicar nodded.
William pressed a hand to his forehead and whispered, “Which girl?”
“Emma Simmons.”
The girl’s face flashed in his mind. Of course. He saw it clearly. Isabelle’s olive complexion and mahogany hair. His own clear light-blue eyes with the Sterling black lashes. Anger flared afresh. “Why would you allow that poor child to think she had no one, that she was an orphan? That is cruel!”
At this, the vicar did not respond.
William leaned forward, his hands on the back of the chair, and willed his breathing to slow, the volume of his voice to lower. “Who else knows of this?”
“My wife.”
William rolled his eyes. Suddenly Mrs. Hammond’s cool behavior was almost understandable. “Who else?”
“Mr. Creighton, before he died, knew of the circumstance.”
It was not Mr. Creighton who concerned William. “Does Miss Creighton know?”
“No. But I feel strongly that she should. After the fire, she had questions about Emma’s family, but because of my promise, I could not provide answers.” He clasped his hands on the desk in front of him. “But she deserves to know, as does little Emma. I hope you will do the right thing.”
25
I’m a father.
William stepped out of the vicarage, out from the Hammonds’ home. Snow swirled around him.
A father.
The reality muddled his mind. He’d been a father for years, and he never knew.
In a fog, William mounted Angus and circled the horse around.
His daughter had been living less than a mile from his estate.
William didn’t know if he was angry.
Or happy.
Or scared.
He’d raced Angus on the way over here, eager for answers. But now that he had every answer to every question, he wasn’t sure what to make of them.
Isabelle. She’d betrayed him and rejected him. And then kept the greatest secret from him and took it with her to her grave. Why on her deathbed did she insist that he not be told? Was it embarrassment, as the vicar had said? Or something else?
Would knowing he had a daughter have changed the manner in which he had lived his life these last eight years? Apparently Isabelle had thought it would not have made a difference, and better for her to think that than accept William as the father.
He could not doubt his paternity. He knew the past; he knew full well his actions. And there was no mistaking the blue eyes and black lashes that had long marked the Sterlings. The deep dimple in the child’s cheek was so like his mother’s.
He urged Angus into a faster gait. The snow had turned to sleet that, driven by the wind, stung his eyes. The cold forced its way through the fabric of his caped coat, pricking his skin and chilling him to the core. He stopped at the top of Wainslow Peak and looked down toward the school. In the past few weeks, this school, this small school, had turned his life upside down. And his daughter was inside and had been for years.
Twilight was falling, and yellow candlelight winked from Rosemere’s windows. Every breath he took burned in the chill air. He had two choices. Accept the child as his own or turn his back on her and continue the secret.
He realized he could ignore the news he had received—allow life to continue on as it had for Emma. She seemed content enough in Miss Creighton’s care. But now that he knew the truth, could he doom her to a life alone, with no family? An orphan?
And what about his life?
How could he take on the responsibility of a child when he could not even manage his own affairs? He thought of Rafertee. The debt. The beating. Maybe even the fire at the Rosemere stable. How could he put a child at risk? And not just any child. This was his child. His Emma.
He turned the horse to the east, ready to head home to Eastmore Hall. A prize by any account. But increasingly, it had become a noose, growing tighter and more cumbersome by the day. The tally of his folly, his gambling, had grown too large, too dangerous. He’d been fighting to save Eastmore Hall and the land, at times asking himself, For what? He now had a reason to fight. A purpose. His daughter. This was for her. An atonement for her lonely life up until this point.
He circled his confused mount, trying to determine the best course of action. He could not go to Rosemere. He was not yet ready to tell Miss Creighton and reveal his identity to his daughter. Instead, he needed to think.
Jumbled thoughts, a torrent of disorganized priorities, bombarded him. He should formulate a plan. But he’d never been good at such things. He just acted on impulse.
One thought came into focus—being worthy.
Worthy of his family’s legacy.
Worthy of his daughter’s esteem.
And another thought seemed to align itself with every other rational thought in his mind . . . worthy of Miss Creighton.
26
William was exhausted. His heart’s pace had not stilled, his mind had not yet calmed. When Eastmore Hall came into view, he was surprised to see light spilling from the windows. It had been months since Eastmore Hall’s windows had shone so. Something was not right.
With a swift kick to his horse’s belly, he maneuvered down the narrow path and through the arched stone gate.
Lewis, as if waiting for him, stood under the portico and reached out to take Angus’s bridle.
William dismounted. “What’s going on here?”
“Riley and other men. They were working out at the site for the new mill when the snow began. Came back here to wait it out.”
William stepped under the portico and wiped the sleet from his face. “Made themselves at home, did they?”
A twinge of self-conscious embarrassment surged through him. How many of them would see the state of Eastmore? With its sheeted furniture? Its cold rooms?
He rubbed his chin. Surely they would figure out his secret. And he was almost relieved.
William stepped into his own house. The grand foyer had been lit, and light and masculine chatter spilled out through the library’s paneled doors.
The butler looked at him apologetically. “Welcome home, Mr. Sterling. These men seemed determined to wait out the weather here. I did not think you would wish me to turn them away.”
“You are right, Cecil. Thank you for handling them.”
Cecil took William’s outside things. “I served them the last of the port. I hope I was not presumptuous.”
“No, of course not. How long have they been here?”
“About two hours.”
William shook the moisture from his hair, his clothing, and, with a deep breath, stepped into the library. His instincts were tingling.
Five men, each with a dr
ink in his hand. Their loud laughter and disheveled appearance suggested they had been indulging far longer than the two hours the butler had suggested, or else they had been at it before they arrived.
It was Riley who first noticed William.
“Sterling! There you are! Where in blazes have you been? Been waiting for hours.”
William stiffened as Riley slung his arm around his shoulder, heavy with the weight of uncontrolled movement. William scanned the room. He recognized Carlton, but the other men he’d not seen before. Yet they were in his house. And were they involved in his business venture?
He nodded in their direction. “Who are your friends?”
“This here’s Cyrus Temdon. And this is Henry Groves and last is Charles Benson. All these fine men are going to help us with the mill as soon as the land softens a bit.”
William eyed the men, who had been playing cards, his annoyance growing by the moment. The men appeared sloppy. Foxed. Is this what Riley had meant by “taking care of the details”?
“Will, you need something to drink. Somebody get this man something to drink.” He held up his glass, entertained by his own notion, and then pointed his finger toward one of the men.
“Thank you, no.”
Riley’s eyes opened wide and he tucked his chin down, as if unable to believe what he had just heard. “Sterling? William Sterling? Turn down a bit o’ brandy?”
Riley leaned in closer, nearly tipping over until William shifted, allowing his partner to get his footing. “Listen, these blokes are good sorts, just fancy a pint or two. They’ll be right in the morning, and then you’ll see.”
William grunted. “Look a little sorry to me.”
“Best not let them hear you talk like that. Tend to be sensitive, that lot.” Riley waved a pointed finger in the air. “Listen, I been meaning to discuss a matter with you.”
William almost dreaded hearing the words. There was always something Riley wanted to discuss. “What?”
“The land that we are building on is top-notch. Top-notch, indeed. If only we had more room.”
William frowned and folded his arms across his chest, unable to pry his eyes from the raucous game of cards and unwilling to have the same conversation they’d had on the moors. “What are you getting at?”
The Headmistress of Rosemere (Whispers on the Moors) Page 20