by Wilma Counts
Trevor heard her say, “I appreciate your concern, Bertie,” as she ushered him out.
While other guests took their leave, Trevor wandered to a window. The house Caitlyn had rented was a modest one, rather narrow with four floors besides a basement and an attic. This much he had seen from the street on his previous attempts to visit. Now he saw that the drawing room covered the entire back of the first floor and looked down into a charming garden.
Seeing movement off to the side, he caught sight of a child playing. A child in this house had to be Caitlyn’s—living proof of his wife’s deception. A woman he presumed to be the nurse sat on a bench nearby. He smiled absently as the little girl carefully laid a doll in a miniature pram and tucked in the covers around it. Then she looked up at the window and waved.
Trevor drew in his breath. This was the child of the park. Until now, he had been able to think of the situation between him and Caitlyn in abstractions and legalities. Here, he beheld the face of another victim—indeed, the real victim—of that damned wager. Had Caitlyn never given a thought to what the child might suffer when she brazenly tried to pass off another man’s by-blow as Trevor’s?
He suddenly became aware of Aunt Gertrude standing next to him returning the little girl’s wave. The silence stretched out until Trevor finally spoke, keeping his voice carefully neutral and his eyes on the scene below. “Caitlyn’s daughter, I presume.”
When Aunt Gertrude did not immediately respond, Trevor turned to look at her. Her voice was gentle as she said, “And yours.”
“She bears my name. I suppose that makes her mine in some eyes.”
“Oh, Trevor. Look at her.” Aunt Gertrude tapped the window, and the little girl looked up again with a happy smile.
“Oh, my God!” The words were wrenched from him.
“Yes. She is the very image of Melanie at that age. You cannot see it from here, but she even has that very slight overlap of one front tooth over the other that Melanie has. You recall that family portrait that hangs in Timberly’s great hall?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded bleak even to his own ears. An image of that portrait flashed across his mind. The child below might have posed for it. What Aunt Gertrude was suggesting, though, could not be true. He tried to recall what had been said about Caitlyn’s child in the infrequent letters from his family. Nothing. After that terse postscript from his mother, the subject had never come up. There had to be some reasonable explanation.
“Yes,” he repeated. “But surely you do not believe this child is mine. It is not unknown for entire strangers to look alike. Why, we had a fellow in our regiment looked exactly like Wellington. Caused no end of confusion.”
“Trevor,” his aunt said, and again her voice was very gentle, “I was there when the babe was born on a cold day in February.”
“February?” He mentally ticked off the months. “Are you sure it was not January—or even December?”
“It was the seventeenth of February.”
“I cannot believe—”
“Oh, Trevor. Think.” Aunt Gertrude sounded impatient now. “Had things been as you were told, Caitlyn would have to have been gone with child six weeks and more when you married. The babe would have come much earlier. Surely young men of today know that much of the procreation process.”
Before he could respond, Caitlyn returned, having seen the last of the guests on their way.
“And what do you two find so interesting in the garden?” she asked with what seemed to be forced gaiety. She came to look, and Trevor heard her sharp intake of breath. “Ashley.” The color drained from her face and she turned fear-filled eyes to Trevor. Time—the world—seemed to stand still.
“I . . . uh . . . I believe I shall leave you two to sort this out between you,” Aunt Gertrude said, gliding out the door and closing it softly behind her.
“Why?” he fairly croaked the word. “Why in bloody hell did you not tell me about this child—which Aunt Gertrude assures me is mine?”
She took a step backward from the fury he knew himself powerless to quell. “I—I—”
He ignored her squeak as he grasped her shoulders. “How dare you keep something like this from me?”
He could see the fear intensify in her eyes, but then he saw rising anger as well. She wrenched away from him.
“I did tell you.” She fairly spit the words at him. “I wrote you as soon as I knew a babe was coming. When I had no response, I knew you believed the gossip about me and the babe. But despite nary a word from you, I also wrote you again of her arrival. How dare you come marching in at this late date laying accusations at my door?” She ended on a sob but quickly recovered herself, her hands clenched at her sides.
“You wrote me?” His disbelief was in itself challenging. “How? Where?”
“The only way I knew of contacting you was through your father and that odious Gerald.” She seemed to be recovering some of her spirit. “Had you bothered with me beyond that ever-so-tender note of farewell . . .” Her voice trailed off.
He ran his hand through his hair. “I cannot believe my family deliberately withheld such information from me.” But he was beginning to think they might have.
“To their credit,” she sounded grudging, “they may have seen themselves as protecting you.”
“Perhaps.” He thought it more likely that the precious Jeffries family name was their primary concern.
“Even now, they do not acknowledge me—or Ashley.”
“Ashley? That’s her name?”
“Ashley Gertrude.” The look she gave him seemed to seek his approval, so he nodded. “Aunt Gertrude has tried to tell them. They refuse to hear her. I think Melanie knows the truth, but of course she and Marcus have been out of the country almost as long as you have.”
“Still—I cannot believe you did not make more of an effort to inform me.” He was reluctant to give up his anger.
“Would it have mattered? I doubt you would have been any more willing to believe me than members of your family were.”
“It might have mattered,” he said, hesitant.
“Oh, Trevor. Admit it. You would not even think of believing me now if Ashley did not bear such a strong resemblance to Melanie.”
“Well . . .” He hated the defensive note.
“You still think I was party to some grotesque hoax.” Her voice was laced with sadness and disgust.
“I just do not know.” He ran his hand through his hair again. He was trying to be totally honest. He was surprised to find he truly wanted to believe her incapable of such a nasty trick, but he had long harbored another view.
Nearly five years ago, he had thought himself a gullible young fool, ripe for the plucking by a conniving female and her accomplices. His embarrassment had turned to anger. At some point during those years, the anger had turned to—what?—acceptance? Complacency? Whatever it was, on his return to England, he had thought to put it all behind him.
Was he being gulled again? No. That could not be. Aunt Gertrude would never be party to such a scheme.
Realizing that neither of them had spoken for a time, he said slowly, “I find all this difficult to absorb at the moment. No . . . no.” He put up a hand in protest at the militant look he saw in her eyes. “I am not denying what you say, but . . .”
“But you just do not believe it.” There was a certain dead neutrality to her voice.
“That is not what I said. I . . . I need time to think.”
“All right, Trevor.”
He sensed both resignation and apprehension in her.
“If I may, I shall call again tomorrow,” he said, holding himself stiffly.
“Of course.”
As Trevor left the house, a maelstrom of emotions assailed him. He was inclined to believe his wife and his aunt. Believing them, though, meant disbelieving both of his parents and his eldest brother, people he had known far longer than the wife he had truly known for only a few days five years ago.
Moreover, these
were people who professed to love him. Surely they would not have withheld such vital information from him. But he knew they had—however much he wanted to believe otherwise. Anger and regret vied in his ponderings.
If Aunt Gertrude was right about those dates—and Trevor saw no reason to doubt her—the child was very likely his. His family had actively conspired to hide that possibility from him. And just how hard had Caitlyn tried to get word to him?
Trevor wandered the streets for some time, unaware of his surroundings. Finally, he came to a decision of sorts. He was in an unfamiliar neighborhood, but he hailed a hackney cab and gave the driver his mother’s direction. He found the countess in her private sitting room reclining lazily on a chaise longue.
“Oh, Trevor, darling.” His mother greeted him with a falsely bright mixture of welcome and regret. “You catch me at an inopportune time, my dear. I was just about to change for a ride in the park with Lord Staunton.”
“Have Heston tell Staunton you are indisposed. I have something important to discuss with you.”
The countess was obviously taken aback by his authoritative demand and grim expression. She gave him a questioning look, but called in the butler and did as he said.
“All right. Now. What is it?” Only his mother could sound simultaneously bored and curious.
“I visited Caitlyn and Aunt Gertrude today.”
His mother lifted an elegant eyebrow. “I do hope that tiresome girl is not going to continue to be difficult.”
Trevor ignored this comment and plunged in with his own question. “Why were Caitlyn’s letters not sent on to me?”
“Her letters?” His mother’s evasiveness was telling.
“Letters. Caitlyn informs me that she wrote of the babe before and after the birth. She sent them to my loving family to be forwarded. I never received them.”
“Well, of course you did not, darling. What possible interest would you have had in missives from a woman you intend to divorce? One who carried another man’s child?”
“So you did deliberately keep those messages from me.”
“Your father and Gerald thought it wisest there be no communication between you. I merely agreed with them.”
“Did you, indeed?” He could not hide his bitterness. “Did it occur to none of you that I might have had some say in that?”
His mother looked uncomfortable, but her tone was dismissive. “Well, darling, it is water under the bridge now, is it not?”
“Not quite.”
She seemed startled as she asked, “Whatever do you mean?”
Trevor did not respond directly. “Why have you never visited Caitlyn or seen the child?”
“Good heavens! Lend countenance to her false claims? I think not!”
“What if her claims are not false?”
“Oh, Trevor, what has that dreadful woman said to you? You cannot have changed your mind about being rid of her.”
“I cannot turn my back on a child which is almost surely mine.” Now he was being evasive. Was the child truly his only concern?
“What makes you suddenly believe that it is?”
“Her appearance. And Aunt Gertrude firmly believes it to be so.”
“Gertrude!” His mother’s contempt flashed in her eyes and tone. “Lady Gertrude has merely found a new cause. How wonderful for her that it proves an embarrassment for me.”
He closed his eyes briefly, willing himself to be patient. “Mother, this is not about you.”
“Well, it certainly concerns me. I will not have that . . . that woman—either of them—besmirching the Jeffries family name.”
“I rather think we can manage that on our own.”
His irony was not lost on his mother, for she gave him a look of annoyance.
“Trevor,” she said sternly, “I hope this conversation does not suggest you are having second thoughts about freeing the family of ties to that—that—person.”
“Perhaps I am really thinking for the first time.”
“Hmmph!” She gave an unladylike snort of contempt. “Your thinking may be directed by some part of your anatomy other than your head.”
“Mother!” Trevor was truly shocked at her coarseness.
“Well . . .” She colored up and became more conciliatory. “I only meant to say I have seen her, and she is a comely wench—if you like that unkempt, out-of-doors brassiness. And many men do, you know.” This last was added as a snide afterthought.
He rose. “This conversation is going nowhere.”
“You are going to convince her to agree to a quiet divorce, are you not?” The countess sounded worried.
“I do not know, Mother. I simply do not know at the moment.”
“You owe it to the family.”
“The family,” he said blankly, thinking that his “family” obligations had lately taken a very different turn than his mother envisioned.
That night he slept intermittently, dozing off now and then, but by morning he had reached a decision. Come what may, Trevor Jeffries would assume control of his life. His carelessly following the Corinthian crowd had led to the death of his brother and their friend. His guilt had then made him vulnerable to the manipulations of Fiske and Fitzwilliam. A misplaced sense of family obligation had led him to desert his wife and child. He had been as a puppet whose strings others controlled.
But no more.
The next day when he presented himself, Caitlyn received him alone in her small but cozy library and study. She feared this encounter more than she had ever feared anything in her life before. She had not slept well and knew the strain showed in dark circles under her eyes. She had even resorted to a bit of rice powder to erase them.
Caitlyn had been standing, staring unseeingly through the window at traffic on the street when the butler announced Captain Jeffries. Taking a seat on one of two barrel-like chairs at a small table, she motioned him to the other one.
They stared at each other for a moment, and despite her fears for her child, she felt comforted by his gaze. She noted fine lines around his eyes—from squinting into Spanish suns, she thought incongruously. She abruptly turned her thoughts to the topic at hand.
“Have you . . . uh . . . come to a conclusion?” She had not intended to sound so tentative.
“Yes. Several, actually.”
His tone, firm and commanding, increased her tension. “And . . . ?”
“I am willing to believe Ashley is my daughter.”
Caitlyn breathed a sigh of relief, despite the reservation she heard in his voice. She could not help herself. She had to ask the next question.
“That is not precisely the same as saying you do believe it. You still think I wronged you, do you not?”
“Caitlyn, what I believe or think is irrelevant. What matters is the welfare of the—our—child.”
“On that, at least, we can agree.”
“I want to meet her. Now.”
“I will not have you upset her.”
“She should know her father,” he asserted.
“Only if you intend to be a father to her.”
“I can do that only if you allow it.”
She looked at him questioningly; then comprehension dawned.
“Do you mean that? Do you really mean that?” she asked with growing wonder.
“Of course. What else—”
“Oh, Trevor. I was so very afraid . . .”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“That . . . that you would take her away from me if you believed she was yours.”
Trevor seemed confused. “I . . . I suppose that makes sense to you, but I confess I do not understand what you mean.”
“I . . . I feared you would take her and never allow me to see her.”
“Good God, Caitlyn. It that what you think of me? That I would keep a child from its mother?”
She took a deep breath. Her words tumbled over each other. “Lord Lennington divorced his wife and took her children and never allows her to see them, and th
e poor woman cries for them all the time, and I would just die if I lost Ashley.”
“I am not Lord Lennington.”
“No, of course not.” For the first time, she gave him a feeble smile.
“Well? Am I to be allowed a role in my daughter’s life or not?”
Hearing the words “my daughter” on his lips sounded strange to her, but she felt a certain reassurance at his use of them. Her smile deepened.
Then she sobered. “Wha—what role do you visualize?”
“I . . . I am not sure. This is pretty new to me. I . . . I want to spend time with her, get to know her.” His voice became increasingly assertive.
She took a deep breath. She was embarrassed, but determined. “You must know that there has always been a great deal of talk about Ashley’s parentage,” she began.
“Fueled, no doubt, by certain members of my family.”
“Well . . . yes.”
“My mother never had an idea in her head that did not pop out in company.”
Caitlyn was briefly amused at this, but quickly turned her thoughts back to what was on her mind. “Since . . . since your return, the gossip has renewed.”
“I see.” He did not sound as though he did see, but he waited for her to go on.
“Because you . . . Well, because you are staying elsewhere.”
“When I arrived back in England, I did not even know you were in town. Later, I had no idea of what my reception might be.”
“Well—now you do.”
There was a long pause during which she gazed into his eyes and felt warmth rising in her cheeks. She broke the eye contact and twisted her hands nervously in her lap.
“Let me understand this. Are you—are you inviting me to live here—with you?”
Her gaze shifted back to him. “Not . . . not with me precisely. Only as Ashley’s father.”
“Ah. I see.” He looked into her eyes. She held his gaze, making no attempt to hide her apprehension and doubt. He nodded. “All right. That seems reasonable. It will establish Ashley’s claim to the Jeffries name. Regardless of what might happen later.”
“Thank you, Trevor.” She reached out to touch his arm, and the brief physical contact sent a bolt of awareness through her. Did he feel it, too?