“I’m pregnant,” Edwina admitted, too late realizing the men in the dining room could hear every word. “With another man’s child.”
• Twenty-three •
“EDWINA!” HER MOTHER GASPED.
“Who?” demanded her father. He spun on his heel to address Walter. “Did you know about this?”
“Yes,” he admitted. His glare toward Edwina suggested he had intended to keep her child’s parentage secret. “Edwina told me, but I agreed to marry her anyway.”
“You’re a good man.” Her father slapped Walter on the shoulder. “I knew as much when I recommended you marry my daughter.” He turned back toward Edwina. “You, however, are a disappointment. How could you bring this shame to your family? At least you still have a good man who will marry you in spite of your lapse of good judgment.”
“No,” Edwina said. Admitting her indiscretion, letting it out into the open, gave her a strength she hadn’t anticipated.
“No?” her father repeated. “What do you mean, no? A wedding is expected, and, by God, there will be a wedding.”
She turned toward Walter. “I don’t love you, Walter. You deserve someone who does, just as I deserve someone who loves me.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she interrupted. “I know you say you love me but . . . I know the difference.” Her hand slipped down toward her belly. “I know what love feels like. You and I are a poor imitation. You deserve better. I deserve better.”
“You deserve a thrashing by the back of my hand, young lady,” her father said, his face growing redder by the minute. It was an empty threat. Walter was correct that her father loved her and had never raised a hand to her. She knew he wouldn’t now.
“You’ll be disgraced if you don’t marry,” her mother said. “What will you do?”
“I’ll go away.” Edwina thought of her brothers’ letter. “We can claim that an illness has made the planned wedding impossible at this time and that I’m going away to a warmer climate to recuperate. In time, I’ll be forgotten, as will the wedding.”
“People will talk,” her mother said. “They’ll assume you’ve been ruined, and aspersions will be cast.” She glanced at Walter.
“Walter won’t speak of my indiscretion,” Edwina said, her full attention on Walter’s face. “He’s a good man and Father’s associate. You won’t say anything, will you?”
His lips tightened and he shook his head. “I would have been good for you,” he said softly.
“I’m certain you would have tried,” Edwina said. “But in the end, we’d both be miserable.”
He acknowledged the last with a nod.
“I’ve given you every right to call off the wedding. If you do, society will rightly assume I’ve been with another man.” Edwina moved into the dining room. Her mother collapsed into a chair. “However, as I informed you of my situation before you offered marriage, it does not seem fair to cry foul now. I propose we let it be known that I called off the wedding. That way it will appear that you have been seeing other women. Your stature as a man about town will increase, and you will save my parents from disgrace from my actions. They and I will be in your debt.”
She saw Walter’s lips twist at the significance of that statement. Walter was not a man to blackmail another, but he appreciated that her father would be grateful for his sacrifice.
“I will leave London and save my parents from further embarrassment,” Edwina said quietly.
“But what of the baby?” her mother cried. “How will you live?”
“What of the father?” her father asked pointedly. “Why isn’t he asking for your hand?”
“He doesn’t know of my condition.” Edwina cast her gaze to the floor. This admission was the most difficult. “He never said he loved me. After I told him of my upcoming nuptials to Walter, he disappeared.” Again, she thought, but didn’t say.
“Have you not considered that if he still wanted you, he would write?” Walter asked.
That was the most painful revelation of all. She had truly hoped Ashton would write. She’d hoped they could remain friends, if not lovers. However, no letter bearing his familiar handwriting appeared at her doorstep. He had severed all communications. She slowly nodded in answer to Walter’s question.
“Even with the knowledge that you’ll spend your life in ruinous disgrace, alone with no means of support. Even with all that, you’d rather face a life alone than be my wife?” Walter asked quietly. When she didn’t respond, he turned to her father. “Under the circumstances, I believe this is a matter for family. I’ll take my leave so you can talk among yourselves.” He shook her father’s hand, then kissed her mother’s cheek. He stood before Edwina with a lowered head. “While I admire your courage in confessing your situation, you’ll understand if I question your wisdom in doing so.”
She nodded, as she had to admit, she questioned her own wisdom. Through her announcement, she’d freed herself from what promised to be a miserable marriage, but she’d also exiled herself from her family and friends. While she had yearned for a life of exploration and travel, she had imagined it would be on her terms. Suddenly, what had once been a dream would become a punishment.
Walter kissed her forehead. “I wish you good fortune.”
“Time will tell,” she responded with a squeeze of his hand.
“So it shall.” He collected his hat and left without a backward glance.
Once Walter had gone, the family sat down at the table in silence. Food was offered but often returned to the kitchen untouched. After the room had cleared of all but the family, her father glared at her. “Who is responsible for this?”
“I am,” Edwina said, remembering the cherry blossoms. “I wanted to experience what passion felt like, just once. I hadn’t anticipated that one instance would lead to a child.”
“I meant who is the father!” He pounded his fist, making the place settings leap an inch from the table.
“He’s not the marrying sort, Father.” Edwina keenly remembered those very words from Constance’s lips.
“He bloody well will be when I’m through with him,” her father insisted.
“I won’t marry someone who doesn’t want to be married,” Edwina replied. “Just as I wouldn’t marry Walter, who didn’t really love me. He only proposed because you asked him to do so too. He’d do anything to please you and very little to please me.”
“That’s not so. I may have suggested he consider the idea, but he genuinely cared for you, Edwina. He may not be the sort of passionate fool you’re obviously attracted to, but he was sincere in his proposal.”
“Just as he was sincere in changing my very nature.” Yes. The more she considered it, the more she knew this was for the best. Still her father glared his disapproval.
A few more moments of silence ticked by.
“Why do the Guardians require my assistance, Father? Why did they want me to marry Walter?”
His fork clattered to his plate. He cast a quick glance to his wife before he swiveled back to her. “Who told you?”
“Walter. He believed you wished me to serve refreshments, but that doesn’t make sense. Why do the Guardians need my assistance?”
“Who are these Guardians, dear?” her mother asked her father.
He threw his napkin on the plate and rose from the table. “I refuse to talk about it. Walter shouldn’t have said anything. Forget you heard the name.” He hurried from the room, but Edwina rose and followed him to his study.
“Tell me, Father. I have a right to know. What do the Guardians want with me?”
She noticed his office had more medieval artifacts than had been present before. One in particular drew her attention, an ancient limestone bust that stood on the fireplace mantel. She moved closer to investigate, appreciating that by doing so, she could avoid her father’s glare.
“What do you know of the Guardians?” he asked.
“I know that they’re a secret society and that you and various leaders in industry are members.” She raised a brow. “Would you like me to name names?”
“Impossible,” her father exclaimed, but she heard the tremor in his voice. “How could you know such things?”
Edwina trailed her finger along the mantel. “There’s an ancient Japanese custom of establishing a symbol to represent a group, a family, an organization. They would enclose the symbol in a thick circle. This is called a kamon, or mon.” Her eye drifted to a piece of light paper with charred edges lying outside the grate on the dark mahogany floor. “I noticed when I was here before that you have a mon.” She stooped to pick it up.
“I don’t know about this mon business, but I admit I use a symbol encased in a circle to signify my law practice. Many others do something similar. What has this to do with the Guardians?”
The charred piece only had three letters on it—“Edw”—but she immediately recognized the handwriting. Ashton! She looked at the grate and noticed a pile of fresh ash. She spun on her heel. “What is this?”
“Something burned? Cinders?” He winced. “You know how ash flies when paper is burned.” He moved closer to her. “About this mon business—”
“Father, it’s near to roasting outside.” She picked up a poker and stabbed at the fresh blackened mass. “Why would you have a fire?”
“Walter had some papers he wanted to burn. Letters, I believe. He said they were personal and best not found again. I assumed they were letters to him from a previous suitor, but I didn’t pay much attention. However, we’re getting off the subject. What does a mon have to do with the Guardians?”
The ash disintegrated beneath the poker. Yellowed, deeply charred papers remained at the core of the mass. She pulled them from the grate, but the ink had faded in the heat. Not enough remained to read intelligently, but she knew the slant of that hand as well as she’d recognize her own. Tears rose in her eyes. “He wrote to me,” she whispered.
“Who? Who wrote to you?” Her father’s glance shifted from the blackened pieces in her hand to her face. “What are you doing? Look now. Your hands are filthy handling that mess. Put it back where it belongs.”
Edwina raised her head defiantly. If Ashton had written to her, he must be open to seeing her, talking to her. She would remedy this immediately and find him. “All the members of the Guardians have those same circle symbols. It’s how you recognize one another even if you haven’t met. It’s a pattern, you see.” She clasped the blackened pages to her chest with little concern that the ash would muss the high-neck gown that Walter preferred and she hated. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can find a pattern in these remains.”
She marched to the door, ignoring her father’s angry demands that she return.
• • •
ALONE IN HER ROOM, SHE SPREAD EACH OF THE CHARRED pieces on a flat surface, searching for a clue as to where Ashton could be found. It was no use. The damage was too great. All she could determine was that Ashton had written her. Based on the differing stationary, she speculated that he’d written multiple times.
Curses to Walter! Had she known he was even capable of doing such a despicable thing as to destroy letters addressed to her, she would never have agreed to marry him. Thank heavens she’d managed the courage to sever that relationship. She could see now it was a wise decision, but she wondered, with so many unanswered letters, if Ashton still felt the same way about her as he once had. He might view her unresponsiveness as another example of betrayal.
Her mother knocked on her bedroom door, then opened it. “Edwina, are you all right?”
Edwina selected one piece from the charred puzzle, the piece that clearly contained the word “heart” and set that aside. The rest she swept into a box. “My tears have dried, if that’s what you mean.”
“I suppose that’s part of it.”
An overturned basket mewed from the corner of the room. Her mother tipped the basket, freeing Isabella.
“She insisted on playing with the burned pieces. I put her there so I could concentrate,” Edwina explained. The kitten immediately jumped into her lap, seeking forgiveness. Edwina lifted her eyes to her mother. “He wrote to me. Somehow Walter intercepted his letters and burned them. But he wrote to me . . . now I’ll never know.”
“It’s Ashton Trewelyn that put you in this predicament, isn’t it?” her mother said quietly.
Edwina glanced up, shocked. “How did you—?”
“I saw the way he looked at you at Lady Sutton’s affair. Then, of course, there was that play . . .” Her mother sighed. “I was so concerned with climbing the social ladder that I failed to take note of what was happening beneath my nose. I knew you were infatuated with that man, but I thought you had more sense than to let him . . . do what he did.”
“I wasn’t forced, Mother. I love him.” Tears formed again in her eyes. She thought she’d cried them all out, but apparently she was mistaken.
“There, there.” Her mother hugged her close, patting her back. “We’ll find this Mr. Trewelyn and see what he has to say about all this.”
“I don’t want Father to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do.”
“No, of course not. Your Father wouldn’t do that . . .” Edwina pulled back and searched her mother’s face. Edwina’s raised brow left them both laughing. “Yes. Yes, I suppose he would,” her mother admitted.
The shared laughter felt good and helped the dismal world to right itself. Edwina wiped the tears from her eyes. Her mother frowned briefly, then moistened a handkerchief with her tongue and dotted Edwina’s cheeks. “You’ve left some black streaks here.”
“Don’t tell Father that it’s Ashton,” Edwina said. “Let me talk to him first.” She stood and paced about the room. Isabella attempted to snag her hems while following behind. “I’ll have to find him, of course. I’ve been watching the usual places about London that I used to spot him, but he’s not been seen. Even Sarah says he never collected the responses to his personal ad. The only clue was in his letters, and now they’re useless.”
“I believe it’s time I pay a call on Mr. Trewelyn’s stepmother,” her mother said. “She might be able to shed some light on his whereabouts.”
Edwina clasped her hands, sincerely doubting Ashton’s stepmother would be of valuable assistance. However, her mother wasn’t aware of Mrs. Trewelyn’s devious nature, and Edwina wasn’t in a mood to explain it all. “Thank you, Mother,” she said perhaps with less enthusiasm than expected. “That would be most helpful.”
Her mother’s eyes turned sad. “This isn’t a game, Edwina. Even if we find him, what if he refuses to marry you? It’s not as if his reputation hasn’t already sustained this sort of scandal. What will you do?”
Edwina returned to the bed. “As I said before, I’ll go away. I know now that I’m better alone than with Walter. I’ll find employment somewhere much as Sarah has. Whatever happens, I’ll manage.”
“I have a cousin in Yorkshire,” her mother said. “I’ll write to her and see if you can stay there for the next nine months. I’ll make certain you get a small allowance to help you get by.”
“And after?” Edwina asked.
“Let’s get through the next nine months.” Her mother sighed. “Then we’ll concern ourselves with after.” She gazed at her daughter in pity. “I know you disagree, but I can’t help but believe your refusal of Walter is a sad mistake. You’ll be in the world all alone.”
Edwina patted her stomach. “Not entirely alone.”
• • •
A WEEK LATER, EDWINA SHOPPED FOR LUGGAGE AT LE Bon Marche, the largest and fanciest department store in London. These purchases would be the last she’d make in the city, she imagined, as her mother was deter
mined to send her to Yorkshire before her appearance was altered in the slightest manner. Her mother cautioned her to wear a sullen expression as though her life had recently been destroyed and to keep a handkerchief in her hand at all times.
The search for Ashton hadn’t proved successful. His stepmother was not forthcoming with an address or location. Her mother said she sidestepped every inquiry with the grace of one of those ballet dancers, as if she purposively conspired to keep her stepson’s location a secret.
It was difficult to remember to look sullen when she believed she’d avoided a fate worse than death. While her dreams had carried her to climb the pyramids of Egypt, visit the ancient temples in Persia, and dig for buried treasure in the Caribbean, she was currently content to travel to the tiny village in Yorkshire. She’d miss her friends, of course. Sarah was still angry with her for refusing Walter. She said Edwina had no idea of the monumental task she was taking on alone, which might be true. At least she would be taking it on as her true self and not some hollowed-out shell of a wife married out of necessity and not desire. Faith and Claire were supportive of her decision and promised to write as long as Edwina didn’t respond in code.
So now she shopped for the sorts of necessities she’d need in this next phase of her life. The wonderful thing about London was that this new concept in shopping, a department store, had taken root right smack in the middle of the city. So many wonders under one roof! She looked at everything from baby clothes to kitchen equipment, but could only purchase the absolute necessities on the limited budget she’d created for herself. She was looking at infant gowns when she heard familiar contagious laughter in the next aisle. She hurried around the corner to discover Matthew. Unfortunately, the large man by his side was not Ashton.
“Miss Hargrove!” Matthew exclaimed. “Come see. They have boats here. Not as big as my boat. These are my size.”
“Miss Hargrove?” the older, dignified man asked. “Miss Edwina Hargrove?”
The Casanova Code Page 28