Carola Dunn (23 page)

“I promise! Oh, bless her, bless her!” She hurried out.

Teague followed. “Just make sure she don’t fall into the vapours,” he explained in passing.

Wearily, Ashe dropped into a chair near his mother.

“Colin is truly mending?” she asked.

“Not exactly mending yet. It will be a long road to full recovery, and there are bound to be setbacks. But based on what the doctor told us, Miss Findlay and I believe him out of immediate danger.”

“Thank heaven. Will you take tea, or a glass of wine, Robert? You look tired.”

“Then imagine how exhausted Miss Findlay is!”

“Yes,” she murmured. “Miss Findlay’s devotion cannot be denied. Surely she may be spared now. You may trust Colin to others, at least part of the time?”

“That is for her to say. I work under her direction.” Ashe grinned at his mother’s disconcerted expression. “Yes, Mama, already under the cat’s foot, and we are not even betrothed yet.”

“Betrothed! Oh, Robert, this is just what I feared.”

“I mean to marry her, Mama, be very sure of that. But she knows nothing of my intentions, and before I broach the matter I must find out who she really is.”

“Who she is? What do you mean?”

“You are willing to accept that she is a lady?”

“I...Yes, I suppose so. But that term covers a great deal. She is probably the daughter of a vicar, or an army officer, or the black sheep of some gentrified family, quite ineligible to wed an Ashe of Ashmead.”

Ashe frowned. “A vicar?” he reflected, ignoring the rest. He remembered: Michael named Colin’s rocking-horse Apollyon, and regarded the learning of “verses” as a punishment; Lissa and Peter had never read any Greek but the New Testament and the early church fathers. But no Latin? “There’s a religious connection somewhere,” he said. “Her stepfather, I suspect, not her father.”

“Her stepfather? You know a great deal about her, I see! The boys are not both full brothers, then?”

“I suspect not. Michael has more of her looks, the dark hair and grey eyes. Perhaps Peter is her stepfather’s son by a previous marriage, and Michael by her mother.”

“But they all use the same surname. Findlay,” Lady Ashe mused, “Scottish, is it not? I know of no noble family by that name. Is it hers, or the boys’?”

“Neither.” Ashe smiled at her surprise. “I have long suspected the name is assumed.”

“Indeed!” his mother said dryly. “How, then, do you propose to discover who she is, if she refuses to tell you her name?”

“It may be impossible,” he admitted soberly. “I do have one or two clues. For instance, I’m fairly certain the boys have always called her Lissa. They have been comfortable with it from the first. I rather doubt, though, that it is shortened from Melissa, as she claims. What else it might derive from should not be too difficult to guess.”

“Guess?” Daphne practically danced in, restored to her natural gaiety. “My darling Colin is so much better, Mama. Miss Findlay is sure of his eventual recovery. What are you trying to guess?”

“What is the proper name for which Lissa is the nickname,” Lady Ashe told her.

“Melissa,” Teague said promptly, following Daphne in. “Heard her tell you so, Ashe. Never would have thought my memory was better than yours!”

Ashe silently cursed. He would have preferred to keep Teague out of the affair. Too late. “That’s what she said,” he agreed, “but I’ve a notion it may really be something else.”

“Stage name, eh?” He cast a guilty glance at Lady Ashe. “Er-hem, beg pardon, ma’am.”

She sighed. “That is quite all right, Lord Quentin. I find I have very nearly resigned myself to a governess who was once--briefly--on the stage.”

Catching her eye, Ashe realized the stress was aimed at him: she was ready to accept Lissa as a governess, not as a daughter-in-law.

He decided to leave that battle until he had found out who Lissa really was. “Any suggestions?” he said.

“Alicia,” said his mother at once.”

“Elizabeth,” Daphne proposed. “Leticia, Millicent, Elise, Clarissa.”

“Wait!” Ashe hurried to the small writing table by the window. “Let me get a sheet of paper to write them down. And go slow. I need Voss and his short-hand!”

“Priscilla, Cecilia,” his sister continued. “At last, a word game I can play! Alison, Sybil.”

“Drusilla,” Lady Ashe suggested. “Phyllis, Cyrilla, Alcina.”

“Crystal,” Teague put in tentatively. Ashe scowled at him, recalling an opera dancer by that name who had lived under Lord Quentin’s protection for some time.

“I had no idea there were so many,” he said ruefully, surveying his list. “Sybil seems unlikely; Cyrilla, Cecilia--the right sounds but backwards.”

“Larissa, Casilda.” Daphne was in full spate, not to be stopped. “Elysia,...”

“I already have Alicia. It’s first on the list, Mama’s choice.”

“Not Alicia, Elysia.”

“There’s no such name.”

“There is, too. I know one.”

“Children, children, no squabbling if you please. Have you Lysandra on your list, Robert?”

“Let me see, Mama. No, I’ll add it.”

Ashe recalled the handkerchief. He had been thinking of it as a clue to Lissa’s surname, as a guide in seeking her in Debrett’s Baronetage, or even the Peerage. It would be a long task, going through all the Fs and Ms, looking for someone with a daughter the right age with a viable name--and quite possibly a fruitless task if her antecedents were among the untitled gentry.

But of course the MF, or FM, applied to her Christian name, too. “Millicent is the best so far. Can anyone come up with another M, or an F? I have it: Felicity!”

“Felicia,” said Daphne at the same moment. She glared at him. “There
is
such a name.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Lady Ashe. “I remember Felicia Warburton, who married the Earl of Woodborough.”

“Woodborough? He died several years ago, did he not?” Ashe asked hopefully. “But what is the family name?”

“Milton,” said Teague, swelling Ashe’s hopes to bursting point. “He died six or seven years ago, with no male heir, to my knowledge.”

Lady Ashe pricked the bubble. “Lady Woodborough died years before him, though, Robert. She was not there to remarry.”

“Remarry?” Daphne asked, puzzled. “Did you wish her to have taken a second husband, Rob?”

“Lissa...er, Miss Findlay has...that is, had a stepfather. So she cannot be Woodborough’s daughter.”

“Wait.” Teague held up a portentous hand. “Woodborough wasn’t much of a man for Town life, so I don’t know much about him, but I’ve a feeling he remarried. That do you, old fellow? Daresay you’ve got a
Peerage
somewhere about the place?”

“Yes, in the library. I’ll fetch it.” A stepmother rather than a stepfather? he wondered. Just another piece of misdirection? But could a woman be as brutal as Lissa claimed her stepfather to have been, driving her to run off with her brothers? Where in the web of lies was Ashe to discover the truth?

In the boys’ fear of savage punishment for misdemeanours, he realized. Someone had made their lives a misery. All Lissa’s lies were for their sake as much as her own.

Had their tormenter beaten her, too?

His hands shook with anger. It took a deliberate effort to steady them before he lifted Debrett’s
Peerage
down from the shelf.

With little faith in Woodborough as Lissa’s progenitor, he also took down the
Baronetage
. The others could help him go through the F and M listings in both volumes. As he returned to the drawing room, he tucked the
Baronetage
under his arm, opened the
Peerage
, and flipped through until he found Woodborough’s name.

Henry Michael Redmond Milton, Third Earl of Woodborough, and a list of lesser titles; born 1767; Suffolk and Town houses; married Felicia Warburton, daughter of..., June 1798--and Lissa claimed to be nineteen.

His stomach churning with unidentifiable emotions, he stopped on the threshold of the drawing room and read on. Only one child was listed, a daughter, born April 1799, Felicia Anne....

Ashe raised his head. They were all staring at him. In a hollow voice he announced, “It would appear that Miss Lissa Findlay is Lady Felicia Milton, only child of the late Earl of Woodborough.”

Then he recognized the emotions roiling his guts: desolation, because she did not need him any more--had never really needed him; and blind fury, because she had deceived and made a fool of him.

* * * *

After a few spoonfuls of a custard made with beef tea instead of milk, Colin fell asleep. His face was dreadfully white and thin, but the pallor denoted the absence of fever. Lissa listened to the steady rasp of his breath, so familiar now she usually noticed only if it changed.

She would restore him to health, she vowed. She had done it once, she could do it again. One day he was going play cricket, and ride his pony, and run with Peter and Michael.

For the moment he had no need of her hovering over him. At last allowing herself to acknowledge her fatigue, she moved to the chaise. She took off the soft slippers she wore in the sickroom and had just raised her legs and leaned back against a plump cushion when the nursery-maid tiptoed in.

“His lordship sent me, miss,” she whispered, “to watch over Master Colin so’s you can go down to him in the library.”

Lissa bit back a sigh. No doubt Lord Ashe was in a hurry to return to Town and wished to consult her about Colin’s care. She hoped he would stay a few days, in case of a relapse. He was the only person she trusted when Colin was desperately ill.

It was her lack of trust which had driven him to London in the first place. But only an hour ago, while she cried from sheer relief, he had held her in his arms without attempting the least familiarity. Could she trust him in that, too?

“Miss?”

Sitting up, Lissa heaved her legs off the chaise. She instructed the girl as to what changes in Colin to look for, and made sure the footman Lord Ashe had also sent was stationed outside the door, ready to fetch her if necessary.

“You will find me in the library,” she told him. “I shall not be gone long.”

If her interview with Lord Ashe was short enough, she might seize the chance to step out for just a moment for a breath of fresh air. She put on outdoor shoes before briefly looking into the schoolroom to assure Peter and Michael that Colin was truly better, as Lord Ashe had told them. The boys would miss him if he removed permanently to Town, she thought as she went down the stairs.

When she entered the library, Lord Ashe was moving away from her down the length of the long, book-lined room. He was still in riding dress, brown coat stretched across his broad shoulders, buckskin breeches moulding well-muscled thighs. The heels of his top boots thudded impatiently on the polished oak floor as he stepped off the Turkey carpet. His agitated pace gave an impression of leashed anger.

Lissa’s heart misgave her. In spite of his promise, had his mother after all laid down the law and insisted Lissa and her brothers must leave now that Colin was on the road to recovery?

Lord Ashe had not heard her soft footfall. Reaching the end of the room, he swung round. The anger in his steps was reflected in his countenance--and when he saw her it did not soften.

Striding towards her, he snapped, “So, Lady Felicia, what have you to say for yourself?”

“How...?” His face swam before her eyes. Blindly she felt for a nearby chair and sank onto it before her legs gave way beneath her. Head bowed, she tried again, “How did you find out?”

“Observation, inference, and deduction. Guesswork, if you prefer. Does it please you to have made a cake of me? How the world will laugh to learn that I was gulled into employing Lady Felicia Milton, only child of the Earl of Woodborough, as a governess!”

“Is that all you care about?” Lissa was angry in her turn. “What the world may think? Rest easy, no one need ever know. I certainly shall not tell.”

“What the servants know, the world knows,” Lord Ashe said wearily, sitting down. “We cannot hope to keep it secret when you remove into a guest chamber, keep company with the family, and are addressed by your proper name.”

“No!” she cried in alarm. “I am perfectly content to remain a governess. Nothing need change.”

“Everything has changed. I cannot, will not, permit this masquerade to continue.”

“Let me stay. Colin needs me!”

“Which is why I must beg you, Lady Felicia, to be so kind as to remain at Ashmead to oversee his convalescence,” he requested stiffly. “Once Colin is fit again, he must learn to go on with a tutor while you resume your rightful place in Society.”

Lissa gazed at him in despair. “You do not understand. I cannot reclaim my place, my fortune, even my name, or he will find us and take the boys away. I know I have lied, cheated, deceived you. You have every right to be angry. But if you will not let us stay and keep our names secret, our only choice is to become fugitives again.” Chilled by the dread of once more tramping the streets of London looking for work, she shivered, pulling her shawl closer about her shoulders.

Lord Ashe stood up and took her hands. “Come to the fire,” he said gently, pulling her to her feet. “I have no right to be angry. I knew from the first you were not what you seemed. But I never dreamt your real fortune and station in life were so high.” He gave her a wry smile. “I beg your pardon for berating you. It’s a pity I was startled out of my wits instead of dumbfounded.”

Summoning up an answering smile, she took a seat in an easy chair by the fire and held out her cold hands to its welcome warmth.

“There, that’s better,” he said, sitting opposite. “Forgive me for the tirade?”

“Of course. But truly, I like being Colin’s governess.”

“And truly, I cannot ignore your rank now I am aware of it, and if I could, my mother and Daphne could not.”

“They know too?” Lissa asked, aghast.

“And Lord Quentin. Miss...Lady Felicia, you must know I am fond of Peter and Michael. I would not willingly harm them. Will you not trust me with your story? If I have all the facts, perhaps I may see a way out of your quandary.”

Lissa hesitated. He was a man, with all the influence of a titled gentleman. Though Mr. Exton so despised the unearned power and arrogance of rank, might he not be forced to bow to it?