Wayward One (32 page)

She blocked the door as she opened it, so Sera couldn’t see who stood there, but she heard the soft voice. “Terribly sorry to bother you, but the Earl and Countess of Linsley are here.”

“Why ever for?” Victoria asked.

Sera lifted her head from Lottie’s lap. An emotion that wasn’t profound sadness took her for the first time in days. Pure curiosity.

“They’ve asked for Mrs. Thomas.”

Victoria looked over her shoulder. Her eyebrows had nearly climbed into her hairline. “Sera? Would you like me to send them away?”

Sera gave a quiet laugh. Only a duchess’s daughter would think she could send away an earl because a plain missus didn’t wish to speak with him. She struggled to a seated position and wiped her palms across her burning eyes.

“No, no,” she said. “I’ll go down. Please tell them I’ll be a few minutes, however.”

She might as well. The only other thing she had to do was wallow in her misery. That was as unhealthy as the circles she spun with Fletcher.

It took her nearly a half hour to dress and use a cool cloth to ease her swollen face. Whatever caused them to call at the duchess’s house, significantly out of the usual morning visiting hours, would hopefully mean they’d turn a blind eye to making them wait.

As she descended the stairs, Sera worried at the problem from all sides. She had no idea what could cause such an inopportune visit. Obviously word had reached them about her temporary separation from Fletcher, but what that meant, she didn’t know. She had no pull on Fletcher’s business interests or influences on his decisions at all. If their goal was to sway his funds without having to deal with him, they’d be sadly disappointed.

In a small miracle, they’d blessedly
not
been shown to the parlor of her disgrace with Fletcher. She couldn’t be in that room without remembering his hot kisses or the way he’d filled her. The words he’d poured in her ear with his repeated declarations of his love.

As if love was the only concern.

Lord Linsley stood by the fireplace, dressed in a casual day suit with wide lapels. His countess sat calmly sipping tea from a tray that had been set before her.

Seeing Sera, she put down the teacup and held out her hands. “Mrs. Thomas,” she said gaily. “We’re terribly sorry to come upon you at such an inopportune time.”

Sera dipped a small curtsy. “I’m at your disposal, I assure you. Please don’t worry.”

The earl gave a bow entirely deeper than warranted by Sera’s station in society. His face etched with lines of concern, making him look years older than he had the other night. Worry spiraled through Sera. What had she done to cause such disturbance in a man she didn’t know?

Lord Linsley stood behind his lady’s chair and rested a hand on her shoulder. They evinced such quiet care for each other. A soft, gentle love that Sera desperately envied. Perhaps if that was what she had with Fletcher, she’d be less afraid.

Lady Linsley covered her husband’s hand with her own. She glanced up at him. “Mrs. Thomas, I’m sure you’re wondering what brought us here.”

Sera sat across from her. “I am curious.”

“My dear husband…” She patted his hand. “He’s had something on his mind since seeing you at Lady Honoria’s ball.”

The earl cleared his throat. “I’m sure this will sound a little strange, and for that I apologize. I was wondering if I might more closely examine your necklace of the other night.”

“The emeralds? I’m afraid I left them behind at…Mr. Thomas’s house,” she said when her throat choked over the words “my husband”. She wasn’t much of a wife to him if she’d left, now was she?

Lord Linsley shook his head. “No. The locket.”

Her fingers tucked into her pocket automatically. She’d taken to keeping it with her at all times. It was an easy way of carrying both Fletcher and her mother with her, no matter the contradiction between the two. “But why?”

Lord Linsley’s color heightened and his cheeks hollowed out. “It bears a striking resemblance to a piece of jewelry I saw a long time ago, and which I’ve been looking for.”

Oh heavens. If Mama had stolen the locket… Sera wasn’t sure what she’d do. Her hand fluttered to her throat, where her pulse raged. But that was her mother’s picture inside. Unless perhaps it was something she hadn’t been meant to take from her family when she was forced out in disgrace?

She couldn’t rightly deny an earl the opportunity to examine it and yet… “Do you mean to take it from me?” she whispered.

“Oh no, child.” Lady Linsley leaned forward and patted Sera’s knee. The part of Sera that had been so desperately sad and confused absorbed the motherly touch like rain after a drought. “We only wish to look at it.”

Sera slipped it out of the pocket at her waist with cold, numb fingers. She trembled as she held it out.

Lord Linsley’s expression was reverent as he reached out. “May I?”

She nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything else.

The earl took the oval locket and immediately opened it to Mama’s picture. He nodded as if he’d expected exactly that image. But what he did next sent swirling confusion through Sera.

He nicked a fingernail into the hidden catch without a moment’s hesitation. The second picture, that of the unknown man, popped open. Lord Linsley dipped as if his knees had gone watery and gripped the back of his lady’s seat to prevent falling down altogether. Lady Linsley rested a hand on his in comfort.

The earl cleared his throat. His eyes had gone red, and he blinked rapidly. Englishmen, particularly gentlemen and lords, never cried openly. Sera had the feeling this might be the most sadness the man had ever shown in public.

What it meant, she had no idea. She looked back and forth between the earl and the countess. Her blood rushed frantically on a silly, foolish dream that she couldn’t give word to.

Lord Linsley coughed his throat clear again. “It’s him,” he said, but his voice was much rougher than his normal polished tones.

“Are you sure?” asked Lady Linsley. She rose to her feet to peer around his arm at the locket.

He touched the tiny oval with one fingertip, exactly the same way Sera had touched her mother’s picture. “I’m positive.”

Lady Linsley put her arms around her husband. Their heads bent together in such open affection it made Sera’s heart crumble into dust. She could hardly concentrate through the unadulterated jealousy ripping through her.

She’d wanted such easiness with Fletcher. Such openness.

Though Lord and Lady Linsley were normally paragons of the
ton
, in this moment they turned to each other to give and take support. Lady Linsley’s gloved hand passed over the earl’s wider back in succor, while he clutched at her shoulders.

Sera averted her gaze to the windows, which were curtained to keep out the dank London fog that permeated the day. It seemed too private a moment to interrupt, no matter her curiosity.

After a moment, Sera looked back to find them separated to an appropriate distance, though they stood near enough to turn to each other immediately. The earl surreptitiously tucked a handkerchief in his coat pocket. His eyes were red, but they’d lost the glassy sheen.

With quiet words Lady Linsley urged him to sit beside her. Once there, they tucked their hands together like lost children, though the lady nearly hid them under her flowing skirts.

Lord Linsley held the locket, his thumb stroking over the rim compulsively. “Mrs. Thomas, what do you know of this man?”

Sera shook her head. She laced her fingers in her lap. The air had taken on a heavy pull, as if she stood on the edge of a precipice, looking down. Frightening and yet exhilarating at the same time. “Nothing. I remember my mother wearing the locket when I was a child, but I had no idea of the second portrait.”

“And your mother? Who was she?”

“Agatha Miller.” Sera clenched her fingers as tension cranked tight between her shoulder blades. She didn’t speak of her mother any more than she’d had to. To her friends, and that was it. Never an earl. “She was the daughter of a baron and quite the country miss. Until her marriage, of course.” The lie ought to be a matter of course by now, but her ears still burned hot. She’d given it as seldom as possible, since she didn’t deceive well.

In fact, Lord and Lady Linsley passed another silent conversation as if they’d seen through her lies.

Lady Linsley leaned forward and put her hand on Sera’s wrist. “There’s no need to prevaricate with us, my child.”

Lord Linsley held up the locket so the portrait faced out. The man inside looked ridiculously cheery, while Sera was lost in a miasma of confusion. “We know the truth.”

Sera gulped. Words flew from her, freed by the possibility that someone else might be able to fill in the blanks in her life. Take the fairy tales and chip them into truth. “The marriage is my invention, but Mama always did tell me she was a baron’s daughter. The third of four, she said, and she also said they lived very quietly in the country while she dreamed of the exciting city. I was orphaned at ten, so I’ve no idea how much is truth.”

He looked down at the picture in his hand. A small smile tipped his mouth. He flipped back to Sera’s mother’s picture. “There’s a thread of truth in it, I suppose. Your mother was the third of four girls, and they all did live in the country. But her father was a squire, not a baron. Your mother’s name was Agatha Yarvis, not Miller.”

Sera nodded. That sounded like Mama, to take a kernel of reality and expand it into something more beautiful. She’d done that many times when they had only day-old bread to eat, pretending it was a sumptuous feast and describing to wide-eyed Sera every item that overloaded the table.

“Squire Yarvis’s land abutted the rear of my ancestral properties. We didn’t spend much time there, as we had a more modern property in Yorkshire. This—” he opened the locket back to the man’s picture, “—was my brother, Albert.”

Sera’s heart clenched. For the first time in days—no, weeks—all thought of Fletcher fled from her. She’d suspected the portrait might be of her father, but to have a name to put to the man was more than she’d ever dreamed. She reached out unconsciously, but the earl saw.

Slowly, he set the locket in her palm, obviously reluctant to give it up again.

Sera cupped her hands around the tiny miracle she’d been given. Her cheeks had gone numb, and her eyes burned with threatening tears.

Lady Linsley took the earl’s hand in hers. “Lord Albert was a very special man.”

He nodded. He blinked rapidly, holding back the glassiness that threatened. “As a child, he was frequently in ill health, but he never allowed it to dim his outlook. Determinedly cheery, always. As a result of his frequent sicknesses, our entire family coddled and treasured him. My mother in particular. When he met your mother…” He trailed off, an awkward expression twisting his features.

Sera cleared her own thick throat. “Please, speak plainly. I’d rather know.”

“She was…wild. Exciting.” He shook his head. “Her parents didn’t seem to know how to control her, and as a result my mother decided it would be a patently unsuitable match. She had hopes he’d settle down with a quiet girl who could tend to him should he need it. So she had my father send us away on a trip to the continent.” A faraway look took over him as he saw through the years.

He sat up straight. “We went with little protest. Albert thought if he went and was still determined to marry Agatha on his return, Mother would acquiesce. So hopelessly optimistic was he. He was likely right. Mother only wished him to have some distance to consider his options. He became sick on the journey and died within days of reaching Spain.”

Lady Linsley wrapped an arm around her husband’s shoulders. It was an absolute breach of all propriety and warnings about demonstrations of affection, but in that moment it seemed perfectly natural.

Wetness trickled down Sera’s cheeks. She dashed it away with the back of her hand, unsure of when she’d started crying. The story was everything her mother would have loved, but for the lack of a happily ever after. She wondered why Mama had never told her the real story.

Perhaps she couldn’t stand the idea that her love had died. If she admitted it to Sera, she’d have had to admit to herself that he could never come to claim her, no matter how hard she wished for it.

The earl went on, lost in his own tale. “Albert loved your mother desperately. His last words were of her. I returned to England determined to tell her, but she was already gone. We weren’t sure why. Squire Yarvis would say only that she’d been shamed.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he turned his face away toward the fireplace.

Lady Linsley went on for him. “Lord Linsley searched for her yet, on and off through the years. But he never found her. We never thought to look for her under the name of Miller.”

“I should have,” he said, disgust turning his features hard. “Miller was Albert’s third name. I looked under everything but that. So we lost you, even though we never knew you existed.”

“Lost me?” Sera said, full of wonderment that turned her buoyant. “You were looking for me?”

“Child, if I had known my brother had a child anywhere in the world, there’s not an inch of soil I wouldn’t have upturned searching for you. Heavens only know what you’ve been through.”