White Lace and Promises (28 page)

“I just think it’s very telling that she won’t even visit me here.”

His dark red brows shot up. “She’s fatigued from the journey—she’s not a young woman, Beth.”

“It’s not that and you know it. It is that she has always considered me nothing but an unwanted obligation.”

“How can you say that? She saved you from the foundling house, out of the generosity of her heart.”

“No, she didn’t. She raised me because I am her brother’s own child.”

Joshua gaped at her—his brown eyes seemed nearly like to pop their sockets. Ruth paused with a piece of cake lifted halfway to her lips.

“Peter?” Joshua asked, drawing his thick crimson lashes down as he flexed his hands together.

Ha! She knew that gesture. He was lying.

“You knew—“ She took a hitching breath. “You knew, you buggering bastard!”

“Elizabeth!” Ruth cried.

Beth didn’t even flinch, she just kept staring at Joshua. “You
knew
.”

His eyes were still closed and a slight smile spread over his lips. He gave a little shake of his head. “Now, Beth, you have to understand something.”

“What do I have to understand?”

“My mother made me swear—on the souls of my yet-to-be-created children
—
that I would never tell a soul.”

Disbelief slammed into Beth. It was one thing to know he’d lied, that he’d withheld this information. It was quite another to hear him say it. “
When
did she tell you?”

“She told me the night I asked if I might marry you.”

“You asked her
permission
to marry me? Ha! You knew she’d never, ever give it. Can’t have the golden boy, our brilliant physician marry the dirty servant’s bastard.”

Joshua flinched. “Beth, please don’t use that word in regards to yourself. I’ve asked that repeatedly.”

“When did you ask her?” Beth had to know. Everything had been kept from her and she couldn’t bear another secret.

“You wily cat. You know the night I did it.” His voice was accusing.

Beth shrugged. “I can’t say that I do.”

He opened his eyes and narrowed them. “You play so innocent. You remember as clearly as I do the night you made your little ultimatum and stretched me over that rack.”

“You couldn’t possibly have imagined I’d always be your meek little fool?” She shuddered with disgust. “Or did your lust blind you that much?”

Joshua’s elegant face went rigid. “Love, not lust. I—”

A loud handclap startled Beth. She turned to Ruth and found her sister’s face marred by a deep frown.

Bugger. She had forgotten Ruth was even in the parlour. Oh well, what did it matter now if Ruth knew she and Joshua had been lovers?

Ruth shook her head. “Shut up the two of you and someone explain to me. I don’t understand, Beth… So you’re saying this Peter fellow was your father?” Beth took a moment to calm herself, then she told Ruth all that Nellie had said. When she had finished, Ruth stared back in silence, as if the shock had stunned her. And didn’t she know exactly how they felt?

She could bear the suspense no longer. “Well?”

Ruth laid her empty plate aside. “Well, I can scarcely believe Mrs Hazelwood wouldn’t have told you. In all these years, how could she not tell you?”

“She doesn’t care about me and never has,” Beth said through the burning in her throat. She coughed and cleared her voice but the scratchiness lingered. “If she had cared—cared anything at all—she wouldn’t have kept this from me.”

“Now, Beth,” Joshua said in his paternalistic tones. “That’s not the way of it at all. I don’t know why or exactly how she kept this secret from you all these years, but she cares for you. She’s done nothing but fret over how you have fared settling into your new life.”

“She is my aunt and she never let me know it.” Beth shook her head. “I cannot see her now. You must make my excuses.”

Joshua sighed and shook his head. “You always have been stubborn to a fault.” He got to his feet and walked from the parlour.

Beth turned a bright smile on Ruth, but her sister slumped in the chair, frowning. Oh, no. Not this again. “What is it, Ruth?”

Ruth let her breath go, loud and long. “Charlie—what else?”

“What else, indeed.” Beth replied, picking up her forgotten glass of claret. “How bad this time?”

“Bad, Elizabeth, bad. He could lose the shop.”

Beth nodded slowly. “We knew it would come to this.”

“You have to help him. He’ll be nothing without his work.”

But Beth had written to Charlie when she’d previously sent money and told him it was for the very last time. Sending money now couldn’t help—it would merely go the way of all the other loans she’d made him. And it was causing too much friction between herself and Grey. She would no longer put her own affairs at risk for Charlie.

“Ruth, he’ll have to sort this out for himself. I can no longer send him funds.”

“You mean your husband has decreed it?”

Beth nodded. “Yes, but I agree with him. You’ll stay with me here. I’ll take care of you. However, it does no good to help Charlie.”

Ruth’s eyes flickered over her. “You’ve grown cold, up here in New York.”

Chapter Sixteen

Grey paused at Beth’s door with his hand on the knob. He’d just arrived home from Salem, by way of Harvard and a tense meeting with the headmaster and Jan’s teachers. He’d been dead tired and longing for his bed. But a brief chat with the housekeeper had changed all that. He’d never sleep now. Not until he’d heard Beth’s explanation for why Dr Joshua Wade had come calling here—Ruth or no Ruth.

With resolve, he pushed the door open. Candlelight flooded her chamber. She sat propped up against the headboard with a glass of claret lifted to her lips, her silver-gilt hair spilt over her shoulders in disarray.

Her eyes met his, full of sadness. No, more—it was more than sadness. Total disillusionment.

All his righteous anger vaporised.

She knew.

Oh God, she knew.

Mrs Clark had finally told her.

He almost wished she hadn’t. But Beth had had to know, sooner or later, no matter the pain.

Her sadness poured into him, burning his insides out until his chest was an aching chasm. If only he could have spared her all the pain of her life. If only he could do something to eradicate it now. God, he would. He’d do anything, pay anything.

But he could do only one thing. He sat on the bed and took her hand. “Mrs Clark told you. Told you about your father.”

Over the rim of her glass, her eyes widened. He caught his breath. She was going to hate him for not telling her. Christ, she was never going to forgive him. But what else could he possibly have done? He hadn’t wanted her to learn the truth. He had wanted to spare her the pain.

She put the glass down on her bedside table and nodded. “So you knew, too?”

There was a world of accusation in her voice.

“I guessed,” he admitted. “As soon as I knew you were connected with Mrs Hazelwood. Anyone who knew Peter van Moerdijk would have.”

He chose not to tell her that it was whispered gossip. Everyone who had known Peter van Moerdijk could recognise his daughter once they connected her to Mrs Hazelwood’s house. He couldn’t fathom why no one had ever told her, except that she’d taken herself from Mrs Hazelwood’s house just when she would have been of an age to mingle with adult guests. As for the servants, they had likely feared Cornelia Hazelwood’s wrath too much to say anything.

Her eyes flashed fire. “So you kept it from me, too? I can trust no one.” Her voice sounded small, like a child’s.

She had to understand how it was. He must try to explain it to her. “When directly confronted, Mrs Hazelwood confirmed it. But for you to learn the truth only to find out how they had excluded you—I didn’t see the need to hurt you with it.”

Beth stared at him, her lips slightly parted. Then her face hardened. “You think I am like Juliana. You think I cannot face life?”

“Good God, Beth, I certainly don’t think you’re anything like Juliana.”

“No—you think I am just as fragile as she was. Some blue-blooded little princess spoilt by her father. I never had a father to spoil me. I have had to be tough. I
am
tough—tougher than you know.”

She was not. He knew she was fragile inside. Beautifully soft-hearted, yet never appreciated for what she most had to offer—her love.

She stared down at the coverlet, tracing her finger along the piped edge of the blanket. “She was ashamed of me. She was so set on me never finding out.”

He didn’t know what to say. A raw, hollow clawing centred in his stomach. Why couldn’t he think of the right thing to say to make her pain go away?

“Ha!” The cynical sound echoed in the chamber. “Of course she was. Can’t have the dirty bastard girl knowing she is related to her betters.”

The pain in her voice increased the hollow feeling in his guts. He caressed her hand. “She’s a woman of strong beliefs.” What else could he say, when he didn’t understand the woman’s behaviour himself?

“So you just planned to keep this from me, Grey?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought maybe there would come a better time. A right time to tell you.”

“How could a moment ever be right for such a truth?”

It was a question for which there was no answer, so he moved closer to her and pulled her into his embrace. He couldn’t demand that Cornelia Hazelwood open her heart and be a true aunt to Beth. He couldn’t exhume the long dead Peter van Moerdijk and make him be a real father. Knowing how angry it would make his wife, he resisted the urge to make her the promise of some extravagant purchase.

His money couldn’t fix this. He dreaded to know but he had to ask, “What did Mrs Clark say of your mother?”

“Damned little.” She sighed. “And nothing I did not already know.”

Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief and thanked Nellie Clark for having half a brain in her head after all. What good would it do for Beth to know of her mother’s terrible end?

“Did you truly never guess, Beth? About your father?”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “She told me she didn’t know who my father was.” Her voice broke and her eyes closed. “She told me she didn’t
know
. I trusted her. I did not think she would lie to me. Especially over something like that.”

“Oh, my darling.”

Silence fell between them. Her shoulders were as stiff as wood beneath his hands. He caressed her gently.

“Tell me something, Grey.” The hardness in her voice settled like a lead weight in his chest.

“Yes, Beth?”

“Did you decide to marry me before or after you knew I had van Moerdijk blood in my veins and not that of some unknown man?”

“I love you and I wanted you for my own. No matter who sired you.”

Beth watched as Grey bent and her heart began to flutter wildly because she knew he was going to kiss her. Yet, if he did, her clear thinking would disappear. She needed talk more than kisses at the moment. She had to know and understand many things. To sort out some of the turmoil roiling in her mind. She placed her hand to his chest. “He was a wild, unprincipled man and I am so very much his daughter in truth. How could you have overlooked it?”

“I love you the way you are. I love your wildness.”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t know how bad I am.”

“Could I love you if you were truly bad?”

“You love me only because you don’t know how bad I truly am.”

A grin spread over his face, sending sparks of fire into her belly. “You
are
a naughty girl Beth—I suspected as much in the first few moments we met, when you propositioned me for sex. And when you let me fuck you in my carriage, well, I knew it for sure then.”

“Oh, don’t tease. Don’t make it sound so light. You don’t know everything about me. I’ve done things you don’t know about.”

He traced her ear with his fingertip. “How bad could those things possibly be, Beth?”

“Vile, dirty, disgusting…” She took a deep breath. “Utterly wicked.”

Chapter Seventeen

Grey’s dark brows rose infinitesimally. “Things Dr Wade taught you?”

She nodded.

He caressed her cheek. “Things that you enjoyed?”

She bit her lip and nodded more vigorously.

“Well, now you’ve intrigued me.” His rich, deep laugh did unspeakable things to her belly. A slow seep of wetness began between her legs.

She planted her fist against his velvet-covered, muscular chest. “Stop that. I am being serious.”

“Maybe you’d better tell me, then.”