A Little Bit Sinful(62)

Snagged him, as if their marriage hadn’t been the result of a damaging situation. As if Clarissa had merely caught his eye, he’d courted her, and proposed like a true gentleman. “Yes, well, these women the other evening were discussing the identity of his mother and one of them suggested she was French royalty.” She took another sip of her tea and did her best to sound casual. “Have you ever heard such a thing?”

“Well, let me think. He looks to be about six and twenty or so.” She tapped her fingers on her skirt and the muffled drumming made Clarissa nervous. “I do recall there being a large group of French nobles that came here to escape from the war. That would have been in the late 40s, I believe.” She nodded as if agreeing with herself. “Yes, that’s right, they were having another revolution in France, you see. We had several French families that came and stayed and attended many Society functions.” She frowned. “I can’t recall any of them being royalty though. I’m certain I would have remembered a princess.”

“But they were here in London?”

“Oh yes, at least for a Season, perhaps two. Many of the women, Englishwomen, that is, weren’t too keen on the visitors. They thought the French women were intent on stealing all of the men.” She took another sip, then waved her hand. “Poppycock, it was. Only one of them married an Englishman. Lord Forrester, his wife is French. But the rest,” she waved her hand around, “they all went back to France, I suppose, once the revolution had settled down.” She tilted her head. “I hadn’t yet met your father yet, Ella, but it was the end of that Season that he took notice of me.” She smiled warmly.

“I suppose one of those women could have been his mother,” Clarissa said.

“Now remind me again who his father is?” Ella’s mother asked. “I know he’s illegitimate,” she said in a whisper even though the three of them sat alone in her own drawing room. “But I can’t place him.”

“The Duke of Chanceworth. His brother Monroe is now the duke, but they shared a father,” Clarissa said.

“Ah yes. Now let me think, I never did garner the attention of any dukes, but I do remember him. Dashing, powerful yet he always seemed so stern. I believe he was betrothed to Millicent, or perhaps they were already married then.” She shook her head. “I wish I remembered more.”

“You’ve remembered plenty,” Clarissa said. So now she knew that more than one French woman had been in London during that time. Any one of them could have had an affair with the duke and gotten pregnant with Justin. Lady Forrester might be just who she needed to talk with to uncover more information.

…

They sat in the carriage on the way to ball. Clarissa fidgeted with her hands, the satin of her gloves felt as heavy as wool tonight.

“What did you want to ask me?”

Clarissa looked up at Justin. “I beg your pardon?”

“Earlier today you said you had something you wanted to ask me, then the messenger arrived and we never continued the conversation.”

Clarissa took a deep breath. “Was your mother really French royalty?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know where that rumor got started, but no, she was not French royalty.”

“People talk.” She shrugged. “I don’t recall you ever speaking of her, so I didn’t know. And I figured, as your wife, that now we should get to know one another better.”

“My mother, or the woman I knew as my mother, Eloise Rodale, was a music teacher, or at least she had been before I was born.” His words were even, almost as if he spoke of someone he knew rather than his own life. “She was not, as it turns out, my actual mother, only the woman who raised me until her death. That’s when I went to live at Chanceworth Hall.”

She was quiet a moment, thinking on his words. Had he been devastated when he’d found out the woman he’d lived with since infancy hadn’t been his mother? The urge to embrace him nearly overwhelmed her, but she stifled it else she really cause damage to her name. “But your other mother, she could have been French royalty?”

“That’s highly unlikely.”

“You do not know who she was?” she asked. She watched his features, the way his jaw tensed and how his knuckles whitened as his hands squeezed into fists. “At all?”

“I do not,” he said.

She’d inadvertently hit upon a sore spot for him.