Once Upon a Maiden Lane (Maiden Lane #12.5)(32)

And entirely different.

“May I?” he asked.

She nodded jerkily and tilted her head.

He bent to look behind her ear. He pushed her hair aside, running his fingers against her scalp. Gently he turned her head, not meeting her eyes, to check the other side. Perhaps Lady Angrove was mistaken as to the side…

But no.

There was nothing. Her skin was perfectly unblemished.

Henry straightened, feeling as if he’d received a deathblow but hadn’t yet begun to bleed.

Mary closed her eyes and buried her face in Lady Caire’s neck.

He turned to the woman at the fireplace.

The woman who might be his intended wife.

“Do you have such a scar?” he asked, his voice far more calm than he felt.

“Yes.” She smiled excitedly. “Look. Just here.”

She pushed aside the hair veiling the back of her ear and turned.

There it was, a crescent-shaped purple scar, only the size of the tip of his thumb.

Such a small thing, really.

She let her hair fall and glanced at the man behind her before looking at Lady Angrove. “I am, aren’t I? I really am Lady Cecilia!”

“It would seem so,” the marchioness said, speaking for the first time. She glanced at Mary and for a moment a fleeting expression of regret crossed her face. Then she firmed her chin. “This gel must be one of Angrove’s bastards.”

“Oh, my dear.” Lady Angrove said sadly to Mary. “I’ve grown so fond of you.”

“Henry,” Kate whispered.

He couldn’t take it in. He couldn’t think. He stared at Mary, but she wouldn’t look at him.

“This is ridiculous!” The exclamation came from Fitzgerald, of all people.

Everyone turned to look at him.

He was standing, some sort of strong emotion purpling his face. “How could this be Cecilia? How could either of them be Cecilia? She died as a baby! She’s dead.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Caire turned his head to him as intently as a hawk sighting a mouse. “How do you know?”

“I…” Fitzgerald opened his mouth. Shut it. Looked around the room. “I don’t—”

“I couldn’t do it!” Lillian Fitzgerald suddenly cried. “To kill a baby! It was too much to ask. I couldn’t do it, no matter what Lancelot told me to do. I left her on the church step instead, and then…”

The rest of her words were drowned as she loudly sobbed.

Lord Angrove rose, pointing a shaking finger at Fitzgerald. “You. You were behind the kidnapping?”

Fitzgerald lunged for the door.

But Henry stood in his way. He stopped Fitzgerald with one punch to the jaw.

The older man fell backward to the floor.

Henry lifted his foot and placed it squarely on the man’s throat. He leaned over the bastard and snarled, “Did you try to kill my fiancée?”

Fitzgerald choked until he lifted his foot fractionally. “I don’t—”

“Yes,” Lillian Fitzgerald said rather wetly. “It’s why I sent the letter to the real Cecilia. I don’t know who this is”—she glanced at Mary—“but I couldn’t let him kill an innocent. He’s supposed to be a man of the church, and all this, all this is because he wanted the parish living.”

“What are you talking about?” Henry asked, never taking his gaze from Fitzgerald.

Seymour slipped from the room.

The marchioness made an irritable sound. “Good Lord. My sister’s bequest.”

He did glance up at that.

The old lady shook her head. “Matilda left a small house and estate to my daughter’s first daughter. She didn’t know at the time that Martha was carrying twins, nor, of course, the sex of the babies.” The marchioness waved an impatient hand. “Suffice it to say that her will specified that if the baby was not a girl or if the child died before reaching her majority, the house would go to our nephew Lancelot. The will, unfortunately, made plain that only the eldest daughter was allowed to inherit, so Joanna was immediately passed over. My sister was quite off her head toward the end. Lancelot inherited the bequest.” She looked at the man groaning on the floor. “And with the land came the ability to give the parish living to the vicar of the owner’s choosing.”

“When the baby wasn’t returned, Fitzgerald inherited,” Lady Angrove said wonderingly. “We never thought about it. The land and house are so small—not worth much at all.”

“To you, perhaps, my lady,” Lillian Fitzgerald said with an attempt at dignity. “To us as poor relations, the living was everything.”

Seymour returned with three footmen. Two of them lifted Fitzgerald between them while the third took Mrs. Fitzgerald’s arm.

She began to weep again.

“Guard them,” the Earl of Angrove instructed the footmen as they left. He shook his head. “I’ll send for the magistrate and have them charged. Kidnapping. Theft. The attempted murder of my daughter.”

“Then this woman is truly Cecilia,” the Earl of Keating—Father—finally spoke.

Henry’s head jerked in his direction.

Father stared at him, as implacable as ever. “This girl is your fiancée.”