A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(100)

“But you all have given me so much already,” she said. “You sought me out and welcomed me with open arms, even knowing it would change your lives in uncertain ways. Your kindness and faith in me has been remarkable, and I . . . I love you all for it.”

“Oh, dear.” Across the room, Aunt Marmoset pressed a hand to her chest. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

“Aunt Marmoset, what is it? Not your heart?”

“No, no. My conscience.” The old woman looked to Kate with red, teary eyes. “I must tell you the truth. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault that you were lost, dear. You mustn’t feel beholden to us. I shouldn’t blame you if you took all the family money and cast us out in the cold.”

Kate shook her head, utterly confused. “I don’t understand. Cast you out in the cold? I’d never do such a thing.”

Lark patted her aunt’s hand. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that, Aunt Marmoset.”

“But it is. It is.” The old woman accepted a handkerchief from Harry. “After Simon died and your father inherited the title, I came to Rook’s Fell. My sister needed me. You weren’t even born yet, Lark. But Harry—surely you must remember that time. How difficult it was.”

Harry nodded. “It was the year Father’s illness began. There were so many doctors, coming and going. I remember Mother’s face was always grim.”

“Your lives had changed so much, so swiftly. A new home, new titles, new responsibilities. I took over the running of the household. I oversaw the servants, attended to correspondence. I received any guests to the house . . .” She paused meaningfully. “So I was there the day Simon’s lover came back, babe in arms. And I sent her away.”

“What?”

At the words, Kate felt as though she’d been dunked underwater. The air felt slow and thick around her. Cold. Her vision went wavy and a dull pulse throbbed in her ears.

She couldn’t breathe.

“You sent her away?” Lark’s voice echoed from a great distance. “Aunt Marmoset. How could you do such a thing?”

Kate forced herself to surface, to listen.

“You’ve no idea,” Aunt Marmoset said. She wrung Harry’s handkerchief. “You’ve no idea how many charlatans crawl out of every ceiling crack after a marquess dies. Every day, I was chasing another away. Some came claiming his lordship owed back wages or gambling debts, others said that his lordship had promised them a living. More than one girl showed up with an infant in her arms. Liars, all. When Elinor arrived and claimed to have married him . . . I didn’t believe her. A marquess, marry a tenant farmer’s daughter? Preposterous. I never suspected, until the day we found the parish register, that the girl might have been telling the truth.”

Kate’s fingers went to the pendant dangling at her breastbone. She skimmed her fingertips over the polished teardrop of stone, begging the glossy smoothness to calm her emotions. “So that’s why you had her pendant. You took it from her. You had it all along.”

Aunt Marmoset nodded. “She offered it as some sort of proof. I didn’t see what meaning it should have, just a chip of stone. I did save it, however, in case she came back. But she never did. She never went to the solicitors. She disappeared.”

Lark paced the room, clearly struggling to contain her emotions. “Why didn’t you tell us the truth weeks ago?”

“I was ashamed,” the old woman said. “And what was done was done. I didn’t see how it could do any good to relate the story now. We all agreed to make it right for Kate. We were going to welcome her to the family, give her all she was due. But then last night, when you told us about the bawdy house . . .” Aunt Marmoset’s tears renewed. “Oh, it was my fault. I was so sharp with the girl. When she asked me where she should go or how she should live, I . . . I told her she wouldn’t get a penny from us, and she should go live like the slattern she was.”

“Oh, no.” Kate covered her mouth with her hand. “You didn’t.”

Kate stared at Aunt Marmoset, uncertain what to say or do. In the past weeks, she’d come to think of this woman as . . . as the closest thing to a mother she would likely ever know. And now to learn she’d been turned away, even as an infant.

For a moment she was back in Miss Paringham’s sitting room, swallowing dishwater tea and dodging blows from a cane. No one wanted you then. Who on earth do you think will want you now?

“I’m so sorry,” Aunt Marmoset said. “I know you may never forgive me, and I’ll understand if you don’t. But I’m so fond of you, dear.” She sniffed. “I truly am. I love you like one of my own. If I’d only known that my moment of peevishness would have such dire consequences . . .”

“You didn’t know,” Kate found herself saying. “You couldn’t have known. I don’t blame you.”

“You don’t?”

She shook her head honestly. “I don’t.”

Miss Paringham’s scornful words that day hadn’t altered the course of her life. She doubted a few moments’ ugliness from Aunt Marmoset had been enough to determine her mother’s entire future. For Elinor to grow so desperate, more than one door must have been closed in her face. Or perhaps she’d simply been unwilling to live by others’ rules. Kate would never know.