A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(66)

But she wasn’t leaping from her chair and shouting at Evan. She wasn’t heaping insults on Evan’s character. Nor was she flouncing from the room in an airy huff of indignation, vowing to never see Evan again.

Why the distinction? she asked herself. Were the two men’s actions so fundamentally different? Perhaps smoothly spoken Evan just explained his reasons more deftly than Thorne.

Or maybe it was merely this: Evan had concealed happy news, while Thorne’s story represented a painful “truth” she’d prefer to reject. If so, she had dealt with him most unfairly.

But it was too late for regrets now.

With one long, elegant finger, Evan tapped the parish register. “You do realize what this means, don’t you?”

She swallowed hard. “It means they married before my birth. It means I’m legitimate.”

“Yes. You’re the legitimate daughter of a marquess. Which means that you are a lady. Lady Katherine Adele Gramercy.”

Lady Katherine Adele Gramercy. It was too much to be believed. The title felt like a too-large gown, borrowed from someone else.

“Your life is about to change, Kate. You will move in the highest circles of Society. You must be presented at court. And then there is an inheritance. A significant inheritance.”

She shook her head, faintly horrified. “But I don’t need all that. Being your illegitimate cousin already felt like a fairy tale come true. As for an inheritance . . . I don’t want to take anything away from you.”

He smiled. “You will not be taking anything. You will have what was rightfully yours all along. We’ve merely had it on loan, these three-and-twenty years. I still keep the title, naturally. The marquessate cannot pass to a female child.”

He patted her hand. “The solicitors will sort it all out. Of course, you’ll have a great deal to discuss with Corporal Thorne.”

“No,” she blurted out. “I can’t tell him. He’s gone to London on business. And before he left, we . . . I broke the engagement.”

Evan exhaled in a slow, controlled fashion. “I am sorry, Kate—gravely sorry—for any hurt this has caused you. But for myself and for our family, I cannot pretend to be disappointed. I’m glad it ended before today’s interview, rather than after.”

“You needn’t have worried,” she said. “He’s not mercenary. He wanted no part of marriage to me, even once he knew you were planning to claim me as a Gramercy. If he hears I’m a true lady, it will only drive him further away.”

Thorne’s words echoed back to her:

If I hadn’t spent the past year thinking of you as a lady, I promise you—things would be different between us.

“Evan, you must be relieved on all counts,” she said. “Now that the solicitors have accepted me, there’ll be no need for you to . . . devise another way of giving me the family name.”

“By marrying you, you mean?”

She nodded. It was the first time either of them had admitted the idea aloud.

“The relief should be on your side, I think.” A smile warmed his eyes. “For my part, I would not have viewed it as a hardship.”

She cringed, hoping she hadn’t caused any offense. Evan didn’t seem to love her romantically, but then . . . After yesterday, what did she know of reading men’s emotions?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to suggest that I . . . that we . . .”

He took her bumbling apology and waved it smoothly away. “Kate, you will have so many options now. Every door will be open to you. Corporal Thorne may be a fine enough fellow. He troubled himself to protect you, and that speaks well of his character.”

You’ve no idea, she thought.

He’d taken a melon for her. And a snakebite. He’d given her his dog.

“But,” Evan continued, “you can do better in your choice of a husband. You deserve better.”

She sighed. “I’m not so sure that’s true.”

“Corporal Thorne! Here you are, at last.”

Thorne made a bow. “My lady.”

Lady Rycliff herself welcomed him at the door of a new, lavish Mayfair town house.

“You know you can dispense with all that.” Stray wisps of copper floated about her smiling face as she hurried him inside. “It’s good to see you. Bram’s been so looking forward to your visit. Now that the baby’s arrived, he’s outnumbered by females again.”

The piercing wail of an infant drifted down from the upper floor.

Lady Rycliff bowed her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. When she lifted her face, her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Evidently, little Victoria is eager to meet you, too.”

“Did I wake her?” he asked, worried.

“No, no. She scarcely sleeps.” Lady Rycliff showed him into a parlor. “Will you mind waiting here for Bram? I’m so sorry to abandon you when you’ve just arrived. We’re between nursemaids.”

She disappeared, and Thorne stood awkwardly in the center of the room, surveying the evidence of genteel disorder. A few pillows lay scattered on the floor. The room smelled . . . odd.

He could scarcely believe that this was Lord and Lady Rycliff’s home. Rycliff had been born and raised in the military. Order came as naturally to him as breathing. And as for his wife . . . she’d been quite the managing sort, in Spindle Cove.