After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(102)

At fifteen, Theresa understood something she had missed at eight. A family Bible, with marriage lines and birth dates, was not proof that her father had not sired another child. Marriage had nothing to do with that.

She read the line again.

…send her all my love, as does Pri.

Judith must have assumed that Anthony was humoring Tee’s long-ago imagination. God, for all that Judith was older, she was in many, many ways so incredibly na?ve.

For the first time in ten years, Tee realized the truth. She had been lied to. Not on purpose, not by Judith, no—but she had been lied to. For almost a decade, she had been told that her memory was false. That her mind was dangerous. That she had constructed a fable and believed it, and that she needed to be wary of every last thought that she had, lest they lead her astray.

Her father had been in India. Theresa could fill in the explanation that Judith had missed. Her father had had a mistress—of course he had—and his mistress had a daughter, because that was what happened. That daughter had, for some reason, been on the journey that the three-year-old Theresa had embarked upon.

Theresa had been allowed to meet her because she had been deemed too young to understand the truth. And when she had come back and cried about her missing sister, everyone who knew the truth had lied to her. Her father. Anthony.

They were all liars.

Theresa read the line once more. …As does Pri. Oh, that hurt, to hear that Pri was sending Theresa love. Her sister remembered her. She hadn’t spent all this time believing Theresa was a figment of her imagination.

It was one thing to discover that her father and brother had betrayed their country. It was another to discover that he’d betrayed her. He had allowed her to believe her mind was her enemy her entire life.

Anger came first—anger at Anthony, then at Judith, then at herself, for those years when she’d believed that something was wrong with her. Anger hit her like a wave, so powerful that she almost screamed with the heat of it.

Disgust followed. She was disgusted with her father. She was disgusted with Anthony. She was disgusted with the entirety of England, a country that wanted her to be a lady, when being a lady meant closing her eyes to what was happening around her.

Finally, there came one last emotion—a memory that she’d never quite been able to push away. That feeling that someone loved her. Someone understood her. She had a sister who knew her and had loved her. She had a sister who knew what it was like to never grow up to be a lady. She had a sister who had been abandoned by the family in a more dramatic and painful way than Camilla.

Theresa was the only one who would care that she existed.

Judith was right. Theresa had grown up. She’d grown out of her tantrums. She’d gained nothing from the ugly rage that she’d indulged in as a child.

Theresa had a sister who needed finding, and Theresa was good at finding sisters.

Now, all she needed was a plan.

Ten minutes later, Judith returned to the room. “What did you think?”

Theresa smiled. She wasn’t a lady, but she had learned to play one. Now, with possibilities boiling in her mind, pretense had become necessary.

“He really is the worst correspondent,” Theresa said dryly.

They laughed together, and Judith didn’t realize.

Theresa could wait as long as necessary. All she had to do was hide the fact that she was done with England. She was utterly done.



* * *



Adrian returned with Camilla to her sister’s home just before dusk. Camilla conducted Adrian to a parlor, then disappeared for a moment as she sent for her entire family to join them.

Adrian couldn’t help but be nervous. Of all the ridiculous situations to find himself in. But Camilla came back, drifting to stand by him, and she introduced him to her family, one by one, as they entered.

Lady Ashford was the last to enter the room. She looked at Adrian in confusion, then at Camilla, beaming by his side.

“What is going on?” she asked.

“I have delightful news,” Camilla said, all smiles. “Mr. Adrian Hunter asked me to marry him—and I said yes.”

Lady Ashford blinked. She looked at the two of them once more. Adrian reached out and took hold of Camilla’s hand.

“Oh, for the love of goslings,” she said. “We spent weeks on the annulment. Why?”

“I wanted to choose him,” Camilla said. “I wanted him to know.”

“Normally, one does not annul a marriage to someone one intends to marry. I am a puddle of bafflement.”

“Oh, Judith,” Camilla said on a sigh. “Have you met Theresa? Benedict? Anthony? Yourself, even? Since when does one of your siblings do things the normal way?”

“Hooray!” said Lady Theresa Worth behind her. “I’m not the worst sister any longer!”



* * *



They were not married by special license. The banns were called. It took weeks upon weeks upon endless weeks—weeks of planning, weeks of signing marriage settlements with Judith and Christian grumbling over the details with Grayson—before they were married.

That also meant weeks in which Camilla met Adrian in her sister’s home, weeks during which they stole kisses against walls. During those weeks, the china exhibit was held; Camilla stood to the side and watched the responses to her fiancé’s newest china collection with gladness in her heart. There were vases, ringed in roses, and wide bowls with gold-plated rims.