Marquesses at the Masquerade(37)

“That might be the way she passed herself off to you, my lord. But you should know that she is not respectable.”

Marcus’s eyebrows slammed together at these words. “I would ask you, ma’am, what reason you have to suggest that about someone in my employ.”

“Rosamund is in your employ?”

“She is the companion to my dog.”

“To your dog?” Melinda repeated quizzically. She absorbed this information with a furrowing of her brow, and Rosamund knew she was thinking about how best to arrange things to her advantage in light of what she knew about her niece. But that information was Rosamund’s to share, and she would not let her aunt speak for her.

“Mrs. Monroe is my aunt,” Rosamund said.

Melinda reddened with fury. “The connection is not a happy one. In fact, my niece’s father was an infamous enemy of the state. We did her a kindness by taking her in and allowing her to live quietly among us when she would otherwise have been shunned by all respectable people.”

“I see,” Marcus said. His eyes were hooded, making it impossible for Rosamund to read his expression. But it was too late now to keep secrets, and she was almost glad Marcus would now know who she was.

“My father was a good man who was made a scapegoat for those who should have acted more nobly,” Rosamund said, her voice gaining strength. All those years ago, while everyone had vilified and mocked her father and called him a traitor, Rosamund and her mother knew that he had only done what was right and that he had paid the price for what others refused to see. Now was her chance to speak the truth that no one would listen to before. Perhaps no one would want to hear it now, though she believed Marcus would at least listen. His eyes had not left her, and she kept her gaze on him.

“My name is Rosamund Shufflebottom, and my father was Captain Frederick Shufflebottom of His Majesty’s Navy.”

“Silence, Rosamund!” her aunt said. “How dare you speak of our family’s disgrace?”

“No, Aunt, I won’t be silent. I have been silent for too long,” Rosamund said, steeling her voice when it would quiver. “You have perhaps heard of the Shufflebottom Affair, which took place half a dozen years ago, my lord? With our family name being so memorable, I believe the news of my father’s disgrace spread even farther than it would have otherwise.”

“Yes,” he said, “I remember the Shufflebottom Affair.”

She nodded, swallowing down the lump of emotion pressing in her throat. “He was a captain in the Royal Navy, and he gave comfort to deserters from another Navy ship by taking them onboard when they were trying to escape pursuit. I’m sure you saw the mocking cartoons and the cries of traitor, the calls for him to be hanged.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes on her. She couldn’t know what he was thinking, but at least he would hear the truth.

“He was vilified, and my family was assumed to be of the lowest character. My father maintained that he’d helped the men because their captain was a cruel madman who’d had many sailors beaten horribly for minor offenses, three of them beaten to death. But no one would listen. He’d acted against his country, and that was all that mattered. He died of an apoplexy during the court martial proceedings. My mother died soon after of a broken heart.”

“No one wanted to listen to him because he was wrong and a scoundrel,” Melinda said sharply. “He was an embarrassment to our family, as are you.”

Marcus’s jaw seemed to turn to stone in that moment, and his eyes glittered with ice as they shifted to Melinda. Rosamund realized she was seeing the steely core at the heart of the man she loved, and she shivered.

“Rosamund could never be an embarrassment to any family,” Marcus said in the kind of commanding tone a general might use in battle. His words had only begun to penetrate when he continued, “I see now how it was, Mrs. Monroe. Rosamund was orphaned, and you took her in because you felt bound by duty to do so. But you made her pay for it, didn’t you?”

Melinda blinked rapidly several times. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”

“Quite simply that you must have treated her abominably. I knew of your daughters, but I never once heard of a cousin living with them. And that was because Rosamund was to remain hidden, wasn’t she?”

Rosamund could only stare, comprehension beginning to dawn. He believed her, and he understood. Relief and happiness nibbled at the edges of her anxiety and made the corners of her mouth tremble. For Marcus to know and understand was everything she had so dearly wanted—or nearly everything. It would be enough.

“Her family brought nothing but scandal to the rest of us,” Melinda said, her chin held high. “Her duty has been to lead a quiet, useful life.”

“I’ll wager it was useful to you,” Lady Tremont said darkly. “And I’m in no doubt there’s more to the story of those pearls than you’ve described.”

“Those pearls belonged to my mother and should be returned to me,” Melinda screeched. “Rosamund took them—”

“Only because you forced me to surrender them when I came to your house as a girl,” Rosamund said, amazed her voice sounded as even as it did, but Marcus had given her strength. “They were given to my mother and were meant for the oldest girl in every generation. Which is, in fact, me.”