Forged by Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 4 (22 page)

A woman stood to greet them. She was shorter than Virginie, and rounder, but still handsome. Dressed in a dark green gown with white petticoat showing under the open front, she had a modest string of pearls around her neck. The room was furnished well, the upholstery dark brown over good English walnut, highly polished. The floor was polished boards with a couple of smaller rugs, one before the unlit fire, the other under the table that stood before one of the two windows. A modest room, but with some elegance. Virginie liked it.

Used to assessing her surroundings quickly, she stepped forward and dropped into a slight curtsey, mirroring the deeper one Lady Simpson swept her. Then she gave her hand for the husband to bow over.

Sir Samuel Simpson was a man of some avoirdupois. His brown coat and waistcoat were all but undecorated, braid edging the pockets of his coat and the edges of his waistcoat. But his neckcloth was crisp, white and neatly tied, and his shoes were well polished, decorated with cut-steel buckles. The edges had blunted somewhat with time and polishing so the effect was softer than intended. His bob-wig was freshly powdered, but when he smiled briefly, as he rose from his bow, his lack of teeth became apparent. At least he had the four at the front, but behind those, the rest were scarce. The join between the real teeth, yellowed with age, and the ivory teeth that had replaced the missing ones was oddly apparent.

Virginie tried not to stare. After Harry had greeted them, they sat on the sofas that faced each other either side of the fireplace. Virginie sank down in full knowledge that her skirts would dispose themselves properly. She folded her hands in her lap over her fan, in a pose that displayed her hands to their best advantage.

Lady Simpson offered tea. They accepted and the maid duly entered with a tea tray. Sir Samuel asked them about their journey while the maid disposed the tray on the stand by her mistress’s elbow.

After the maid left, Lady Simpson said she had heard that Virginie had been ill. “I am so sorry you were indisposed, my lady. You do not travel well?”

Of course she’d heard. Her maids were probably related to the maids at Harry’s house. “Travel does not suit me,” Virginie said. “But I enjoy seeing different places. When Harry suggested I see some of his estate, I was delighted to come here first.”

“My lady is not the best of travellers, it is true, but I needed to see you and she insisted on accompanying me.”

Virginie glanced at Harry. “We are still in the early days of our marriage.”

“Yes, my lord. We were pleased to hear of your marriage. We both hope you have many happy years together,” said Sir Samuel, as if reciting from a script. Then he glanced at his wife, who smiled. Perhaps she had written the script.

“However,” Virginie said, deciding it was high time they got to the subject of this visit, “we came here to convey our condolences on the death of your daughter, Rhea.” Before they’d arrived they’d ascertained that the news of Rhea’s death had reached the village. Otherwise her statement would have caused turmoil. Not that she wasn’t above causing turmoil, but not in this case.

Lady Simpson met her gaze head-on. “We have no daughter of that name.”

Harry’s sharp intake of breath sounded loud in the quiet room. Virginie accepted a dish of tea, passed to her by her ladyship. The dish trembled in the saucer. “You do not,” she said. “Not any more.”

That explained a lot. Why they showed no sign of mourning, not even a black armband or mourning jewellery, and why they had not gone to London. But she would persist. If Lady Simpson asked her to leave, what of that? But she could not bear the tension snapping the air. She had to do something to break it. To lose one’s daughter was bad enough, but to deny her existence…

Virginie suppressed her shudder of revulsion. “We are so sorry to hear of her death, but she had two children. They are being cared for by someone, but if you should want them back, we can help you arrange it.”

“As my wife said,” Sir Samuel said, no tremor in his tones, “we have no daughter. Not any more. She is dead, and what is gone is gone.”

Virginie contacted Harry, feeling his total support. He would intervene if she needed it, but she was the best person out of the two of them to try to question them.
“I will support everything you say. But I will not allow them to distress you.”

She sent him wordless thanks. “Does this mean that you will not claim anything she left behind?”

“It does.”

So Lyndhurst would have to care for the children a while longer. Perhaps forever. He was a rich man—he could do that. But to disown one’s flesh and blood? She couldn’t understand it. “Was Rhea your only child?”

Lady Simpson shook her head. “We have five daughters and two sons.”

They were not lacking in offspring. Virginie let the conversation pass to discussion of the other children. They were not in evidence, something that surprised her mildly, but perhaps they knew she would bring up their other daughter in conversation. The one that didn’t exist. However many children she had, whatever they did, Virginie knew for sure she would never turn her back on any of them.

They heard of the achievements of the youngest boy, currently at Oxford and destined for a church career. They heard of their eldest daughter’s marriage to a local dignitary. Quite an adventure, when he came to court Mary. Through the recital, Virginie listened, smiled, occasionally asked an undemanding question and showed every indication of interest. Gradually she built a picture of the family. Important at a local level, with contacts and connections they were building through marriage and business. The squire disdained trade, as he put it, but she found it interesting that he had invested in some small shipping ventures. A little risky, he conceded, but the syndicate he belonged to would help offset any chancy cargoes. He was sure his lordship knew what he meant.

A note of triumph sounded in Virginie’s mind. Harry had found something. “I do have some investments in similar companies,” he said smoothly. “I believe I even own a ship or two. I could send you some information by my man of business, if you are interested in such matters. However, I would advise you not to invest more than you can afford to lose.”

“I have told him the same, sir,” Lady Simpson said, and she shot a glare at her spouse. “We have children to provide for and a tidy estate. Why should he want more?”

By which Virginie assumed Sir Samuel’s ambition was greater than his wife’s. Another opening, should they need it. Clever of Harry to make a connection.

“Men are always looking to the future,” Virginie said, and smiled at Lady Simpson. Her cheekbones seemed starker, more prominent, and her pale blue eyes larger. Virginie gently spread her thoughts, opening her mind to receive the impressions she could.

She was right. Her ladyship was not unaffected by her daughter’s death. Was it her husband who had insisted on the denial of her grandchildren?”

Harry understood what she was at. He must have done, because when he suggested gently that the business talk must be boring the ladies, her ladyship took the hint. “I would be honoured to show you my gardens. Would it fatigue your ladyship too much to take a tour around them?”

“No indeed,” Virginie said, with every impression of relief. “I know that once you begin to discuss investments you can be a complete bore, my dear. I would love to see the gardens and to get more of the invigorating fresh air in this part of the world.”

Lady Simpson took Virginie down to the back hall, much like the front, except smaller, where she sent a maid for Virginie’s hat. “The summer is arriving apace. Although our flowering season is later than in the south, many of our plants are in good heart, and some are in bloom.”

Normally Virginie liked flowers, enjoyed discussing them with gardeners, but today she was after a completely different quarry. To get her ladyship alone. “I merely enjoy walking among them,” she said.

“You were lately in France,” her ladyship said.

“Before my recent marriage I was the Duchesse de Clermont-Ferand,” Virginie answered, and watched the other woman’s face closely. Most of the gentry were Tories, and many Tories resented or distrusted the French. Or just plain hated them.

Lady Simpson showed none of those tendencies. “I would have enjoyed a visit to France. But I fear I am too set in my ways and London is the furthest I will go. I had planned, you know, but my poor mother’s last illness prevented our visit. Perhaps next year.”

They left the house and took the path to a charming garden, set out with straight paths in a vaguely geometric pattern. A formal garden. The passion for nature had not yet reached this far then, with its contrived wildernesses. Or perhaps the Simpsons did not approve.

“I am sorry to hear of your mother.”

“She lived here and towards the end she became very fretful,” Lady Simpson said. “I spent nearly all my time with her. That was why—but never mind,” she concluded hastily.

“But I do.” Virginie spoke softly, understanding. “I am not yet a mother, but now that I have married again, I hope to be. My late husband was an old man, you understand.”

Lady Simpson nodded. Here in the garden she appeared more relaxed, more eager to talk. Her voice had lowered, become less formal, less clipped, and a trace of a local accent touched her tones. “Indeed, my lady. But it is for the best. Rhea’s disgrace could have tainted her brothers and sisters. John hopes for a career in the church. I feel for her, truly, but we cannot—” She swallowed. “The babies—are they well?”

“Perfectly, and well cared for. Their putative father is taking care of them. The Duke of Lyndhurst.” Would the title sway her? She must know.

She showed no shock at the name, so she did know. “I fear that the duke is not their parent. The timing is wrong.”

“Do you know who their father is?”

Lady Simpson shook her head. “Is that why you are here?”

“No,” Virginie said mendaciously. “We truly wished to meet our tenants and to convey our regrets. To see if there was anything we could do to ease your burden.”

“I do thank you for that.” Lady Simpson gave her a shy smile. “Although you understand, we cannot do anything for her or the children. Even to send support to the babies would admit more than we can afford to do.”

“I understand.” She truly did. With six other children to provide for, the reputation of a fallen daughter could prove disastrous. But Virginie would have found a way, even if she had been a mortal in Lady Simpson’s position. She would have done something for the babies, spirited the daughter away somehow.

“When Rhea left home, it was too late,” her ladyship continued. Then her story started to come out. “She met the duke in the spring. He was travelling from Scotland back down to England, I believe. It was a brief encounter, but she admitted it, once she had no other course.”

Lady Simpson turned a corner. Virginie accompanied her along a high hedge that obscured their view from the room upstairs where Harry was engaging Sir Samuel in business talk. Halfway down the path, Lady Simpson stopped and faced Virginie. Her eyes were haggard, her mouth flat and her face pale. “I will tell you, ma’am.”

Virginie nodded. “Please. I will do whatever you wish, and I swear I won’t betray your confidence to your husband.” But she might to hers.

Lady Simpson nodded. “Thank you. But I must tell someone.” At the sharp snap, Virginie glanced down. She’d thought Lady Simpson had stepped on a twig or something of that nature, but it was not that. She’d been clutching her fan so tightly that she’d broken the sticks. Gently, Virginie removed the ruined object from the lady’s convulsive grasp and shoved it in her pocket.

“I have remained quiet because I had to. The neighbours think Rhea died in Wales, on a visit to her grandmother.”

“They will hear no different. In London, the death was ruled a suicide. Her name was not discussed in the newspapers.”

“Thank you!” Lady Simpson wrung Virginie’s hand, and Virginie was hard put not to wince. “I am so grateful that my child’s end will not become a scandal, as her life was. Rhea was a mischievous child, and not a wise one. I do not know if she spent the time with the duke or not, as she claimed, but he was not the father of her children. She was already expecting, although nobody knew it at the time. A month after the duke’s visit,” Lady Simpson continued, “she told me she was expecting a child. She swore it was the duke, but I don’t think it could have been. No, I’m sure of it.”

Relief swept through Virginie. Although her affair with Marcus was in the past, and their enchantment broken, that did not mean that she didn’t still regard him as a friend. Perhaps one day they could resume that friendship. Rhea had deceived him. Let him think she was a maidservant and ripe for the taking, as a subterfuge. “Do you know who the father might be?”

“Yes.” Lady Simpson glanced down and sighed. “I must explain that we had a domestic who Rhea was over-friendly with. An older woman, and the best housekeeper I ever had. But consequently Rhea spent too much time with the servants. We had a footman, one she became too fond of. We had tried to break Rhea’s unhealthy devotion to him, but we failed.”

Virginie pieced the story together. The footman had impregnated Rhea, and then Rhea had tried to blame Marcus. After she was already pregnant. If she had succeeded, she could have become a duchess, able to cuckold Marcus whenever she wished. She had pursued him to London with that aim.

“What happened to the footman?”

“We turned him off. He left, cursing us, but they found him dead a week later. Poisoned himself in a country inn. His note said he could not live without our daughter.”

“Does the housekeeper still work for you?”

Lady Simpson sighed. “No. Deirdre Bramwell left us shortly after. She didn’t require a character reference, which was just as well because, despite her excellent work, we could not have given her one. It was about a week after we heard Rhea’s news and two weeks before she left for London. We had no idea where she’d gone. We planned to send her to Wales, where my mother had acquired a house. She would live there quietly as a widow until the child was born, and then return home alone. We would tell people that she had gone to care for her sick grandmother.”