Page 72 of The Marriage Method

“No. Though…she did appear distressed to hear I was affiliated with the Academy, but she rallied when she discovered I was a teacher. I daresay she assumed it meant I wasn’t an orphan.”

“She’s afraid of encountering the child she gave up,” Miles concluded.

“I suppose she has reason.” Nell took another grimacing sip of brandy. “She’s very rich, I believe. Or rather, her husband is. He’s consumed by the consequence of his family pedigree, apparently. I didn’t ask when they married, but if it was eighteen years ago, it would explain why she gave me away.”

Miles sank down onto one knee beside her. At the moment, the empty chair opposite her seemed too far away. “Eighteen years? Do you mean that…she kept you for a time?”

“Not personally, no. Two servants had charge of me in a little house outside a village somewhere—I don’t know which one. Lady Belwood sometimes came to visit. She used to bring me sweets, and pinch my cheeks. She called me her bonnie girl. It was the only name I knew until Miss Corvus christened me Penelope. I had a little toy loom, you see, like Odysseus’s wife. I was permitted to bring it with me when I came to the Academy.”

“Lady Belwood surrendered you there?”

“Not her. She hadn’t the courage to do it herself. She simply stopped coming. It was the servants who took me to the Academy. I can only presume Lady Belwood had arranged it with Miss Corvus ahead of time.”

He studied Nell’s pale face. “Miss Corvus never told you?”

Nell’s mouth was set in a bleak line. “Miss Corvus is not a great believer in looking backward. She sees no utility in the past.”

“What about Mrs. Royce?”

“She doesn’t know. If she did, she’d never have taken me there. Effie’s not cruel like that.”

“I didn’t expect she was,” Miles said. “I only thought that, if you confided in her, she might have offered you some comfort.”

Nell stared into her glass. “I didn’t tell her.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated.” She paused. “Mothers are a sore subject with some of us.”

“I’m beginning to see that.”

“Was your relationship with your mother—?”

“Complicated? No. It was brutally straightforward.”

She looked at him in question.

“My mother had me out of wedlock,” Miles said. “She lost her position as a result. She had been a governess.” He didn’t know for whom. He’d never managed to find out. “She had nothing and no one. Only me. She poured all of her learning and all of her ambition into me. The moment she could manage it, she sent me away—to save me, she said. She died while I was serving my apprenticeship. Caught a putrid fever in the Rookery and was gone in two days. I learned about it in a letter from Gabriel.”

Nell’s face contorted with sympathy. “Oh, Miles. That’s dreadful.”

“It was, rather.”

The last of the fire crackled and popped, embers floating up the chimney from the grate. Absalom and Virgil stretched idly on the hearthrug, completely unconcerned about revelations from the past. They were creatures of the moment. And this moment was warm and safe, despite the presence of two increasingly melancholy humans.

Nell searched Miles’s gaze. “At the Academy, you told me that taking up your apprenticeship meant leaving the one person you loved. Was it her you meant?”

“It was.”

Her soft gray eyes shimmered in the firelight. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” Miles said. “In any case, she’s not forgotten. I honor her in everything I do. I daresay it’s why I made such a bother over my ruined reputation. She sacrificed everything for me to become the gentleman I am today.”

“You’re a splendid gentleman,” Nell said. “She would be proud of you.”

His mouth hitched briefly. “Splendid,” he murmured. “I shall add that to the list I’m compiling, along with brilliant, fearless, and a champion of truth, and justice, and cats.”

“Do,” she told him. “I don’t mind.”