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“Do you know if Sir John is up yet, Bridget?” Lady Travers sounded rather breathless as Bridget tugged valiantly at ribbons, her face becoming redder than ever. Corsets! And she knew her lady hated them too, even though she always wanted hers done up until her waist looked so tiny you could hardly believe it.
“He was up before you were, ma’am. Mr. Bowles told me he was expecting his Lordship back by lunchtime.”
“Well, I won’t put my gown on yet, I don’t want to look too crushed before we go shopping.”
When she had sent Bridget off to get herself a cup of tea, Alexa sat rather gingerly on the straight-backed chair by the desk, with its inkwell and heavy paper with matching envelopes bearing the hotel’s name and crest reminding her of letters. Letters and papers. Part of the secret that had been hidden for years. The proof of her mother’s marriage—her only legal marriage. Alexa had found that out too, when she was already too numb to understand what it might have meant if Mama and Freddy had still been alive.
“His name was there, on the list of English dead. Lord Gavin Edward Dameron, Viscount Dare. And there she was, half-crazed with grief, and there you were, an infant only a few months old. No one to look after either of you. If you’d been a boy and a possible heir to the title it might have been different, but as it was.... Martin had always loved Victorine—and you know the rest of that part of it by now, don’t you? When we heard that he’d only been left for dead and had actually been taken prisoner; that he was still alive and back in England—it was more than two years later then, and Martin and Victorine had already been married and there was another child on the way. The child didn’t live, as it turned out, but what difference would that make anyhow? Bigamy. Scandal. Victorine had got over everything and was happy with my brother by then. And there was the money coming in every month. As long as we stayed out of England—that was the only condition she attached to the money, and it still comes in. Oh, for all that you look at me with those stony dark eyes of yours now, my dear, you’ll have to admit that it wasn’t all bad for you, was it? I saw to your education and your upbringing and manners, and there wasn’t too much you’d have lost by not knowing, if things hadn’t happened as they did. Even you wouldn’t have wanted your brother branded as a bastard and your mother as a bigamist, would you? And there’s one more thing I’ll tell you, and I hope you’ll take it as a warning. Be careful, my dear. Be very careful of the old Marchioness. You’ll laugh now when I say it, but she’s an evil woman with no scruples at all when it comes to what she thinks is best for The Family. Sons, daughters, nephews, everybody. She wouldn’t permit any scandal where they’re concerned.”
Now that she was far enough away from that part of her past, Alexa could feel sorry for Harriet. Poor Aunt Harriet, who would end her life in exile. Poor young Harriet of the flashing smile and clever bon mots who had lost everything at once. Harriet had been kind to her, kinder than she need have been; and it had been Harriet after all who had opened her mind and taught her to use it.
“Is there any record of my birth?” Even though she asked the question Alexa had not really expected that Harriet would, without another word, produce her birth certificate, from her own box of papers.
“Here you are. She was too ill soon after you were born to remember what to do with anything, so I kept it for her, and she never did ask for it either. You’d have been able to get a copy made at Somerset House in any case, I expect. But it won’t do you any good without a marriage certificate my dear; and for all I know he might have kept that himself, if he had time to get to know her scatterbrained ways at all.”
Perhaps it was because she had ceased to trust Harriet by then that Alexa had never told her of her find. Perhaps Harriet really thought that Alexa had gone through all of her mother’s meager keepsakes without finding anything of note. But at least Harriet had made no objection to Alexa’s taking the tin trunk with her when she had left in the dogcart late that night, while Harriet’s brother (Alexa could not yet bear to call him anything but that) slept heavily still, from the effects of the laudanum his sister had contrived to add to his decanter of brandy.
Sir John had ridden over by himself the next day, and Alexa had never yet asked him what had transpired between the two men. But there was no move made to stop her when she and Sir John were quietly married in Kandy that same evening, with Letty and Paul as their witnesses.
“Lost in dreamland, my dear? I’d quite expected you to be dressed and pacing the floor quite furiously because I was a few minutes late.”
“Well, I thought that I should really be the tardy one, you see.”
Jumping up, Alexa hugg
ed her husband while she tilted up her face for his brush of a kiss. How much she loved him—her dearest and best friend—and how much she owed him. It seemed as if he had transformed her Me into a magic, fairy-tale existence and had changed her into a princess at the same time. A wise princess, however; under the tutelage of her indulgent fairy godfather, who was teaching her something new every day. And today she was going shopping in Paris, where it was spring, and she could buy anything and everything she might fancy.
“And when I have my new wardrobe I will give this gown away to Bridget, although it’s beautiful and I love it— today mat is.”
In a fit of childish exuberance Alexa threw her arms wide and twirled in a waltz step around the room before she stopped before the mirror again to put on her niched silk bonnet. For the next few days at least, she told her reflection silently, she was going to enjoy Paris and all the new things she would learn and the new encounters it would bring. Later there would be enough time to read again the little packet of letters tied with blue ribbon that had revealed to her that her mama had actually had a sister, who might still be alive. Later, she would think very carefully about what she would do when she was back in England, where she had been born the legitimate daughter of Gavin Edward Dameron—now Marquess of Newbury.
PART III
Chapter 23
“By the time I will have to leave you, my dear, you will be well equipped with the knowledge of almost every art and artifice that the female sex has had to learn and use to gain their ends from time immemorial. And you have so far managed to keep your mind detached enough to use your weapons effectively. But have you quite decided exactly how and to what ends you will use this armory of worldly wisdom?”
Alexa swirled around in a froth of skirts and petticoats to shift her contemplation from the bright blue Mediterranean sea to her husband.
“Don’t I know and you know that I know what must be in the end, but I don’t want to be reminded of it. And especially not on a day like this.” And then, with a sudden surge of alarm, she ran to him where he sat in his chair on the sunlit terrace. “You are not feeling ill are you? Or in pain? You did promise to tell me if you felt...”
“My dear, I assure you that I feel quite the same as usual, and it was not my intention to worry you. I am afraid that I could not resist letting my sense of curiosity get the better of me, if you’ll forgive an old man who ought to know better than to pry.”
“Then you also ought to know very well that I could never consider any question that you ask me as prying.” Although she spoke with mock severity Alexa sank onto the low velvet-covered stool by his chair and rested her head against his thigh. “I suppose you only asked me what you did to remind me in your subtle way that I should ask some questions of myself. And I think I know what I want to do—not just for the sake of being revenged alone, but for the satisfaction I would gain from knowing that they will not be able to sweep me under the carpet or wish me into not existing!” She looked up at him with a half-smile. “But perhaps I do need a devil’s advocate, for I do not wish to make one single wrong move in the kind of chess game that I intend to play!”
“There have been chess games played many times where human lives were the forfeited pieces, my dear, and I hope you will never forget that. If you are the red queen, the old Marchioness—grandmother or not—is the black. And she has had many more years of experience at this kind of match—and is used to winning! If you mean to go through with your plans—if you do not change your mind—then you must remember at least three things. Never underestimate your opponent, never allow yourself to be distracted from concentrating, and never trust; particularly not those who flatter you or offer their help against your adversary. And as for the rest—your young mind is far too quick and agile for me, I’m afraid. You’ll have to give me more time out here in the sun to think carefully of all the objections I should throw in your path and the difficulties you might encounter.” Touching that thick, glowing hair of hers that almost seemed alive under his fingers, Sir John could sense that she was already preparing her answers for any question he might ask her. With one of those impulsively affectionate gestures that he had grown to treasure in her, Alexa seized his gnarled hand and kissed it before she turned her cheek against his palm.
When you were as young as she was you were invincible and immortal—or so you felt. And how strange that the older one grew the more vivid became the memories of all the seasons and the sensations of youth. Ah yes— once he, even he, had made plans and believed in ideals and idols. He had never feared death and had always gone to battle with a sense of embarking on some exciting adventure. In the end he would either be one of the victors or one of the vanquished; or one of the glorious dead. Youth knew only extremes, and there had never been a moment when he had imagined there might be alternatives. Or that there would be a time when he might actually choose life—even a conditional kind of life—over quick, clean death.
Well, in the end he had chosen—or rather, his body had made the choice for him. And here he was on a sunny terrace in the south of Italy, an old man with a young and lovely wife that other men envied him.
“Are you still thinking of all the pitfalls I might encounter?” There was a note of teasing laughter in her voice that made him smile too.
“Well, for one thing, my dear, you will have to learn patience. Yes, I am still thinking! And should you discover that I have closed my eyes, I would want you to realize that I think even better with my eyes closed!”
“Before you start to think, then, can I ask a question? Do you believe that the lawyer you hired will really be able to find my mother’s sister? My aunt, I suppose. My real aunt. How cruel and unfair of Harriet to keep those letters from my poor mama, who must have thought her own sister had forgotten her!”
“You are not being impartial, my bright Alexa. How could Harriet risk the possibility that your Aunt Solange might let it slip that your real father was still alive, considering all the consequences that would have arisen? Being a pragmatic soul like myself, she did what she felt she had to do. And you cannot in all honesty blame Harriet for concealing the real facts from you without blaming me as well. Do you resent that, Alexa?”
