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She walked to the library table and took up his notes. “Your handwriting is deplorable,” she said. She put them down and, turning back to him, said, “I haven’t told you about my mother.”
“An English aristocrat, yes? Or something else?”
She gave a short laugh. “Both.”
She returned to her chair, and he sat, too. His heart thudded. Something was coming, and it wasn’t good. He was sure of that. He was leaning forward, waiting. He was wanting it to be over with and hoping against hope it would be good news. But it couldn’t be good, else she wouldn’t be so ill at ease, she who was never ill at ease, mistress of every situation.
And what was wrong with him? She’d admitted to forgery! She’d told him she came from a line of blue-blooded French criminals!
“My mother was Catherine DeLucey,” she said.
He recognized the surname, but it took a moment for him to place it. Then he saw it: blue, vivid blue.
“Lucie’s eyes,” he said. “Those remarkable blue eyes. Miss Sophia, too. And Miss Leonie. I knew there was something familiar about them. They’re unforgettable. The DeLuceys—the Earl of Mandeville’s family.”
Her color came and went. She folded her hands tightly in her lap.
He remembered then. Some old scandal to do with one of Lord Hargate’s sons. Not the one who’d manhandled him yesterday, though. Which one? He couldn’t remember. His brain was slow and thick and aching.
She said, “Not those DeLuceys. Not the good ones with the handsome property near Bristol. My mother was one of the other ones.”
He’d been leaning toward her so eagerly, and she’d seen the hope in his eyes, and the uncertainty.
Then she saw the truth dawn. His head went back, and his posture stiffened, and he looked away, unable to meet her gaze.
Sophy and Leonie had told her he didn’t need to know. They’d said she’d only heap coals on her own head, and since when had she taken on the role of martyr?
But they didn’t know what it was to love a man, and so they didn’t know what it was to hurt at causing him pain. He’d opened his heart to her. He’d offered her the moon and the stars, knowing nothing about her. And she hadn’t had the courage to offer what she could in fair return: the truth.
She’d reminded him again and again of her trade, because she could cope with his coming to his senses and rejecting her because of what she did for a living. But to tell him who she was, then see his face change as he shut her out ... That would hurt more than she could bear.
She saw it now, and it hurt more than she’d imagined. But the worst was over. She’d live.
She went on quickly, eager to have her sordid tale done. “My mother was a blueblood, but she wasn’t like the other Noirot wives. She hadn’t any money. They married each other for fortunes that turned out not to exist. They didn’t learn the truth until the marriage night, and then they thought it a great joke. She and Father led a nomadic life, from one swindle to the next. They would run up debts in one place, then leave in the dead of night for another. We children were inconvenient baggage. They left us with this relative or that one. Then, when I was nine years old, we ended up with a woman who’d married one of my father’s cousins. She was a fashionable dressmaker in Paris. She trained us to the trade, and she saw to our education. We were attractive girls, and Cousin Emma made sure we learned refinement. That was good for business. And of course, a pretty girl with good manners might attract a husband of wealth and quality.”
She looked up to gauge his reaction, but he seemed to be studying the carpet. His thick black lashes, so stark against the pallor of his skin, veiled his eyes.
But she didn’t need to read the expression in his eyes to know what was there: a wall.
A sense of loss swept over her, and it was like a sickness. She felt so weary. She swallowed and went on, “But I fell in love with Cousin Emma’s nephew Charlie, and he had no money. I had to continue working. Then the cholera came to Paris.” She made a sweeping gesture. “They all died. We had to close our shop—not that I would have stayed. I was terrified I’d take sick. Then who’d look after my daughter and sisters? I felt we’d be safer in London, though we were nearly penniless. But I went to the gaming hells and played cards. You saw how I won in Paris. That was how I fed and housed my family when we first came to London, three years ago. That was how I started my shop. I won the money at cards.”
She stood. “There it is. You know everything. Your friend Longmore thinks we’re the devil, and he’s not far wrong. You couldn’t ally yourself with a worse family. We seduce and swindle, lie and cheat. We have no scruples, no morals, no ethics. We don’t even understand what those things are. I did you the greatest favor in the world when I said no. No one in my family would understand why I did it.”
She started for the door, still talking, unable to help herself. It was the last time, perhaps, they’d ever speak.
“They’d see you only as a pigeon ripe for plucking,” she said. “But you needn’t believe I was being noble and self-sacrificing in declining your proposal. It was pure selfishness. I’m too proud to endure being snubbed by your fine friends.”
“You could endure it.” His low voice came from behind her.
She hadn’t heard him rise from the sofa. She’d been deaf and blind to all but despair, and too busy trying not to fall apart. She wouldn’t turn around. Nothing he said could make any difference now. He was trying to be kind, probably. She couldn’t bear kindness. She continued toward the door.
“You can stomach the obnoxious women and their demands and their treating you like a slave,” he said. “You have no trouble handling them. You have Lady Clara eating out of your hand.”
Hope was trying to claw its way up out of the dark place where she’d buried it. She stomped it down. “That’s business,” she said without turning her head. “That’s part of the guile and manipulation. My shop is my castle. But the beau monde is another world altogether.”
“It’s Lucie you’re protecting, not yourself,” he said. “You insist you have no redeeming qualities, but you love your daughter. You’re not like your mother. Your child is not an inconvenience.”
She paused, her hand on the door handle. Her chest was tight, a sob welling there, threatening to get out.
