While the Earl of Gilmore assisted his mother out of the coach, Maddy tilted her head back to gaze up at the grand edifice. Tall pillars flanked the double front doors and supported a classically designed portico. Torchlight played over the footmen in crimson livery and the procession of finely garbed guests going up the marble steps.
She drew an unsteady breath. Though the mid-May evening was mild, a shiver prickled her skin. This magnificent residence belonged to her grandfather, the Duke of Houghton. Long ago, her mother had lived here as a child, whenever the ducal family had been in London.
This was the moment Maddy had long anticipated. At last, she would be entering the belly of the beast. Instead of a sense of triumph, however, she’d felt tense and queasy for the past few days, her stomach twisted into knots. She wanted this confrontation, she craved it with all her heart and soul. Yet now that the time had come, she dreaded it as well.
Emily joined her, leaning close to whisper, “Are you quite certain Lord Theo will be here?”
Nathan’s sister looked especially beautiful tonight with her russet-brown curls pinned up and her face glowing from the skillful application of cosmetics. Tiny embroidered roses decorated her cream silk gown, the fabric from one of the bolts that Nathan had brought from China.
Maddy summoned a smile. “He’s bound to be at his grandfather’s ball. Don’t worry, darling. Everything will be just fine.”
If only she herself could stop worrying. When she confronted her grandfather, how would it affect Nathan’s family? Would it cause a huge scandal? What if she ruined all hope of Lord Theo ever courting Emily?
Whenever Maddy had contemplated this night, she’d envisioned a dramatic scene in which she rebuked the Duke of Houghton for his cruelty in disowning his daughter for the sin of falling in love with a commoner. Then she would announce to the astonished guests that Lady Sarah Langley was her mother. Everyone would be dumbfounded to learn that the actress they had scorned had a close blood connection to one of the most exalted families in England.
But now Maddy had second thoughts. Perhaps it would be best to make her curtsy to the duke without revealing her true identity. Then she could find a quiet moment in which to address him alone. She could still speak her mind to him, but she would do so in private.
Yes. That would be far more sensible.
The new plan eased a portion of her tension. She mustn’t let her desire for revenge harm those around her. Somehow, she had begun to think of Nathan’s family as her own. She could see now that the dowager showed love in her own gruff way, that Lady Sophia’s discontent was rooted in grief for her husband. Surprisingly, Maddy also felt a certain fondness for Lord Gilmore ever since he’d helped Nathan to bed on the night of his drunken debauchery.
She couldn’t hurt them. She wouldn’t hurt them.
Especially not sweet, naïve Emily.
The girl went to join her father, and Nathan strolled to Maddy’s side. Her husband looked extraordinarily attractive tonight in a form-fitting black coat and stark white cravat, his long dark hair tied neatly at his nape. The bruise on his cheek had faded. The past few weeks had been wonderful, for in the aftermath of their quarrel, he and Maddy had grown closer. Though he’d never voiced words of love, Nathan had escorted her to shops and parties and the park, seldom straying from her side. Lately, she’d even allowed herself to entertain the hope that he might change his mind about leaving England.
Bending close, he murmured, “You look dazzling, darling. You’ll outshine every woman here.”
She had dressed with great care tonight, donning her finest ball gown, a rich cobalt-blue silk that enhanced the color of her eyes. Shunning the elaborate curls of the other ladies, she had arranged her blond hair in a simple twist with a few wisps framing her face. A sapphire necklace from the family jewels gleamed above her breasts.
Before she could do more than smile at the compliment, he lifted her gloved hand to his lips and kissed the back. “You’ve been very quiet tonight,” he said, studying her quizzically. “Don’t worry, Dunham won’t come near you. I’ll make certain of that.”
“And you’re to be civil,” she reminded him. “Promise me there will be no fisticuffs in the midst of the ball.”
He grinned. “As you wish.”
A quiver ran through her as he tucked her gloved hand in the crook of his arm. Little did he know, she feared Dunham’s venomous reaction when he learned of their blood relationship. Even though she’d decided to confront Houghton in private, the truth would still find its way to her two cousins. Once Dunham and Lord Theo knew, the news would not remain hidden for long from society, as well.
And what would her husband say when he found out? Nathan would be very displeased that she’d kept such a vital secret from him.
But that could not be helped now. Had she told him, he might have tried to interfere in some way, and this was something she had to do for herself.
They proceeded up the steps, following the earl and his mother, with Emily and Lady Sophia close behind them. Maddy’s knees felt ready to buckle. She had never been more grateful for Nathan’s support as they passed through the open doorway and into a magnificent entrance hall lit by blazing candles in a crystal chandelier.
An array of guests mingled in the large space, the hum of voices echoing in the vast room. Gentlemen in formal black coats escorted ladies adorned in dazzling jewels and exquisite gowns. Her gaze followed a broad staircase that led upward to the reception rooms. The wrought-iron balustrade was festooned with swags of gold ribbon. How many times had her mother walked down that staircase? Had Mama regretted leaving this splendid mansion for life with a traveling band of players? She had once called this house a gilded cage.
To be standing here now seemed unreal to Maddy. She had dreamed of this moment for so many years. It was upon her now, and she could scarcely contain her nervous anticipation.
She clung to Nathan’s arm as they joined the slow-moving receiving line. She tried to peer ahead, but there were too many people blocking her view. In front of her, the Earl of Gilmore stood in line with the dowager, who was clad in green satin and leaning on her cane. Nathan turned to chat with Emily and Lady Sophia, laughing at something they said, though Maddy could make no sense of the conversations swirling around her. She felt caught in a bubble, her hands damp inside her kidskin gloves.
At last they approached the front of the line. The Earl of Gilmore and the dowager greeted flaxen-haired Lord Dunham with his thin features and, beside him, Lord Theo, with neatly combed sandy hair, looking scholarly in his gold-rimmed spectacles.
At least Emily would be happy tonight.
Even as that thought flitted through Maddy’s mind, it was her turn. Nathan uttered a cool greeting to the two men. She could see no lasting damage to Dunham from the fistfight with Nathan. As she briefly touched hands with her cousins, they spoke to her, but the meaning of their words failed to register in her mind. Her attention already had shifted to the old man beside them.
The Duke of Houghton.
With a jolt, she realized that her grandfather sat hunched in a wheeled invalid’s chair. Stoop-shouldered, he had a tonsure of wispy gray hair that encircled his bald pate. His dark attire hung on his emaciated form, his chest sunken beneath a white waistcoat. Despite his scrawny appearance, however, he held his chin at a haughty tilt.
He gave a curt nod to Nathan.
Only by rote did she manage to dip a graceful curtsy. Her mouth felt dry, her heart pounding. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
Rising slowly, she gazed straight at her grandfather’s withered features. So this was the man who had shunned Mama. Over many years, hatred of him had formed a calcified knot inside Maddy. But she should not have dreaded this meeting. He was just an arrogant aristocrat at the end of his days.
He peered at her through rheumy blue eyes. She stared back, unable to tear her gaze from him. His face was so gaunt, his nose looked very prominent. She saw in him her mother’s high cheekbones and a certain similarity in the oval shape of their faces.
The duke leaned forward suddenly. His crablike hand groped out, his skeletal fingers closing around hers.
“Sarah?” he croaked.
Her heart took a tumble. Dear God, he had mistaken her for her mother. Papa had always remarked on the resemblance between them. “No,” Maddy whispered, then said, louder, “No, that isn’t my name.”
She tried to pull her hand free, but his gnarled fingers held on to her with surprising strength. “You’re Sarah. Don’t try to bamboozle me, girl. You always did try to do so.”
Nathan intervened, saying gently, “Your Grace, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. This is my wife, Lady Rowley.”
She wanted to back away. They were drawing attention from the nearby guests as people turned and stared. She spied Lady Milford in the crowd, her lips pursed in concern. A short distance away, Lady Gilmore stood frowning, the quizzing glass held to one eye.
Maddy couldn’t retreat. The duke clutched her hand in a death grip. She tugged again. But she was afraid to pull too hard lest his ancient bones snap.
His sunken blue eyes grew watery, his once haughty chin wobbling. “Of course you aren’t Sarah,” he said brokenly, as he released her hand. “You can’t be. My daughter would be much older now. It’s just … I was hoping to see her again…”
That display of anguish whipped up a frenzy of rage in Maddy. How dare the Duke of Houghton pretend sorrow when he himself had driven his daughter away? When he had cut Mama off from his family and told her she was dead to him?
Maddy didn’t stop to think. The words poured out in a bitter rush. “Lady Sarah Langley is dead, Your Grace. She was my mother, and she died over ten years ago. I’m your granddaughter, Madelyn. The granddaughter you never knew existed—because you’d shunned us.”
Gasps eddied from the bystanders. A buzz of whispers spread throughout the entrance hall. She sensed movement around her, though she kept her gaze on the duke’s slack-jawed face. She wanted him to say something, to lash out at her in anger, to look down his long nose and rebuke her.
Nathan’s hand tightened convulsively on her arm. She glanced up to see his stark, astonished features. The others were staring at her in disbelief, Lord Gilmore frowning beside his mother, Emily clinging to Lord Theo’s arm, Lady Sophia with her mouth agape.
Maddy felt faint. What had she done? This was not what she’d intended. But it was too late to turn back now.
Lord Dunham sprang to the duke’s side. His icy gaze bored into Maddy. “What the devil is this nonsense? How dare you make such an outrageous claim! You’re nothing but an upstart actress. Leave this house at once.”
Nathan uttered a growl low in his chest. Sensing him about to spring, Maddy dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his arm to stop him. “Every word of it is true. The Duke of Houghton is my grandfather. You are my cousin. So is Lord Theo.”
“Impossible—” Dunham sputtered.
“His Grace tried to force Mama into a betrothal with a nobleman when she was eighteen. But she’d fallen in love with a traveling actor, Jeremy Swann. For the sin of running off to marry her true love, she was cast out of this family forever.” Maddy gestured at the duke. “Ask my grandfather. He’ll confirm it. I’m sure he remembers exactly what happened.”
The Duke of Houghton said nothing at all. He sat staring up at her, his bony fingers gripping the arms of his invalid’s chair. A single tear trickled on a slow path down his withered cheek. He looked old and broken, and Maddy knew it must be a shock to learn that his daughter was dead. Then she chided herself for feeling even a shred of sympathy for the man.
Nathan placed his firm hand at the small of her back. “Pray forgive this outburst, Your Grace. My wife and I will be leaving now.”
His frigid tone chilled Maddy. All the fire seemed to have burned out of her. She didn’t feel relieved or triumphant—just hollow and wretched.
Her legs moved woodenly as Nathan thrust her toward the door. The multitude of guests parted to give them wide berth. She felt their stares and heard their whispers as if in a dream. None of them mattered to her. Let them think what they willed. She wanted only to go home and bury herself beneath the covers of her bed. To hug her pillow and escape all the prying eyes.
They went outside into the cool night and down the porch steps. Nathan propelled her past a line of carriages. Coachmen gathered in small groups, conversing and trading jests. A burst of hearty laughter came from the carriages parked across the darkened square.
Nathan’s footsteps were quick and sharp on the pavement, and she had to half run to keep up with him. As they hurried by Lord Gilmore’s vehicle, the stout coachman doffed his hat in surprise. “Milord—”
Her husband didn’t stop to answer. He ploughed ahead, his hand pressing at Maddy’s back. As they passed beneath a street lamp, the glow of gaslight cast harsh shadows on his grim features. Never had she seen him look so coldly furious. Not even when confronting his father.
Stepping off the curbstone, she nearly twisted her ankle in her new dancing slippers. “Nathan, do slow down. Where are we going?”
He moderated his pace only slightly. “Gilmore House. It’s eight blocks away.”
“Oughtn’t we take the coach?”
“No. My family will need it when Houghton ejects them.”
A huge lump crowded her throat. She had ruined the ball for everyone, Emily in particular. How disappointed the girl would be to miss her only chance to flirt with Lord Theo.
Clearly, Nathan believed no one in his family would want to ride in the same coach as her. How they must all resent her. She had lied to them. She had hidden her past and tricked them into taking her to the Duke of Houghton’s house.
They would all realize, too, that confronting the duke was the real reason she’d married Nathan.
Tears blurred her eyes, but Maddy blinked them back. She swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat as she strove to keep up with his long strides. “Nathan, I’m … I’m so very sorry. I should have asked to speak to the duke in private. That’s what I had intended to do. I never meant to make such a confession in front of everyone. It just … spilled out.”
“Spilled out,” he mocked, urging her past a row of tall, darkened town houses. They had left the square and now proceeded down a side street, their footsteps echoing in the quiet night air. “All this time, you’ve kept your past a secret from me. You should have allowed your connection to Houghton to spill out when I asked you to marry me.”
“I—I couldn’t. You would have withdrawn your proposal.”
He gave a harsh growl. “Precisely. You played me for a fool. You saw my offer as your big chance. You wanted to use me to enter society. All so that you could gain entry to Houghton’s house.”
Everything he said was true. But she was done apologizing. “You used me, too, Nathan.”
“And I paid you well for the privilege! Dammit, I knew there was something odd about your interest in Dunham. I knew it and I let you hoodwink me.” He ran his fingers through his hair, mussing the long black strands. In the gloom, his face looked taut with fury as he hauled her down the street. “Blast you, Madelyn. You lied to me. You led me to believe you were a commoner. But your blood is bluer than mine.”
It seemed an odd thing for him to say. “What do you mean? My father was an actor.”
“And mine was a damned footman.”
Startled, she stopped in the halo of light from a street lamp and spun to face him. “No. The Earl of Gilmore is your father.”
He glanced around as if to assure himself there was no one out on the street. “My mother had numerous affairs. She saw no need for fidelity in marriage. She was caught carrying on with a footman nine months before I was born.”
Disbelieving, Maddy slowly shook her head. “That can’t be true. Who told you that?”
“Gilmore himself,” Nathan snarled in a harsh undertone. “It was his gift to me on my twenty-first birthday. He was angry about having to pay off my gaming debts, and he attributed my depravity to my bad blood. Needless to say, we had the row of the century. The very next day, I left England, intending never to return.”
Shocked, Maddy leaned back against the hard post of the street lamp. It all made perfect, awful sense now. No wonder the earl had treated Nathan so coldly in his childhood. No wonder he had favored his elder son. No wonder Nathan had gone abroad and returned ten years later with vengeance on his mind.
And no wonder he had offered marriage to a disreputable actress. It was the perfect way to punish Gilmore.
“Who else knows this?” she asked faintly.
“Only the dowager. But I’m sure there were rumors, given my mother’s notoriety.”
Maddy felt sick at the realization that she’d proved to Nathan that she, too, was an untrustworthy wife. She had tricked him, concealed the fact that she had blue blood. But didn’t that make them equals?
“We’re alike then, you and I,” she asserted. “We’re both half noble. And if the earl resents you, it stands to reason he will continue to resent me, as well. Perhaps even more so since I caused such a great scandal tonight.”
“No. You’re wrong.” Nathan took hold of her arm again and pulled her along the foot pavement. He seemed too full of rage to stand still. “Consider it from his perspective. Gilmore was forced to accept the footman’s son as his heir. And when the footman’s son married a common actress, it was the worst possible circumstance, for it meant the Gilmore bloodline would be further diluted. But now, the actress reveals her connection to one of the most powerful peers in England. And that changes everything.” In the shadows, Nathan clenched his jaw. “Trust me, once he overcomes his shock, Gilmore will be very, very pleased by this new development.”
Maddy took a shaky breath. “But … the scandal…”
“Will die down eventually. In a matter of months, you’ll be cozy with the ton, especially if Houghton decides to accept you as a family member. So in Gilmore’s way of thinking, he’s won. Because if you were to bear me a son, the boy needn’t be hidden away. He would be eminently worthy of the title.”
“Surely the earl can’t be that petty.”
“Yes, he can be. Pedigree means everything to him.”
The deep bitterness in his tone distressed her. It reflected the estrangement he had suffered in his own family. The Earl of Gilmore had made Nathan believe he was unworthy and unloved.
They walked for a few minutes in silence, turning a corner and heading down another dark street. Her feet hurt from the new shoes, but the pain in her heart was far greater. Now she understood the full extent of Nathan’s fury. She had completely overturned his plans. He had craved retribution for the Earl of Gilmore’s cruel treatment of him. Nathan believed he’d finally achieved the perfect revenge in foisting a notorious bride on his family.
But she had ruined everything for him.
No longer could she blame Nathan for despising the earl. He had been justified in his resentment. The circumstances of his birth had not been his fault, yet he had suffered the consequences. In childhood, he had been denied the love of a father. All because of his mother’s folly …
Abruptly, he demanded, “When did you last have your courses? It must be nearly a month already, isn’t it?”
Startled, Maddy blushed, grateful for the cover of darkness. She turned her face downward, watching the kick of her slippers against the hem of her gown. “Um … yes, I believe so.”
“Then you must tell me when they start. I’ve no wish to give Gilmore a grandson—not anymore. Then he truly would win.”
His cold, cutting tone sliced into her. Any hope she’d had of reconciling their differences died with that harsh statement.
Because she had fudged the truth. It actually had been longer than that since last she’d bled. Her courses were a week late. And for the past few days, she’d been feeling weary and nauseous. With the confrontation with her grandfather looming, she hadn’t allowed herself to consider the possibility of pregnancy.
But now Maddy feared it might be true. And she couldn’t bring herself to tell Nathan, either. He would be all the more furious.
He didn’t want their child.