D o you truly plan to go to bed?” Algie inquired, when the party had finally moved to a drawing room. “I know that you haven’t been out much, but it’s outrageously early.”
Not been out much was a nice way of summing up Kate’s life in Mariana’s house. “You stay here,” she told him. “The less I’m in company, the better. Apparently Mr. Toloose met Victoria last spring. We were lucky that he wasn’t offended when I accidentally snubbed him a minute ago.”
Algie shrugged. “You should smile at everyone, just to be sure. The important thing is that the prince seems reasonably pleased with you. Who would have thought that so many people would be here? Lord Hinkle just told me that the ton is dying of curiosity about my uncle.”
The way he said my uncle was entirely different now that he’d met the man in question. Kate had the definite impression that Algie would be dining out for years to come on his relationship to royalty.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she told him, turning toward the door of the drawing room. The room was thronged now, and the air filled with the clamor of fifteen simultaneous conversations. Kate was almost at the door when an extraordinary woman blocked her path.
She was probably forty years old, and stunning in an opulent, deluxe sort of way. Unlike most of the women in the room, she hadn’t shorn her hair; instead, she’d piled it on top of her head and then powdered it strawberry color. It clashed madly with her dark blue eyes, but, somehow, the effect was marvelous.
“You!” she said.
Kate was trying to slide sideways, but at this command she stopped.
“I know you.”
She could hardly say, “You must know my sister,” so she plastered on a rather mad smile and said, “Oh! Of course, how are you?”
“Not know you that way,” the woman said impatiently, waving a jeweled fan in the air. “Now who are you? Who are you?”
Kate curtsied. “I’m Miss—”
“Of course! You’re the spitting image of Victor. Devil’s spawn that he was.” But she said it affectionately. “You’ve his nose and his eyes.”
“You knew my father,” Kate said, stammering a bit.
“ Quite well,” the woman said, grinning. It was the sort of grin one didn’t expect from a lady so obviously well-born. “And your name is Katherine. How do I know that, you might ask?”
Kate suddenly realized with a pulse of alarm that anyone might overhear the conversation. “Actually—” she began, but was interrupted.
“Because I’m your godmother, that’s why! My goodness, it’s been forever. Appalling how the years go by. You were just a wee thing last I saw you, all plump cheeks and big ears.” She peered closer. “Look at you now. Just like your father, though that wig does nothing for you, darling, if you don’t mind my saying so. You’re lucky enough to have his eyes; for God’s sake don’t pair them with a purple wig.”
Kate felt a little flush rising up her neck, but her godmother— her godmother?— wasn’t done surveying her. “And that padding in front isn’t doing you any favors either. There’s too much of it. It looks like you’ve got two pudding bags suspended from your neck.”
The flush was up to her ears. “I’m just retiring for the night,” Kate said, dropping another curtsy. “If you’ll forgive me.”
“Offended you, have I? You’re looking a bit feverish. Now that was one thing that Victor had control of: his temper. Didn’t control anything else, but I never saw him blow his dickey, even when he was three sheets to the wind.”
Kate blinked. Blow his —
“Offended you again,” her godmother said with satisfaction. “Come along, then. We’ll go to my chambers. The butler put me in one of the towers, and it’s utterly heavenly, like being stuck in the clouds except for the pigeons crapping on the windows.”
“But—I don’t—what is your name?” Kate finally asked.
She raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Didn’t your father ever tell you about me?”
“I’m afraid that he died before he had a chance.”
“The old sod,” she said. “He swore that he’d tell you all about me. I’ll give you the story, but not here. This castle is crammed with people longing for gossip and making it up as fast as they can. No need to feed the blaze.”
Kate held her ground. “And you are?”
“Lady Wrothe, though you might as well call me Henry, which is short for Henrietta. Leominster, my husband, is over there getting drunk with the Prince of Württemberg. Poor Leo simply can’t bear to let a glass of brandy pass him by.” She reached out and took hold of Kate’s wrist. “That’s enough of an introduction; let’s go.”
She towed Kate up stairs, through corridors, up more stairs, and finally into her chamber, pushed her onto the bed, and plucked off her wig. “You’ve got Victor’s hair. You’re a beauty, then, aren’t you?”
Kate felt as if a whirlwind had come out of nowhere, picked her up, and deposited her in the tower room. “Did you know my father well?”
“I almost married him,” Lady Wrothe said promptly. “Except that he never asked me. I still remember meeting your father for the first time. It was at the Fortune Theater, during an interval of Othello . I knew instantly that I’d love to play Desdemona to his Moor.”
“Was my mother there?” Kate asked, feeling a surge of loyalty for her poor mother, who appeared to have been overlooked not only by Mariana, but by Lady Wrothe as well.
“No, no, he hadn’t met her yet.”
“Oh,” Kate said, feeling better.
“We had the most delicious flirtation,” Lady Wrothe said, looking a bit dreamy. “But your mother already had her eye on him, and within a few months her father—your grandfather—had reeled Victor in like a half-dead trout. Victor was fantastically poor,” she explained.
“Oh,” Kate said again.
“Luckily for him, he was a handsome beast of a man, all that dark buttery hair and your eyes, and then the cheekbones . . . if things had been different, I would have married him in a moment.”
Kate nodded.
“Of course, he would have been unfaithful to me and then I’d have shot him in a private area,” Lady Wrothe said thoughtfully, “so it’s just as well.”
A giggle escaped Kate’s mouth. It was wrong to laugh, just wrong, when she was listening to tales of her father’s rampant infidelity.
“He just couldn’t help it. Some men are like that. I suppose you’ve met the prince? He’s one of them. No woman will be able to keep that man at home, and though they’re delightful to play with, it’s best to avoid them. I’ve been married three times, darling, so I know.”
“So my godfather must be dead,” Kate said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“It was a long time ago,” Lady Wrothe said. Then she gave Kate a lopsided, secret smile. “Your father and I—he—”
“You had an affaire ,” Kate said, resigned.
“Oh no. Perhaps it would have been better for both of us if we had. We were young and foolish when we met, which meant that it was all talk of love and roses, rather than beds. And Victor couldn’t marry me because my dowry wasn’t large enough.”
The more she learned of her father, the less she liked what she heard.
“Classic Romeo and Juliet,” Lady Wrothe said, “but without all the stabbing and poison, thank you very much. Instead your father simply married your mother, and that was the end of it.”
“Did you know her as well?”
Lady Wrothe sat down at the stool before her dressing table, so Kate couldn’t see her eyes. “Your mother hadn’t been strong enough to have a proper season, so I didn’t meet her until your baptism.”
“I have wondered how my mother and father managed to meet, since my mother was so frequently abed,” Kate admitted.
“Oh, they didn’t. She saw him passing in Hyde Park, and inquired about his name. From there, her father took over.”
Kate felt even more depressed at that revelation.
“And of course I married as well,” Lady Wrothe said, swinging around to face Kate again. “You mustn’t think it was all sackcloth and ashes. I fell in love with my husband and I daresay Victor did the same with your mother. Over the years we saw each other occasionally. Not , I hasten to add, in any sort of clandestine fashion.”
Kate nodded.
“A few years later, I found myself dancing with him at Vauxhall. I had just lost another child; I was never able to carry a babe. I wept all over his shoulder.”
Kate would have patted her hand, but somehow Lady Wrothe was not the sort of woman one consoled in that fashion.
“Next thing I knew, Victor had wrangled it so that I and my first husband were your godparents.”
Kate smiled weakly.
“I wanted to kill him. Oh, we did the ceremony, of course. How could we not? But I was so angry at his blindness, thinking that godmothering his child with your mother would somehow make up for my own lost children. His child of all people!”
“My father was not very perceptive,” Kate said, remembering how cheerfully he had told her that he was bringing home a stepmother, at a time when she was still grieving her mother’s death. “But surely he was well-meaning?”
“Of course . . . but at the time I was so heartsick about losing another babe that I couldn’t see it. I’m afraid that I put you out of my mind after the ceremony. In fact, in a fit of pure spleen, I pretended you didn’t exist. But here you are!”
Which reminded Kate. “I’m not actually here as myself,” she confessed.
“Really?” Lady Wrothe glanced at her reflection and then powdered her nose reflectively. “I wish I weren’t, too. Sometimes I get so tired of Leo. I’d love to be someone else, although if it meant I had to wear a purple wig, I might rethink it.”
“The purple wig is part of it,” Kate said. “I’m here as my half sister, Victoria, who . . .” and she blurted out the whole story, largely because Lady Wrothe didn’t look in the least sympathetic, but just kept nodding and saying things like “Victor, what a loose fish,” in a tone that didn’t seem judgmental, just definitive.
She neatly summed up the situation. “So at the moment you’re playing Victoria, who’s betrothed to a fatheaded man named Algernon, who’s dragged you here because he needs the prince’s blessing for the wedding that has to happen because Victoria is as much of a light frigate as her mother.”
“That makes her sound like a trollop,” Kate protested. “She’s not, she’s just in love.”
“In love,” Lady Wrothe said moodily. “For God’s sake, don’t ever fall in love before you get married. It’s just too messy and leads to appalling consequences. The only time I ever fell in love out of wedlock was with your papa, and that’s because I couldn’t stop myself, though I fought it tooth and nail.”
Kate smiled. “I’m not planning to fall in love, Lady Wrothe.”
“Henry.”
“I can’t call you Henry,” Kate protested.
“Why not? Because I’m too old?”
“No—well—”
“I’m old enough to demand a name I prefer,” she said, waving a diamond-encrusted hand in the air. “Forget this talk of love; it’s all a pile of nonsense. I wish Leo and I had been in London for the season, rather than on the Continent. I would have met your trollopy relatives and demanded to know where my goddaughter was. At any rate, the real question is whom you should marry. After you finish this little charade, of course.”
Kate felt a great easing in the area of her chest. There was something about Henry: She was all luxurious curves with a great expanse of white bosom, but her big blue eyes were steady. You could trust her.
“You aren’t going to cry, are you?” Henry demanded, looking suspicious. “I can’t abide tears.”
“No,” Kate said.
“So whom do you want to marry, then? I trust you’re not planning to steal away your sister’s Algernon. He doesn’t sound like much of a bargain.”
“I know just whom I’d like to marry,” Kate said promptly. “That is, I don’t know precisely who, but I know the sort of man. Someone like my father, but not, if you see what I mean. He wasn’t home much, and I’d prefer someone who likes the country. I loved our house in the country. It’s beautiful, and just the right size, big enough for lots of children.”
“You want your father but without the wandering eye,” Henry said, going straight to the heart of it. “Victor had a snug estate, thanks to your mother’s dowry, but nothing—”
“It’s just the right size for me,” Kate interrupted. “I don’t want to marry an earl or anyone like that. Just a squire would be lovely. Or even a merchant who’d moved to the country.”
“No goddaughter of mine is marrying a merchant,” Henry stated. “For goodness’ sake, girl, you’re the granddaughter of an earl. And your mother was no country bumpkin, for all that she couldn’t get out of bed. She was a lady and so are you.”
Kate hadn’t been a lady for years, not since her father died and Mariana moved her into the attic. She felt her throat tighten. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I am going to cry.”
“Ah well, happens to the best of us,” Henry said philosophically. She got up and went over to a little silver tray and poured out glasses of pale liqueur. “I cried buckets after your baptism. I was so convinced that you should have been my child, you see.”
“You did?” Kate mopped up her tears and tried to concentrate.
“After that I turned my back on Victor and never spoke to him again.” She added, a little gruffly, “I didn’t stop thinking of him, though. Devil that he was.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “He really didn’t have a very good moral character, as it turns out. I’d rather my husband was quite different in that respect.”
“Here, drink your liqueur,” Henry said, tossing back her drink. “I carry it with me everywhere because it’s the only kind of drink that Leo doesn’t like, so there’s a chance I’ll still have some tomorrow.”
Kate sipped hers. It tasted like lemons, fierce and cruel to the nose.
“Limoncello,” Henry said with satisfaction. “Isn’t it brilliant? I learned of it from a man I knew in Sorrento once, Lord Manin. I left him behind, but I’ve brought limoncello with me ever since.
“So you want a gentleman with a snug estate and a righteous nature. It shouldn’t be much of a problem. I’ve tended that way myself, though I must admit that I choose men with rather more than a snug estate. Still, if there’s any wandering to be done, I always do it myself. That way I know no one will get hurt.”
Kate sipped her limoncello again, and found herself smiling at her godmother. She was so funny and frank. “I don’t have a dowry,” she said. “That is, I have a small nest egg left to me by my mother, but it’s nothing much.”
Henry put her empty glass down. “That doesn’t sound right, Katherine. Are you a Katherine? Somehow it doesn’t quite suit you, any more than Victoria did.”
“My father called me Kate.”
“Brilliant. Of course. So what’s this nonsense about your dowry, and while we’re at it, what’s happened to you? I’ve just worked out that you must be at least twenty-three, so why aren’t you already settled with two or three squalling brats on your knee? Your wishes are modest enough, and you’re beautiful.”
Kate finished her glass. “As I told you, my father married again, but he died shortly thereafter. And he left all his money to his new wife.”
“That’s just the kind of stupid thing that Victor would have done. Probably neglected to make a will. But his estate was beans . . . nothing compared to your mother’s.”
Kate’s mouth fell open. “What?”
Henry had a sleepy kind of smile, but her eyes shone. “He never told you?”
“Told me what?”
“Your mother was an heiress. Your grandfather wanted her married, so he bought your father, and he . . . well, I’m afraid that Victor wanted her guineas.”
“He must have spent it,” Kate said, deflating. “Because I have only a very small income from my mother. If he didn’t spend it, my stepmother would have.”
“I don’t know,” Henry said dubiously. “How would she get her hands on that money? I vaguely remember Victor complaining that he couldn’t touch it. I’ll have Leo look into it.”
“Even if Mariana took it illicitly,” Kate said, “I couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t like her, but—”
“Well,” Henry said, interrupting, “It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Your father gave you to me, Kate. And though I was ungrateful for the present at the time, I feel differently now.” Henry reached forward and put a hand on Kate’s cheek, for just a second. “I’d like to try being a proper godmother to you, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Kate’s vision blurred again. “I would be most honored.”
“Good!” she said, standing up. “Now you must run off because I’ve learned that if I don’t have my beauty sleep I’m a total beast in the morning. There’s nothing wrong with that, but since Leo is downstairs drinking brandy, it would make two of us. And that’s two more than this castle can bear.”
Kate stood up too and then hesitated for a second.
“Come here,” Henry said gruffly, and held out her arms.
Kate’s mother had been rail-thin and smelled like lemons; Henry was curvy and smelled like French perfume.
But for the first time since her mother died, Kate felt safe.