It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Katya had spent years debating whether it should happen at all. Natalia deserved more than to be branded a bastard and treated as an object of rage, which was exactly the look in Malcolm’s eyes now. That didn’t stop Katya’s stomach from twisting, or keep her from second-guessing the secret she’d held onto for sixteen years.

“My lady?” the palace footman prompted her, clearing his throat.

Cece and Bianca had already stepped down from the carriage, although they stood to the side, eyes wide. Natalia sat frozen in her seat, her face pale as she studied Malcolm with new understanding. Malcolm looked as though everything had vanished around him and that the two of them and betrayal were the only things left in the world.

It couldn’t go on like that.

Katya took a breath, forcing herself to appear calm and in control of the situation in spite of the tempest in her soul. “Now is not the time, Malcolm,” she said, moving to take the footman’s hand and alight from the carriage.

“When is the time, then?” He followed her, helping Natalia down as he did.

The fire in his eyes was enough to melt a lesser man, but Katya had withstood much worse. Though it was harder to keep a hold on the belief that right was on her side.

“Cecelia is about to be presented to the queen,” Katya snapped, rounding on him as he marched to within inches of her. “Kindly keep your fury in check.”

“Like you keep everything you feel in check?” he bit back at her. “How much have you hidden from me over the years? What other secrets are you keeping?”

“More than you want to know,” she hissed, darting a quick glance around.

Rupert had just dismounted and handed his horse over to one of the palace grooms. “What’s going on?” he asked the anxious group of girls, all of them glued to the confrontation as though it were a play.

“Mama just admitted that Lord Malcolm is Natalia’s father,” Bianca whispered.

“He’s what?” Rupert bellowed.

Several people waiting in line to enter the palace turned toward them. So much for discretion. Every tenant that Katya had built her life upon was shaking at its foundation, but she would not let the whole thing collapse.

“Lips shut, tongues bit,” she told her daughters and Cece. “That’s the first lesson all of you need to learn if you want to call yourselves grown women.”

“Yes,” Malcolm seconded with venom in his voice. “Bottle it all up. Keep those secrets locked away. Never give a man any reason to trust you.”

“Malcolm,” Katya snapped, glaring at him. His bitterness banished any guilt that lingered in her. His reaction was exactly why she’d kept the truth to herself. “Remember where you are.”

He surprised her by clamping a hand on her arm and marching her to the side of the slow-moving line of debutantes and their sponsors entering the palace. “I had a right to know,” he hissed once they were hidden from view by a parked carriage.

“You did not,” Katya said through clenched teeth. “Natalia is my daughter. I brought her into this world, alone and in pain.”

“You should have told me.”

“You abandoned me to a life of isolation with a man I didn’t love,” she said with a startling burst of emotion, as if those agonizing days were yesterday instead of nearly two decades ago.

“Robert was your husband,” Malcolm said, glancing away, guilt of his own pinching his features.

“And did your attack of conscience help either of us?” Katya asked. She shook her head. “Robert knew Natalia wasn’t his, but he was willing to accept her as his own.”

“And then he died.” Malcolm turned his glare on her again. “You should have told me then.”

“When I was newly widowed with three children under the age of five? I was nearly a child myself, not even twenty-three, and suddenly the duties of an earldom were on my shoulders.”

“I would have been there for you,” he insisted, his anger now mingled with regret. “I would have married you in an instant.”

“And taken everything away from me all over again.” She shook her head. “I’d already had my life wrenched away from me once. I’d had enough of being put in my place, relegated to an ornament in a man’s household. I wasn’t about to give up the power that had been handed to me just so you could soothe your guilty conscience.”

“I loved you,” he argued, passion of all sorts in his voice.

“You loved Tessa. I was merely a distraction from your grief. I always have been.”

The truth Katya hadn’t dared to admit to herself felt like a knife in her gut. Tears stung at her eyes, but she wasn’t about to give in to them. She sucked in a breath and stood straight, marching past Malcolm with her head held high.

“Where are you going?” Malcolm demanded, striding after her.

“Your daughter—Tessa’s daughter—is being presented at court, and it’s my duty to accompany her,” Katya answered without looking at him.

The girls and Rupert were waiting by the palace’s grand entrance, looks of shock and worry in their eyes.

“Is everything all right, Mother?” Rupert asked, his formality clearly meant to intimidate Malcolm.

Katya laughed, half at her son’s efforts to protect her from a man infinitely more powerful than him and half over the hopelessness of the situation. “Everything is fine, dear. Cecelia, are you ready?” She marched past the startled group into the doorway, turning back to beckon to Cece.

“I…uh…I’m ready.” Cece sent a worried look to her father, started after Katya, second-guessed herself, then scurried back to a glowering Malcolm to kiss his cheek. “We’ll work this out after the presentation, Papa,” she said before hurrying after Katya.

The kiss didn’t appear to do anything to soothe Malcolm’s boiling temper. He glared at Katya with the look of anger that could only come from being betrayed by someone you loved with your whole heart. Katya wasn’t foolish enough to think it was solely because of the revelation about Natalia. She met his eyes with implacable strength, knowing the entire history of their relationship had just boiled over. And there was nothing she could do about it.

“Watch after your sisters,” she said, sending a look to Rupert.

Rupert nodded without a word, turning toward Malcolm as though he were a threat.

“My lady, you’re needed,” another of the palace staff said from inside the door.

“Yes, yes.” Katya sighed and walked away from the debris of her life exploding to escort Cecelia into the palace.

“I’m sure Papa will calm down and view the situation rationally in time,” Cece said as they joined the line of other debutantes being directed through the cavernous halls of Buckingham Palace. “He really is quite sensible. Except when he’s upset.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Katya said, though she was anything but. She was willing to wager that she knew Malcolm better than his daughter did.

The two of them remained silent as they were ushered up a flight of stairs and into the anteroom where final preparations were being made for presentations. The mood of the room was excitement and joy, which formed a stark contrast with Katya’s growing feeling of loss and grief.

“I have a sister,” Cece said, her smile brightening as they stood waiting.

Katya blinked out of her anxious thoughts and managed a smile for her. “You do, in a way.”

“I’ve always felt as though Bianca and Natalia were sisters of sorts,” Cece went on. “I think I could get used to the idea of Natalia being a real sister.”

“And Rupert being a sort of brother?” Katya asked, one brow raised.

Cece’s smile dropped. “Oh, dear.”

Instantly, Katya regretted the barbed comment. She regretted a lot more than that. “I’m so sorry to eclipse your special day, my dear,” she sighed. “Today should be all about you.”

“I don’t hold any ill will toward you, Lady Stanhope,” Cece assured her, resting a hand on Katya’s arm. “Yes, it’s exciting to meet the queen, but everyone knows that the purpose of coming out is to announce your availability on the marriage market. I have no need to do that.” She blushed, glancing down modestly.

A whole new kind of fear rose up in Katya’s chest. She placed a heavy hand on Cece’s shoulder. “Please don’t tell me you already have an understanding with my son.”

Cece’s blush deepened and she peeked up at Katya. “It isn’t a formal understanding,” she admitted. “He hasn’t proposed or anything like that. But I believe we both know what we want.”

“My darling, no.” Katya gripped both of Cece’s shoulders and faced her squarely. “You’re only eighteen. Don’t do that to yourself.”

Cece blinked at her in surprise. “I would have thought….”

Katya shook her head. “I was given away in marriage within weeks of my eighteenth birthday, and I gave birth to Rupert before I was nineteen. I wouldn’t wish that life on you for all the world.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Cece said, her expression flashing between sheepish and determined. “But Rupert and I are in love.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Katya said. “Listen to me.” Cece met her eyes. “There is so much more to life than being someone’s wife. That’s what your father doesn’t understand. You have a life of your own, and you deserve to live it. You have mountains to climb, oceans to sail, fields to plant and sew. You have a whole world to conquer.”

“But there are so few things that a single woman can accomplish,” Cece argued, so like her father. “The law prohibits us from doing just about anything.”

“Those laws can be changed,” Katya insisted. “The more women stand up to defy them, the more we cherish our own lives and independence instead of depending on a man for our identity, the more we’ll be able to change the world. I’m not saying you shouldn’t marry Rupert,” she rushed on. “I will rejoice when the day comes that I can call you my daughter in earnest, as confusing and muddled as that will be for all of us, what with your father and I. But don’t be so quick to give up your youth and your power for the title of ‘Mrs.’ Once the babies start coming, and they will, sooner than you can imagine, your whole life will change. Live that life first. There will be time for the rest later.”

Cece opened her mouth, but before she could reply, a steward near the front of the hall declared, “Ladies, the time has come.”

He launched into an explanation of what the girls could expect as the procession line tightened and began to move forward. Katya and Cece moved with it.

“He will forgive you,” Cece whispered as they drew near to the doorway of the throne room. “Papa will forgive you. As long as you forgive him.”

Malcolm watched Katya and Cece retreat into the palace, at war with himself over whether to charge after them and demand more answers or to charge off in the opposite direction, washing his hands of the whole thing once and for all. He didn’t know what more Katya could say to him, or rather, he dreaded what other secrets she was keeping. Did she have more children hidden around the countryside? Ones that weren’t his? Had she secretly married one of her numerous suitors behind his back? Or was he a damned fool for making her into more than a woman fighting to protect her children in his mind?

“Sir, if you could please step aside,” the palace footman said, gesturing for Malcolm to move.

He did more than that, he swayed into motion, marching away from the palace entrance, through the line of carriages waiting to disgorge more debutantes or to travel on to the mews where they would wait, and headed for the gate.

“Where are you going?” Natalia shouted after him.

Malcolm winced, stopping a few yards into the courtyard, his boots crunching on the gravel. He wouldn’t have stopped for anyone else, but Natalia was a whole new complication in his life.

Natalia followed his path, picking up her skirts and dodging between carriages to reach him. Bianca and Rupert followed closely behind. “You’re my father,” she said when she reached him.

“Apparently so.” Malcolm didn’t expect the awkwardness that crept up his spine, making him restless. “Sorry.”

Natalia blinked. “What do you have to be sorry about? You didn’t do anything.” She blinked again, her shoulders dropping and her brow knitting into a frown. “Well, I suppose you did do something.”

Malcolm writhed with discomfort. Most girls Natalia’s age wouldn’t have a clue about what he’d done to contribute to her birth, but Natalia was Katya’s daughter, and Katya was far too free with knowledge.

He cleared his throat. “It was a long time ago.”

“Sixteen years, I suppose,” she said. “Or thereabouts.”

“Quite,” he said with a sharp nod, then glanced around for a way to escape. Nothing about the day, or about his life, had turned out the way he’d expected it to. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to happen next, but standing around Buckingham Palace waiting for a deceptive lover who didn’t trust him with his own business was not it.

“You could be a little bit happy,” Natalia said, a distinct note of disappointment in her voice.

Malcolm flinched. “I’m sure I will be, once I get over the shock,” he admitted. If Katya was brutally honest with her girls, he could be too.

“I wonder why Mama kept me a secret from you for so long,” Natalia went on, glancing to her brother and sister as they joined them. Their small group was drawing a great deal of attention from the stream of people attending the presentation.

“Probably because she knew he’d be an ass about it,” Rupert grumbled.

Malcolm’s eyes shot wide. “I beg your pardon?”

Rupert held himself with all the arrogance of a young man who had just come into his inheritance without a lick of experience to back up his attitude. “Mama tells you something wonderful and you fly into a temper. Of course she hesitated to tell you sooner.”

“Is that what you think?” Malcolm asked with a humorless laugh.

“Mama wouldn’t have stayed silent for so long without a very good reason,” Rupert went on, holding his own.

Underneath his anger, Malcolm knew the boy was right. Katya never did anything without a reason. The bigger the secret, the stronger her reason. That didn’t stop the fury from rising in him.

“You have a lot to learn about your mother, boy,” he growled. “I’d wager there’s a whole side to her that would turn your hair white if you knew.”

“I am aware of the rumors,” Rupert said through clenched teeth. “And I may know more than you suspect about whether or not they’re true.”

Malcolm wanted to challenge the whelp, but Bianca cleared her throat, looking decidedly worried.

“People are watching us, you know,” she said. “Mama is always going on about discretion, and I don’t think we’re being discreet at the moment.”

“No, we aren’t,” Malcolm admitted with a nod. “Which is why I’m leaving.” He turned to go.

“You aren’t going to just leave me like this, are you?” Natalia called after him.

A chill shot through Malcolm’s blood. Her words echoed those of her mother nearly sixteen years before. He had walked out on her—walked out after Peter had informed him a nasty rumor was making the rounds that he was carrying on with a married woman mere months after Tessa’s death. A rumor started by Shayles, who had been convinced Malcolm would return to his old ways. Once a bounder, always a bounder, Shayles had teased him. Hatred for the man had pushed him to try his hand at leading an upright life, but now Malcolm knew the greater price he’d paid for letting a rumor get under his skin.

“I have to go,” he told Natalia, his words eerily similar to his excuse all those years ago. “You don’t want me to stay right now.” He started walking again.

“But—”

“Let him go, Nat,” Rupert told his sister. “It really is for the best.”

A bitter smirk twisted Malcolm’s lips. That’s what the boy thought, did he? Perhaps he was right. He’d only have mucked things up if he had stayed.