Page 29 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)

Magdelene drew herself up with injured dignity.

“There were far worse things than that, things we never told you. Did you ever go into the attics at Raleigh Grange? No?” she added when Kay shook her head.

“Shall I tell you what they contained? Bowls, pots, and buckets everywhere to catch the rain from the roof, a roof that leaked like a sieve and could not be repaired because there was no money to do so. Cracks in the very foundations of the house that we had no money to fix. We mortgaged everything we could, but it still wasn’t enough. ”

She sniffed and lifted a corner of the counterpane to dab at her eyes.

“The tenant cottages were in need of repairs, too, but we couldn’t afford any, so we had to lower the rents.

That, of course, meant even less money coming in.

” Her mother’s voice was shaking, and Kay braced herself for the inevitable bout of weeping that was about to commence.

“There were times when Mrs. Jones was at her wits’ end to make a decent meal on the food budget we had to give her.

We were teetering on the brink of destitution long before your father died, Kay.

We hid it from you, of course, but now, after a year of living with what I had endured for two decades, surely you have come to understand the hard reality of our situation? ”

“Given that I am now marrying a man I do not love to save us from poverty, I can assure you that I understand the situation quite well, Mother.”

“Love,” her mother said with a sniff as she tucked her handkerchief back in her pocket. “You keep throwing that word around as if it is the only thing that matters. Going without food and a roof over your head would be worse, young lady.”

Kay didn’t know if her mother was exaggerating what she’d put up with during her years at Raleigh Grange.

With Magdelene, one could never tell where truth ended and fiction began.

But she did know that her childhood had not been one of money being extravagantly flung about.

Even when she was a little girl, there had been economies.

She also knew that her mother was right.

Love was all very well, but it didn’t pay the bills.

Despite that, however, she could not forgive her parents’ deceit so easily. “You lied to me. You and Papa lied, and you schemed, and used me. You put the burden of saving us on me.”

“Who would you suggest carry that burden, if not you? Would you prefer to lay the responsibility on Josephine?”

Kay sucked in a deep breath, that question like a punch in the stomach. “Giles,” she said after a moment, “would have saved the estates with his money when he became the earl, with or without marrying me. I don’t see why you needed me.”

“We were still hoping for a son. And our hopes were justified when I became pregnant again.”

“What?” Kay stared at her parent, aghast. “When was this?”

“Right after you eloped. Why do you think your father and I did what we did? Why we were so desperate for you to marry someone suitable? Were we to leave our son with a bankrupt, decrepit estate?”

“And I,” Kay murmured bitterly, “was to be the sacrificial lamb for this potential son and heir.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t understand how families like ours work!

Daughters must take second place. But then, I lost the baby, and we knew all was probably lost for us as well.

But we still hoped to secure your future and your sister’s.

That was why your father was pushing you so hard to marry Giles, and why we had to keep you away from That Horrible Man.

With Giles, your future would have been secure, and Josephine’s, too.

And you already knew him, you were fond of him, and you had so much in common.

We felt he was the perfect person for you, a far better choice for you than the penniless fifth son of a baron who would have hauled you off to the savage wilds of Africa. ”

For the first time since beginning this conversation, Kay felt her anger faltering. Whoever said there were two sides to every story had known what he was talking about. Her family story, she appreciated, had at least three. Perhaps more.

“What a shock it must have been,” she murmured, “when my elopement became public knowledge and Giles threw me over.”

“It was the most devastating blow of our lives,” Magdelene said simply. “Your father was never the same man after that. He died heartsick, blaming himself, knowing you and Josephine would now be left with nothing.”

Kay tried to shore her anger back up, but she couldn’t do it.

She wanted to hang on to resentment and blame, but what good would it do?

Her duty remained the same, for Josephine’s sake.

Still, there was one thing she had to say, one thing she needed her mother to understand before this matter could be put behind them.

“I fully understand my responsibility, Mama, and I have no intention of shirking it. But I’m glad you mention Josephine, because in light of what you did, of how you and Papa deceived me, I intend to be sure you have no chance at all to use Josephine in the same way.

I intend to advise her to always post her letters herself, so that I may ensure she is never the subject of your machinations the way I was. ”

“Machinations?” Magdelene sat upright, looking affronted. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Kay?”

“I heard every word, and I accept your explanations. I even forgive you for them. But I will not forget them.”

“And will you tell Josephine about any of this?”

“No. And,” she added as her parent sagged with relief, “we will not speak of it again. We will put it behind us. But I do that for Josephine’s sake, Mama, not for yours. As for myself, I doubt I will ever be able to trust you again.”

With that, she turned and walked out, and as she closed the door behind her, she tried not to care that her mother had just burst into tears.

Devlin stared down at the offer to purchase that his solicitors had forwarded to him from Lord Shrewsbury, but despite reading the typewritten lines for the third time, he could still not seem to comprehend their meaning.

His mind, sadly, was not thinking of a house in Eaton Square, but of a suite on the other side of the Savoy Hotel, and a pair of sage-green eyes filled with pride and defensiveness and tinged with desperation.

A week had passed since the Mayfair soiree, and yet he could not stop thinking about that night, about the facts he and Kay had both uncovered regarding their elopement so long ago, about the perfidy of her parents, and the misunderstandings, chaos, and pain that had resulted.

He’d lost his heart to her the moment he’d taken her into his arms that night at Lady Rowland’s ball, and her parents’ disapproval of him had only fueled his determination to have her. He’d been young and randy and wild, but he had loved her, body and soul.

He stared down at the papers on his desk with unseeing eyes, remembering it all, from the night he’d first seen her at the ball to the secret assignations, the whispered conversations, and the hot, stolen kisses of those three months in London.

He thought of their desperate, clandestine meetings where they’d plotted running away together.

And that fateful night in Birmingham when she’d refused to go on with it.

These memories swam through his mind with vivid clarity—the gardenia scent of her hair, the velvety softness of her lips, the blazing lust she could ignite just by flashing him a look with those strange, wonderful eyes.

His frantic desperation to have her, the triumph when at last they were on their way to a life together.

He thought of that night in Birmingham, of her in front of him nearly naked, and lust raging in him like a hurricane.

But he’d actually done the honorable thing. He’d kissed her within an inch of her life, and then he’d torn himself away and slept on the floor. It had been agony. It had also been the happiest night of his life.

And then, it had all gone wrong.

The duke’s sisters had burst in, and like a bucket of cold water had been hurled over her, Kay had come to her senses. She’d looked at him, those eyes heartsick, and he knew deep down inside that he’d lost her.

He refused to admit that to himself at the time, of course.

He’d gone to Wales, to Yorkshire, and then halfway around the world, and through it all—on the boat to Cape Town, during his trek from South Africa to Egypt—he’d propped up his hopes with each letter he’d written, determined to believe that somehow, some day, they’d be together.

He’d consoled himself with memories of her for months on end, but looking back now, he recognized the strange unreality of it all, as if he’d been living in a dream.

Her engagement to Giles had woken him up.

Then those memories of her had become not a solace to sustain him but a torment to torture him.

His illusions irrevocably shattered, his love transmuting into resentment and hate, and then, slowly, all of it easing into some half-forgotten corner of his mind.

He’d met Pam, and that had rather put the lid on things.

At last, life had seemed worth living again, and he’d finally thought he was over the past, and that he could actually make a life with a woman who was not Kay.

He closed his eyes and tried to hang on to that—to the life he was building now, to the woman he would be marrying in a month, and to the future he would have with her, working to once again relegate Kay to that vague, hazy corner of his consciousness where she’d been before that fateful moment in the florist shop.

Pam, he reminded himself over and over, was his responsibility now. Kay was not. Kay had a fiancé of her own to take care of her, and though Rycroft might very well be a tyrant, marrying him was her decision and not his problem.