Page 34 of Fortune Favors the Frivolous (Matchmaking Mischief Makers #2)

V enetia’s first instinct upon reaching her room, following the worst ball of her life, was to throw herself onto her bed and sob. She felt utterly powerless.

Indeed, she was powerless. Her twenty-first birthday was only three weeks away—in fact, a couple of days after her wedding—but her majority would change nothing. How she wished for the safety of marriage to Henry, even though she did not love him. He was kind and would protect her.

But what of Windermere’s threats? No, she could not take them at face value and simply accede to marriage with him.

Which meant she had to find proof. Proof of what Windermere had said. Proof of what her aunt claimed.

Which meant she had to do what she had declared impossible: make a secret investigation of her aunt’s locked room. This was a room at the rear of their London townhouse to which Venetia and all staff were denied access, save for weekly cleaning. The door was always locked.

Perhaps this was where Aunt Pike kept her valuables. And her secrets.

This might be where Venetia would most likely find the letters that would bear up her aunt’s claims, though her aunt’s bedchamber was another option. Of course, if Venetia found nothing, she’d be no closer to verifying if Aunt Pike’s terrible revelations were true.

Lord, she certainly hoped she would not find the letters her aunt claimed proved a secret love affair between herself and Venetia’s father. Even the thought made her feel ill.

But she had to look.

After succumbing to those tears, Venetia sat up on the bed, rubbing her swollen eyes, and tried to grasp the courage that had once been in far greater abundance before her aunt had sapped her of seemingly all spirit.

With a great sigh, she contemplated the worst that could happen. As a child, it had been a night locked in a dark, musty cupboard for a rude or sullen response.

Now it was marriage to Windermere.

There was only one way to find out what he and her aunt knew.

Venetia rose slowly, forcing courage into her veins. Her aunt was sleeping, having gone straight to bed after the ball. It was perhaps the best time to begin her search.

Caroline had risked her life to prevent Venetia from the very fate which Venetia was now sleepwalking towards… unless Venetia forced steel into her backbone.

Picking up the candlestick from the dresser, she did not even stop to change her clothes. For that might give her time to change her mind.

If she could not do this to save herself, then she needed to do it to prove her gratitude to Caroline for all her dear friend had done.

The corridor outside her bedchamber was silent and dark.

Venetia held her breath as she eased her door closed, wincing at the slight creak of the hinges.

Her candle cast eerie shadows on the wall as she made her way towards her aunt’s study—hopefully the more likely place to begin her search than her aunt’s bedchamber.

Her slippers made no sound on the carpet as she approached the study door.

It was locked, of course, but Venetia had been prepared for this.

From her pocket, she withdrew a hairpin bent into the crude shape of a lock pick, a skill learned long ago from an unlikely quarter: one of her school friends from the Ladies Seminary.

Those had been among the happiest years of her life, she reflected, thinking back to her first season when she and the Misses P had attended the London round of balls and recitals in search of a husband.

After her parents’ early deaths, she’d experienced only a few months of her aunt’s coldness before being sent off to school.

What a fool she’d been to imagine her aunt would be any kinder when she was an adult.

After several tense minutes, during which Venetia was certain the thundering of her heart would wake the entire household, the lock finally yielded with a soft click. She slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind her.

The study was illuminated only by faint moonlight filtering through the curtains and the weak glow of her candle. Aunt Pike’s massive mahogany desk dominated the room, its polished surface gleaming in the dim light. Venetia approached it with trepidation, setting her candle down carefully.

The drawers were locked as well, but Venetia was determined now. One by one, she worked through them with her improvised lock pick until she reached the bottom right drawer—the only one that resisted her efforts. This had to be where the most sensitive documents were kept.

It took longer than the others, but finally, the lock surrendered. Inside was a small wooden box, ornately carved with a pattern of intertwined roses. Venetia’s hands trembled as she lifted it out and placed it on the desk.

The box itself was locked with a tiny brass padlock and she worked at it feverishly. Her aunt was asleep, but with Aunt Pike, one could never be too careful.

At last, the padlock sprang open, and Venetia raised the lid with bated breath.

Letters.

Well, at least she’d found correspondence. It was a start, but it did not mean she’d find what her aunt had taunted her with: letters from her father.

Carefully, she withdrew a stack of letters and began to rifle through them. Correspondence with female friends, accounts of visits to the country. The dates began more than thirty years previously when her aunt had been a young woman. Nothing mentioned a man. Nothing from a man.

Until—

Venetia gasped, and her heart rate increased.

Nothing from any man other than her father, for she certainly recognized his handwriting with its distinctive slanted style. The last letter he’d ever written to Venetia when he knew he was dying was something she treasured and gazed upon often.

Now, here was his handwriting—in fact, a bundle of letters in his handwriting—amidst a pile of faded letters tied with pink ribbon.

With trembling fingers, she untied the bow and began to read the first letter.

“My dearest Eliza,” it began. Venetia’s breath caught—Eliza was her aunt’s Christian name. “Not a day passes when I do not think of you and the moments we have shared…”

With a great sob, Venetia dropped the pile of letters onto the desk, swinging round to cover her eyes, and inadvertently sweeping a paperweight to the floor.

The noise reverberated through the house, but Venetia could not leave what she had begun. She had to read that letter.

“My Dearest Eliza—” she read once again, tears welling in her eyes as she continued.

It didn’t get any better. The letter continued in the same vein, full of passionate declarations and plans for the future.

Dull misery churned in her breast. This was exactly what both Windermere and her aunt had claimed—proof that her father had loved Aunt Pike first. She hastily moved to the next letter, and the next, each one confirming the love affair that had preceded her parents’ marriage.

“I see you’ve found what you were looking for.”

With a gasp, Venetia swung round. Aunt Pike was standing in the doorway, a cold smile on her face. She wore a dressing gown of dark burgundy that made her look like a figure of vengeance in the dim light.

“I-I’m sorry, I—” Venetia stammered, but her aunt cut her off with a sharp gesture.

“I’ve been expecting this. You, who are never satisfied.

You, who wouldn’t have believed me otherwise?

So I am glad that now you see how charitable I have been to you all these years.

” Aunt Pike stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.

“Well? Are you satisfied? Have you found your answers?”

Venetia bit her lip, barely able to answer. “My father—he loved you first?”

“Loved me?” Aunt Pike laughed harshly. “Oh, he did more than love me, child. As I told you, we were to be married. All was arranged, all was perfect.” Her face contorted with bitter remembrance. “And then your mother—my own sister—ensnared him.”

“No,” Venetia whispered, but her aunt continued relentlessly.

“You think she was so innocent? So pure? Let me show you the truth.” Aunt Pike reached into the desk drawer and withdrew another packet of letters, these tied with black ribbon. “These arrived after their hasty marriage. Your father, confessing all to me.”

She thrust a letter into Venetia’s hands. The paper crackled as she unfolded it, her eyes scanning the damning words:

“Dearest Eliza, I write to you in the deepest shame. Your sister has informed me she carries my child—the result of a moment of weakness for which I shall never forgive myself. Honor demands I marry her, though my heart remains with you. Forgive me, if you can…”

“No!” Venetia’s tears fell onto the page, smudging the ink. “This cannot be true,” she choked out.

“But it is true. Every word.” Aunt Pike’s voice was triumphant. “You were the reason he married her. You destroyed what should have been. And now you sit there, with his eyes looking out at me, a constant reminder of what was stolen from me.”

“I-I didn’t know.” Venetia could barely speak. Everything she had believed about her parents, about herself, was crumbling around her.

With a bitter laugh, Aunt Pike gathered up the letters and replaced them in the box. “And there’s something else you don’t know which might just help you in your choice of future husband.”

Venetia shook her head. On this, she was determined, and not even this discovery would change her mind.

“I will not wed Lord Windermere,” she whispered. “Not on any account.”

Her aunt appeared to consider this a moment. Slowly she walked to the window where she rested an elbow upon the sill as she carefully went through all the letters, one by one, as if committing them to memory.

Then, apparently finding what she was looking for, she glanced up at her niece. “There is one secret that I have been keeping, Venetia. One secret that no one else knows because to disclose it would destroy all your future prospects.”

Venetia clasped her hands to stop them trembling, but it was fruitless. Her whole body felt as if it was succumbing to the ague. She couldn’t even speak to ask what it might be.

Her aunt looked as if she relished the opportunity to tell her.

And of course, the telling was delivered with all the venom of which her aunt was capable.

“Your father did not marry your mother until after you were born.”

Venetia blinked, frozen, as she processed the ramifications. When she said nothing, her aunt put her head on one side and asked, “Do you realize what I’m saying, Venetia?”

Still, Venetia couldn’t answer. Her tongue felt swollen in her throat, while tears of shame stung her eyes.

“I’m telling you that you are illegitimate. Technically, you are a bastard. And you know how bastards are treated by society?”

“But my parents were married!” Finally, Venetia was able to burst out her defense. “I know that’s true! How else could they have been received in society?”

“Oh, you are correct, my dear. They were married.” Her aunt gave another of her bitter little laughs. “But not in time to legitimize you. No, they were married abroad, and they brought home their little bundle of joy with all the world assuming they had eloped and were joyfully returning.”

Her aunt began to pace. “Naturally, my sister Cassandra and I were estranged after they returned. Your father had no contact with me.” She tapped the bundle of letters.

“These are what I existed on. The fine, noble sentiments he’d poured out before Cassandra, four years younger, threw herself at him, seducing him, before running away in shame when she discovered she was with child.

He did not want to marry her. Why would he have waited so long—all those months—before he followed her?

” Aunt Pike sighed, and her shoulders sagged.

“When the newlyweds returned to London and set up home, they entertained as if I had never existed. And you became their world. Why, I believe your father even doted on you. As if he’d forgotten you were the reason he’d had to give up his true love—me! ”

Venetia cast her mind back to her eight-year-old self, to the days when she and her parents had lived happily together under the same roof. Just like any other family.

They had been happy. Hadn’t they?

She lifted her head. Her aunt was speaking again, and the name that dropped from her lips made her tremble.

“Lord Windermere will call tomorrow. You will receive him properly, and you will accept his suit.”

Venetia gazed at the glittering ruby ring upon her aunt’s finger that tapped impatiently upon the desktop. Like a drop of blood, it looked in the dim light. “Yes, you will wed Lord Windermere, who will take you off my hands. It’s time you paid the debt your mother incurred.”

“I cannot—” Venetia began, but her aunt seized her arm, fingers digging painfully into her flesh.

“You have no choice. Unless you wish your illegitimacy to become common knowledge! Imagine the scandal—your saintly mother revealed as a scheming harlot who trapped a man into marriage.” Her eyes glittered with malice.

“Lord Windermere knows everything, and he is still willing to marry you. You should be grateful.”

Still gripping Venetia’s arm so that Venetia cried out in pain, she propelled her towards the door. “The choice is simple: marriage to Windermere, or complete social ruin.”

“But I’m promised to Henry Ashworth—”

“You love him so much that you would risk everything? Even his good name?” There was skepticism in her aunt’s tone.

“I would marry anyone rather than Lord Windermere.”

“But no one else will have you. Well, they certainly will not once it is known that not only are you penniless, you are a bastard. Granted, Mr. Ashworth is fond of you, just as you are fond of him. But no passion burns in his breast. He did the honorable thing after the Gascoynes discovered the two of you alone and unchaperoned at an inn. No, I do not think that Mr. Ashworth will cross a thousand oceans to be with you, Venetia, though he is the kind of passionate young man who would do that for a woman he truly loved. But that is not you.” She took a slow breath, then asked softly, “Is it, Venetia?”

Venetia stumbled back to her room, her aunt following close behind. Once inside, she threw herself onto the bed, bringing her hands to her ears as her aunt turned the key in the lock.

“You will remain here until Lord Windermere calls,” Aunt Pike’s voice came through the door. “And you will receive him with the gratitude his generosity deserves.”

After a long silence, she added ominously, “Within the next two days, I expect you to call off your marriage to Mr. Ashworth.”