Page 33 of Surrender to the Earl (Brides of Redemption #2)

“But for what shall I forgive you? I was just going over the household ledgers. Perhaps you can tell me why your wages are thrice what they should be?”

There was such total silence that Audrey could hear a distant church bell in the village though the windows were closed.

“Mrs. Blake, I assure ye that I am worth?—”

“Please do not give me assurances of your skill. And regardless of what you and your family have been doing to annoy me since I arrived, I can tell you know what you’re doing.

That does not account for your wages. I demand to know the truth, right now, or I will at last be forced to terminate not just your employment, but that of your entire family.

And the fact that you risk this tells me there is something serious I’m not aware of. ”

And then she heard Mrs. Sanford give a suppressed sob and blow her nose in a handkerchief. Audrey felt a tinge of sympathy, but she forced herself to put it aside.

“Tell me the truth, Mrs. Sanford. We can deal with it together.”

“Nay, Mrs. Blake, I don’t think that’s possible,” she said wearily.

She heard a creak and imagined the woman slumping onto a kitchen stool.

“So you won’t confide in me?” Audrey asked, feeling just as weary.

“Nay, I didn’t say … I didn’t mean … oh, dear, this is so hard to say. I’d hoped you’d never need to know, never need to be so … hurt.”

“ I’ll be hurt?” Audrey said with confusion, putting a hand on the kitchen worktable as if to find something solid to hold on to. “Just tell me, Mrs. Sanford. I need to know the truth.”

“The extra money is for me daughter, Louisa,” the woman whispered, and her voice cracked at the end. “She … she used to work here as a maid. But she can’t anymore. The babe—” Another sob seemed to clog her voice.

Audrey said nothing, waiting with barely leashed patience and a growing sense of unease.

“Mr. … Mr. Blake said she was to have the money,” Mrs. Sanford admitted brokenly. “That’s all he would give her.”

And then Audrey realized what the woman had been dreading to tell her, and it crashed over her with waves of pain and betrayal—but not shock. No, she couldn’t be shocked anymore by anything her late husband had done.

Including father a child on an innocent, young housemaid.

The babe, little Arthur, was Martin’s bastard, and he was the same age as their own child would have been.

Martin had said good-bye to two women before going off to war, she thought bitterly.

But was that the whole truth?

“Mrs. Sanford, did my husband force his attention on your daughter?” she asked with quiet resignation.

“I wish I could tell ye yea,” Mrs. Sanford said with her own bitterness.

“But Louisa was a foolish girl with stars in her eyes, far too flattered that a gentleman would be noticin’ her.

She admits, to her lastin’ regret, that she allowed it all to happen.

But—she cannot regret little Arthur. He is such a good boy, Mrs. Blake,” she said pleadingly. “He bears no blame in this.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Audrey snapped. “And I wouldn’t blame him, or take out my anger on him—or on your daughter. Mr. Blake was not a kind man. He used me for my dowry, and he used your daughter for his pleasures.”

She could hear the cook’s quiet weeping.

“We’ve been so frightened,” Mrs. Sanford said raggedly. “We didn’t know what ye’d do if ye knew the truth. We tried to … make ye leave your own home, and the shame of that will be with me forever.”

Her sobs grew louder, and Audrey winced as footsteps tapped quickly down the hall.

“Mother?” Evelyn cried. “What is it? What has happened?”

“Is it Louisa or the babe?” Francis demanded.

The back door opened, leaving a whiff of brisk autumn air and decaying leaves as Francis called for his father across the yard. Feeling suddenly so tired, Audrey reached beneath the table until she found another stool, then sank onto it and bowed her head.

For a moment, they seemed to ignore her as they gathered around their mother. The door opened again, and boots clomped across the kitchen floor.

“Mrs. Sanford, stop this weepin’,” her husband commanded, not unkindly. “What has happened?”

And then there was a silence, as if they all realized that Audrey was still sitting there.

“She knows,” Mrs. Sanford murmured, her voice hoarse now. “She knows everythin’, how her husband betrayed her, and how we did the same with our lies.”

The renewed silence was stifling with old grief and rising fear. Audrey couldn’t bear it anymore.

“What my husband did is not your fault,” she said heavily.

“I regret that you’ve born the burden of his thoughtless selfishness.

I’m relieved that he at least tried to provide Louisa with the money she needs to support little Arthur.

That will continue, of course, as will your employment, if you all promise never again to lie to me. ”

Mrs. Sanford started to weep again, and she could hear Mr. Sanford clearing his throat several times.

“Mrs. Blake,” he said huskily, “we don’t deserve yer kindness, but we appreciate it.”

“What is going on?”

Audrey heard her sister’s bewildered voice, and the servants went quiet once again. “I’ll speak with my sister,” she said, rising her to her feet. “Go on with luncheon preparations, Mrs. Sanford.”

“Thank ye, ma’am,” the woman said.

The sincerity and relief in her voice finally made Audrey give a faint smile. She walked toward the front hall, knowing Blythe followed her.

“Come into my study, Blythe.”

She shut the door behind her sister and leaned against it, closing her eyes, feeling like she could slide right to the floor with sad weariness. But at least she had the truth now, and she could find a way to deal with it. She told Blythe all about Louisa and little Arthur.

When she was done, Blythe breathed, “Oh my.”

“I’m glad I can’t see the pity on your face. You warned me about Martin. I didn’t want to listen. I was dazzled by his courtship.”

“You wouldn’t see pity,” Blythe insisted, “but anger and sadness. Any man could marry a woman and do what Mr. Blake did. It wasn’t because you were blind.”

And then they were hugging, and Audrey felt a fierce gladness and even disbelief that she was clinging to her sister of all people.

“It’s a good thing you have at last found a man worthy of you,” Blythe said.

Audrey gave a bitter laugh as she stepped back. She didn’t even hesitate with her next words. “That’s the sad thing, Blythe. Our engagement is fictitious, all a sham to get me away from Father’s house.”

Blythe gasped. “But … I don’t understand.”

“I don’t want to marry again, not ever,” Audrey said fiercely, knowing after today’s revelation it was even more the truth. “I won’t be any man’s wife again, I won’t be under someone’s power. Doesn’t this—this new secret of Martin’s prove that my course is right?”

“Was this false engagement his lordship’s idea?” Blythe demanded, sounding bewildered.

“As Martin’s fellow soldier, he wanted to help me, and this is what I asked for, his escort, protection, and advice until I could set up my household.

The engagement was the only way he felt we could leave Father’s household without too much resistance.

” She hesitated. “Do you … do you hate me for the lies?”

“Hate you? How could I hate you when only lies would let you live your life the way you wanted? I never helped at all—no, no, I helped drive you to such desperation!”

“You had no power over Father either.”

“But I could have supported you, tried to convince him.” Her voice went ragged with emotion. “Instead I thought you couldn’t possibly be alone. Maybe I was putting my own weakness on you—oh, I don’t know. But it was wrong of me, Audrey, and I regret it so terribly.”

And then they were hugging again, and Audrey felt the sting of tears she hadn’t imagined in such a long time. Happy tears, if one could claim any happiness in this terrible debacle of a day.

Then Blythe straightened and put both hands on Audrey’s shoulders.

“But as for Lord Knightsbridge—Audrey, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, the way he looks at you.

He truly cares about you. And … you’ve kissed him, when it couldn’t matter to anyone but the two of you.

He’s been here for you almost every day. ”

“Because he feels like he needs to take care of me,” Audrey said bitterly. “That’s pity, Blythe.”

“Pity? Was it pity when our mother watched out for us, taught us, protected us?”

“She was our mother. ”

“That was love. Why cannot Lord Knightsbridge’s protection of you be love? Do we not want to help those we care for?”

Audrey found herself swallowing at the hurt that was like a lump in her throat.

She didn’t want to believe it could be love, couldn’t bear that her resolve to be independent could harm Robert.

“No, Blythe, he doesn’t love me, and I don’t love him.

” Saying that aloud felt like she spoke thickly, with ashes in her mouth, and she didn’t know why that suddenly frightened her.

“He feels pity, I know he does, because now that he’s seen how much help I need, my problem with the servants, he’s decided we really should marry. ”

Blythe was strangely silent.

“Then you agree with me,” Audrey continued.

“No, no, I’m trying to understand it all. He’s actually proposed marriage, and you turned him down—a man who cares for you, an earl, for heaven’s sake?”

Audrey groaned. “You know I don’t care about titles! And you shouldn’t either.”

“Don’t be so hasty dismissing his proposal. I know you care for him, too. Admit you feel more for him than you ever felt for Mr. Blake.”

“It is different. Robert and I have been … friends.”

Blythe snorted.

“I don’t wish to discuss this anymore.” Audrey crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Oh, very well, Audrey. But you think things through carefully before making any decisions.”

“I already refused him and asked him to leave me in peace for a few days.”

Blythe gave a groan. “You foolish girl!”

“I have more important things to deal with than one man’s pity.”

“The Sanfords’ grandchild.”

“Yes, that little boy, who is my husband’s son.”

“His bastard.”

“That is such an ugly name for an innocent child. His birth is not his fault. I—I don’t know if there is something more I should do about all of this.”

“Do? Audrey, the boy is being provided for by Mr. Blake’s estate. You are taking care of his entire family by allowing them to keep their employment, even after their trickery and lies. What more can you possibly do?”

Audrey didn’t know, but there was something in her subconscious, something that wouldn’t let her go, bothering her all the rest of the day.

She had dreams that night of her dead child, the first time in well over a year.

In her dreams, he wasn’t too tiny, without the breath of life.

He was a laughing, playful toddler, teasing her by hiding, so smart that he already knew of her blindness, and thought it only a part of her, the mother he loved, not a pitiable flaw.

The revelation of little Arthur reminded her in a more powerful way what her life would have been like had her own child lived.

She let the terrible pain of her loss remind her of all the reasons she was never going to put herself in such a position again, never going to love or risk such grief again. She wasn’t going to marry Robert.