Page 21

“ Y our late mother, she—she was not a princess—only the maidservant to one. And I don’t know if your parents ever married.”

The world froze, Sir George’s words a blur of noises cutting through a murky haze.

Amelia blinked. Not a princess—maidservant—never married —the words tumbled around her like the disembodied voices of a fevered dream.

Her chest tightened, almost like the one time she’d tried to jump into the lake near Thorncombe Abbey as a child.

Her nursemaid had tugged her out then. There was no nursemaid now.

In fact, there was no one at all—no long-lost royal mother, no benevolent father, no secret inheritance from an unnamed benefactor waiting to deliver her from a marriage to a stranger.

She was no one—a servant’s child.

An illegitimate servant’s child, if Sir George surmised correctly.

“Amelia. ”

Another voice cut through the blur. This one was slightly higher, though still a man’s. It felt familiar, yet not.

“Amelia.”

The voice grew more urgent. Was it Papa’s?

No—Papa was never urgent. Even when Amelia had nearly drowned, even when Mother was about to sell her to the highest bidder—Papa had always sounded resigned at best. And Papa knew what Amelia did not.

He’d said there was no inheritance, hadn’t he?

She had no dowry, not because Papa had frittered it away, but because a maidservant could never have provided one.

“Amelia!” The voice came with a touch this time—warm, comforting—promising deliverance and refuge. It brushed her elbow first. Amelia turned and held on, realizing eventually, as the haze lifted, that she was clinging onto Jacob’s arm.

Jacob—dear, dear Jacob—who took on her case when he had no reason to—was her sole constant now.

“Jacob,” she whispered.

“Yes.” He breathed what sounded like a deep sigh of relief. His grip remained secure, though not forceful. If they had been alone, she was fairly sure he would have embraced her—and she would have readily embraced him back.

“Your father had always been taken with your mother,” Sir George went on, as if his casual revelation had merely been the correction of a footnote, not one that tilted Amelia’s entire world on its axis. “Since the first time he laid eyes on her, really.”

“You were there?” Amelia angled towards him slightly, her hands anchored around Jacob’s arm.

“Oh, yes, she was—” Sir George’s eyes lit up, as if delighted to impart the news to her. “I suppose you were always too young to know. My father, the late first baronet, brought along my Chinese manservant to assist me in mastering the Mandarin tongue.”

“Right,” she answered vaguely.

“Your mother was my manservant’s sister.”

Once more, imaginary waters threatened to overwhelm her. Jacob tugged her gently, tethering her to reality.

Amelia nodded slowly, swallowing. “But the jewelry box—it was my mother’s. Papa had said that— was it my mother’s?”

Her voice cracked. Sir George’s did not.

“It could have been a parting gift from her former employer, though not particularly likely given her short tenure. And if it weren’t—well, I suppose it wasn’t uncommon for a maidservant to pilfer a piece of memorabilia or two.

They would hardly be missed in a large enough household. ”

Amelia barely avoided fainting altogether.

They relocated back to the parlor, and Sir George continued jabbering about his trip as a twelve-year-old boy with the Macartney Embassy—of the splendor and intrigue of the Chinese court, along with the unique perspectives of its ruler.

It was clear that the Orient fascinated the man like nothing did, and it was no surprise that the baronet had neither wife nor child, given how all-consuming his passion for Asiatic-European relations was.

But Amelia heard little.

She sat in her corner of the clearly well-loved chaise longue, one hand trembling on her teacup and the other in Jacob’s.

Servants came in with varied updates about and questions from the elder Lady Staunton throughout the hour, and they received readily dispensed instructions from Sir George before the baronet resumed his apparently endless supply of facts about the Far East.

On a different day, Amelia might have drunk in the information, hungrily feasting on anything she could glean about her mother’s heritage.

But she was rather preoccupied with other thoughts for the moment.

Somehow, in the span of one afternoon, she’d managed to turn from the child of a princess—bearer of a foreign, noble legacy—to the dubiously legitimate daughter of a servant, heiress to nothing.

Her mother might have been a thief, to put it kindly.

“Lord Macartney refused to kowtow , of course.” Sir George went on about the man who’d led their Chinese expedition.

“There was a big fuss made about it. And some said a death sentence was being bandied about for anyone who’d dared to teach a foreigner the Chinese tongue.

I would never have learned myself, if my father hadn’t brought my secretary along. ”

“My mother’s brother,” Amelia whispered. A small part of her had hoped that saying the words out loud might reveal just how ludicrous the entire idea was. Instead, the pronouncement felt more hopelessly final than ever.

“Indeed,” Sir George went on, without need to catch a breath.

“It was interesting, really, how taken your father was. Some of the men sought liaisons in the nearby brothels, I believe, though my father tried not to mention it much in front of me. Yet Fitzwater had been quite determined to be devoted to one servant alone.”

“That is—some comfort,” Amelia acknowledged hollowly. It was a comfort that she was not the product of some nobleman’s visit to a house of ill repute, but it was a small comfort at best when she’d been raised to believe herself the child of a loving union of aristocratic equals.

“Yes, quite the—” Sir George stopped abruptly. His eyes landed on Amelia, then on Jacob, seemingly noticing him for the first time all morning. He tilted his head. “Miss Fitzwater—where is your father?”

A new kind of dread knotted in Amelia’s stomach. She squeezed Jacob’s hand. It took effort to keep her voice level. “He is in London.”

“Right. And your stepmother? Or your uncle, at least, the earl?”

“All in London, to my knowledge.”

A frown settled on Sir George’s brow. “And you are here, by yourself, in the company of?—”

“Jacob Hawthorne, at your service.” Jacob rose, releasing her hand in the process, and gave a formal nod.

“Right.” Sir George’s eyes turned assessing. “Hawthorne, of Hawthorne Enterprises? And Hawthorne’s at?—”

“Yes, sir.”

The baronet nodded slowly, as if thinking. He glanced at Amelia once more. “We are quite a way away from London. I find it slightly difficult to comprehend why a gentleman’s daughter would be here, by herself, escorted by a stranger.”

“I am no stranger,” said Jacob, with all the gallantry she’d come to admire from him .

“I have no right to question the circumstances of your acquaintance, of course.” Sir George spoke now in the measured tones of a seasoned statesman, the impassioned version of him seemingly temporarily tucked away.

“But I owe it to my friend to make sure that his daughter, however far from home, is being provided for with every propriety.”

“I have a maid,” Amelia said. Both men looked at her as if the explanation hardly sufficed. “We have not been traveling alone.”

“I suppose that is something,” said Sir George. “But I still consider it my duty to provide shelter for you tonight, Miss Fitzwater—and perhaps to escort you back to London.”

Amelia’s lingering hopes of ever escaping Mother’s plans shriveled away.

“I see,” she said quietly. “I—I suppose I can understand that.”

“And if there has been any coercion or secrecy involved in your removal from your home—Mr. Hawthorne here?—”

“Oh no! Jacob did not kidnap me!” Amelia felt utterly appalled by the suggestion. “I left—I thought—Mr. Hawthorne is merely helping me.”

“I fail to see how an unrelated young man has any business helping the niece of a peer of the realm gallivant about the English countryside.”

“We are not—unrelated.” Amelia felt the hollowness of her lie even as she made it.

“Oh?”

“No, we are not,” Jacob answered in her place, loyal to the end. But then, to her complete amazement, he added, “For I am Miss Fitzwater’s betrothed.”