Page 53 of The Wise Daughter

Aaron’s head was pounding. His eyelids were sticky as he tried to blink.

Finally, he managed to keep them open and look around.

He was lying in his own bed in Holmrook castle wearing his nightclothes, but he couldn’t remember how he had come to be there.

The last thing he remembered was Carver declaring that he wouldn’t live long enough to stop him. Then Nora had returned.

“Nora!” He tried to speak but his throat burned.

He remembered her coming for him. Even after he had broken their engagement and her trust, she had come back for him. Somehow, she had realized Carver’s guilt and understood the danger he had been in. Once again, she had saved his life.

He was about to rise from the bed to dress himself when a person came in who he never expected to see again.

“Well, this confirms it,” he rasped. “I’m dead.”

“Aaron,” his mother gasped, rattling the tea tray in her hands.

“I-I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I wasn’t expecting to find you awake.

” She laid the tray by his bedside and looked everywhere but at him.

“I wanted to bring you something to eat and drink just in case.” She wrapped a hand protectively across her waist and waited, but all Aaron could do was stare.

She pressed her lips together as if she wanted to say something but changed her mind. “I-I should go.”

Aaron bolted up. “No, don’t go!” Blood rushed to his head, and he instantly had to lay back down. He hated sounding like a child who did not want to be left alone at night.

“All right. I’ll stay.” She stood stiffly, clasping her hands in front of her. She was different from how he remembered her with more lines across her brow and around her eyes and more grey streaks in her upswept hair, but she still carried all the loveliness he remembered her possessing.

Testing the use of his muscles more slowly this time, Aaron propped himself up to sitting and leaned against his pillows. “I think I’m ready for that tea now.” Tempting hints of cloves and ginger steamed from the teapot.

He leaned over to reach for the tray, but she beat him to it. “Oh, let me help you.” Teacup clanking against saucer, she poured slowly and handed him a full cup.

“Thank you.” He was about to take a sip but noticed she still stood there like a scared animal. “Won’t you please sit down, Mother? You’re making me nervous.”

A gentle smile flickered across her features as she lowered into the chair by his bedside. “I haven’t heard that in so long.”

“What?” He looked up from his cup. Had he said something unusual?

“Mother,” she said softly.

He didn’t know what to say to that, but the flush spreading across her cheeks made him uneasy.

“How are you feeling, Aaron?” Finally, she raised her eyes to his, watching him with the same trepidation with which he was watching her.

The tea’s warmth soothed his throat while the herbs helped clear his thinking, and oh, how he needed clarity. “I honestly can’t say. The sight of you nearly caused my heart to stop.”

He understood it really was her, but his heart clashed against the possibility. How could it be her after all these years? How could she sit so calmly, tending to him as if she had never left?

She wrung her hands together as if reading his thoughts.

“Aaron, I’m so sorry to surprise you like this.

I know you probably have all sorts of questions for me.

I’ll do my best to explain each one if you like, but all of that can wait until you’re feeling better.

I just hope you know I am so very sorry.

” Her words were heavy, her features pinched.

“Words are blatantly insufficient in this case.”

He lowered his teacup back to his night table and drew in a deep breath.

He had dreamed of this moment many times.

Sometimes, it was a grand reunion where mother and son embraced as if nothing could ever separate them again.

In other daydreams, Aaron finally delivered the condemning lectures he had crafted over the years that would shame her to her grave for the choices she had made.

But never had he expected to actually have this opportunity.

Now that it was upon him? Where did he even start?

“Nora,” he whispered to himself. He needed to start with Nora.

Her safety was his first concern now, the only concern powerful enough to push questions for his mother momentarily to the side.

He had an entire life that his mother had not been a part of.

“Can you tell me what has happened? Is Miss Lacy all right?”

“She is perfectly safe.” His mother looked relieved to have something easy to answer. “Such a brave, clever woman. I’m sure you understand that she’s the reason you are here safe in your bed.”

“I’m well aware.” Aaron’s skin bristled. “But how do you know that?”

She pulled a loose string from her skirt. “I know because I was the one who gave her a ride in my carriage back to the castle. Ruthers too. He drove the carriage and waited with me outside the castle walls while Miss Lacy snuck in and found you.”

Aaron remembered only pieces of Nora urging him through the hidden passage. Whether his declarations of love to her had been real or imagined, he couldn’t say.

“I think I fainted at some point.”

“Yes. Nora fetched Ruthers after you collapsed. He helped carry you to the carriage. You looked so pale, and those stitches on your arm were coming undone. So we delivered you straight to the doctor. He worked on you for a time, then assured us you would be all right with some rest. You’ve been asleep for an entire day. You’ve given us all quite a scare.”

Some deep instinct sent him bristling again. Why should she suddenly care now? Why had she not cared when he was alone and miserable in a foreign land away from everything he had known? His look must have conveyed his sentiments because she looked down at her lap like a penitent child.

“Mother, do you know where Carver is?”

She nodded. “While you were being tended, Mr. Lacy returned to the castle with the constable. Lord Bilford helped them apprehended Mr. Carver. You should have seen the commotion it created during the ball. Everyone rallied together to ensure Mr. Carver did not escape.”

“I can well imagine, but Lord Bilford?” This news was almost as surprising as seeing his mother again. “Are you certain? I never would have thought it of him.”

“Apparently, he was ready to defend you like his own son when he learned you were in real danger. He said to tell you, and his exact words were, The price just went up.”

Aaron had to laugh at this. “I suppose he figured I would be useless to him dead.” Aaron vowed to meet with Bilford soon to settle their disputes once and for all. Such a service could not go unrecognized.

“Carver’s really gone?”

“Gone forever. The mounting evidence against him will ensure it. Your solicitor seemed to think so, in any event.”

Aaron massaged his brow, easing the tense ache in his head that he had woken with.

“I’d forgotten Cornell was here. Maybe we can revise the marriage contract before he returns to London.

” Assuming Nora will still have me, he silently added.

“To think, Carver was my cousin. I wish I had known. Things might have been different between us. We could have been better friends. I could have treated him more kindly.”

“Oh, Aaron. Do not burden yourself further by wondering about what might have been. It never does any good.”

He was tempted to make a snide remark about whether such beliefs had mollified her conscience over the years, but he bridled his tongue. Discerning the worry and regret behind her eyes softened him.

“Did you know,” he asked, “about Carver?”

“I only recently suspected. Men I had never seen before started coming to West Riding looking for the former duchess. Of course, they only found Mrs. Westlake, the reclusive old woman who couldn’t remember the former duchess, which is hardly a lie.

” She closed her eyes, and the worry lines glared back at him.

“I learned that someone was trying to discover proof of a marriage, the one between your uncle and a certain Abigail Carver. When the men left, I made a few of my own inquiries, and I reached out to your friend, Ruthers.”

Aaron groaned. “How is it that you are even acquainted with Ruthers?”

She stood to pace around the room, wringing her hands. “I may have left, Aaron, but a mother has her ways of watching over her son.”

“What does that mean?”

“Once you finished your formal education and began touring through the continent, I decided I needed a way to learn what you were up to.”

“I met Ruthers during my last year of school in Hesse-Kassel.”

“Yes. He is actually a distant cousin on my mother’s side.

I knew him as a child, and I knew I could trust him.

When his parents died, I sent him to the same school you were at, hoping you would become friends.

I paid his way for as long as I could. He promised to stand by your side no matter what.

He’s been keeping me informed, but as of late, he has also been helping me replenish my coffers by selling my old gems.”

“Your jewelry.” Aaron thought of the necklace he had found in Nora’s room after the fire, how he had caught Ruthers with more that night.

He thought of Ruthers’s confessions to taking things and selling them.

Ruthers had been so reluctant to admit who the money was for, so when Aaron finally pulled a confession from him, Aaron didn’t believe him.

His mother, the former duchess? The gems were actually for his mother?

Ruthers had begged Aaron to believe him, swearing that the day would soon come when his mother would confirm the truth of his story.

Aaron had been so angry that night that he might not have believed Ruthers were it not for their longstanding history together and a grudging curiosity to see if it could be true.