Page 68 of The Truth About Dukes
He stood very close, as if they were husband and wife exchanging a private word. “To feel that way about somebody is lovely, isn’t it? That they are wonderful simply for existing. Such sentiment fills the heart with gladness. Perhaps all parents experience that joy, but I know I felt the same way about you when you sneaked me that cheese all those years ago. This female, I said to myself, is a wonderful human being, somebody with the courage to act on her convictions, and what kind, sensible, marvelously devious convictions they were too.”
Rothhaven might as well have wrapped her in a hug, right before all these strangers. “Don’t make me cry, or Stephen will deal with you harshly.”
“I’m a-tremble with dread. She’s reading Byron, by the way. Looks like she’s enjoying all that clever twaddle too.”
Constance dared a peek. “Reverend Shaw will never allow that girl to buy a book of Byron’s verse.”
Robert smiled down at her, his gaze tired and loving and utterly at peace. He winked, then sauntered off to lean against a lamppost.
Right. A pleasant exchange with a stranger it would be. Constance meandered over to the bookstall and picked up another of the volumes of Byron laid out on the table. She moved a few steps away and opened the book to a random page:Love will find a way where wolves fear to prey.
“Do you enjoy Byron?” she asked, pretending to peer over at Ivy’s book. “I certainly do. He has the knack of being both sly and tenderhearted.”
“Yes,” Ivy said, closing the book and holding it to her middle. “Byron says the things most of us haven’t words for, and he says them more clearly than we think them. You’re my mother, aren’t you? My first mother.”
Ivy’s expression was guarded, but far from wrathful. She looked curious, hopeful, and oh, so vulnerable. Constance’s heart began beating so hard she put a hand to her sternum.
“I have the very great honor to be the woman you were born to. How did you know?”
“You look like me grown up, though you’re prettier. Mama Etta told me who my real mother was. Constance Wentworth, from a wealthy banking family that lived far, far from the West Riding. She said you cried when you gave me up, and that you would find me one day. I’m leaving for New South Wales in a few weeks, so I figured you’d better find me soon. Did you cry when Mama Etta fetched me from you?”
Constance experienced the sensation of her heart breaking and mending in the same moment.You’re my mother, aren’t you?Of all the words to come from Ivy’s mouth, Constance would never have anticipated that question. Never have expected her daughter’s forthright curiosity to solve so many riddles and puzzles with simple honesty. Never have expected that Etta and James Wilson could have been so generous with the truth.
“I cried when I parted from you,” Constance said, “cried for days, until I learned how to keep the crying on the inside, though I knew your Mama Etta and your Papa James would love you dearly. She cried the day you were laid in her arms.” That memory became less painful with the telling, less bitter.
“Was my first papa a rotter?”
What an extraordinary, wonderful person Ivy was. What wonderful people Etta and James Wilson must have been.
“He was young and spoiled. You have his height and his beautiful hair. He did not survive to know of your birth.”
“Was he a soldier?”
“He was the son of a wealthy York merchant. He died while at university.” More than that, Constance could pass along at another time—she hoped. “Are you happy, Ivy?”
Ivy looked around, then stepped closer. “I am soon to be dragooned away to the Antipodes. Uncle Whitlock has quarreled with his bishopandhis archbishop, and nobody in all of England wants him for a vicar or even a curate. The aunties despair of him. I don’t want to go to Australia, but Uncle sends me to my room to memorize Bible verses if I argue with him. I’m through the Gospels already.”
Such a mild punishment was a relief to Constance. “I don’t want to see you go so far away.”
“Mama Etta said you’d find me. She had a daughter when she was young, but the baby died, or so she was told. My aunties are scandalized that I know of such things, but they are easily scandalized, except for Aunt Flora. She says mendacity has no place in a child’s upbringing. Areyouhappy, Mama?”
Mama. She called me Mama.
And what a question. What a dear, insightful, fraught question. “I have found the man with whom I’d like to spend the rest of my life, and that is a significant, precious joy. I have been searching for you, though, for much of the last decade, and right now, I am the happiest woman on earth. When I think of you being forced to emigrate, much of that happiness fades.”
Ivy regarded her, the girl’s expression puzzled. “You talk like a lawyer. Everything has abut. You are happy,but. You have found a good fellow,but. I am only happy to meet you, purely, entirely happy. Uncle Whitlock said you’d never come, and he was wrong. He’s wrong a lot, but one doesn’t tell him that.”
“Ivy, if there were a way for you to stay in England rather than go to Australia, would you want me to pursue that opportunity?”
The woman in the bonnet with the blue ribbon, Mrs. Hodges, was looking around as if in search of Ivy.
“Stay? You mean like at a finishing school? Uncle hates finishing schools. He says they give young women airs and are not pleasing to the Lord.”
I despair of Uncle Whitlock sight unseen.“I mean, would you prefer to stay, as in stay with me. In the household I will share with my husband. He is a lovely fellow and quite capable of supporting you.”
Ivy considered the volume of Byron. “Uncle wants me to go to New South Wales and keep house for him. Mrs. Hodges says he’s daft, but my aunties say I’d best resign myself to that course. They don’t argue with Uncle either.”
“I will argue with your uncle.”And he’s not your uncle.
