Page 2 of The Rake
“Likewise, your grace,” Margot said.
“You were raised near Scotland by a… scholar?”
“A vicar,” Elsie said.
“Keating.” Added Margot.
The duke walked away from them, and back to his desk. Only then did Margot see that his hands were shaking, steadying when he put his fingers on the wooden top.
Ashmore looked now to Elsie. “You resemble dear Julia a great deal.”
At the mention of their mother’s name, Margot flinched. She was not comfortable with the duke discussing her mother.
“I suppose,” the duke continued, “that Julia never told you the truth?”
“Neither of our parents have explained everything to our satisfaction,” Margot said. She did not want the duke to know that this was one of the main reasons for her journey to London, to reveal that much seemed as if she were telling him everything.
“I have no doubt there were good reasons, but I am equally as certain to my very marrow that my Julia would never lie to me.” The duke’s eyes bored into Margot with an intensity that was close to hunger. “Looking at you tells me one thing: you are my daughter. There is a striking resemblance between you—” He studied Margot. “—and my own late mother. Thankfully, I suspect few will remember my mother. She was not often in society.” His eyes drifted across to Elsie, and he frowned. “However, I am not your father, my dear.”
“No, that would be Vicar Keating,” Elsie said. There was a note of pride in her voice that Margot envied.
They had discussed between the two of them what the duke’s response might be once the truth was announced publicly, how it was likely he would want to send Elsie off, however, the two of them came together. They had a plan for this. Margot took the armchair closest to the desk, hoping to be nearer to him and hear everything else.
The duke’s letter had arrived eight weeks ago. It claimed that he was Margot’s father. When Margot confronted Julia, her mother had turned pale and had begged Margot to cease with her questions. The man who Margot had always thought of as her father had reassured her that she was his daughter, but Margot had been unable to forget the missive. When Elsie had read the letter, she had noticed that the duke promised there would be an inheritance. She and her sister were both considered old maids by society. They had a small allowance generously provided by Vicar Keating, but it was their younger brother who needed help to afford his place at university. Besides, it would be nice to have enough for Elsie and her tofinally move into their own cottage. If Ashmore could act as something of a father, it would be better than nothing. This was the resolve they had reached together, although Margot was now questioning how much she really wanted that money.
“Why did you never wed my mother?” Margot asked abruptly.
“I was the son of a duke. Admittedly only the third son, but still a rank above a companion…” His grace trailed off there, and fixed Margot with eyes that were disconcerting similar to her own woody hazel shade. Now she looked closer, even the shape of their eyes was alike. “I regret it. If you must know,” the duke added.
“Is that why you finally made contact with me after twenty-eight years?”
“Julia—”
“Please call my mother Mrs. Keating, your grace.” Margot sniffed. They might be discussing the most scandalous of secrets, one that picked and exposed Margot at her very core, but she wanted something kept proper and separate between her mother and the duke.
“Very well. When Mrs. Keating told me she was with child, I did not have the means, nor the inclination, or my brother the then duke’s blessing to wed. She left Town almost immediately, only writing to me once she was wed to her vicar. She told me of your birth, and that Vicar Keating had claimed you as his own. I sent money, but I never heard from her again.”
“That was the least you could do.”
“I assumed,” Ashmore continued, “that the sum would be enough to cover everything you might need as an infant, and then again when you were older.”
“Indeed.” Margot felt no obligation to thank him. The duke had cast her mother out when she was vulnerable, and it wasonly thanks to Vicar Keating, the man who was her true father, that Julia and she had survived and thrived.
“Why now?” Elsie asked.
“My letter surely explained this to you.” He looked at Margot, obviously wishing that Elsie would leave.
“Your letter requested my presence here,” Margot replied.
“I offered you an inheritance. Of sorts.”
Margot met his eye. She wondered if he expected her to feel embarrassed in needing money. But to her there was no shame to it. She might be the duke’s daughter, but she had not been raised with such advantages, and the news he gave her—that she was baseborn—meant only one thing: if it was ever discovered, she would never be able to wed, she would never be respectable.
“I am prepared to help you, in return for a favour.” The duke again looked pasty; his very skin sweaty. “I will claim you as my goddaughters, or distant cousins say, and launch you into society if you wish. I have with that in mind paid for a companion to be here, to protect your reputation. We will say your parents are dead, so no possible rumours will be connected to me.”
“What do you want in exchange for that favour?” Elsie asked.
Ashmore looked between them, weighing their faces, judging them in equal measure. “I will tell you everything when I know you a little better. Dinner will be at eight o’clock. Tomorrow I will have my papers in order, and be able to tell you everything. You are dismissed.”
