Page 41 of If the Slipper Fits
“—Myposition?”
She waved a one graceful hand. “Being of the nobility.”
He rolled his eyes and carefully resumed his seat beside her. “Surely you recall I’m a mere mister. My brother and grandfather hold the titles. I’m a regular bloke.”
He sidelong glance proclaimed her unconvinced. “I’ll rephrase. A man of yourbackgroundmay or may not realize how few options exist for a female of no means on her own. There’s marriage, there’s scant employment, and there’s the street.”
He arched a mocking brow. “I’m cognizant.” He propped his elbow on his knee. “One thing I am unable to fathom, however, is how you landed in such dismal circumstances. Surely your father left you an inheritance?”
Masters had been a man of some means, he recalled. When had he died? There was so much about her he didn’t know. He thirsted for every scrap of information.
She pressed her full lips together. “Father did leave me well off—hence Mr. Jones’ proposal.”
“You’re saying Jones married you for your inheritance, squandered it, then died? What sort of man did you marry?”
She fixed him with a hard stare, somehow giving the impression of looking down the length of her nose at him.
Touchy on the subject of her husband, then. “I apologize. Pray, continue.”
She licked her lips. “I knew I must find a position quickly, or starve—or worse.”
He nodded once, taking her meaning all too well.
“My particular skills—knowledge in horticulture and the preparation of medicinal tinctures—didn’t lend themselves to procuring a post. In short, ready work could only be found as a ladies companion or governess—if one had references. I did not.”
Unable to sit still, he rose from the settee again, jammed his hands in his pockets, and stalked over the rich carpets in silence rather than cast further aspersion on her late husband. To have left her penniless, without the decency of warning her of her impending doom? What kind of scoundrel did that? And how had he done so without her knowledge? Had he gambled away their resources? He knew that sort all too well. He’d been sired by one.
“What of your family? You said your father passed, but what of your mother? Surely you have relatives.”
“My mother died a long time ago—within two years of the last summer we spent in Derby. She, herself, was an orphan, with no family to speak of. My father passed more recently. Like me, he was an only child and his parents died before I was born. If I do have any family”— she opened her arms wide—“their existence and whereabouts are a mystery to me.”
He leaned against the wall beside the settee, propping one booted foot behind him. Her unwillingness to speak against her husband told him she’d loved the miscreant, regardless of his ineptitude in seeing to her welfare. Meanwhile, Caden wanted nothing so much as to reach into the grave and punch said husband in the mouth.
“Why did you and your father never return to Derby after that last summer?”
She lowered her head. “Mother developed a lung illness on the journey to London that last summer. When it came time for our annual exodus to the country, her illness had worsened. Father hoped if we didn’t push her, if we let her rest, her condition might improve. It didn’t.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She nodded. “After she died, father never broached the subject of Derby again. I did eventually ask him about going back. His answer didn’t surprise me. He couldn’t bare the reminder of happier times.” She paused and plucked at her skirts. “He…met someone in the latter part of his life.”
“He remarried?”
She nodded.
“And what of his new wife? Unless…did you lose them both at once?”
Abruptly she covered her face with both hands. He’d hit a nerve.
“Could we talk about something else?” Dropping her hands, she gazed at him with pleading eyes. “Tell me more about your life. You mentioned an interest in the quarry? Something to do with overseeing its production for your brother and the earl?”
Pushing for answers and dredging up her past had clearly caused her distress—and to no avail. He was no less in the dark concerning why she felt compelled to keep her identity secret than when he first posed the question. Applying a modicum of tact going forward wouldn’t kill him, and might garner better results.
“I contemplated overseeing it. Past tense.” He sighed. “Somebody ought to and, if my brother's wife has anything to say about it, doubtless will. Limestone has many uses which, properly implemented, would bolster the estate’s property values as well as raise the standard of living in the surrounding communities.”
“Many uses, you say? Besides providing the foundation for building blocks and cobblestones?”
“A plethora.”
