Regency Redemption: The Inconvenient Duchess / An Unladylike Offer. Christine Merrill

my place with the other workers. If people in these parts had any suspicions about the strangers in their midst, time set their minds at rest. Cici and Miranda did what was necessary to help keep us afloat, taking in washing and mending, and hiring themselves out to the great houses in the area when they needed extra help. And thus, slowly, my daughter forgot the world she was born to.’

      ‘And now that she is neither fish nor fowl, you think she should marry a duke?’ Marcus stared in disbelief at the man before him.

      Sir Anthony’s mouth tightened. ‘Yes, I do. I can no longer work.’ He held out his twisted hands in evidence. ‘I am useless, too clumsy to run even the simplest machine. Unless we can find another means of support, it’s the poorhouse for us all. Do you understand what it means to watch your daughter forced to wait upon people who would be her inferiors, had I but kept a cool and sober head some years back? To sit idle and watch my only child forced into service to expiate my sins?’

      And it grew still worse. Marcus listened in horror as Sir Anthony explained. ‘Recently, Miranda had grown popular at a certain house—her occasional position serving there was to be made permanent. Humiliating, perhaps, if I’d had any pride left. But then it became clear to me that the lord wished to offer her a position above stairs that had nothing to do with service. Miranda is a bright girl, and she loves us too well. It was only a matter of time, your Grace, before she realised that she was the solution to all our problems and agreed. I needed to get her away and safely married before a local lord took what he wanted and I completed my daughter’s ruin by sacrificing her honour to put bread on the table. It was Cici’s idea to try to find her a husband that suited her station in life. Someone who seldom visited London, and was unaware of the scandal attached to our name.’

      ‘But why me?’ There must be something, a sign on his face perhaps, that labelled him easily gulled.

      The woman spoke. ‘Your mother owed me for a wrong, done long before you were born. I called in the debt.’

      ‘I read your letters. You threatened her with exposure. Exposure of what?’

      ‘There was little threat, really, other than the weight of her own guilt. And perhaps the embarrassment of having known me. But she responded to the letters I sent and I took advantage of the fact.’

      ‘She was dying.’

      Lady Cecily looked coldly into his eyes. ‘I know. And I can’t say that I cared, other than that it left me little time to form my plan. I am sorry to be so blunt. But your mother, as I knew her, was a hard woman, and jealous. If she wished to repent before death, she had much to repent for.’

      He nodded. ‘Please explain.’

      ‘We knew each other first as children. We went to school together and shared a room. We were best friends as girls and both as sweet and beautiful as one could hope. When I was fourteen, my father died. He left sufficient funds to see me through school, and provide a modest Season when I came of age, and left my guardianship to an aged aunt who knew little of what happened while I was away.’

      Her mouth twisted in a bitter line. ‘There was a trustee there who took, shall we say, a personal interest in my case. He took every opportunity to remind me that my funds were limited, and my position at the school in jeopardy. Finally, he persuaded me to meet him one night in an office. To go over the details of my father’s will. How was I to know what he intended? I was only a girl.’ There was anguish in her voice and Marcus felt the man next to him tighten protectively.

      ‘I returned to my room afterward crying and shaking and your mother helped me clean away the blood and swore she would tell no one what had happened. And she kept the secret for me because I begged her to, even though the man continued to use me on and off for the rest of the term. I escaped to my aunt’s home after that, and saw nothing of your mother until the year we had our Season.

      ‘She was a great beauty, as was I.’ Cecily smiled as she remembered. ‘I’d put the difficulties at school far behind me and hoped to make a match with an understanding man who would not question the lack of blood on the sheet. I had several fine prospects, including my dear Anthony, and …’ she looked appraisingly at Marcus ‘… your own father. Many of the same men who hovered about your mother, in fact. We had been friends at school, but we were rivals now. When it looked like your father might be ready to offer for me, when it looked like she might lose, your mother let my secret slip out, and then spread it enthusiastically about the ton. Suddenly I was not a poor, abused girl, but a young seductress. And the offers I received?’ She laughed. ‘Well, they were not offers of marriage. Eventually, I accepted one. And when he tired of me, I found another. And that is when I was known as “Lady Cecily”. And why I responded as I did when you came to the door. Anthony was the last of the men that kept me, and I loved him from the time before my fall from honour. When he became too poor to keep me?’ She shrugged. ‘I kept him. And he ran through all I had saved before I could persuade him to take his daughter, abandon his honour and run.’

      ‘And you sought to ruin me, as my mother ruined you?’

      ‘No, your Grace. I swear we meant you no harm. I only sought to find the best possible home for Miranda. And I do you no disservice in sending you a wife. She is not so great as the ladies you might choose, but she has had no opportunity to be a lady since she was ten, and no mother to guide her. Had the past been different, she would be every bit as fine as the woman you would select for yourself.’