Heat licked at Frederica’s cheeks. Oh, why had she said anything at all? ‘The topic of my mother. The Wynchwood Whore.’
Lady Radthorn clapped her hands to her ears. ‘Child! Such language! Where did you hear such a thing?’ She sounded horrified. And disgusted.
It might be one way to do away with an unwanted chaperon. Make her think she was utterly beyond the pale. ‘It is the truth, is it not? The reason why no one in the family mentions her name?’
‘I’m appalled.’
Good. Perhaps she’d send her home.
But Lady Radthorn clearly felt the need to say more. ‘Oh, I’ll admit it was all an embarrassment. But your mother was not…well, not what you said.’
Frederica stared at her open mouthed. Her heart gave a painful squeeze of longing. A yearning to know her mother and not feel ashamed.
It could not be true. The elderly lady was simply being kind, trying to make Frederica feel better. Her mother’s wickedness had been drummed into her for too long for it to be sloughed off as a matter of degree. Her voice shook as she spoke. ‘She had a child out of wedlock. I’m a b—’
‘Lud, child, say not another word.’
Frederica snapped her mouth shut. Now she would be sent home in disgrace.
Lady Radthorn pulled out a lacy handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. ‘What is Wynchwood thinking, letting you believe this poison? Your mother married Viscount Endersley.’
The world seemed to spin as if she’d just stepped off a merry-go-round. ‘My father is a viscount?’
Lady Radthorn coloured. Someone tapped at the door. Lady Radthorn pressed her finger to her lips.
Her mother was married? The stories she’d heard told of a young woman who bedded men on a whim, no matter their origin. A wicked woman.
Just as she, Frederica, had bedded Robert, because she couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. Because she was wicked. Like her mother.
Her hands were clenched so hard, her nails dug into her palms. She opened her fingers and resisted the temptation to wipe them on her skirts while the butler methodically deposited a silver tray loaded with a teapot, pretty china cups and a plate of iced cakes on the table in front of her chair. She wanted to scream at him to go.
She needed to hear the whole story.
‘Thank you, Creedy. That is all,’ Lady Radthorn said. ‘We are expecting Mrs Phillips shortly. Have Digby help her in with her swatches and fabrics.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ He bowed and left.
‘Where were we?’
‘A v-viscount.’
‘Ah, Endersley. Gloria married the old gentleman under duress.’
‘Old?’
The dowager nodded. ‘His only son died unexpectedly and he desperately needed an heir. Gloria had been in and out of love with several young men during her first Season. Her father was in despair, thinking she would never settle on one. Then rumour had it she’d fallen hard for someone he absolutely refused to countenance.’
‘Like a coachman? Or a criminal?’ Or an assistant gamekeeper.
‘Well, as to that, I couldn’t say. There were rumours.’ Lady Radthorn frowned. ‘All the gentlemen adored her and if they knew this man’s identity, they never said. Gentlemen are like that. But your grandfather, Wynchwood, saw Viscount Endersley’s suit as the answer to a prayer. He was rich, you see, and as usual the Bracewells were balanced at the edge of financial disaster. He bore the expense of your mother’s come-out with the idea she would catch a wealthy man. It was her duty to save them.’
‘So she was forced to marry Endersley?’
‘Nobility marries for duty,’ the dowager countess pronounced. ‘If one is fortunate, as I was, love grows after a time. If not…’ she shrugged ‘…one endures.’ She let go a sigh. ‘Gloria was not the enduring kind, I’m afraid. Endersley knew the child she carried wasn’t his when you were born three months early.’
‘I was born in wedlock?’ She could scarcely believe it. All these years she’d been lectured about her place in life. Lowest of the low. Fortunate the family hadn’t cast her off.
‘Few men will accept another man’s love-child as their own. Endersley put the word out that the child Gloria bore was stillborn.’
They’d said she’d died? She felt sick. ‘And my mother agreed?’
‘Gloria was in no case to agree to anything. Milk fever, you know. It killed her soon after you were born.’
Well, at least that part of the story matched what she knew about her mother. Everyone at Wynchwood saw it as justice for her wicked ways. ‘I don’t know why they didn’t drop me off at an orphanage.’
Lady Radthorn’s brow crinkled. ‘I wondered about that myself, to be honest. My guess is Endersley paid the financially strapped Wynchwood off on condition he keep you. As a sort of punishment. It would have been like him to exact some sort of payment. Or Wynchwood might have done it for Gloria. He loved the gel. He was deeply saddened by his daughter’s passing. Went into a complete decline. When he died, the title passed to Mortimer, a distant cousin of his, along with your guardianship.’
The thought of her grandfather grieving for her mother was a shock. It gave Frederica an odd sensation in her chest to think that someone actually cared for her mother. It made her feel a little less of an outcast.
‘If Endersley was not my father, who is?’
The dowager’s wince made Frederica’s heart clench. ‘No one knows.’ Lady Radford shook her head. ‘Gloria couldn’t have been more than eighteen when they announced her betrothal.’ Her old eyes misted. ‘It really wasn’t fair. She rebelled. Said she was going to enjoy herself while she could. Things were different in those days. More free and easy. My son John said there was talk in the clubs. Masquerades at Ranelagh. Footmen. Even a highwayman. It seemed unlikely, but who can say.’
Criminals and servants? No wonder she’d earned the horrid sobriquet from her family. Nor had she given a thought to the result. An unwanted child. ‘She was wicked.’
‘Spoiled, I think. Too adored. I always thought her too finicky to have an affair with a man who was not a gentleman.’
Robert was a gentleman for all his rough ways. It was possible for a man to be of low birth and gentlemanly. Could her mother have fallen for that kind of man? Or was she completely wanton as Uncle Mortimer said?
She desperately wanted to believe Lady Radthorn, but feared Uncle Mortimer, a member of the family, was more likely to be privy to the truth.
The dowager countess was looking at her sadly, as if she felt sympathy for her mother, which was really rather sweet.
Frederica sat a little straighter in her chair, felt a little less guilty about who she was. An odd feeling filled her chest. ‘Thank you,’ she said. And she meant it. ‘You’ve answered questions I never dared ask.’
‘And added some too, I’ll warrant,’ the old lady said kindly.
Not added, just increased her curiosity and dread. Who was her real father?
The widow tucked her handkerchief away and smiled. ‘And now it seems your family has decided to let bygones be bygones and bring you out. You know, I never had a daughter and here you are, attending your first ball, and I am to bring you up to scratch. We are going to have such fun spending your uncle’s blunt. Now, young lady, serve the tea—we have a great deal to do before the seamstress arrives.’
Frederica poured milk into both cups.
‘Ah,’