Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
When Octavia was told that Evander wished to see her and that Lady Redgate was with him, Octavia pictured all manner of reasons for such a thing, as well as all manner of reactions from Lady Redgate. None of them is good.
She remembered well enough their short-lived interaction at the Opera, and Octavia had no doubt whatsoever that this would be an extension of that moment.
Was the woman here to scare her away? To warn her and the Duke off their relationship?
Would she make threats, shout and scream, even force the Duke’s hand so that he fired her?
Of all the things that Octavia pictured, what she found when she walked into the Duke’s office was not one of them: tears.
Lady Redgate stood up the second that Octavia walked into the room.
Octavia paused when she saw her, bracing herself for the verbal onslaught.
The woman had the same stern face that she remembered, was just as regal and intimidating, and filled with judgment.
Behind her, Octavia noticed the Duke bracing, a scowl on his face as he looked between them.
“Amelia…” Lady Redgate gasped.
Octavia blinked in surprise. That name… “How do you know that name?”
“It is you.” Lady Redgate’s chin began to wobble, and her cold eyes turned glassy as tears began to well in them. “I knew it, I knew it when I saw… it is you.”
Octavia stood in a state of shock. The Duke too, he reared back as he noticed the tears that started to drip down Lady Redgate’s cheeks. For a moment, nothing was said, and all that could be heard was Lady Redgate’s sniffing.
“Perhaps I ought to…” The Duke stepped around the desk, still watching Lady Redgate closely. “Miss Finch, Lady Redgate has asked that she speak with you alone. I told her that I will allow it, only if you do.”
Octavia never dreamed that she would want to be alone with this woman. But faced with her tears, and that name she spoke still echoing in the back of her mind, she knew it would be fine. In fact, she wanted to be alone with her, if for no other reason than to find out what was going on.
“It is fine,” she told the Duke. “I think I will be fine.”
The Duke crossed the room, still watching Lady Redgate closely. When he reached Octavia, he took her hand and looked at her sternly. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
He offered her a final look of worry, then a look of utmost confusion at Lady Redgate, before striding from the room and closing the door behind him.
“I am sorry.” Lady Redgate wiped the tears from her eyes. “I did not mean to… oh, look at me! I have come apart completely.”
“Here…” Octavia pulled a handkerchief from her dress and crossed the room. She held it out for Lady Redgate, who took it gratefully and dabbed her cheeks.
“This is not how I expected this to happen,” the elderly Lady explained as she finished drying her eyes.
“Although I suppose I was somewhat doubtful to begin with. After how long I have searched…” She sighed and shook her head, only to brighten as her watery eyes found Octavia again.
“One can only take so much disappointment before it becomes commonplace, even expected.”
Lady Redgate was not at all who Octavia had expected.
Gone was the harsh, even cold woman who had looked at her with such judgment at the Opera. Vanished was the air of arrogance, the self-importance, and the meanness of her strict face. She looked more like a caring grandmother now, the type who grandchildren became excited about visiting.
Who is this woman… what is going on?
“You said a name just now,” Octavia said slowly, her heart starting to flutter in her chest… daring to dream. “Why did you say that name?”
“A far question.” Lady Redgate sniffed a final time and stood up straight. “One of many, you are bound to have in due course. Please…” She gestured to the second chair at the desk. “I think you will wish to sit for this.”
Octavia did as she was asked; there was no sense in being stubborn now. She sat down, Lady Redgate did the same, and while it might have been her imagination, it felt as if Lady Redgate was resisting the urge to reach across and take her hands.
“Perhaps I ought to begin in the most obvious place,” Lady Redgate began. “The start.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“I do not know what you have heard of me,” she began. “But I saw your face when you walked in, so I can gather that it is not something I ought to be proud of.”
“It was not intentional,” Octavia said, trying her best not to judge. “But we have met before… if you remember? At the Opera…”
“Oh yes.” Lady Redgate grimaced. “I was not very kind to you. You must forgive me for that, dear. As you no doubt know, there is a certain expectation of women of my status, and while I do not agree with it, I have little choice but to foster it.”
“Being judgmental, you mean.”
She sighed. “My late husband… he had a reputation, one that was passed onto me. Just as it is one I have adopted, like one does a cloak in winter. I need these people to think that I am one of them, a mask I wear, so that they will not think to impede me.”
“Impede you? What does that mean?”
“The beginning.” She exhaled, and her expression turned sad.
“It was years ago now that my only daughter fell in love with a commoner. He was a kindly man, if not a little rough around the edges, and while I did not agree with the match, I saw how happy he made her. I only ever wanted what was best for her, so I did not try to stop it when the rumors began. My husband, however…” Her upper lip curled.
“He was not so kind. He forbade their love, threatened to do all manner of terrible things should it continue, which in his mind was enough to see its end.”
Octavia said nothing as the elderly woman spoke to her. Although the way she spoke, it was almost as if she did so to herself. Her eyes became distant, the pain of this memory clear on her face.
“My daughter, though…” A smile touched her lips.
“Oh, she was stubborn. Rather than giving in to my husband’s demands, she ran away with this great love of hers, vanishing into thin air as if she had never been.
She changed her name. She hid herself. And worst of all, not once did she reach out to tell me that she was well… ” She sniffed back tears.
Octavia’s heart started to race…
“It was years later when I finally found her. Sadly, by then, she had passed away. Worse still, her husband had also died. That broke me,” Lady Redgate said with pain in her voice.
“And it might have been the end of me, had I not learned that she had a daughter and a son…” The smile returned, albeit with some reluctance.
“This was four years ago, meaning that her daughter was a grown woman, while her son was still a child, a baby no less.”
Octavia’s chest tightened… Hope started to grow… the realization of what she was hearing slowly settling on her shoulders.
She pushed it down, however, refusing to accept such a thing. It cannot be true… There is no way…
“I have spent the last four years searching for my grandchildren,” Lady Redgate continued. “Four long and hard years, with almost nothing to go on. I was ready to give up, you see. And the more I searched, the more desperate I became, the more people started to wonder about me.”
“Which is why…”
“Which is why I act the way that I do,” she nodded.
“To fool those who might hear what I have been doing and seek to stop me. A daughter who runs away with a common man is one thing, but to have children with him, those that might inherit titles and wealth that many deem does not belong to them…” She scoffed.
“This ton. These people. They are hypocrites, all of them.”
Octavia swallowed the lump in her throat. “Did you find her? Your… your granddaughter? And your grandson?”
“In the most unexpected of places.” This time, Lady Redgate did not hesitate to take Octavia’s hands, just as Octavia did not hesitate to give them. “At the Opera, of all places, on the arm of a duke.”
Octavia gasped, and her throat tightened, tears now welling in her own eyes. She still did not dare believe it… she still refused to accept that this was real.
“But I could not be sure,” Lady Redgate continued. “It has been so long since I’ve seen my daughter’s face that I wondered if I was starting to imagine it. So, I had a man who works for me follow this woman, seeking proof.”
“Did he…” She sniffed back the tears. “Did he find it? The proof?”
“When my daughter left, she took with her a family heirloom. I always assumed she meant to sell it for money, but I searched and searched and was never able to find it. My only conclusion can be that she kept it close, perhaps to remind her of where she came from. Or maybe in the hope that her daughter might use it to find her way home.” Her eyes began to sparkle with more tears.
On instinct, Octavia removed a hand from Lady Redgate’s and clutched at her neck as if her mother’s pendant hung there.
Lady Redgate nodded at the gesture. “He saw you at the markets, as he saw your pendant. The ruby jewel at its center is the emblem of House Redgate, and when I was told that you wore it…” She chuckled.
“How you refused to sell it, I knew as I knew the sun would rise the following day and spread its light across this world. I knew I had found who I searched for.”
Octavia no longer tried to hold back her tears.
She no longer tried to push down those feelings of hope that threatened to explode.
Lady Redgate took her hand again, she looked into her eyes, and in her kindly stare, Octavia saw the truth of her words.
She felt them like a fire growing in the depths of winter, beating back the cold, saving her soul as it so desperately needed to be saved.
Even the name, Redgate. She might have laughed to realize now that she had always known that word. Her mother had told it to her, and she and Henry had used it as a secret code, never knowing its origin.