Chapter 18
“What do you mean, the ‘real reason’?” I took a step forward, completely baffled and truly a bit irritated. “You know the real reason, Mrs. Rawlings.”
“I know the reason you gave me,” she said, voice harsh. “But I am not one to believe what I am told without doing my own research.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Alexander demanded, bracing his hands on the back of an armchair. “We told you the truth, Mother.”
“Perhaps you did.” Mrs. Rawlings sounded rather smug now. “But she did not.”
“You are going to have to explain better than that.” Alexander was practically growling, frustration biting in his tone.
“Very well,” she said. “My suspicions began when Stroud told me what he saw during your arrival here.”
I stiffened, dread pooling in my chest. “My buttons.”
“Quite,” she said. “Just the first warning sign. Then that first night, I saw you going to my son’s bedroom door. He turned you away, as was proper, but you cannot deny that it happened.”
It was all so ridiculous I could hardly draw a breath, let alone mount a defense.
“The next day, you forced him to take you out to the water garden, a secluded, sheltered place, where you might have attempted any number of tawdry things.” She was warming to her speech, no doubt long planned and long practiced.
“You have sought every chance possible to be alone with him, in the library the day you conveniently ‘disappeared’ and yesterday in his study and last night at the assembly.” She pointed a finger at me.
“You have only been ungrateful and insolent to me and to him. You are a scheming, fortune-hunting trollop, and you have done everything in your power to entrap my son into marriage.”
The silence that fell upon the room was stifling. My heart beat too quickly, and I feared it would give out entirely. Entrap him into marriage?
“Mother, you have never been more wrong in your life.” Alexander could barely speak for how tight his jaw was. “Miss Lacey has been nothing but proper in all her interactions with me. Why would you slander her so?”
“Ask her, why don’t you?” Mrs. Rawlings replied. “Ask her what she is hiding from you, why she would stoop so low to capture a husband.”
A thread of shadowed unease began to uncurl inside me. What did she mean, ‘hiding’? She couldn’t possibly know about . . .
“You can ask me anything,” I managed, trying to keep my voice even. “I will answer.”
“Very well.” Mrs. Rawlings’s eyes glinted. “Stroud, if you will.”
The butler stepped forward, all cool composure amid this room of hot tempers. “After Mrs. Rawlings and I discussed our suspicions that first night,” he said, addressing Alexander, not me, “I immediately set out for London.”
“You lied,” Alexander said, anger simmering under the even tone of his voice. “You said you were visiting your sister in Bath.”
“Yes, I lied,” Stroud said without remorse. “But for a very good reason. When I arrived in London, I set out investigating. Mrs. Rawlings had informed me of Miss Lacey’s real name, and I was determined to know the truth of her.”
Oh no. Heavens, no.
“The things I was told about this woman,” Stroud said, voice thin, “the things I learned, would curdle your blood, sir. And you have a right to know them. She is every inch the sort of woman Mrs. Rawlings accuses her of being.”
I could not breathe. How had it happened? How was it possible that the rumors had followed me here, where I was no one? Where I was hurting no one? Mrs. Rawlings glared at me, self-assured and self-righteous. Stroud kept his nose in the air, disdainful as he looked down on me.
“You know nothing,” Alexander spat out.
My head jolted to my right. Alexander took two steps forward, placing himself in the middle of the room, directly between his mother and me.
“You know nothing about Miss Lacey or what she has suffered,” he declared. “You know nothing about the sort of woman she is.”
Mrs. Rawlings’s expression only grew harder. “Ask her then, Alexander. Ask her about the rumors that still circulate about her, even years after her disgrace.”
“I do not need to,” he said tightly. “I’ve already heard them, before we ever left London.”
Mrs. Rawlings stilled. “What?”
“Everything you seek to shock me with, I heard myself,” he said. “And I asked Miss Lacey about them our first day at Briarstone.” He turned to me, face lined with determination.
I steadied myself. He was giving me this chance to defend myself. I would not go to pieces.
“Everything you’ve heard about me is a lie,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady.
But then, hadn’t I been practicing this very defense in my head for the last two years, wishing so desperately that I could shout it out to all of England?
“The rumors were a creation of a woman with a vile mind and a vicious character. She wished to ruin my reputation because I knew a secret of hers, one that could have ruined her in return.”
Mrs. Rawlings only shook her head, and I was quite certain she wasn’t even listening. “Why should I believe you? Everything I’ve learned about you only confirms my first suspicion.”
“Let me address your concerns, then,” I said.
“Starting with my buttons: My buttons were undone simply because I lacked a lady’s maid, and I could not reach them.
I forgot until Stroud helped me out of my pelisse upon our arrival, and I even expressed my embarrassment at forgetting to your son, which Mr. Rawlings can confirm. But nothing untoward happened.”
I spoke briskly, matter-of-factly. I had to keep my simmering anger at bay, else risk losing my head altogether. Mrs. Rawlings watched me, her mouth pressed into a slit.
“That night, I did knock at Mr. Rawlings’s door,” I said.
“But not to proposition him, as you so blatantly suggested. You see, your son was injured in the attack at Vauxhall, cut by a knife on his arm. I helped him bandage and care for the wound on our journey here, and that night, I was only checking that he did not need further assistance.”
Mrs. Rawlings’s eyes darted to Alexander. “Is that true?”
“Of course it is,” he said, his posture rigid.
“Why would you not tell me?” she snapped.
“Because you would once again demand that I leave Bow Street,” he said without an ounce of expression to his face. “But the fact is that Miss Lacey saved my life that night. You should be thanking her, not condemning her.”
Mrs. Rawlings’s hands formed into fists. She said nothing. I did not imagine a thank-you was immediately forthcoming.
“Your third complaint,” I continued on, “has more to do with you than Mr. Rawlings. Yes, I coerced him into taking me to the water garden, but only to avoid spending any more time in your company.”
Mrs. Rawlings turned away, as if that might shield her from the repercussions of her attacks.
“Both of the other instances you mentioned,” I said, “the library and the study, were entirely innocent and unplanned. I never had aims upon marrying your son and certainly had no such aspirations in coming here. My situation is exactly as we told you when we arrived.”
Silence fell again, broken only by the crackling of the fire.
My words had spilled from me faster and faster until I had only the barest control over the tremors in my voice.
It was more than anger. It was hurt, frustration, hopelessness.
Would I never be free of these rumors? Would they always haunt me like a vengeful spirit?
“Stroud, please leave,” Alexander said suddenly. “I will have words with you later.”
Stroud said nothing as he slipped out the door, but I thought, perhaps, I saw some guilt in his demeanor. It did not make me feel any better.
“Are you satisfied?” Alexander asked in a low, dangerous voice. “Have you any other qualms about Miss Lacey?”
Mrs. Rawlings squared her shoulders as she faced us again. “You needn’t sound so high-handed, Alexander,” she hissed. “Can you really blame me for my suspicions with circumstances as they were?”
“Yes,” he said. “If you had but deigned to ask Miss Lacey or me, we might have avoided this altogether. She did not deserve any of your accusations, nor did she deserve to again face the pain of her past.” He exhaled. “An apology is in order.”
“An apology?” Her eyes flashed. “You must be joking. I have opened my home to a stranger and consented to provide her with a lie to keep her safe. Just because I had my doubts as to her intentions—”
“Doubts?” I repeated in disbelief. “Do not paint this so prettily, Mrs. Rawlings. You have assaulted my character and insulted my integrity.” I dropped my hands to my sides and took a deep breath. “I neither want nor need an apology from you. Good day.” I spun on my heel and left the room.
As I went, I heard Alexander’s raised voice and Mrs. Rawlings’s defensive tones, and I could not stand it.
I ran, heading straight for the back door overlooking the lake.
It was drizzling outside, the clouds dark and heavy, but I did not stop.
My slippers were soaked through in seconds as I darted through the grass, my damp hem clinging to my legs.
At last, I arrived at the water garden, where the towering trees overhead provided some shelter from the light rain.
I found a marble bench tucked away alongside the trickling canal.
It was wet, dark with rain, but I sat anyway, bracing my hands on either side of me, curling my fingers around the frigid marble.
I stared down the length of the canal toward the lake in the distance, where a rowboat was tied to a small wooden dock.
For half a moment, I imagined taking it out onto the water to get as far from the house—from Mrs. Rawlings—as I possibly could.
How often had I taken our own tiny boat at home out on the nearby pond?
But the thought flitted from my mind. All the energy seemed to have left my body, and I sat there, the rain a chorus all around me.