3. Chapter 3 #2
It was tempting. To arrive on the doorstep of a person whom she had never met would be daunting in the best of circumstances. Travel-stained and weary, the prospect was dismal, but the paucity of her funds swayed her.
“Thank you, but I will be just fine.”
Mr Drake nodded and retook his place on the bench, muttering to himself that the lass was a plucky one, bringing a wan smile to Kitty’s lips as she watched the cart until it disappeared from view.
She climbed the steps to the front door, rang the bell, and waited to see how her future would unfold.
Kitty stood before the closed door, running her hands up and down her pelisse, as if doing so would remove the evidence of her travel-worn state.
A man dressed in black appeared in answer to her summons and looked down his nose at her. “Round the back, girl,” he said with a slight lift of his chin and began to shut her out.
Swallowing the embarrassment of being thought a servant, Kitty pulled her card out of her reticule and thrust it toward the man before the gap disappeared. “Please could you enquire whether Mrs Barrington is at home to visitors?”
With obvious reluctance, the butler took her card, but he still didn’t invite her to enter. “Wait here. I’ll find out if the mistress will receive you.”
His tone was one of disbelief, but Kitty refused to be put off. Her grandfather had told her to come. She had a right to be here. A right to be seen.
It was several minutes before the man reappeared and opened the door more fully so Kitty could enter. “Mrs Barrington will see you. Follow me.”
He led her along the hallway and into a spacious drawing room. “Miss Bruce, madam.”
A formidable-looking matron of advanced years sat in a winged armchair to one side of the fireplace.
She was dressed in a long-sleeved white morning gown made high to the neck, and with a lacy cap upon her head.
Though her hair was grey, her features must once have been handsome.
So this was Mrs Barrington. The woman she had travelled over two hundred miles to meet.
There was a slight resemblance between the old lady and her grandfather, but her sullen expression was as different from his as she could have imagined. There were lines about her mouth and forehead that suggested she spent far too much time frowning.
“Miss Bruce,” she barked. “Given your name, I suppose you have something to do with my brother.”
A small measure of relief swept over Kitty. At least the woman did not deny the relationship. “Yes, madam. I am his granddaughter.”
“Is that so? Let’s have a look at you.”
Kitty obediently stepped forward. The old lady looked her up and down and shook her head slowly from side to side, her mouth downturned. As if she had assessed Kitty—and found her wanting.
“You’re a plain thing, aren’t you? Far too tall for a girl. Not a patch on your grandmother. Catherine was a beauty—I’ll say that for her. It was easy to see why my fool of a brother fell for her, but why he had to marry her was always a mystery. I told him not to do it.”
Ignoring the slight on her person, Kitty concentrated on the second half of what the woman had said. Mrs Barrington hadn’t approved of her grandfather’s marriage. That would explain the rift between them. “I never knew my grandmother, but I’m named for her.”
“Why are you here? Is my brother dead?”
“Yes.”
The old lady seemed taken aback by her abrupt answer. “And you’ve come to tell me in person, hoping to get something from me?”
Kitty didn’t know how to reply. How could she refute the accusation that she was a grasping relative?
“At least you haven’t the gall to deny it, but you are bound for disappointment. My father disinherited Walter when he refused to give her up and bequeathed everything to me and my son.”
Her grandfather had been cast off by his family because of his choice of wife? That was news to Kitty. Why hadn’t he told her?
“Speak up, girl. What is it you’re after? Left you destitute and instructed you to come and prey on me after he’d gone, did he? Thought I would forget how he chose her over his own sister?”
Why had her grandfather sent her to this spiteful woman? Had he hoped time would soften her attitude toward him? Instead, unforgiveness had festered for decades, and she was relishing the opportunity to take out her rancour on Kitty.
“My grandfather told me to come to you. I confess, I never even knew I had a great aunt until I read the letter he left for me after he’d passed.”
“That sounds like him—blotting me out as if I didn’t exist, because I dared to object to his marriage. Why did he send you to me?”
“He said you would tell me what he could not and hoped you would care for me for the love you once had for him.”
“Bah! What about your parents? Why bother me?”
“They’re dead. My only brother is away fighting against Bonaparte. There is no one else. It’s a relief to know I have someone left alive in England to whom I’m related.”