The Accidental Elopement (Scandalous Miss Brightwells Book 4) Read online

  But something dramatic had happened to make her cast caution to the wind and embark upon what anyone would consider the most foolish of risks—trying to cross a river in flood. He couldn’t reconcile the talk he’d overheard as he left Derry’s drawing room. Would Katherine really have been spurred to such action through concern for Jack’s welfare?

  He stepped back to allow the doctor access to Katherine’s side, gazing at the perfection of her features so pale and still against the pillow. She was beautiful. Beautiful from the inside out, and his heart hitched as he closed his eyes and the constriction in his throat made it hard to breathe.

  Lady Quamby was weeping as she hurried into the room, her tears not feigned, for Jack had seen often how judiciously she manufactured emotion to achieve her own ends. Now she appeared panicked and remorseful as she knelt at the bedside and snatched Katherine’s hand, George looking downcast, shuffling into the room in her wake.

  “Katherine, dearest girl, forgive me.” Lady Quamby held her niece’s hand against her cheek and closed her eyes. “Forgive me for not helping you all those years ago when I truly believed you loved Freddy.”

  Jack blinked. And his eyes widened when George leaned over his mother’s shoulder and said softly but urgently, “I was to blame, Mother. I proposed the wager. I encouraged Freddy when he thought he had no chance of winning Katherine.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow, adding, “Though I swear I did not know he’d lost everything at the gaming tables the night before the blackguard tricked her into getting into his carriage. Do not blame yourself, alone, Mother. You always wanted only what was best for Katherine. Unlike me. Until now.” His voice broke. “Only to see our plan go so horribly wrong.”

  Plan? Jack was about to interject and quiz them with urgent ferocity, but the doctor was now rising after he’d gently wiped the mud from Katherine’s brow, and everyone moved aside so he could reach his bag of instruments.

  “How bad are her injuries?” Jack managed to ask, clenching his fists to stop them trembling.

  The doctor stared at Jack a moment, his eyes flickering in the effort, it seemed, to place the situation in its rightful context.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you just yet. I fear, however, that’ll she’ll not manage to walk up the aisle in—when did your mother say the wedding was?”

  Jack blinked rapidly. The doctor had confused Katherine with his intended bride. He shook his head and said, wishing the words to hell though he had no choice but to utter the truth, “Katherine is my…friend. I’m to marry Miss Worthington.”

  “I…I’m not sure that would be wise.”

  He swung round at the sound of the soft, regretful words and found himself staring into the tearful gaze of his real bride.

  Struck dumb, he saw the effort it took Odette to draw in a shaking breath. “I have my dignity too, Jack,” she whispered. She looked stricken, and Jack felt the most dishonourable cad that ever lived as she went on, “How can I marry you, Jack, knowing every time you look at me you wish you were looking at Katherine?” She turned her head and gazed at the young woman on the bed. “She obviously feels the same…otherwise, she wouldn’t have taken such risks to be here thinking…” She looked at Lady Quamby and George before adding, “That you were injured.”

  “Odette.” Jack took her hand as remorse and dismay and confusion warred within him.

  “You can’t help the way you feel, Jack,” she said sadly, gently extricating her hand. “And I admire your loyalty and honour, but I won’t hold you to what you are only doing out of loyalty and honour. It’s not fair to either of us.” She stepped backwards, towards the door. The room was silent; everyone’s attention riveted on Odette while Jack remained rooted to the spot, knowing he should argue with her, take her hands in his and refute everything she’d said.

  But he couldn’t.

  She offered him a small, sad smile. “I shall, with dignity, withdraw from our intended contract. My father is ill. He needs me more than you do, let us say. Neither of us shall be deemed to have acted dishonourably.” Her lip trembled. “And don’t we all deserve to be happy?” She cast a final glance at Katherine before putting her hand on the doorknob. “I hope Katherine recovers fully but…even if she doesn’t, Jack, I won’t be your substitute love.”

  Chapter 31

  It was just as she’d dreamed. Katherine was lying in a cloud of comfort, the curtains billowing into the room, a blue sky beyond, the air fragrant with the scent of roses.

  And there was Jack, sitting at her bedside, holding her hand and smiling down at her.

  She smiled back and squeezed his hand, surprised at the lack of strength in her grip.

  “Jack dearest,” she murmured. “I knew one day we’d be together. I didn’t mean for it to be like this, though.” Her thoughts seemed jumbled and hazy, but she was surprisingly undisturbed. Simply being with Jack infused her with happiness, for Jack would only be holding her hand and looking at her with such intense adoration if they’d both died and gone to the hereafter.

  “Did you have a happy marriage with Odette? I hope you did. I only ever wanted you to be happy.”

  Jack pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes, glancing up at the sound of someone entering the room. Katherine caught a whiff of the peony scent her mother favoured these days and felt another surge of joy. But, of course it couldn’t be her mother. In Heaven with them, too? That was just too much of a coincidence.

  She heard the words: “She’s rambling, Jack, but she’s awake. Thank God she’s awake.” And then the muffled sound of weeping.

  “Rambling? I’m not rambling. I’m talking to Jack. I want to learn everything he’s been doing since we parted. Do you have children? Oh, Jack, I wanted to tell you so much about Diana, but I couldn’t.” Now she was the one who started to feel like weeping. A tear breached the corner of her eyelid before Jack tenderly wiped it away with his forefinger. He kissed it, then, which made Katherine very happy.

  “What did you want to tell me about Diana, dearest?” he whispered, putting his head close to Katherine’s cheek, before kissing her lips ever so softly.

  “Why, that she’s yours, of course. You surely must have guessed that, though. And even if you didn’t, it was not something to talk about, was it? Not with you marrying Odette, when you had no choice. You made it very clear, and I understood. You know, about how you couldn’t have lived with yourself if you’d not done what honour demanded of you.”

  “Katherine.” He tightened his grip on her hand. She thought he had something in his throat. “Katherine.” He said it again, and she thought he sounded strangled by some strange sentiment like remorse, which was strange, for being in a place like this, none of that mattered anymore. Not now that they could be together.

  “I didn’t know. I…never guessed.”

  She opened her eyes, and there he was, staring at her, tears welling behind his eyes. He shook his head, real shock in his expression. “I must have been the blindest fool. I was the blindest fool. Diana is…mine?”

  Katherine smiled happily. “She’s lovely, isn’t she? I hope she’s happy. As happy as I am right now. I want her to know love as I’ve known love with you, Jack.”

  Jack made an odd noise. “I didn’t see so much of what was staring me in the face,” he muttered. “And then George told me what he had done.”

  “George?” She heard the derision in her voice as she widened her eyes. “He did badly by me. Very badly.” She ought not to feel such anger when she and Jack were together now, and the past was barely remembered. Then she shivered, remembering the seven years of unhappiness she’d spent with Freddy.

  “But he did his best to atone, Katherine. Yes, it’s true he set up the wager, and he encouraged Freddy’s plan to send a carriage after he’d sent the note to you. He never thought you’d actually get into it!”

  “I thought it was you sending the carriage for me, Jack!” Katherine jerked forward, and Jack took her in his arms. How wa
rm and comforting the feeling was. She knew the carriage didn’t matter. George, Freddy, the accidental elopement. None of that mattered because she was now where she wanted to be. But she was afraid Jack mightn’t know everything, and it was important that he did.

  She put her face close to Jack’s and lovingly traced the contours of his face. “I got into the carriage because I thought that when bad weather prevented you from sailing that day, you’d reconsidered and were asking me to throw my lot in with yours. I thought you had sent the carriage!”

  Jack cupped her face and rested his forehead against Katherine’s. “So it’s true, my darling Katherine.” He felt weak with emotion. “I couldn’t believe it. Not even when Diana made so many references to it: the wrong carriage…staring out over the sea. I berated myself each time for having the ego to think that I was the source. Lord, I would have taken you with me across the seas if it could have been managed. If there’d been time. After I realised how much our last two nights together changed everything and I could never love another like I loved you.” He drew back so she could see the sincerity in his eyes. “Yes, I made a success of it all, and I’m a rich man, but I could have done it faster with you by my side.” He swallowed. “And been a great deal happier for many years more.”

  Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “I can’t blame anyone other than myself…darling Jack,” she whispered. “I hadn’t read the letter properly when Mama stepped into the room, and I threw it into the fire, my heart threatening to explode with excitement at the thought that this carriage that was in the street just outside my bedroom window would take me in just a few hours to where you were!”

  He held her tighter, and she shuddered within his embrace, sagging as she put her head on his shoulder. “But instead I found Freddy waiting for me,” she wept. “It was not too late to extricate myself, I thought. But then there were people at the tavern who recognised both Freddy and me. I knew I’d be ruined if I didn’t marry him after that.”

  Jack shook his head as he gathered the rest of the story from the snippets that had been told to him. “And your aunt thought you were truly in love with Freddy. She could have helped you, otherwise. Pretended she was staying at the inn, she says. If she’d only known.” He breathed deeply, managed to smile, then raised one eyebrow as Katherine raised her head to look at him. “Your Aunt Antoinette claims she’s rather good at smoothing over potentially scandalous situations. Claims to have been doing it her whole lifetime. But…” Here was the question he could barely wait to return to. “Diana. You know she’s mine?”

  “Oh Jack, you only have to look at her. She has the same coloured hair, the same dimple in her chin that you have—”

  “The same hands, and the same cast to her nose that the three of us have, in fact.”

  Jack swung round as his mother quietly entered the room, smiling as she took a seat in a rusle of checked skirts. He would have preferred to have continued this precious moment with Katherine but there was a strange urgency behind his mother’s smile as she asked, “I hope you don’t mind if I join you, Katherine.”

  A look like fear flashed across Katherine’s face. Concerned, Jack squeezed her shoulders, even while his mind dwelled on the oddness of his mother’s last words.

  “Where are we?” Katherine asked. “What are you doing here, Mrs Patmore? I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven when Jack…kissed me.” She blushed hotly. “For he’s—”

  “No!” Jack said quickly. “Odette’s gone back to London with Lady Quamby and Lord Derry after she understood how matters were between us. There was really no hiding the truth after you were brought in from the river.”

  “The river?”

  “Why, after your fall, Katherine. Don’t you remember?”

  She put her hand to her mouth. “Yes, of course! I was riding here to see you, Jack.” She struggled to sit up unaided, and Jack rearranged the pillows to help her. “Aunt Antoinette sent me a note to say you’d been injured most horribly,” she went on urgently. “Of course, I had to come as fast as I could.”

  Emotion welled up in Jack’s gullet, stronger than ever. Strange how all his manly attributes seemed to have deserted him. All he wanted to do was crush Katherine against his chest and murmur to her how much he adored her. But his mother was here, with her cryptic words, and there was so much else to explain to Katherine.

  “But I wasn’t injured, Katherine. It was a plan hatched by Lady Quamby and George. You see, George was doing his best to get you here, certain that we could mend matters between us—”

  “George!”

  “Darling, you really should modify your tone every time you utter his name. You’ll hurt his feelings most terribly, and he’s probably listening in the passage.”

  Katherine tossed her head. “George is always eavesdropping, and what you’ve said can’t be true. George would never—”

  “He would, and he did. And when you wouldn’t come, he suggested that his mother write a note to tell you I was injured, never imagining you would take such risks to be here. My precious girl, I can’t believe you’d take such risks to be with me.”

  “I would cross raging seas to be with you, Jack.”

  “But you wouldn’t tell me Diana was my daughter to bind me to you if you felt I was honour-bound to marry Odette?” The truth that had seemed so unreal before was now washing over him, filling him with a plethora of emotions—not all of them tender and loving. “How could you keep such a thing from me? My own child? Do you know what that means to me? To know I have a child? My own flesh and blood? When I’ve never known my own flesh and blood. Only the charity of good people.”

  “Please don’t be angry, Jack.” Katherine reached out her arms, but this time he just took her hands. He would come to terms with this, of course, but he felt keenly the hurt of having been denied the knowledge.

  “I did what I thought was right at the time,” whispered Katherine. “I couldn’t use Diana for my own ends—even though I longed to be with you. I had no choice but to marry Freddy when you were across the seas. I didn’t know what else to do. Besides, I married Freddy before I even knew I was with child. A letter would have taken months to reach you and what was the good of telling you something that would just torment you when there was nothing to be done about it?”

  “And she was so young, Jack.”

  He’d forgotten his mother was there, sitting silently to his right. He turned, surprised to see the tears coursing down her cheeks. Suddenly, he wanted her gone. This moment should be between Katherine and himself.

  Until his mother said in a voice so soft and laden with shame, he had to put his head closer to hear her. “You think you were brought up not knowing your own flesh and blood, Jack. That Rufus and I took you in out of the goodness of our hearts. Did you not know how much we loved you?”

  “Of course, I knew. And I made my own love and appreciation for you both very clear.” Yet all he could think about was Diana. He understood Katherine had no choice; that he’d put her in an impossible situation. It made him feel even more wretched.

  “You did. And that’s why I thought it didn’t matter if I withheld from you the fact…”

  She couldn’t go on. Jack had never seen his normally self-contained mother so overcome as she put her head in her arms and leaned forward.

  “What fact, Mother? What fact did you withhold?”

  She put her hands in her lap and looked at him. “That you were the son I was forced to give up when I was even younger than Katherine was when she had Diana.”

  “What?” His brain felt suddenly filled with fog, and he felt Katherine reach for him as she too gasped. With difficulty, he tried to breathe evenly again. “I don’t understand you, Mother. Why would you keep such a thing from me?” Anger like he’d never known surged through him. He felt a whole lifetime of angst at not knowing his true parentage was mocking him. A thousand voices were laughing in his ears.

  “Don’t be angry, I beg of you! Please Jack!” his mother begged.
“I couldn’t tell anyone you were mine after I found you again, having lost you for seven years and believing I’d never see you again. Seven years…almost the same length of time you’ve lost Diana,” she added in a tone of wonder before Jack snapped, “Did you not think it was important for me to know the truth? When I’ve wondered my entire life if my father was a thief, a murderer? I was so grateful to Odette for accepting me as I was and taking the chance that the blood of villains might taint the blood of the children we would have…” He stopped himself. He was with Katherine now. This was not the moment.

  But…

  “Katherine, did you know this?”

  She shook her head. She was even paler than she had been. “I, too, loved you for who you were, Jack. I didn’t care who your parents were. But…Aunt Eliza? You are Jack’s real mother? I…I don’t understand?”

  It was almost too much to comprehend. Diana was his daughter, and Eliza Patmore was his mother. He’d learned both these facts in the space of five minutes. He had kin. A real mother, and a real daughter. And both had been kept from him for seven years. He stood up. He didn’t know if he could remain.

  “Please, Jack! Understand here what’s important, I beg of you!” His mother tugged at his coat. “I did what I did to protect you and keep you safe. Katherine did what she did at great self-sacrifice. It’s not like you to think only of yourself.”

  His mother’s anger snapped him back to reality. He sat down with a thud. It was not often he was berated by anyone, but wasn’t it so true that he’d been treated with loving kindness and respect his entire life? Despite the fact his origins were mired in obscurity.

  “Forgive me,” he muttered. “We all do what we think is right at the time.”

  “Of course we do, Jack. And I was prepared to marry George’s uncle—commonly referred to as ‘odious George’ so his cousins, Ladies Quamby and Fenton tell me.” Her mouth quirked, but she went on quickly to answer his look of enquiry, “You were Young George’s playmate, and George Bramley was in residence with his uncle, Lord Quamby. I recognised you when I dragged you from the lake after all you children nearly drowned. I recognised the tiny sixth finger on your right hand. And I knew the only way I could be reunited with the child I’d had out of wedlock and that had been taken from me was to marry George Bramley. Odious George.” She paused. “So I thought at the time.”