Kat felt Hale’s hand shift at her waist, a physical sign that something about these words might matter.
Kat thought about what Gabrielle had said. When the earl died, his personal wealth would pass to whatever wife he might leave behind. And the egg was personal wealth.
“My lord,” Hale said, “I hadn’t realized you’d remarried. Congratulations.”
“He’s engaged,” the viscount rushed to correct.
“I’ll be married soon enough, boy. And then you’ll be out of the picture as soon as my son and rightful heir comes along. Isn’t that right, Allaway?”
“It is, my lord,” the lawyer agreed.
“Would have had an heir already if Georgie hadn’t been a…” He gestured wildly, as if the word girl was one he couldn’t bring himself to say. “But don’t you worry. The real Viscount Marley will be here within the year. Just you wait.”
Hale’s smile looked natural. Calm. Only Kat could see him force it.
“Of course, my lord. Congratulations on the happy event,” Hale said, but Kat couldn’t keep from glancing at Lady Georgette—the “Georgie” who would always be too small, too frail, too female to ever fully have her place at the family table. And Kat’s heart broke for her.
“Who is the lucky lady?” Hale asked the earl.
“Ah,” the old man beamed. “I’m the lucky one, my boy. See for yourself. She’s right behind you.”
Kat felt herself turn. The wind blew her hair from her face with a cold slap, but nothing compared to the sound of the voice that said, “Is someone talking about me?”
But the words were almost lost amid the crash of luggage hitting the gravel drive and the spinning of the maid in the too-short skirt. Kat hoped she was the only one who heard Gabrielle’s shocked whisper. “Mom?”
Kat remembered her mother. Not everything—she’d been too young for that. But memories would come back to her occasionally, even after all these years. A smell of baking bread. The sound of pigeons when they scatter. Old haunting folk songs sung in Russian in the middle of the night. These things came to Kat in waves and fits and starts. But never did her mother seem so close and quite so far as when she was in the same room with her Aunt Irina.
That was what Kat thought when she heard the sitting room door slam behind her.
“Oh, don’t be silly. I’d love to show our guests to their chambers!” Irina had called down the long hall, her words bouncing off of polished floors and three-hundred-year-old family portraits.
The earl had smiled and nodded, as if all men should be so lucky as to find such a natural hostess to marry. The viscount had scowled, as if his uncle’s new paramour lacked the good sense to know exactly which tasks should be left to the help.
But none of that mattered to Kat.
Hale spun and Gabrielle dropped the luggage she’d been carrying, letting it bounce on the soft sofa and tumble to the floor.
Kat could only look at the woman who, in the right light and the right clothes and the right circumstances could almost be her mother’s twin. “Is it you?” Kat asked.
Irina scanned Kat from head to toe, and for a moment she seemed more like Gabrielle than her lost sister.
“Of course it’s me. I would have thought that obvious, Katarina. Or have you lost your mind as well as your heart.” Smoothly, she turned to Hale. “Hello, darling.” She leaned up and offered her check for a kiss. “It is so good to see you, dear. Let me look at you. Oh, Gabrielle, why didn’t you see him first? For that matter, why didn’t I see him first?”
“Mother! Listen to us,” Gabrielle was shouting, crossing the room. Even in the maid’s uniform with her gorgeous hair pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her neck, she moved like a swan, like a ballerina, ready to leap from the stage at any moment. “Are you running the Bird in the Hand or aren’t you?” Gabrielle asked and, at last, Irina stopped smiling.
“Of course not. Why would I do something silly like that? I’m going to be the next Countess of Greymore, or haven’t you heard?”
“Mother!” Gabrielle exclaimed and Irina whirled on her.
“Don’t give me that look, Gabrielle. You should be so lucky as to land a man like the earl when you’re my age.”
“He’s forty years older than you!”
“I know.” Irina practically squealed. “Isn’t it perfect?”
“So what con are you running?” Hale leaned against the door that separated the sitting room from the bedroom of the huge suite that the Hale heir had been given. He kept his arms crossed and his voice even, but Kat could feel his patience running out.
“Why should there be a con?” Irina said as she walked to one of the gilt-framed mirrors and fingered her already perfect hair. “The man is going to marry me. And then he’s going to die, and I’m going to be the Countess of Greymore until that little slimeball Fletcher marries, and makes me the Dowager Countess, but, then, the countess is all that matters, isn’t it?”
“Mother, I—”
“Oh, Gabrielle! You should marry Fletcher! It’s perfect. Of course, we can’t let on that you’re my daughter. I’m certainly not old enough to have a daughter your age, but it is perfect! But we have to get you out of that dreadful uniform first. If a future earl is drawn to a maid, then it’s always for the wrong reasons.”