Ralph was still standing before her chair, looking down at her.
“I believe my wife may have something to say on that subject, Muirhead,” he said. “I am hers to command. Chloe?”
“We will not avoid anyone or anything,” she said, lifting her chin. “And I do not need to be protected. I am the acknowledged daughter of Sir Kevin Muirhead and the wife of the Duke of Worthingham.”
“Good girl,” Graham said.
Ralph merely nodded slowly.
“Graham,” she said, “would you pull on the bell rope, if you please? It is time the tea tray was brought in. Do sit down, Papa. Am I such a shockingly poor hostess that I have not even thought to offer you a chair? Mama taught me better than that.”
Graham did as he was asked and then took a seat. “It is your turn, I believe, Ralph,” he said, “to entertain us with childhood memories of your own, since we entertained you so royally with ours during dinner.”
“Unlike you, though, Gray,” Ralph said, looking away from Chloe at last and taking a chair close to her brother’s, “I had three sisters to plague the life out of me. I built a fort deep in the woods at Elmwood and high up in the branches of a tree for good measure. I was well prepared to hold it against all female comers, but no one ever did come there except imaginary pirates and highwaymen and dragons—tree-climbing dragons, of course. I was a solitary boy, though a vivid imagination saved me from ever feeling lonely. I was very happy to find company of my own age and gender when I was sent off to school.”
Chloe looked from her husband to her brother and back as they recalled some humorous and hair-raising incidents from their school days. They were not excluding either her or Papa, but they were focused upon each other and upon a budding friendship that had never come to full fruition during their school years. Perhaps it would now, though they seemed poles apart in the way of life each led.
She glanced at her father and smiled at him when their eyes met. Her father!
The Marquess of Hitching was her father.
Her stomach lurched with a nausea she willed away.
* * *
Their visitors did not stay late. Graham’s work got him out of bed early in the mornings, Ralph guessed. And Muirhead had looked strained even while he smiled and joined halfheartedly in the conversation after dinner. But poor man, he had finally had to divulge a secret he had hoped to take to the grave and had risked losing his daughter as a result.
The drawing room seemed very quiet when Ralph and Chloe were left on their own. They found themselves at opposite sides of the hearth again. Chloe reached down for her workbag and her embroidery, apparently changed her mind, and sat up again, her hands folded in her lap.
“When I said I was at your command,” he told her, “I meant it, Chloe. Do you wish to go home?”
She raised her eyes to his. “To Manville?” she asked him. “Alone?”
“I would come with you,” he said, “and stay with you.” And to hell with what was expected of him as the new Duke of Worthingham here in town.
“You are very kind,” she said. “Very kind. But, no. Nothing has changed really, has it? You knew the truth. I did too, though I chose not to believe it. Now I have no choice. But I will not run away.”
He rested one elbow on the arm of the chair and propped his jaw against one balled fist. “None of the invitations to our ball have gone out,” he said. “If you wish, I will have Lloyd—”
“No,” she said. “They will remain on the list.”
When had he first realized, he wondered, that he cared for her? But of course he cared. She was his wife. He would protect her and care for her needs for the rest of his life. He bedded her nightly. They would share children. Of course he cared.
But why hide truth from himself, as she had done since last year on a far larger issue? He cared, though he did not wish to analyze what exactly that meant.
He cared about her happiness.
What must it feel like to discover right out of nowhere that one’s father was not one’s father after all? He felt a sick jolt to the stomach at the very thought. To discover that one’s mother had conceived one with another man. To know that one’s apparent father had lived with the lie all one’s life.
“I suppose,” she said, “this whole situation is as awkward for them as it is for me.”
He watched as she opened her fingers, gazed down at her palms, and then clasped her hands in her lap again. He supposed she was talking about Hitching and his family.
“After I fled last year,” she said, “they must have assumed that I would not return. But here I am, the Duchess of Worthingham, and likely to be wherever they plan to go. Does she know, do you think?”
“The marchioness?” he said. “I daresay she suspects.”
“I meant Lady Angela,” she said. “But, yes, there is the marchioness too. I have hated Lady Angela since last year. But she is quite innocent. I suppose she hates me. Yet we are half sisters.” She shivered even though the fire had been built up while they were downstairs seeing her father and Graham on their way. “She is as much my sister as Lucy is. And she has brothers, does she not? My half brothers.”
Her fingers had curled into her palms. Her head had dropped. Her eyes were closed. He wondered if she would faint—or vomit.
“What you could do,” he said, “is call upon Hitching at his home. Tomorrow is Saturday. He will not be at the House.”