but—’
‘So what has she done?’
‘Her mother—’
‘What has Bella done that deserves censure?’
Adam looked at his sister in silence. ‘Nothing,’ he said after a long moment. He sighed, and sat down beside her. ‘Grace, I’d prefer not to go into the details—’
‘I wish you would!’
Adam looked at his sister. Her eyes were wide and interested.
He shifted uneasily on the sofa. Not for the first time he realised how ill equipped he was for the role of guardian. How much should he tell a girl of Grace’s age? ‘Ask your Aunt Seraphina,’ he said cravenly.
‘I have,’ Grace said. ‘She was very vague.’
Adam made a show of looking at his watch. ‘Is that the time? I really must be going.’
The expression on Grace’s face, the sceptical lift of her eyebrows, was wholly adult.
Adam ignored it. He rose and started for the door.
‘Then I shall ask Bella,’ Grace said to his back.
Adam halted. He turned around and stared at her.
Grace clasped her hands in her lap and stared back at him. Her whole attitude was one of hopefulness.
Better I tell her than Miss Knightley does. Who knew the sordid details Arabella Knightley would include in her recital?
Adam walked back to the sofa and sat. He straightened his cuffs and flicked a piece of lint off his sleeve, wondering what exactly to say. Keep it brief. He cleared his throat and spoke. ‘Miss Knightley’s father was the second son of the Earl of Westcote. Her mother was the daughter of a French comte. They met in France before the Terror and married without the permission of either of their families.’ He glanced at Grace. ‘She was a Catholic, you understand.’
Grace nodded, wide-eyed. ‘They were disowned?’
‘He was; Westcote was notoriously bad-tempered. As for her…’ Adam shrugged. ‘The Terror was starting. I understand her family were among the first victims.’
‘Oh.’
‘Knightley brought his wife to England and they lived in Kent for a number of years—in reduced circumstances, I believe, but quite respectably—and then he died.’
‘How old was Bella?’
‘Five, or so.’ Adam shrugged again. ‘Knightley left his widow no income, so she approached Westcote, asking for help. The earl refused to let her set foot inside his house. He said he’d take the child, but not her.’
‘And she chose—’
‘She chose to keep her daughter.’
Grace moistened her lips. ‘What happened then?’
Adam looked at the silver platter and the last macaroon, stranded amid a sea of crumbs. ‘Mrs Knightley went to live with a friend of her husband’s, a nobleman. After a time, she became his mistress. By all accounts she was a very beautiful woman.’
‘And Bella?’
‘Was with her.’
Grace was silent for a moment. ‘But that’s not so bad, is it?’ she ventured. ‘Quite a number of married ladies have…have affaires and are still received everywhere.’
He glanced at her. Where had she learned that? ‘True, but Mrs Knightley had more than one protector over a number of years, and then, when her beauty failed her, she descended into London’s slums—taking her daughter with her.’
Grace plucked at a thread on the arm of the sofa. ‘Was Mrs Knightley a…a fallen woman in the slums?’
‘Yes,’ Adam said.
Grace bit her lip. She pulled the piece of thread free and wound it around her fingertip. ‘How long was Bella there?’ she asked, not looking at him.
‘Until her mother died. Three or four years, I think. She was twelve when Westcote took her in.’
‘Twelve?’ Grace said, glancing at him.
Adam nodded, remembering the twelve-year-old Grace had been: shy, eager, innocent.
‘How horrible for Bella,’ his sister said, her expression sober.
Adam shrugged. ‘Westcote educated her, made her heir to his fortune when his sons died without issue, launched her into society—’
‘No,’ Grace said. ‘I meant, how horrible for Bella to lose both her parents.’ She bit her lip and then smiled crookedly at him. ‘She was younger than I was when Mother died—and she didn’t have a brother.’
Adam had no memory of his own mother’s death—he’d been in swaddling clothes—but he had vivid recollection of Grace’s mother dying.
He looked at his sister, remembering the lost, dazed expression in her eyes, the bleakness in her face, her silent grief as she’d clung to him—and remembering, too, the surge of love he’d felt for her, the fierce need to protect her.
He cleared his throat. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Miss Knightley didn’t have a brother.’
Grace was silent for a moment. ‘I want to be friends with her.’
Adam rubbed his brow. ‘Grace,’ he said. ‘Miss Knightley isn’t good ton.’ He hesitated, reluctant to tell her. ‘In London she’s known as—’
‘Miss Smell O’Gutters. Yes, I know.’
Adam winced. Shame heated his face. Miss Smell O’Gutters. A name that could be laid at his door. No wonder she hates me.
‘I don’t care about that—or about any of it! Any more than Bella cares about what happened between me and Reginald.’
Adam stared at her helplessly. ‘Grace—’ One of his father’s favourite sayings pushed into his mouth: For heaven’s sake, try to behave as a St Just! He bit it back.
His sister stood, brushing crumbs from her lap. ‘Thank you for telling me about Bella.’ She bent and kissed his cheek. ‘I must go. Aunt Seraphina is taking me shopping.’ A smile, a swirl of sprigged muslin and golden ringlets, and she was gone.
Adam sat for a moment, staring at the empty doorway. He lifted a hand to his cheek and lightly rubbed where Grace had kissed him. What had happened to the sister he knew? The tractable, biddable girl? The girl who looked to him for guidance and acquiesced obediently to his wishes?
She’s growing up. She has a mind of her own.
It was a thought that filled him with foreboding. The world was suddenly a dangerous place, full of traps for innocent
