Promise Me Tomorrow (33 page)

She knew that she should show the Countess her locket. It might clearly prove or disprove the Countess’s hopes. But she found herself afraid to put it to the test. She did not want to find out that this sudden new possibility of a family was just as abruptly gone.

“Five is a terribly young age,” the Countess said. “I doubt many of us have clear memories before that age. If one was completely cut off from one’s former life, it seems that the memories might fade more than they do normally, for there would not be the constant reminders of family and places.”

“I don’t understand, my lady!” Marianne burst out at last. “How could your grandchild have been put in an orphanage? Why would you not have known?”

“I was deceived by someone close to me,” the Countess said sadly. “Mrs. Ward—the woman who raised my granddaughter Alexandra—brought the other two children, Marie Anne and John, to me, but I was laid up in my bed in grief, seeing no one. My companion—and cousin—met with the woman in my stead and took the children. She never told me. Instead she turned them over to the Earl.”

The older woman’s lip curled in bitter distaste. “He got rid of them. My cousin told us that on her deathbed. She said that he put you in an orphanage, and that my grandson died.”

“Richard?” Justin asked. “Are you saying that Richard got rid of your grandchildren?”

“I believe so, yes, but I have no way to prove it.”

“Good God!” Justin looked struck by this news. “Is this all tied up with Fuquay then? Is that why Exmoor shot the man?”

“Shot who?” The Countess looked from Justin to Penelope. “You didn’t tell me anyone had been shot!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about it. Your arrival and this news drove it completely out of my head. Richard shot a man yesterday, Reginald Fuquay. Mr. Fuquay had a gun to Marianne’s head, and then Richard shot him, and—”

“Reginald Fuquay!” The Countess was suddenly charged with excitement. “Reginald Fuquay was once a friend of Richard’s.”

“What?” Everyone stared at her.

“They acted as if they hardly knew each other!” Penelope exclaimed.

“Oh, they knew each other, all right. Richard always seemed to have a number of wicked companions, most of them young. He corrupted them—I suspect he delighted in it. Reginald Fuquay came from a good family. He had a reasonable inheritance, but he squandered it all on riotous living. I have heard that he was an opium-eater. He was under Richard’s thumb. No doubt he owed Richard money, since he had run through his own fortune.” She paused and looked at the others significantly. “It seems to me that it would not have been odd if Richard had gotten Mr. Fuquay to do things for him, certain things that perhaps he did not have the stomach for.”

“You mean, killing one child and carting the other off to an orphanage?” Justin asked.

The Countess nodded. “Exactly. You know, it was around that time that Fuquay split from Richard. I had heard that they quarreled, but no one knows what really happened. Neither of them ever said. But they stopped being friends, and Mr. Fuquay began to pull himself out of the mire into which he had sunk. Of course, he could not recover the lost fortune. That is why he had to work as Mr. Thurston’s secretary. But he recovered his good name.”

“He certainly did,” Justin agreed. “I had no idea that he had been wild in his youth.”

“’Tis a common enough thing, and they often straighten out as they get older. Still…”

“I agree, Grandmama,” Penelope said breathlessly. “It is highly suspicious. If Mr. Fuquay were about to reveal why he had tried to kill Marianne, and if Richard knew that he, too, would be ruined by Fuquay’s confession, it would be no wonder that he shot him.”

“A very effective way of stopping his mouth,” Justin agreed.

Marianne said nothing, her thoughts in a turmoil. She knew that she must tell them about the locket now, must show them the man and woman inside. She could not let her fear keep the Countess from learning the truth.

She cleared her throat. “My lady, I have something that might help to clear—” She was interrupted by the clatter of footsteps in the marble hallway outside, and everyone turned toward the doorway.

A man and woman entered the door. The man was tall and dark-haired, with an angular face. The woman on his arm was a statuesque beauty. Her complexion was strawberries-and-cream, her large, fine eyes a dark brown, and her thick black hair, swept up and caught at the crown of her head, spilled down from the knot in a riot of curls.

Marianne sprang to her feet when she saw her, her face white as a sheet of paper. “My God!” she gasped, and every eye in the place turned to her.

“Marianne!” Justin jumped up and put his arm around her waist. “Darling, are you all right?”

The Countess rose, too, her eyes fixed like a hawk on Marianne’s face. “What is it, child?”

They stood fixed for a moment in a frozen tableau, Marianne’s and Alexandra’s eyes locked on one another.

“I—I’m sorry,” Marianne breathed and sat down, her knees no longer able to hold her. “It is just—you look so much like the lady in the picture.”

“Picture?” The Countess and Alexandra chorused sharply. Alexandra crossed the room to Marianne.

“What picture?” the Countess pressed.

“I—the one in my locket.” Marianne raised wondering eyes to the young woman before her. “I was just about to tell you—I have a locket with pictures of a man and woman—” She reached inside the neck of her dress and caught the chain, drawing out her locket and opening it. “You see? I have had it since I was little. I have always thought that they were my parents, but…I was going to show you and ask you if you recognized them. And then—then she came in and—”

She stumbled to a halt, numbly looking from the Countess to Alexandra. Alexandra went down on her knees in front of Marianne and took the locket in her hand. “It is just like mine!” she cried, tears welling in her eyes.

“I gave them to you both when you were little,” the Countess explained, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Yours has an
M
engraved on the front.” Marianne nodded. “And Alexandra’s has an
A.
”

“Mimi,” Marianne said suddenly, then stopped, looking surprised. “I’m sorry—I don’t know why I said that. It just popped out. When you said that about the locket, I thought ‘Mimi.’”

The Countess did break down into tears then. It was a few moments before she was able to say, “That is what John and Marie Anne called me—’ Mimi.’”

“We are sisters!” Alexandra exclaimed, smiling and crying all at the same time. She opened up her arms. “Marie Anne. Sister.”

Tears sprang into Marianne’s eyes, and she threw her arms around Alexandra.

D
USK WAS CREEPING THROUGH
the garden as Marianne sat in the rose arbor, thinking. The remainder of the day had been filled with tears and laughter and the joyous telling and retelling of the Countess’s news to the other guests. Marianne had to confess that she had felt more than a little wicked pleasure at the expression on Cecilia Winborne’s face when she learned who Marianne really was.

Then she and Justin had spent part of the afternoon making plans for how they would take care of the family she had thought of as hers for so long, so that they would no longer have to worry about money or being captured by the law and thrown into Newgate. Della and Harrison and her parents could retire from “the business” and settle down in the cottages Justin would buy for them. Piers could be set up in some sort of business, and Winny would be more than content with just having her own pleasant little house and a small stipend to live on.

It had been a busy day, and she had finally retreated to this spot to think. All her life, she had wanted a family. She had developed a sort of family with Della and Harrison and the others, and she would always love them. But there had also been, deep inside her, a hollowness at her separation from her blood relatives. She could not help but wonder why they had deserted her, could not help but feel as if a part of her was missing. But now here they were—the most wonderful family imaginable! Her sister was warm and funny. She could not imagine a more perfect grandmother than the Countess. Why, even her cousin was already a friend. She would be able to introduce Rosalind to them.

But even more than that, she loved and was loved by a wonderful man.

This morning her life had seemed bleak, something she would have to endure without the friends she had made or the man she loved. And now, here she was, with everything she wanted. Even the mystery of Mr. Fuquay’s attacks had been solved. Only two things lay like stains on her perfect happiness: the fact that they would never come to know their brother again, and the fact that the Earl of Exmoor was alive, unharmed even by this new development. She was certain now that he had been the guiding force behind the attacks on her. It explained the halfhearted way the attacks had been carried out. Obviously Mr. Fuquay had been forced by the Earl into getting rid of her, but deep down he had not wanted to do it. Then the Earl had effectively silenced the one man who could implicate him, all the while making it look as if he were saving her.

Marianne grimaced. She wished there was some way to bring Exmoor to an accounting for the evil he had done. She wondered what would have happened this morning if Justin had not caught up with them.
Would Exmoor have seized the opportunity that fate had dropped into his lap? Would he have taken that other road and hidden her lifeless body somewhere along its secluded path?
Marianne remembered the chill she had felt when he had sat there, watching her and talking about the other road. She thought now that he had been trying to decide whether to do away with her.

“I thought I would find you here.” Marianne looked up to see Justin walking toward the rose arbor.

“You know me well.”

“Not as well as I hope to.” He entered the arbor and bent to brush his lips to hers. “I am afraid that now that the Countess has the bit between her teeth over this wedding thing, I shall have to suffer through a number of long, lonely nights. She will have you trapped in that house of hers as if in a fortress, while she makes wedding plans.”

Marianne chuckled at his downcast expression. “Mmm. Well, it is rather special, having two granddaughters marry at the same time.”

“It lightens my spirits only a little knowing that Bucky will have to suffer, too.” He gave her a teasing smile. “It is also rather lowering to know that now everyone will assume that I have married you to form a suitable alliance. I have lost all chance of being a romantic hero.”

“Not to me,” Marianne answered, reaching out to take his hand. “I will always know that you wanted to marry me when I was penniless and nameless, ready to face down Society and your family. Whatever others may think, I will always know that ours is a marriage made only for love.”

“It is indeed.” Justin smiled and pulled her into his arms.