Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [175]
Hester struggled with herself. Could it be the truth?
“Then what was it?” She frowned, racking her mind. “You came down from Valentine’s room looking as if you’d seen the wrath of heaven. Why? What else could you possibly have found out? It was nothing to do with Alexandra or Thaddeus—or Peverell, then what?”
“I can’t tell you!”
“Then I can’t believe you. Rathbone is going to call you to the stand. Cassian was abused by his father, his grandfather—I’m sorry—and someone else. We have to know who that other person was, and prove it. Or Alexandra will hang.”
Damaris was so pale her skin looked gray, as if she had aged in moments.
“I can’t. It—it would destroy Pev.” She saw Hester’s face. “No. No, it isn’t that. I swear by God—it isn’t.”
“No one will believe you,” Hester said very quietly, although even as she said it, she knew it was a lie—she believed it. “What else could it be?”
Damaris bowed her head in her hands and began to speak very quietly, her voice aching with unshed tears.
“When I was younger, before I met Pev, I fell in love with someone else. For a long time I did nothing. I loved him with … chastity. Then—I thought I was losing him. I—I loved him wildly … at least I thought I did. Then …”
“You made love,” Hester said the obvious. She was not shocked. In the same circumstances she might have done the same, had she Damaris’s beauty, and wild beliefs. Even without them had she loved enough …
“Yes.” Damaris’s voice choked. “I didn’t keep his love … in fact I think in a way that ended it.”
Hester waited. Obviously there was more. By itself it was hardly worth repeating.
Damaris went on, her voice catching as she strove to control it, and only just succeeding. “I learned I was with child. It was Thaddeus who helped me. That was what I was talking about when I said he could be kind. I had no idea Mama knew anything about it. Thaddeus arranged for me to go away for a while, and for the child to be adopted. It was a boy. I held him once—he was beautiful.” At last she could keep the tears back no longer and she bent her head and wept, sobs shaking her body and long despairing cries tearing her beyond her strength to conceal.
Hester slid down onto the floor and put both her arms around her, holding her close, stroking her head and letting the storm burn itself out and exhaust her, all the grief and guilt of years bursting its bounds at last.
It was many minutes later when Damaris was still, and Hester spoke again.
“And what did you learn that night?”
“I learned where he was.” Damaris sniffed fiercely and sat up, reaching for a handkerchief, an idiotic piece of lace and cambric not large enough to do anything at all.
Hester stood up and went to the cloakroom and wrung out a hand towel in cold water and brought it back, and also a large piece of soft linen she found in the cupboard beside the basin. Without saying anything she handed them to Damaris.
“Well?” she asked after another moment or two.
“Thank you.” Damaris remained sitting on the floor. “I learned where he was,” she said, her composure back again. She was too worn out for any violent emotion anymore. “I learned what Thaddeus had done. Who he had … given him to.”
Hester waited, resuming her seat.
“The Furnivals,” Damaris said with a small, very sad smile. “Valentine Furnival is my son. I knew that when I saw him. I hadn’t seen Valentine for years, you see, not since he was a small child—about Cassian’s age, or even less. Actually I so dislike Louisa, and I didn’t go there very often, and when I did he was always away at school, or when he was younger, already in bed. That evening he was at home because he’d had measles. But this time, when I saw him, he’d changed so much—grown up—and …” She took a deep, rather shaky breath. “He was so like his father when he was younger, I knew …”
“Like his father?” Hester searched her brains, which was stupid. There was no reason in the world why it should be anyone she had even heard of, much less met; in fact, there was every reason why it should not. Yet there