Page 129 of The Marriage Method

“You were nineteen,” Nell said. “The Academy produces teachers younger than that. I was one of them. At seventeen, I already had charge of dozens of girls.”

“I was not brought up in such a way,” Lady Belwood said. “I was raised to make a suitable marriage. Which became unlikelier by the day after you arrived. I lost my bloom. And there was gossip in the village. My guardian sent me away to London to quell it. It was there I met Sir Walter.”

Nell didn’t need to be told what had happened next. She was already aware of the weight Sir Walter put on his pedigree. The consequence of such an obsession was all too obvious.

“It was not a love match,” Lady Belwood said, “but he was a good man. Respectable.”

“Wealthy.”

“A necessary quality in a husband. He’d never have tolerated an illegitimate child. The very notion would have been abhorrent to him. I was obliged to make a decision. As I say, I was but a young woman.”

“Four-and-twenty by that point. Older than I am now.”

“There was no way to keep you indefinitely. I soon realized I had been stupid to keep you at all. That woman—Miss Corvus—promised a good life for you. You would be fed and housed, and brought up to a respectable trade.” Lady Belwood paused. “It appears she was right. You have grown into something like a lady. And married, as well. A girl of your birth couldn’t ask for better.”

“Every girl can ask for better,” Nell said. “And well she should.”

Lady Belwood’s eyes flickered with immediate suspicion. “Is that what this is about? You want something from me? Money, I assume. Or is it an introduction into society like I provided for your friend, Mrs. Royce?”

A flare of anger took Nell unaware. The nerve of the woman! To suggest that Nell was motivated by some base desire, rather than the simple urge to learn the truth about her origins.

But that’s what Lady Belwood was, wasn’t she? A person driven by her own desires. The desire for wealth, comfort, respectability, even at the cost of her own child. Naturally, she would assume that Nell was the same.

“I want nothing from you,” Nell said.

“You mean to punish me,” Lady Belwood concluded. “To plague me with the threat of exposure.”

“Don’t be absurd. I have no desire to expose you.”

“No? Tell me, then. Who else knows who you are? Mrs. Royce? If she does, then my secret will never be safe. That woman is a—”

“Mrs. Royce doesn’t know. No one does, excepting myself, Miss Corvus, and my husband.”

“Your husband?” Lady Belwood’s pale face flushed with outrage. “And you call that no one? Your husband publishes the city’s most widely read gossip column. If that isn’t a threat—”

“When I threaten you, ma’am, you’ll know it,” Nell said sharply. “And I shan’t require my husband or anyone else to execute that threat.”

Lady Belwood gaped at her.

Nell moderated her tone. “I meant it when I said I want nothing from you. All I required was knowledge of my own circumstances.”

“I’ve told you all I can,” Lady Belwood said. “Any further discussion on the subject would risk a scandal.”

Before Nell could make her reply, the door swung open and Lady Upshott swept into the room.

“What’s this about a scandal?” she asked.

Nell and Lady Belwood stared at her with varying degrees of dismay. Good gracious. How much had the old woman overheard?

Lady Upshott gave an amused snort. “Amstead won’t thank you for dredging all that up again.” She came to join them, with a spryness that belied her age. A lace morning cap was arranged over her silver hair. “His sister is a sore subject with him.”

Lady Belwood opened her mouth to disabuse Lady Upshott of her misapprehensions.

Nell didn’t allow her to. The misunderstanding was too fortuitous not to exploit. This was why Nell had come here. Not to confront her mother or to hold her to account, but to find out what had led to Mr. Cowgill’s murder. It was that which was important at the moment. Her past would have to wait.

Setting her feelings about Lady Belwood aside, Nell addressed Lady Upshott. “We meant no offense, ma’am,” she said. “Still…one can’t help but wonder about poor Miss Fawn-Purvis’s fate.”

“The same fate as meets many a silly lass.” Lady Upshott sat down on the morning room settee. Like Nell and Lady Belwood, she had brought her workbag with her. “Surprising, I’ll allow, but not extraordinary.”