Page 80 of Aurelia

“I’m sorry, but I find that very difficult to imagine. Er, all except the brilliant part.”

“It is a bit of a long story, but do you want to know how Roland and I met and came to have a son?”

More than anything. “I would like to know, if you don’t mind telling me.”

“I don’t mind. In fact, I would like to speak of it.” She glanced down at her hands, which were gnarled and swollen and looked far older than her beautiful face. “I spend a great deal of my time alone” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “As you can imagine, I do not have many friends or even acquaintances here on Crewe. If I were just another of Roland’s ex-lovers, I would not be such an outsider. After all, I did grow up on the island. But it is because of all this”—she waved to the elegant room around them—“that so many people envy and dislike me. Don’t misunderstand me,” she hastily added. “I am not lonely, but being solitary means I think about the past a great deal. About the decisions I made. That time of my life was so long ago that it matters to nobody but me anymore. So… I am glad to talk about it.”

Aurelia realized that she had inched to the edge of her seat and forced herself to sit back.

Nora’s gaze became vague. “I met my husband, Brian Walker, when he came to the island on a merchant vessel.” She suddenly laughed. ‘Yes, there really was a Brian Walker, although many on the island will tell you I invented him to further my notorious trade.”

Notorious trade? Aurelia wanted to ask her what she meant, but she did not want to interrupt the other woman.

“My grandmother died a few months before I met Brian. I had been her caretaker for years and was devastated. When Brian arrived in my life I felt as though I’d been rescued. We married and moved to Glasgow. We were very happy—very much in love, but we’d only been married six months when his ship sank. He did not leave much money and I had nobody to ask for help.” Her words tumbled out faster. “I was desperate. I had no letters of reference or any skill to earn money.” She swallowed. “So I did what a great many women do when they begin to starve. I sold myself.” Nora met Aurelia’s gaze. “For a gently bred young woman, you do not look especially shocked.”

“I have lived a sheltered life, but I have made an effort to understand the ways of the world—especially as they apply to women.” She paused, and then added, “I cannot imagine how frightened you must have been.”

“You are wise, as well as kind,” Nora said, her smile grateful, as if she had expected Aurelia’s derision or disgust. “I worked at a brothel in Glasgow and it was… horrible. It did not take long for me to begin thinking that starvation would have been preferable. And then, one evening I had a customer I recognized from my old life. It was the Earl of Crewe—this earl’s father.”

Aurelia’s eyes bulged. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh, indeed. He recognized me from when I lived on Crewe, of course.” She smiled wryly. “He was the kind of man who always noticed pretty girls and gave them plenty of his attention. He was stamped from a different mold than his son—an ancient mold—and believed it was his privilege and duty to scatter his seed widely.” She cocked her head. “You are looking skeptical and thinking that Roland is like his father because of Guustin, aren’t you?”

“I need to learn to guard my expressions better,” Aurelia said, chagrined. “But you are right. That is what I was thinking.”

“Guustin is Roland’s only illegitimate child, Aurelia.”

Aurelia frowned.

“I gather you’ve heard some gossip indicating otherwise?”

“Yes.” Miss Hatchet had been delighted to tell Aurelia about at least three children and their mothers.

“Lies. All lies,” Nora said, shaking her head. “Roland often accepts responsibility when women have no spouse. Especially if the real father is married. It is a way to keep the peace and take care of children who would otherwise go without.”

“That seems a high price to pay—to have everyone believing the worst of you.” Which is exactly what Aurelia had done.

“The price is not so high if you are the Laird of Crewe,” Nora said. “The old earl was a dreadful rake, but at least he always compensated the women who bore his children and probably more than a few who were not his.”

Aurelia thought about her own father whom she’d once caught in a compromising position with a parlor maid—back when they could afford such a thing—and suspected she probably had more than a few half-siblings in their neighborhood but knew that her father had never acknowledged or taken financial responsibility for any of them.

“The old earl took mercy on me when he met me in that brothel.” Nora laughed bitterly. “I am not saying that he did not first avail himself of my services. He was nothing if not consistent in his behavior.”

This time, Aurelia was shocked. Thankfully, Nora was too caught up in her story to notice.

“After the earl had taken his pleasure, he told me about his son. Of course, I recalled Roland from when I lived on the island. He was five years younger than me, so thirteen to my eighteen when I’d last lived on Crewe. I knew him to be a shy, bookish sort and often saw him combing the island for insects and plants and such. He was tall—almost as tall as he is now—but thin and lanky, yet to grow into his body. His lordship was worried that Roland was not masculine enough. It bothered him that his son had evinced no interest in women and he suspected Roland was still a virgin at sixteen.”

Aurelia had a bad feeling about where this was going.

“The earl said that if I agreed to return to Crewe and instruct the young master in the erotic arts and turn him into a man that he would provide me with a cottage and an allowance and I could live without any worry, even after Roland eventually tired of me.” Nora dropped her gaze to the floor, her pale cheeks tinting pink. When she looked up, Aurelia saw shame in her beautiful green eyes. “I am still deeply ashamed that I leapt at his offer so quickly. But the truth was that I probably would have done far worse to escape my wretched life. But my eagerness to accept his offer was not the worst of it. You see, Roland was not to know that his father had engaged me. The earl said that his son was too romantic and had a foolish, almost girlish, notion of saving himself until he fell in love.”

Aurelia struggled—and failed—to recall any sign of that boy in the man she knew.

“I was told to pretend as if I’d just encountered Roland by accident. I was to evince an interest in birds, flowers, and whatnot. I was to become… smitten.”

Aurelia felt slightly nauseated.

“To my shame, I played my part well.”