“My skin prickled as I walked through the front door,” she said, her words still hitching because she could not calm herself. “I wanted to turn and run. But I made myself enter, even though I could not stop shivering. That sense of doom fell over me as Stanford led me into the parlor. I felt a darkness surrounding me. Our parlor is the ugliest room. Truly, such an ugly room. Austere. Devoid of all cheer. It sucks all the joy out of one’s soul.”
Octavian caressed her cheek while waiting for her to continue.
He did not want to hear about the Harcourt parlor, but understood that Syd needed to build up the strength to talk about the fight that obviously took place between her and her parents. Did they both attack her? Verbally, that is. Her father, for all his faults, was not a physically brutal man. He could not say the same about her mother, however. Syd appeared to have a small bruise on her wrist.
Had one of them done this to her?
The mere thought of Syd being hurt shot his heart into his throat. Not that she couldn’t defend herself. Syd was fearless and had not backed down when any of those Scots had tried to put a hand on her.
But this was her parents.
She would not fight back because she loved them. They were most undeserving, but he had no control over her soft feelings toward them.
In any event, Octavian could not imagine both of them assaulting Syd since the husband and wife never agreed on anything. If one claimed it was day, the other said it was night. If one said the moon was out, the other would claim it was the sun. If one attempted to hurt Syd, would not the other prevent it? “Sweetheart, what did they say to you?”
“The dread,” she said with shattered breath. “The fear. The lies. The schemes. The depravity.”
He wrapped her in his embrace. “Blessed saints, Syd. What happened?”
“The end to our marriage. That is what happened. We were happy together, weren’t we Octavian?”
“And still are,” he said, trying to contain his mounting anger. It was not aimed at Syd, of course. He wanted to protect her to the end of his days. He wanted to shield her from hurt and pain, but he hadn’t shielded her from whatever torment this was. “I love you, Syd.”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “You won’t after this.”
She started crying again.
Syd did shed tears on occasion, but she was hardly a watering pot. However, rivers of water were now flowing out of her. Oceans of it. “I came to you with nothing…and this is what I am.Nothing.Not even an earl’s daughter.Less than nothing. I do not even know who I am.”
It took another half hour to get the entire story out of her because she spent so much of the time catching her breath and going on about that awful parlor that he did not give a fig about. But he finally understood what had taken place.
Syd believed she was some illegitimate newborn taken from her dying mother’s arms and given over to Harcourt and his wife for the sole purpose of getting their hands on a children’s trust set up by Lady Harcourt’s family.
Dear heaven.
This sounded like some hatched up scheme out of a cheap novel. A gothic tale of treachery and the innocent orphan girl used for a villain’s depraved purpose. Only this girl was Syd and this was real.
Well, he wasn’t sure if any of it was true. Syd obviously believed it because of the coldness she had endured from the woman she had always thought of as her mother. Lady Harcourt was a bitter woman who did not know the meaning of love. Octavian had never seen her crack a smile or ever utter a kind word to Syd. It was not farfetched that she now lied to Syd for the sheer purpose of hurting her.
It likely was more for the sheer pleasure of hurting her husband. Unfortunately, Syd was caught in the middle. Her mother would not care that her words also destroyed her daughter.
“I’ll move out,” Syd said, letting out another trembling breath. “I’m not sure where I can go yet. I don’t even know if my friends will accept me once they learn the truth. I think they will, even though they will be scorned if they dare keep me in their social circle. But you and I must deal with this problem first. Perhaps we ought to return to Scotland and quietly annul the marriage. It is easier done there, don’t you think? Can we annul it?”
“No, we cannot,” he said with determination, for he’d gained Syd’s love and was not about to toss it away.
“Oh, because we’ve made the marriage real inthatway. But there must be other legal grounds for an annulment. Lying about my identity should be an acceptable reason. A commonermasquerading as an earl’s daughter. They will declare me a liar and a fraud, and grant your freedom. Oh, Octavian. I don’t even know my real name!”
He wrapped his fingers gently around her shoulders, holding her so that she could not turn away while he spoke to her. “You are Sydney Thorne now. Lady Thorne because I am the son of a duke and you are my wife. Whether you should have been addressed as a lady in your past is no longer of any relevance. You are a lady now because of your connection to me. The only question is, do you prefer to be addressed as Mrs. Thorne or Lady Thorne? It is up to you, but does not change your right to be Lady Thorne.”
“My mother…if she is even that…is going to spread the story of my illegitimacy around London because she is so angry with my father. He tried to reason with her, but it enraged her all the more. He even agreed to end all relations with the other woman he had recently taken up with. A rich widow, my mother claims. He vowed never to see her again and that he would remain under the same roof with my mother, but this was also to no avail.”
Octavian doubted her father would ever keep to his word. If he was going after this rich widow to gain access to her wealth, then nothing would deter him. Also, if he truly cared for this new woman, he would not be deterred either.
Even scoundrels fell in love.
“Octavian, my mother never cared a jot for him. Truly, she has always detested the sight of him. So, why does she care that he is now taking up with another woman? It is not uncommon among members of thetonto look elsewhere for affection.”
“Perhaps she loves him and has always been afraid to admit it because he might spurn her.” In truth, he dismissed this as a possibility. The woman was cold as an iceberg. If one peered beneath the surface, one would only find more ice.
