Page 81 of So Wild A Heart

Miranda pressed a hand to her temple. “I—I cannot believe…”

“Are you saying that I am lying?” Elizabeth asked fiercely. “Do you think that I would reveal something like that about myself just for fun? The man is wicked!”

“No, of course I don’t think you are lying,” Miranda protested. “It is just—there must be some other explanation. “This is all—”

“Constance!” Dev’s stunned voice came from the doorway to the library, and the two women swung around to face him.

“Dev!” Miranda had not heard him come in. She wondered how long he had been standing there. It was obvious that he had heard at least the last part of their conversation, for he looked stunned.

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, lifting her chin a little and looking him in the face. “I am Constance. I had been afraid that you would recognize me. I tried to stay out of sight.”

Miranda remembered how often her stepmother had pleaded sick instead of coming down to dinner, and how when Dev was around she usually seemed to fade into the woodwork. She rarely even looked straight at him. It had never occurred to Miranda that her stepmother had been acting the way she had because she knew Dev and was afraid he would recognize her.

Elizabeth went on in a bitter voice. “But clearly I need not have troubled myself. I was not important enough for you to remember.”

“But—how can—you are dead!” he finally blurted out.

Elizabeth’s brows lifted. “Perhaps that is what you hoped.”

“No! Good God.” He turned to Miranda. “This is the woman I told you about—the girl whom I got pregnant, who killed herself and left me a suicide note.”

“What?” Elizabeth exploded scornfully. “Is that the story you told this innocent girl?”

“It is what happened! Why did you write me that note? Why did you run away and pretend to be dead? Why didn’t you come to me and—”

“Just a minute.” Miranda turned to her stepmother, whose eyes were lit with an unholy fire. “Did you know that old man, Elizabeth? The one who came to visit me a few days before we left London?”

“Yes, of course. It was…” Elizabeth’s voice roughened. “It was my grandfather. He raised me after my parents died, and then I shamed him before the world. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he didn’t come after me. I had destroyed all his trust in me. I was a fool to think—”

“Wait. That man came to tell me not to trust the Earl of Ravenscar. And the reason he gave was because Ravenscar had seduced his granddaughter and she had killed herself.”

“What?” Elizabeth blinked, confused.

“That is what he told me. He believes that you are dead, too.”

“You left notes, Elizabeth!” Devin came closer to her. “I—You wrote me a note telling me that I had ruined your life and you despised me. You said that you would rather die than live with the shame of bearing an illegitimate child. You disappeared. They searched for your body for days. And I was so…so furious that you had not even come to me and told me about the child. Do you honestly think that I would not have married you?”

“What are you talking about?” Elizabeth stood, and her voice rose hysterically. “You refused me! You denied that the child was yours. You said you would bring witnesses against me to prove that I had been promiscuous if I tried to force you to marry me. You—”

“I did not! How can you say that? You never even told me about it!”

“Of course I did!”

“When? Where? I was often drunk, but I know I could not have completely forgotten that.”

“I did not tell you face-to-face. I hadn’t the courage. I was afraid, ashamed. And you had—you had stopped coming to see me. So I wrote it in a letter and gave it to Leona to deliver to you.”

“Leona?” Devin’s face went white. “You gave it to Leona?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. She was my friend, as well as yours.”

“The only letter she gave me was the note you left saying that you were going to throw yourself into the sea to avoid the shame of what you had done.”

There was a long silence. Elizabeth’s mouth began to tremble, and she crumpled more than sat back down in her chair. “Dear God.”

“How did you learn that Dev rejected you and your child?” Miranda asked pointedly.

“Leona…” Elizabeth’s voice was barely above a whisper. “She was my friend. She had been so kind to me from the moment she came to Brighton. She was dazzling and sophisticated, and I was thrilled that she even took any notice of me. I was just a country nobody. I couldn’t tell my grandfather about my pregnancy. I couldn’t face Dev. So I went to her and told her all about it. She said that she would deliver a note to Dev if I wrote it, so I did. The next afternoon she came back and sat down in the music room with me. I remember I was practicing the piano. And she told me very gently that Dev had read my note, then had torn it up and thrown it into the fire. He said he was going to leave for London, and I was not to follow. He said that—the things I told you, that he would deny and shame me if I pursued the matter. I was devastated.”