A Lady Never Tells(23)

“I am afraid that I have never heard of any American cousins.” His words dropped like small hard stones into the silent room.

Mary squared her shoulders. She could not let this man intimidate her. “You don’t believe me, of course. I didn’t expect you to. Perhaps your grandfather never mentioned his daughter Flora, who ran away to marry the man she loved.”

Stewkesbury’s eyes widened a fraction, and Mary knew that her last remark had struck home. “She married Miles Bascombe and moved to the United States. We are their children. I realize that you must be suspicious, so I have brought proof.”

Picking up the leather case she had set down on the low table in front of the couch, she pulled out several papers and handed them to the earl. Somewhat reluctantly, he took the documents and began to read them.

“There is my parents’ marriage certificate. Also, each of our birth certificates, stating our parents’ names. Well, all except Camellia’s. The courthouse burned where she was born. However, we can attest to the fact that she is our sister.”

The earl studied the documents in his hands and turned to his stepbrother.

Royce raised his brows eloquently. “Well?”

Oliver shrugged. “Grandfather had a daughter Flora. He quarreled bitterly with her over the man she wanted to marry, and the girl ran away. He never knew what became of them.”#p#分页标题#e#

Royce nodded. “He mentioned to me that he was estranged from his daughter, though I don’t recall her name.”

Oliver turned back to Mary. “Where are your parents now? Why have they not come as well?”

“They are both dead.” Mary saw no sense in trying to soften the statement. “Our father died several years back. My mother passed away a few weeks ago.”

“Why did your mother not return before now?” he asked.

“The earl told my mother that he was cutting her out of the family. I think she had little hope of welcome from him. Besides, she had sworn she would never speak to him again as long as she lived.” Mary could not hold back a small, wry smile. “My mother could be rather obstinate.”

“I see.”

“She would not have sent us here if she had felt that she had any other choice. She did not even tell us about what had happened between them until she knew she was dying. It was only that which drove her to tell us to seek her father’s help.”

The earl’s gaze held hers for a moment longer before his eyes dropped to the papers in his hands. He shuffled through them. “What is this?” He plucked one out, extending it to Mary.

She took it and cast an eye over it, coloring a little. “Nothing. I mean, nothing related to this. It is just one of our papers, a deed to the farm in Pennsylvania that my father owned.”

“And what of this?” He held up the letter Flora had written her father, still sealed with the wax she had melted onto it.

Mary reached out toward him, then pulled her hand back. She wished that she had thought to take the letter out of the satchel when she learned that Flora’s father was no longer alive to read it. “My mother wrote that to her father. I am sure that it was personal and meant for him alone.”

She hated to think of the stern-looking earl reading Flora’s tearful apologies to her father and her pleas with him to look after her children. It had gone against Flora’s grain to beg him for help; only the utmost love and fear for her children could have driven her to swallow her pride and apologize to her father. Somehow it seemed even worse for those painful words, her mother’s dying fears and hopes, to be read by this cool, remote stranger.

The earl regarded Mary assessingly. “It is addressed to Lord Stewkesbury,” he pointed out. “I think I should read it, don’t you?”

“Perhaps you’d like to compare it to my mother’s handwriting, just to make sure she wrote it,” Mary snapped, washed with the humiliation she knew her mother would have felt at the exposure of her innermost feelings to someone she didn’t even know.

The earl said nothing, merely raised a single eyebrow as he looked at her, and Mary immediately felt small and foolish. With an inarticulate noise, she turned away and sat down. The earl broke the seal on the paper and began to read. The room was deathly silent. Mary could not bring herself to look at her sisters. If this man scornfully dismissed their claim, she would have failed her family. She knew that none of the girls would blame her, but she would blame herself fiercely.

After a few moments, the earl folded the letter. He cleared his throat. “Well, ah, it would certainly appear that Lady Flora made her case.”