“What is going on?” Philip demanded the moment the door closed.
“I might ask the same thing,” His Grace said. “Lady Marion’s whereabouts have been unknown for several months. A discreet search has been conducted with no results. Until now.”
“Lady Marion?” Philip shook his head in obvious disbelief.
“Yes. Lady Marion Linwood.”
“Linwood,” Layton muttered under his breath. Not Marion Wood, then. He digested that bit of information. Mary was a perfectly unexceptional pet name for Marion. He’d thought nothing of that discrepancy. But to give him the wrong surname was tantamount to hiding her very identity. She’d pretended to be someone she wasn’t. She’d lied to him.
“Linwood!” Philip seemed shocked. “As in the Marquess of Grenton’s family?”
“Her father, late father, I should say, was the Marquess of Grenton, a friend of my late father.”
The Marquess of Grenton. Marion had told him her family was genteel. The family of a marquess was far more than that. She hailed from the aristocracy. She was a lady of rank and position and title. She had to have known genteel didn’t correctly describe her upbringing. She had to have known that word alone was deceptive.
The duke continued his explanation. “My parents and I spent our summers in Derbyshire, near Tafford: Grenton’s seat. Marion and I grew up quite as brother and sister. I didn’t realize you knew her.”
“Obviously we didn’t,” Layton grumbled as he paced to the window. He hadn’t even known her real name.
“She has been employed as Caroline’s governess,” Philip explained behind him.
“Governess!”
“I didn’t realize her rank when she was hired,” Layton defended himself. “She presented herself as Miss Mary Wood and never bothered to correct that misrepresentation.”
“Why would she invent an identity?” Philip asked to no one in particular. “Hire herself out as a servant? Why the need to dupe all of us?”
She’d said she had no money, that she’d been destitute. Was that even true? All the things she’d told him of her family, of her circumstances, had it all been fabricated?
Layton had opened his very soul to Marion, and she had never even told him who she really was.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Marion opted to sneak up the stairs to the nursery the next morning. Adèle and Roderick had taken great pains to explain to her that she was, as of that moment, no longer employed by Mr. Jonquil and that she was remaining at the Park as a guest of the Duke of Hartley. Her reputation and social standing quite depended upon it. And, they assured her, neither were entirely in shreds. Being the daughter of a marquess was not without its benefits. Although, growing up, the greatest benefit she’d ever seen in it was sitting beneath a shade tree with her family. They were not particularly hung up on their rank.
Despite now being gowned in splendid clothing, thanks to her being quite close in size and height to Adèle, Marion was unhappy. She missed Caroline. So she slipped into the nursery wing, hoping to go unnoticed.
“Mary!”
Perhaps not entirely unnoticed.
“My darling girl!” Marion exclaimed, clasping the child to her fiercely. “How I missed you last night.”
“Papa read me a story and tucked me in,” Caroline reassured her. “He said you will not be my governess anymore.” She spoke as if completely convinced her father was short a brick or two.
“I am afraid not, dearest,” Marion said.
Her lips stuck out in a pout. “He said your name is not really Mary.”
“My given name is Marion,” she confessed. “Mary is short for Marion.”
“Oh.” That seemed to settle that question. “I like Marion better.”
“Do you?” Layton had said the same thing.
Caroline nodded. “Everyone has been calling you Lady. Do I need to call you that?”
“Do you remember when I first came to Farland Meadows,” Marion asked, “and you said you wanted to be just plain Caroline because that would mean that we were friends?”
Caroline nodded, wide-eyed.
“I would like you to call me Marion or Mary. Because we are friends.”
The look of confusion hadn’t left Caroline’s eyes, and Marion began to worry. Was it all too much for the child to take in? Had she lost the girl’s trust?
“Why won’t you be my governess anymore?”
Marion sighed and searched for the correct words. “I would like to take Caroline down to the library,” Marion informed the reigning governess, using the lady of the manor voice her mother had schooled her in when she was as young as Caroline. The governess seemed to hesitate for a moment then reluctantly agreed. “Come with me, Caroline,” Marion instructed. “I will tell you one more story.”