“Jemima has been stirring the hornet’s nest again,” Lady Rathbone said once they had finished the first course. “She told Captain Compton-Burnett’s daughter that you were working the streets around Covent Garden when Lord Steele came to your rescue.”
While Scarlett cared little for gossip, Jemima was a nuisance. If Joshua wished her to keep his secret, he had better do something to silence his sister.
“As I told the gel,” Lady Rathbone continued whilst a footman dressed her plate with delicacies, “your father was the youngest son of a country squire, and you fell upon hard times after his death.”
To hide the secret of her parentage, Scarlett may have been evasive, but she had never lied. If the matron chose to invent stories for appearance’s sake, perhaps it was time to enlighten the lady.
“At no point did I tell you my father was the son of a country squire.”
“I’m certain you did.” Lady Rathbone glanced at her grandson who froze with his fork midair. “If not the son of a country squire who was he?”
Scarlett straightened—her steel backbone being the only thing she had gained from her miserable marriage. “Did Joshua not tell you when he dined with you last month? My parents are dead. My mother—”
“There is no need to explain,” Lord Rathbone interjected. The fellow’s Adam’s apple bobbed unnaturally, and his growing agitation left him red-faced. “Such things should have no bearing on one’s future prospects.”
“No bearing?” Lady Rathbone’s sharp reply proved out of character. “Place is determined by one’s wealth and birthright.”
It was then that good manners abandoned Lord Rathbone. He snatched his napkin from his lap and used it to mop the sheen of sweat on his brow. “Can we not simply finish our meal and discuss the weather?”
“You know we cannot.” The matron expressed a surprising coldness of manner.
The woman’s snobbery came as somewhat of a shock to Scarlett. Why keep company with a notorious widow who once graced the stage when lineage meant everything?
“Perhaps it’s time we all dropped the pretence,” Scarlett said for she suspected she was more a gullible fool than a Viking warrior. “You’d not find a woman kinder than my mother. But as someone recently pointed out, the good ones are so often taken early.”
Lady Rathbone sat rigidly in the chair, every muscle tense.
Lord Rathbone sat with his head bowed, like a man consumed with grief having been forced to take a pistol to his beloved horse.
“And as for my father,” Scarlett continued, resolved that they would hear the truth, “his name was Jack Jewell. He owned a gaming hell catering to dissolute lords, lords who would sell their children for a chance to play another hand of piquet.”
Lady Rathbone jerked back in horror.
Lord Rathbone blanched and shuddered in fear.
“Jack Jewell!” The matron screwed up her aristocratic nose as if the footman had dropped his satin breeches and fouled the white linen. “That name has been the bane of my existence for nigh on four years.” Her jaw firmed, hiding the soft jowls. She glared at her grandson. “I told you she knew and is playing us for fools. Did I not tell you she plans to lure us into a trap? Extort every last penny?”
Lord Rathbone appeared inconsolable. He lacked the energy to do anything other than shake his head.
“Percival!” Lady Rathbone snapped. With an irate wave, she dismissed the servants. “Pull yourself together.”
Scarlett watched this odd exchange—talk of traps and extortion—feeling she had missed a vital piece of information. How was it a matron of Lady Rathbone’s standing knew Jack Jewell so well?
“Percival.” The woman’s mouth thinned with disappointment. “Your father would have dealt with the matter promptly. He would not have waited for four years.”
“Can we not simply swear the lady to secrecy?” the lord pleaded.
“Secrecy? I’ll not wager everything our ancestors worked for on the hope of trusting a woman who’s lain with Blackbeck’s mongrel.”
With a look that said his world was about to come crashing down around him, Lord Rathbone glanced at Scarlett and said, “What is it you want from us? Tell me my grandmother is wrong and that you possess the integrity of my father, not yours.”
Scarlett blinked in bewilderment.
How dare anyone suggest Jack Jewell was unprincipled? Yes, he may have lacked the capacity to love her, but he was her father, and no doubt he had tried.
“I must call you to task on your error, my lord. My father was respected amongst his peers. Commitment and loyalty flowed like blood in his veins.”
“Loyalty?” Lady Rathbone snorted. Her eyes turned dark with barely contained fury. How was it Scarlett had not seen beyond the matron’s mask before? “Your father was a cheating, conniving ne’er-do-well who sought to bring this family to its knees.”