Page 62 of Last Night with the Duke
“I remember the former Viscount Mayeforth had a daughter who was married to a Swift. While I don’t recall her name, I do recollect she had a daughter named Esmeralda, because that’s my daughter’s name.”
The dowager paused as if waiting for Esmeralda to say something, but Esmeralda remained silent.
Lady Norwood continued. “The viscount’s daughter’s first husband died, and if my memory serves me well, she later defied her family’s wishes and eloped with… a poet, I believe. Do you know anything about her or about that? On occasion, I’ve wondered what happened to her since our girls had the same name.”
That fleeting fragile expression that Griffin had seen on Esmeralda’s face the first day he saw her had returned. Once again, it caught him off guard. He remembered thinking that day that she was hiding hurts, regrets, demons, something from her past that had wounded and troubled her deeply. He’d considered questioning her about it at the time to find out what haunted her, but he’d denied his first instincts and hadn’t inquired. Now he wished he’d pried into her personal past.
“Yes,” Esmeralda said, an innocent vulnerability visible in her face and in her voice.
“Are you by chance that Esmeralda, and the granddaughter of the third Viscount of Mayeforth?”
Esmeralda the granddaughter of a viscount?
The roar of the chatter around them and the tune of the music in the distance all faded from his hearing. Listening for Esmeralda’s answer was the only thing that interested Griffin. What was her answer? He should already know, but he didn’t.
Esmeralda’s back remained unbowed. Her chin and shoulders lifted just enough to make her appear strong, composed, and slightly disinterested. Her expression slowly changed to the professional expression that had first attracted him to her.
“Yes, Lady Norwood, I am.”
Griffin felt as if a fist was pressing on his throat. He digested what Esmeralda’s words meant. She was the granddaughter of a viscount. Not a poor or distant relation of Sir Timothy Swift who had to earn her living, but a lady of quality by her own birthright. Why hadn’t she made this known? No, she hadn’t just failed to tell him. She had hidden it from him.
“I was thinking that must be so,” the old dowager continued in her inquisitive manner with no thought for how quietly Esmeralda had answered. “And I believe I heard long ago that that your mother had a child with her second husband. Is that correct?”
“Yes.” Esmeralda shifted her contemplative gaze to Griffin. “Josephine is my sister, and she is doing well.”
All Griffin could think was that Esmeralda was a lady, and she was working in his house as a paid chaperone. No wonder she had always appeared so refined, so circumspect, and so well above her station in life.
She was!
How in damnation had that happened?
He intended to find out.
“And thank you for asking about Miss Josephine, Lady Norwood,” Griffin stepped in to say.
The dowager sniffed. “Have you met her?”
“Yes. She lives in Mayfair with Miss Swift, Lady Sara, Lady Vera, and Lady Evelyn.”
“Well, if Lady Evelyn—”
“If you’ll excuse us, Countess,” Griffin interrupted. “The dance has ended. I told my sisters we would meet them at the entrance as we’d already planned to leave after this set.”
“Yes, I must get their wraps. Excuse me, my lady.” Esmeralda turned away without a glance to him.
Not five steps past the countess, Griffin fell in step beside Esmeralda and said emphatically, “That was a quite an enlightening conversation we had with Lady Norwood.”
“Is that how you would describe it?”
She didn’t bother to look at him when she answered. That irritated him greatly. The least she could do was face him.
“Finding out you’re the granddaughter of a viscount? Yes, I’d say that qualifies as enlightening—and damned surprising too. You have some explaining to do when we get home tonight, Miss Swift.”
“I know,” she said and kept on walking.
Chapter 20
Don’t give in to guilty pleasures. There’s a reason they’re called “guilty.”
