Evan closed the parlor door. “Mrs. Fellows was just telling us about her tenure as housekeeper at Ambervale, twenty years ago.”
“Ambervale?” Kate’s heart skipped an alarming number of beats. Evan had told her in Wilmington that they meant to canvass for former Ambervale servants, but he’d never mentioned it again.
He pulled up a chair for Kate, and she accepted it gratefully.
He took a seat as well. “Tell me, Mrs. Fellows. Did you keep a large house staff in my cousin’s time?”
“No, my lord. Just me and my man. Mr. Fellows is gone now, some eight years. We had a cook in those days, and a girl came in daily for scullery. We sent the laundry out. Most of the house was closed up, you see. There were never any guests. His lordship and Miss Elinor liked their privacy.”
“Yes, I would imagine.” Evan smiled at Kate. “And then Miss Haverford became pregnant, is that right?”
The frankness of the question obviously pained Mrs. Fellows. But she answered. “Yes, my lord.”
“And she gave birth to a child. Was it a son or a daughter, do you recall?”
“A baby girl.” Mrs. Fellows still faced the window, and she smiled at the dust motes whirling in the sunlight. “They named her Katherine.”
From the other side of the room, Mr. Bartwhistle cleared his throat. His keen gaze fell on Kate—or more particularly, on the birthmark at her temple. “Mrs. Fellows,” he asked, “do you recall whether the infant had any . . . distinguishing marks?”
“Oh, yes. Unfortunate little dear had a birthmark. Right on her face.”
Unfortunate little dear? For the first time in her life, Kate blessed that mark on her temple. If she could have stretched her lips like India rubber, she would have kissed it.
She leaned forward in her chair, training her ears so hard, she felt her eardrums bending under the strain.
“If you ask me,” said Mrs. Fellows, “it was the wine. If I told Miss Elinor once, I told her a hundred times—a woman shouldn’t be drinking aught of claret while she’s breeding. It’s unseemly. But she had a taste for a sip from time to time, and sure enough, when the babe came, there was a great splash of it on her temple.”
“Can you describe the mark in any further detail?” Evan asked. “I know it’s been many years.”
Mrs. Fellows shifted in her chair. “But I remember it, clear as day. It was just here.” She lifted an age-spotted hand to her own temple. “Had almost the shape of a heart. I’ll never forget that, because they laughed about it, you know.”
“They laughed about it?” Kate asked, forgetting that she wasn’t the one conducting the interview.
“Laughed with each other, yes. They were like that, always laughing with each other about everything. I heard the lady tell his lordship, ‘We know she’s yours, don’t we?’ That was on account of his having a birthmark, too. But the late Lord Drewe insisted the mark was from Miss Elinor’s side. Because she wore her heart on her face, and so the child must as well.”
On the other side of the room, Bartwhistle and Smythe were furiously scribbling, taking down every word.
Evan reached for Kate’s hand and squeezed it. “I knew it. I knew you were ours.”
“It sounds as though Simon and Elinor were very much in love,” Kate said, choked with emotion.
“Oh, yes.” The old housekeeper smiled. “Never seen a couple so madly devoted to one another.” Her smile faded. “And after his lordship died, so sudden and so soon . . . oh, she took it so hard.”
“What happened?” Evan asked.
“We never knew,” Mrs. Fellows replied. “The doctor said mayhap the midwife brought in a contagion. I always suspected the painting, myself. Can’t be healthy, staying shut up all day with those horrid vapors.” She shook her head. “However it happened, he was gone. We were all desolate, and Miss Elinor was beside herself. Alone in the world, with a newborn babe? And there was no money. None. His lordship had never kept much in the house, and we hadn’t any way to keep purchasing goods on credit.”
“What did you do?” Kate asked.
“We closed up the house. Miss Elinor took the babe and left. Said she’d go back home to Derbyshire.”
Evan leaned toward Kate and murmured, “I suppose she never made it that far, or certainly someone would have heard. If only we could know what happened between the closing of Ambervale and your arrival at Margate.”
A sense of desperate bewilderment settled on Kate. She was heartily sick of lies and deceit. She wanted to do—and say—the right thing. But she didn’t know what the right thing was.
How could she explain to Evan about “Ellie Rose” and the Southwark bawdy house—in front of two solicitors and the housekeeper who’d held her mother in such obvious regard? Did it even matter? Perhaps Thorne’s story was irrelevant. The little girl he’d known might have been someone else.