And here she was again, alone in the dark. She slid her hand over her belly, closed her eyes, and said a silent prayer.
Chapter 23
It was Mr. Newell who informed Cassandra the following day that Mr. DeWitt had ordered the carriage to be ready in fifteen minutes, if Mrs. DeWitt still wished to call on Mrs. O’Dea. Cassandra sighed and told Mr. Newell to thank Mr. DeWitt and inform him that Mrs. DeWitt did still wish to call on Mrs. O’Dea, and she would be ready.
Joshua seemed to be his normal energetic self, bounding down the steps and leaping into the carriage, the sun glinting on his earring. He was unshaven again, and she wanted to catch that bristly face in her hands and kiss him until he laughed.
Instead, she said, “How is your work today?”
“Must you bore me with your polite small talk?”
“Would you prefer that I bore you with rude, big talk?”
“I would prefer silence.”
At which he leaned back and tipped his hat over his eyes. They did not speak again until the carriage reached their destination and they stood side by side at the door of a simple but respectable house.
“This was another of your stupid ideas,” he said, as she knocked. “For a smart woman, you come up with the stupidest ideas.”
“I have to know. You don’t have to come in, if you don’t want.”
“Of course I’m coming in.”
She smiled to hide her relief. He would abandon her, sooner or later, but it would not be today.
The maid who opened the door recognized Joshua and led them to a clean, sparse sitting room, where a woman sat sewing by the window, in which hung a cage with two chattering songbirds. She was perhaps in her mid-thirties and wore a plain brown house dress. Sandy curls poked out from under her lace cap, her face was thin and colorless, and when she put aside her sewing to greet them, she revealed eyes of pale blue.
Cassandra knew a horrid disappointment at Mrs. O’Dea’s appearance. She realized, to her shame, that she had been hoping to meet a painted butterfly, so she could tell herself that Papa had been attracted only by the costume. But Papa’s former mistress was no actress performing a role to entertain a lord’s passing fancy. Somehow, that made Papa’s betrayal worse.
Mrs. O’Dea greeted them both politely, but her inspection of Cassandra was frank.
“Charles spoke of you fondly, Mrs. DeWitt,” she said.
Cassandra’s last, lingering hope dissolved like smoke. But she still had her politeness and a lifetime’s training in hiding her emotions.
“I must own, Mrs. O’Dea, that my father never spoke of you at all.”
“As is right. There are things that children, whatever their age, ought not know about their parents.”
“And yet there is much I feel I need to know.”
Mrs. O’Dea met her eyes steadily. She had a solemn air that was far removed from Mama’s former vivacity. Cassandra could picture her as wife to a vicar, not mistress to a popular lord.
Her father’s mistress! Oh heavens, what was she doing? When had sensible, well-behaved Cassandra become someone who visited her late father’s mistress?
But when Mrs. O’Dea indicated a seat and offered refreshments, Cassandra sat and politely refused tea. Mrs. O’Dea sat too, while Joshua paced to the window and poked his fingers through the cage at the birds. He was a few yards from her and a thousand miles away.
“I fear this conversation is necessarily going to be indelicate,” Cassandra said. “I apologize for the intrusion, but it was a shock to me to learn of your existence. I always believed that Papa was faithful to Mama.”
Mrs. O’Dea’s mouth tightened, but she inclined her head graciously. “He was. Until me. He told me that for more than twenty years, he’d known no woman but his wife.”
“You do not mean to tell me he loved you.”
The words were unkind and Cassandra was immediately ashamed, but Mrs. O’Dea did not seem to mind.
“He needed me,” she said. “We met after your mother left him.”
“She never left him!”
Over by the window, Joshua turned sharply, but she ignored him.
“Charles said that Emmaline left him,” Mrs. O’Dea said, frowning in obvious confusion.
“Why would he say that? She never…Oh. Oh.”
She could feel Joshua’s gaze piercing her, and she stared past Mrs. O’Dea’s questioning look, at the wall. On it hung a framed silhouette portrait of a man who was not Papa.
In a way, Mama had left Papa, hadn’t she? She had left them all. Cassandra had never realized