“I’m so sorry for that, darling Jeanne,” Lillie said. She leaned forward and pushed the disheveled hair off the girl’s forehead. “I know it seems cruel, but we all thought it was for the best. All through your life, you have had powerful friends and protectors. The Prince of Wales-”

“But what about my real father?” Jeanne demanded, her voice shaking. She pushed her mother’s hand away. “Uncle Ned was my father, wasn’t he?”

Lillie stiffened. “Of course he was your father. What makes you ask a question like that?”

“Because Lady Ragsdale said that the Prince of Wales-”

Lillie laughed merrily. “Oh, what utter nonsense! Do you think for a moment that if the Prince were your father he would openly sponsor you at court? Think of the scandal!”

Jeanne pouted. “Well, then, what about Uncle Ned? If he was my father, why couldn’t I have lived with him?”

Lillie pulled herself up and said, in a calm, chill voice, “Edward Langtry was not the kind of father a daughter deserves, Jeanne. Marrying him was a terrible mistake. I could not compound my folly by imposing it upon you.” Her voice softened. “Anyway, he was totally incapable of supporting himself, let alone a daughter. And he drank a very great deal. I could not even let him know that you were his daughter, for fear that he might insist on involving himself in your life.”

“But I should like to have been able to love him as my father,” Jeanne said fiercely. “And now he’s dead, and I shall never-” She looked up and caught a glimpse of Kate. Quickly, she turned back to Lillie. “Who is she?”

Color flared across Lillie’s face as she realized that there had been a witness to this intimate scene. “This is Lady Charles Sheridan, Jeanne. She is my houseguest. Lady Charles, may I present my… Jeanne-Marie.”

“I’m very glad to know you, Jeanne,” Kate said gravely. There was nothing more she could say.

The girl rose from the sofa and bobbed a little curtsy. “Yes, my lady,” she said, very low.

The mood had been broken and Lillie was once more in command. “Jeanne, dear, I suggest that you go to your room and wash. We have not yet had our luncheon, and I should like you to join us. You can tell us all about Lady Ragsdale’s plans for your presentation at court. Has your dress arrived? You must be very excited.”

The girl dropped her head. All the fire seemed to have gone out of her. “Yes, Aunt-” She looked up. “What should I call you?”

Lillie gave her a narrow smile. “Under the circumstances, my darling, I think it is best if you simply continue to call me Aunt Lillie. This will remain our little secret until you’ve been presented at court, and perhaps for a few months after. We don’t want to confuse our friends, do we?”

Jeanne gave her mother a long, dull look in which Kate read all her heartache. “Yes, Aunt,” she replied, and left the room.

There was a silence. At last, Lillie said, in a low voice, “Now you know my deepest, most closely held secret.”

Do I? Kate wondered. But she only inclined her head and said, “I’m sure you did what you thought was best for her. It must have been difficult.”

“There were rumors, of course, and endless sly innuendoes. That’s why Jeanne had to live on Jersey.” Lillie’s voice became acid. “If she had been with me, the newspapers would have made such a game of it, counting my age against hers and forever speculating about the identity of her father. Once she is safely married, perhaps I can tell her who-”

A strange, haunted look crossed her face and she stopped, clearly feeling that she was giving too much away. Kate, though, could complete the sentence: once Jeanne-Marie was safely married and living somewhere out of the public eye, Lillie could tell her who her real father was. Not Edward Langtry, obviously. Was it the Prince of Wales, or someone else? Who was Lillie protecting, besides herself?

“How difficult for the child,” Kate said quietly. “And for you.”

Lillie gave an elaborate sigh. “I must confess that I feel a little relieved that she has found it out at last. At least I will no longer have to pretend to her.” She slanted a glance at Kate, and her tone was cautionary. “I hope, however, that I may rely on you to keep my secret. You won’t include any of this in your article for The Strand?”

“Of course not,” Kate said without hesitation.

“Thank you,” Lillie replied, and added, reflectively, “I should not want your readers to know that I am old enough to have a daughter who is soon to be presented at court.” She sighed heavily. “And I simply cannot tell Suggie that he would be step-papa to a grown daughter, only a half-dozen years younger than he!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Thomas Moore resided on a small dairy farm a half-mile to the east of the hamlet of Snailwell. With Jack Murray beside him, Charles drove the rented gig down a narrow lane. On one side, a stone fence opened onto a wide view of the heath and a river valley; on the other, an ancient hedge enclosed a parcel of rocky hillside and a picturesque herd of black-and-white cows, grazing on the June grass. The hedge was interwoven with wild roses and honeysuckle and blackberry in blossom, and patches of yellow flag, bright as new gold coins, bloomed in the ditch.

At length, passing through a wooden gate, they came upon a prosperous-looking farm. Before them was a large two-up, two-down stone cottage with a chimney at either gabled end, the roof thatched with straw and netted to keep birds away. The central door, painted green, was bowered with a pink China rose and a purple clematis, and fragrant rosemary clothed the whole foot of the walls on either side. The gray mist had risen, the sun was gleaming through the silvery clouds, and the casement windows with their red-checked curtains had been flung open to catch the warming breeze. From indoors, Charles could hear the melodic voice of a girl, singing a lullaby. The song stopped when they pulled up in front, and a moment later the girl appeared at the door, a tow-headed child on her hip. She was plump and red-cheeked, with long brown braids and a white apron over a plain gray dress. She dropped a curtsy when Charles got down from the gig.

“We’re looking for a Mr. Oliver Moore,” Charles said. “Is he here, miss?”

The girl pulled her brows together in a pretty frown, as if wondering how she should reply. “I’ll ask, sir,” she said, and disappeared indoors. In a moment she was out again, without the child, who could be heard wailing disconsolately within. She picked up her skirts and ran around the front corner of the cottage. With a nod to Jack to accompany him, Charles set out after her.

The girl was darting up a path that lay between a large vegetable garden filled with lettuce and rhubarb and potatoes and peas climbing a lattice of hazel twigs, and a stoutly fenced pigsty containing two pink porkers. An arrogant rooster rose up threateningly in her way, but she flapped her apron at him and he scuttled under the railing to join his hens looking for bugs around the bee hive.

At the end of the path, the girl ducked into a low stone building, with netted windows equipped with shutters in the front. Following close behind, Charles saw through the windows that it was a cheese-house, built for the drying of large cheeses, no doubt produced from the milk of the black-and-white cows on the hillside. The stone floor was raised up several feet above the ground to protect the cheeses from damp, and wide wooden shelves had been hung round the walls. These shelves were lined with cut nettles, over which had been laid large rounds of yellow cheese, as bright as the yellow flags in the ditch. These were being turned by a slight, rusty-haired man, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows.