“None of Them Will Be My Mother!” the Duke’s Son Declared — Until the Cook Brought an Apple Pie
Chapter 17
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"Lady Honoria," she said when she reached the foot of the stairs, in a voice that was quiet and perfectly clear. "You have been speaking of me for some time, and I thought it only courteous to attend."No one breathed."I am a cook. My name is Rosamund Vale, and I have worked for my living since I was nine years old, and I have never in all that time taken a single thing that was not mine. I did not ask His Grace for his title; I did not ask his son for his affection. I asked a frightened child to eat a piece of pie." She drew a breath. "If that is a scandal, then your society is built of very thin paper. You told me that no house in England would take me," Rosamund went on, and her voice filled the room to the gilded ceiling. "Perhaps that is true. But you cannot take my name, which is clean. You cannot take the fact that when a boy of ten was crying beneath a table, I was the one who stayed. And you threatened to put my widowed sister and her three children on the road to move me out of your way."She looked up at the woman in plum satin. "I do not know what you call that in this drawing room, my lady. In my kitchen, we call it theft."The silence that followed was the silence of a held breath. Then from beside her, a high, clear, furious voice rose in the stillness."Aunt Honoria," said Master Edmund, stepping forward with his chin high and his velvet jacket buttoned to the throat. "I would like to correct the record. I said that none of them would be my mother, and I meant it, and I am a person of my word." He drew himself to his full height, which was not considerable. "But she is not one of them!"A woman near the back of the room, a duchess in her own right, put her hand to her mouth."This is outrageous!" Lady Honoria cried, her composure cracking at last. "Remove this woman, Theodore! I insist!""Aunt," said the Duke, and he did not raise his voice, and every head turned. "You have told Lord Fenwick that I consented to an alliance that I never discussed. You have threatened a widow and three children to remove a servant from my house. I find I must also mention that Lord Pelham owes my family £11,000, secured against the very land from which you proposed to evict her sister, and that I have never pressed him for a farthing."He turned to Lord Pelham, who had gone the color of wet ash. "My lord, I shall press you for nothing tonight. But the allowance of £400 a year that my father's will placed in my discretion is hereby ended. And I shall be obliged if Lady Honoria will retire to Cumberland for the next two seasons and refrain from writing to my son."