“You mean how much you threatened her.”
It surprised Skye that the midwife would divulge the baroness’s secret, but perhaps she’d been driven to blurting it out by Lord Farnwell’s aggressive manner. He seemed perfectly capable of frightening an old woman. Or perhaps Mrs. Nibbs had let it slip in a moment of confusion or forgetfulness.
Regardless, Farnwell was intent on putting the tale to rest. “Such a scurrilous lie cannot be allowed to stand. Naturally I demanded that Nibbs recant, and when she refused, I immediately traveled to London to find you and discover what you know—but your servants said you were a guest here at Hawkhurst Castle. I thought it exceedingly odd. I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with the earl,” Farnwell added with another glance at Hawk.
“We only recently became acquaintances,” Daphne explained.
“Well, that is neither here nor there. I wish you to return home with me and speak to Nibbs directly. You must insist that she retract her outrageous nonsense.”
“If you believe it to be nonsense, why would you give it any credence?”
He sucked in a ragged breath, clearly struggling for control. “Blast you, Daphne! You are trying my patience.”
“I am sorry, Edgar,” she replied congenially, “but you must admit, your patience is easily tried.”
“Just tell me if there is any truth to her allegation!”
“Very well, if you wish to know … Yes, there is.”
Farnwell stared, his expression one of consternation. “That cannot be.”
“I regret that it is. The ugly truth is that our father was so abusive that he drove my mother to falsify her own death in order to escape his brutality.”
His anxiety shifted to cold fury. “You are now the one disparaging our father.”
“Am I? You cannot deny that Father was a brute to our servants. Why would you think him incapable of cruelty toward my mother?”
His gaze bored into hers, but clearly his thoughts were racing. “When did you learn of this?”
“Only this past week.”
“How could you have kept this from me?” he demanded, his voice rising again but this time with an edge of panic.
“In part because I knew you would be upset and feared you would react exactly this way.” Daphne was trying to soothe him now. She must have had experience placating his contentious manner. “But mostly because I wished to meet my mother for the first time in private.”
Farnwell now looked both shocked and fearful. “Dear God,” he rasped. “She is still alive?”
“Yes, quite alive.”
“She is here? In this very house?”
“Yes.”
“Dear God,” he repeated, the words no more than a hoarse whisper.
Skye could understand his alarm, for he had realized the possible consequences. Rachel Farnwell’s existence not only put his nobility in question but his very legitimacy. The impact to his birthright would dwarf any scandal from his father’s bigamy and abuse, which was doubtless why he’d felt the urgency to make Nibbs retract the story of Lady Farnwell’s drowning.
The baron looked so thunderstruck that Skye almost felt sorry for him, except that she knew Daphne didn’t consider her brother overly deserving of sympathy. Edgar was a selfish prig, with a streak of meanness he had likely inherited from his father.
As if on cue, his combativeness rallied in short order.
“No, I shan’t believe it,” Farnwell declared. “You have been utterly deceived, Daphne. Someone is impersonating your late mother and spinning lies.”
“You are entitled to your opinion, Edgar, but you are wrong.”
“How could you possibly know? You were but an infant at the time of her death. What proof do you have that she is your mother?”
“I need no proof. It is a feeling.”