Page 75 of The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

Gin’s fingers tightened around the globe, squeezing as though she could indent the marble. “Don’t talk about Mother like that.”

“What—don’t speak ill of the dead?” Her father scoffed, tossing the pipe onto the table, where the smoldering leaves trailed out of the bowl. “Though you’re right. Perhaps I should be cautious: If anyone were to rise and haunt me, it would be her evil spirit.”

“On the contrary,” Gin snapped. “She was clearly a saint to chain herself to you.”

She did not expect her father to start chuckling.

It was a deep, soulless sound, so devoid of warmth and mirth as though he had distorted laughter into a curse, and an unpleasant chill prickled Ginevra’s spine. There was no liquor about him, as far as she could see; but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be dangerous. She was swiftly learning that desperate men were the most dangerous of all.

“She really pulled the wool over your eyes, didn’t she?” His nostrils flared. “Played the dutiful mother to perfection, had you so wrapped around her little finger that you thought she did nothing wrong, while poisoning you against me—me, the one who gave you everything.”

“You gave me nothing.” It was hard for Ginevra to exercise restraint, for her anger was starting to suffocate. “The literal dogs under the table got more scraps of your affection than I did. You can fume about me not marrying Donald, but be honest: You’ve always disliked me. When I was twelve, I consoled myself that you merely wanted a boy, and I chopped off my hair and took fencing lessons thinking that might please you more. And what was your response? That ugly girls were useless, and you banished me from the dinner table until my hair grew past my shoulders.” Gin’s chest heaved with a tight burst of fury. “Mother didn’t have to poison anything because you did a thorough job all on your own.”

For a moment, he stared as though she’d slapped him. His gaze dropped and he picked up the pipe, sweeping the tobacco back into the bowl, then tamped it back down and struck a new match.

“One day,” he said, “you’re going to thank me.” There was a calm in his voice that unnerved Ginevra even more than the vitriol. “I’ve done more for you, girl, than you’ll ever know.” He paused, and his scarred eyebrow raised. “Actually, to hell with it all. Let your mother try to haunt me. She ruled my life for seventeen years, and I’ve continued to let her rule from the grave these past five. But no longer.” He swung his feet to the ground and braced his forearms on the desk, jabbing the pipe stem at her. “You, Ginevra Bishop, are not my daughter.”

She hesitated, waiting for a punch line, some caveat or cruel joke about their antithetical personalities and interests. But he smirked with such grim pleasure that the impossible pronouncement redoubled in her mind, the words growing louder and louder with each iteration. “What—do you mean?” she stammered at last.

He took a long draw on his pipe, and the gleam in his eye turned devilish. “You’re not my blood, you’re not really a Bishop. It’s my own fault, really; my parents tried to stop me from marrying a girl with no connections, no history in our circles, and I blithely ignored all their advice. Your mother was the most intoxicating creature I’d ever met, and I wanted her. I was shocked when she announced she was pregnant, especially so soon after we were wed. And when you came nearly two months early, everyone marveled that you should be so healthy and large. But when that hair came in, red as carrots.” His gaze darkened toward Ginevra, then returned to his lap, his mouth pulled in a mulish bow. “Fool that I was, only then did I suspect something was amiss. Your mother tried to claim you were the very picture of her Scottish grandmother, forgetting she’d already told me her grandparents were Scandinavian. But I hadn’t forgotten. And the more I thought about it, I remembered a certain young red-haired man in your mother’s damned chess club.”

Ginevra felt as though she’d been clubbed upside the head. Her hand on the globe slipped, and she steadied herself against the desk as she sank into the low chair.

“It was surprisingly easy to get the truth out of her then,” he continued, building steam as though now relishing the narrative, “as if she cared little for my regard. She informed me of the new terms of our marriage: I would raise you as my own, make you my heir—for there would be no more children, despite what I should want—and in return, she wouldn’t tell the world she’d cuckolded me. She promised to make you a desirable match and an ornament to the family name. All she wanted in return was my secrecy and loyalty.” He guffawed, waving a dismissive hand. “Loyalty—when she’d already destroyed any trust between us. Of course, my hands were tied. Your mother was already working her wiles on the village and my friends, making herself a favorite wherever she went. I couldn’t divorce her without ruining my own public image. And so, you stayed here.”

It was like peering into a mirror at a traveling funfair, where your face would distort beyond recognition. Ginevra well-remembered how beloved her mother had been by everyone, but she had always assumed it was part of her nature to be the gracious hostess, the savior of every woman in the village after childbirth. Were all her affections calculated to make her indispensable?

It was too much to ponder while her father—her erstwhile father—regarded her with such bitter triumph, and Gin latched onto a dangling thread that felt safer. She tried to clear the huskiness from her voice. “What happened to my real father?”

The viscount scoffed. “Dead in a trench, I should imagine. I assume he was poor as a church mouse, and your mother saw me as the safer ship on which to dump you.” His lips curled in a sneer. “Despite my generosity, she preferred to spend as little time as possible in my company; even less after you went to Honoria House. She’d disappear for weeks on end, always returning when you came home to resume our sham of a marriage like some pathetic pantomime. If your father didn’t die, perhaps they were still fornicating all those years.”

This insult was a blow too far. “You may not care about speaking ill of the dead,” Gin said icily, “but perhaps you’re unaware of how tongues wagged over your swift remarriage to Sylvia.”

He colored at this, but it seemed a flush of anger rather than shame. “Am I not entitled to some happiness? Your mother led me into marriage with lies and held me hostage with blackmail. I loved her, Ginevra—” A shudder racked his body, his clenched fist upon the table falling loose. “I loved her only to discover I’d brought an adder into my home. Can you blame me for hating the poison?”

There had indeed been a poison in their home. And while Gin had first felt it in the strike of her father’s hand, it was hard not to see the foolishness in her mother’s blackmail. Gin’s childhood might have been financially secure in Chiseldon Park, but had her mother never considered what greater evils such a man might have on her daughter’s life?

“I cannot,” she answered at last, “but I was only a child and had no part in Mother’s plans. You might have found it in your heart to show me a little kindness, and perhaps we…” She trailed off, overwhelmed with the thought of what a father’s affection might have meant over the years. They might have been a solace to each other after her mother’s passing, they might have planned Ginevra’s future together. But if he was the kind of man to let his anger overflow upon a mere child, then there was no love lost between them that she wished she could have reclaimed.

And for the first time, a great burden of guilt was removed.

He was not her father. All the years of feeling horrid that she did not love this man, for feeling pathetic that he did not love her, vanished like the morning dew. She had done nothing wrong, and the truth did indeed set her free.

Stiffly, Ginevra rose. “I can’t understand all of Mother’s motivations, but I can appreciate she wanted to ensure I was provided for, and I thank you for the years you’ve sheltered, clothed, and fed me. My friends and I shall depart in the morning, and I shall return next week to collect the rest of my things. I shall not impose upon your goodwill”—she could not help a touch of sarcasm—“any longer.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he grumbled. “What, you’re going to renounce the family name and undo everything your mother inflicted upon me?”

“No,” Gin said, “but I don’t think we need force this charade of a relationship. I shall appear if you need me, of course, but I think it best if I secure lodgings of my own for the future, though it doesn’t seem as if you’ll be in residence much longer either.” She inclined her head. “Good night—sir.”

His face darkened. “Ginevra, don’t be a fool—”

But Gin turned quickly before he could see the impending tears and strode from the room. She would not have expected such a reaction to omitting Father, but it felt like the final severance to life before her mother’s death. Painful as the relationship had been, it would not be easy to think of herself as someone other than his daughter. But with this branch severed, she hoped that new tendrils of growth would one day flourish, and she could figure out in time what that meant for her—Bishop, yet not Bishop. Ginevra Aster?

She shook her head, overwhelmed at the thought, and turned down the corridor. Her maternal grandparents were a distant memory, and there were no other Aster relations to her knowledge. Ginevra Aster would feel just as lonely as Ginevra Bishop.

It was an even greater pity there was no way of knowing her real father’s name. Was her mother never planning to share the truth? How could she have been so shortsighted in her plans, to tie herself to someone as selfish as the viscount for mere financial security?

“Ginevra!” Sarita’s voice started Gin from her reverie, and she found her friend beckoning from the doorway into the garden. “Darling, you look a fright. What’s wrong?”