Page 80 of Cruel Shame

“What?” she asked with a gasp.

“The DNA test said he wasn’t my father, so who?”

Mother’s wracking sobs filled my ear. Every instinct told me to stop pushing her because as soon as she hung up, she would drown herself in gin to blot it out. I clenched my teeth, hardening my heart against the pain I was causing Mother, but if I dropped the subject, the Liddells would do something else to ruin our lives. Then, I’d be back to Mother, asking the same question and tearing open the same wounds.

“Lilah, please don’t—”

“The girl Lady Liddell sent after me used a bloody gun. If my boyfriend hadn’t stormed in when he did, she’d have blown off my head.”

“Nothing good will ever come of uncovering this,” she said with a moan.

“Nothing good ever came of covering up the truth,” I said. “You sent me up to Templar—”

“Because Sammy wanted to wring your neck.”

“Well, now I need to know what’s so terrible that the Liddells want me dead.”

We went around in circles until the battery on my smartphone went down to five percent. Gideon plugged me in at the mains, and I sat on the floor, waiting for Mother to finally talk.

“Alright,” she whispered. “But you’ve got to swear never to tell Billy.”

“I won’t.”

“The morning after, Thomas let me go and warned me not to speak of this to anyone.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Miss Gabbage confronted me at breakfast, saying my roommate reported me missing that night.” Mother’s voice hardened. “When I told her what had happened, she just laughed and called me a social-climbing slut.”

“Right,” I snarled. Because a former Home Economics teacher who had somehow managed to ensnare Lord Liddell wasn’t a social climber herself? One day, I would punch the silicone from her lying lips.

“So I went…” Mother’s voice hitched, and her words became a jumbled mess of sobs.

“Slow down, Mum,” I said in my gentlest tone.

Her rapid breaths filled the speaker, making my heart pound. Part of me, the corner of paranoia in the back of my mind that always thought of the worst case scenarios, already knew what she would say. I shoved those thoughts away and waited.

“I told the headmaster,” she blurted.

“Mr. Burgh?”

“Father Liddell was the headmaster when I was your age,” she said, her voice bitter. “He called me into his suite, gave me painkillers and hot chocolate, and told me everything would be alright.”

My stomach dropped. “Oh.”

“Only I got drowsy. I still don’t know what he gave me, but they weren’t painkillers. When I woke up, I was in his bed, naked and he was on top of me.”

The words hit me like a punch in the gut. Even though I’d suspected the archbishop had raped Mother, I’d never expected it to happen like that.

“No,” I whispered.

“He wouldn’t stop, even when I cried.” Mother paused to catch her breath. “He said the only way to erase an act of hatred was with an act of love. Afterward, he performed a spiritual marriage, wrote up a shitty certificate, and gave me a ring that would symbolize our connection in the eyes of god.”

“What?”

“Check beneath the base of the grandfather clock,” she muttered. “The police seized the ring when they tracked me down to London and arrested me for theft.”

My eyes blurred with tears. Twice within twenty-four hours then got thrown into prison while pregnant? “Mum, I’m sorry.”