“He is real. But I’d never met him before.” Maddie put her head down on her crossed arms. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been ashamed, and afraid of you learning the truth. I wanted to tell you years ago, but you were so fond of the idea of him . . . and I’m so fond of you.”
“Oh, my Madling.” Aunt Thea rubbed her back in soothing circles. The way she’d done when Maddie was a young girl. “I know.”
“You know that I’m sorry? You can forgive me?”
“Not only that. I know everything. The lies, the letters. That your Captain MacKenzie was merely whimsy and imagination. I’ve always known.”
Stunned, Maddie lifted her head. “What?”
“Please do not take offense at this, dear—but it wasn’t a terribly plausible tale. In fact, it was rather preposterous, and you’re not especially talented at deceit. Without me vouching for you, I don’t think the story would have lasted a month with your father.”
“I don’t understand what you’re telling me. Do you mean that you never believed me? All this time, you’ve known that my Captain MacKenzie was a complete fabrication, and you never said a word?”
“Well, we agreed that you seemed to need time.”
“We? Who is ‘we’ in that sentence?”
“Lynforth and I, of course.”
“My godfather knew I invented a suitor, too?” Maddie buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Lord. This is so embarrassing.”
Embarrassing, but also oddly freeing. If this was true, at least she did not need to feel she’d inherited this castle under false pretenses.
“Naturally he did. And he understood. Because, my darling Madling, the two of us were close.”
“Close.”
“Lovers for twenty years, on and off. And he knew I’d once lied to avoid marrying, too.”
Maddie thought her brain would twist from all these revelations. “You weren’t debauched by the Comte de Montclair and ruined for all other men?”
“Oh, I went to bed with him. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t magical, either. And no, that night did not ruin me for other men. To the contrary, it made me realize that I was far too young to shackle myself to one man for the rest of my life simply because my parents deemed him suitable, only to learn on the wedding night that he might or might not possess an erotic obsession with feathers.”
“Feathers?”
“We needn’t dwell on that. My point is, the importance of compatibility in the bedchamber cannot be overstated. Anyhow, I loudly proclaimed my ruination as an excuse to avoid marriage. I was able to take lovers when and how I pleased, but for his last two decades or so, I was rather devoted to Lynforth. His passing was quite the blow. It’s why I so gladly came north with you. I was in mourning, too.”
“Yes, but your mourning was real.” Maddie edged closer. “Oh, Aunt Thea. I’m so sorry.”
Her aunt dabbed at her eyes. “We knew it was coming. But one is never truly prepared. Nevertheless, life changes. We discover new passions. While you’ve spent your time drawing beetles, I’ve penned a torrid novel in my tower upstairs.”
“You, a novelist? But that’s . . . Well, that’s perfect.”
When she thought about it, Aunt Thea had been writing melodrama for years, with Maddie in the starring role.
“It’s more of a memoir, really. Or as the French call it, a roman à clef. Nearly everything in the events is true to life, but the names have been changed to protect the wicked.”
Maddie shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why have we been lying to each other all this time?”
She clasped Maddie’s hands in her own. “I didn’t know we were, dear. For years, I rather thought it was all mutually understood. Sometimes a woman doesn’t quite fit in with her expected role. We do what we can to make our own way, carve out a space for ourselves. I thought you were happy here in Scotland, and I encouraged your father to leave you be. But then that enormous, glorious man appeared . . .”
Maddie laughed wryly. “Did he ever.”
“And then I didn’t know what to think. Perhaps you’d been telling the truth all along. I devised a test or two for him. The poem, the dancing lesson. I tried to make myself available should you need to confide in me. But mostly, I decided . . . you are a woman now. A strong, intelligent woman whom I admire. It wasn’t my place to interfere.”
Maddie picked at the crocheted edge of her handkerchief. “He’s a complete stranger. Can you believe it? My letters were delivered to him somehow, and he knew everything about me. About our family. But I’d never met him before he arrived in the parlor. And now . . .”