“Allow me, Your Grace.” Arising, Mr. Musgrave lumbered across the study with the single-mindedness of a beaver on his way to gnaw a tree. Just as he reached for the knob, the door swung open and smacked into him. He staggered back a few steps, making a grab for his pince-nez before it could slide off his nose.

In a whirl of olive-green skirts, Lady Godwin swooped into the study. She was followed by Lord Wymark, who appeared rather bleary-eyed after his overindulgence in drink the previous night.

“Archie, I need a word with you at once.” The countess took in the scene at a glance, and her gaze narrowed on Natalie seated in the chair. “Why is Miss Fanshawe here? This gathering should be strictly for family members.”

Rising, Lord Godwin cast a baleful glance at his wife. “Rather, it’s for whomever I deem necessary. And I’m afraid that doesn’t include you, Priscilla. Or you, Richard.”

“You’ll change your mind,” Wymark told his father, “when you hear what Mama has just discovered.”

Hadrian paced toward them, his manner impatient. “This is no time for gossip or idle chitchat. Unless it concerns Leo, it can wait until later.”

“It most certainly does have a bearing on this situation, Your Grace,” the countess asserted. She glided to Natalie’s chair, her lip curling with disdain. “Miss Fanshawe, may I ask if your sire’s name was Benjamin?”

Natalie stiffened under the jab of that pointed question. “Yes,” she admitted cautiously. “Benjamin Fanshawe was my father.”

“And was he born here in England? One of the Lincolnshire Fanshawes?”

She gave a reluctant nod. Though the possibility had lurked at the back of her mind, Natalie had not really expected anyone in England outside the family to remember him after so many years. What did the countess know?

Her gaze flitted to Hadrian, who regarded her with a startled frown before he turned his attention to Lady Godwin. “I fail to see why Miss Fanshawe’s ancestry would have anything to do with Leo.”

Lady Godwin swung toward him. “Oh, but I assure you it does, Your Grace. You’ll understand in a moment. It took me some time to recall the gossip from thirty years ago, back when the Fanshawes were still admitted to society. That was before Sir Basil Fanshawe—Miss Fanshawe’s grandfather—was expelled from the best circles for reneging on his debts.”

The earl cast an assessing glance at Natalie that seemed to tar her with her grandfather’s sins. “Good God. I’d forgotten all about that miscreant.”

“Scapegraces, the whole family,” Wymark bestirred himself to say. “I knew a Fanshawe at Harrow, a year ahead of me. Giles the Gypsy, he was called. Come to think of it, he had Miss Fanshawe’s black hair and green eyes.”

“That is due to the taint of Romany blood from Sir Basil’s grandmother,” Lady Godwin said with derision. “Or so the rumor goes. But that isn’t the worst of it. Just now, as I was paging through Debrett’s, a memory struck me that one of Sir Basil’s offspring had immigrated to America—Miss Fanshawe’s father. If I may put it delicately, he had few prospects here in England since he was born on the wrong side of the blanket.”