It made sense. He had been known as a fatherless bastard, which was bad enough, but being known as the bastard of a half-breed gypsy would have been worse.
Still, a headache pounded between his brows. He raised his eyes to meet Lowell’s yet again. His father’s eyes. The man was so quiet, allowing Sam’s mother to run the conversation. But what did he think about all this?
It seemed clear that he didn’t care. If he had, he would have done something to reveal his identity to Sam long ago.
Sam looked away. He knew nothing of Lowell, had no connection to him beyond the basic bond of blood. A blood bond meant nothing when there was no substance to fortify it.
He turned back to his mother. “Tell me … how this came about.”
She nodded. “Very well. As you know, before I married the Duke of Trent, I lived in Northampton at Tarn Hall, your grandparents’ estate.”
Sam nodded. He knew about Tarn Hall but had never gone there. His mother had never told him why she didn’t take him there, but he knew anyhow: His grandfather had forbidden his bastard grandson to set foot on the property.
His mother continued. “Steven and his players came to Northampton one summer. I had just turned eighteen. I went to watch them, and when I saw him, laughing and juggling …” A flush rose on her cheeks, and she glanced at Lowell. Sam refused to look in that direction again, just stared stoically at his mother. “Oh, darling, it was love at first sight. I knew my father the earl was angling for me to marry the Duke of Trent, whom I disliked immensely. Steven—and all the players—they were so free, such lighthearted and happy people. I wanted nothing more than to join them.”
She sighed, then continued. “I was a young lady of noble birth, constrained by society’s expectations. My life … Oh, Sam, I was a very unhappy girl. I felt stifled. Imprisoned. Steven was wild. He was happy, and he was free. I wanted that so badly for myself. I craved it. I intended to run away with him that very night. He came out to Tarn Hall, and I sneaked out of my bedchamber window. We ran and ran across the fields.
“We spent two days running. They were the two best days of my life. I learned so much—about living, about congress of the sexes, about the world.” Her hands, which were still over his fist, squeezed tight. “But then my father found me. He literally tore me from Steven’s arms. He returned me to the house, where he beat me, then locked me up in my bedchamber with a boarded window for the next several months. My metaphorical prison had become a prison in truth. And the only way out was to agree to marry the duke.”
Sam realized he was clenching his teeth so hard, his jaw was beginning to ache. Forcibly, he released the pressure, making himself relax. His fist opened under his mother’s hands, and she threaded her fingers in his.
“The duke wanted me, Sam. He wanted my dowry, which was enormous—the largest the country had seen in years. By the time I agreed to marry him, I knew I was with child. I told him that I would not marry him unless he accepted my baby into his house. I told him he didn’t have to be a father to the child, but he needed to accept his existence and give him his name. I was firm on this one point, darling. I would not be that mother who gave her child away to be raised by some farmer or crofter. I wanted you.” Intense certainty resonated in her voice.
“Where was he all this time?” Sam gestured roughly to Lowell.
“Steven tried to come back to me, but he was turned away by my father, who threatened to shoot him if he ever appeared at Tarn Hall again.”
Sam took an unsteady breath. Élise, who had kept quiet this whole time, stroked her fingers across his arm in a soothing motion.
“I gave birth to you,” his mother said. “My beautiful, dark boy, who reminded me so much of his father, whom I continued to love with all my heart. And two months later, I married the Duke of Trent.”
Sam knew the rest. He blew out a slow breath, as if he’d been holding it in throughout the entire story.
There were still so many questions. “What I don’t understand is how you knew he was coming back. After more than thirty years … how did you wait so long? How did you communicate during all that time? What made you agree to go to him?”
“There’s more to the story, my darling,” his mother said. “Steven and I saw each other twice in the first several years of your life. Both times were …” She hesitated, then looked down. “Difficult. I was married to someone else. I was a duchess. He was a traveling player. I was raising his son, and I didn’t wish said son to know the truth of his paternity. I needed to keep up appearances as the duchess. I needed to perform my duties, not for my own gain but for that of my children.”
Her voice lowered. “You remember those years, Sam. They were full of turmoil. I wanted to hold you children together … to give you the best lives I possibly could—”
“By lying to all of us?” Sam cut in incredulously.
That stopped his mother cold. She studied his face, panic flaring in her dark eyes.
He stared back at her.
“What do you know?” she whispered.
He gave a humorless laugh. “More than you’d like, I’m sure.”
“Tell me.” Her voice sounded raw. “Tell me what you know.”
He disengaged his hand from hers and rubbed his temple. “What do I know?” He shook his head. “Let me tell you what happened soon after you disappeared, Mama. Our old neighbor, Baron Stanley, approached Trent and attempted to blackmail him into marrying his daughter. Do you know what information he held over Trent’s head? That all my siblings, besides Trent himself, are illegitimate. Lord Stanley himself is Luke’s father, and Mark and Theo aren’t even yours but the issue of the old duke and his mistress. He even conjectured that Esme was illegitimate, but he had no proof of that.”
Everyone was completely still around him. Even Élise. He’d shared much with her, but not the secrets of his siblings’ illegitimacy.
“Trent was prepared to marry Stanley’s daughter to shut him up. Because we all know what would happen to Luke, Mark, Theo, and Esme if the truth were revealed.”
“Oh God.” The duchess seemed to curl into herself, bending over and holding her face in her hands. “Oh God. I didn’t intend for this to happen, Sam. You must know this.”
“We sought out his proof, and we know that his accusations are true. Luke is the result of your affair with Baron Stanley. Theo and Mark are the result of the old Duke of Trent’s affair with his mistress. Esme? Well, her parentage remains a mystery.”
“Esme is your sister,” she sobbed.
“I hope so,” he said coldly.
She looked up at him, tears flowing freely from her eyes once again. “No, Sam, you don’t understand. Esme is your full sister. Steven is her father, too.”
Sam held himself rigid. How many blows could a man take in one night? If he let himself go—if he let one muscle relax—he just might shatter into a million pieces.
He took several gulping breaths, trying to keep himself together. “How?” he pushed out.
His mother sniffed, rubbed her nose. Lowell rose and fetched her a handkerchief, which she took from him gratefully. He then knelt beside her and held her in his arms, murmuring soothing words Sam couldn’t decipher into her hair.
Sam watched it all with a sort of horrified fascination. His mother. And his father. Embracing in front of him.
The truth still hadn’t quite penetrated.
“I have made a mistake, Steven. Another one. Oh, I’ve made so many mistakes.”
“You did what you thought best, Maddie. For your children. For all of them.”
“But it wasn’t the best. They know. They all know.”
“Shh,” Lowell murmured, rubbing circles into her back. He glanced at Sam, then looked quickly away, refusing to meet his eyes.
His father.
God, would his mind ever accept this? Could he ever accept it? He wasn’t sure. He’d lived his whole life without a father, and he’d come to a certain peace with that. Now … his existence had been al
tered. The way he looked at the world needed to be altered.
Lowell pulled Sam’s mother into his lap. He held her and rocked her, and his mother suddenly looked older. Older, more fragile, and more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her.
She’d always been the strong one. The one they’d all turned to when they had a skinned knee or lost a toy or were pushed by one of their siblings. She was brash, she was eccentric, and she was the most real person any of them had ever known. And she’d loved all her children—even Mark and Theo, who weren’t technically hers—with a passion and vehemence rarely seen in aristocratic circles.
They’d leaned on her, he realized, but when had she ever had someone to lean on like this? When had she ever had the opportunity to cry? To be vulnerable? Who had held her when she’d cried?
Sam thought of the string of lovers that had gone through their house. Had she been searching for this? For something she knew Lowell could give her but was never able to find in anyone else?
Maybe.
“Tell him,” Lowell was urging her. “You need to tell him the rest.”
Well. At least Lowell wasn’t encouraging her to continue to lie.
Sniffing, she looked back at Sam. But she kept her arms firmly around the older man, clinging to him as if to a lifeline.
“When you were eleven years old, he came to me.” She laid her head against Lowell’s shoulder. “Trent was ill, and everyone knew he was dying. Steven … he wanted me to leave, to run away with him, but again I told him I could not.” She was quiet for a long moment; then she closed her eyes. “Esme was the result of that meeting.
“We saw each other infrequently over the next years. But each time he came to me, Sam, it was like I was reuniting with a piece of my soul I had been missing. I knew, as I’d known from the beginning, that Steven was who I wanted. Who I’d always wanted. But I couldn’t leave my life as the Duchess of Trent. Not until my children were grown and settled.
“I waited as long as I could. And then, one day, I received a message from Steven. He asked me to be with him finally. Once and for all. I had borne my life without him for so long, and I didn’t think I could bear it much longer. Esme was grown—she was nineteen years old—and the rest of you were older. Theo was at university. Mark had just had his commencement from Trinity College and was beginning his life. Luke was struggling to find his way, but I no longer had the power to set him upon the correct course. Trent had settled in as the duke years earlier. And you, Sam darling—I had seen you go through so much, but you were thirty-one years old, and I knew that your path was your own, that nothing I could do as your mother could change it.
“So there it was. My children were grown and had ventured out into the world. It was time for me to leave. To be who I always wanted to be, with the man I’d always wanted to be with.”
Sam shook his head. Then he said quietly, “They might have been grown, Mama, but Esme had not ventured out into the world.”
“But she had, Sam. She’d had her Season the previous year.”
“Her failure of a Season,” Sam corrected.
“Yes. That was my fault. I pushed her too hard. If she’d needed another Season, if she’d needed more guidance from me, I would have stayed at Ironwood Park. But Esme …” She shook her head. “She has always been a mystery to me. I did my best with her, but I’d reached the limit of what I could do. I always felt that Sarah was better for her than I ever could be. I knew I was leaving her in Sarah’s capable hands.”
Well, she was right about that. Sarah had proved herself as Esme’s companion and true friend.
“How is Sarah?” his mother asked, her eyes misty.
Sam hesitated; then a smile quirked his lips. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Trent married her. They have a son.”
Her hand slapped to her heart. “No!”
“Yes.”
“No. You cannot be serious. You must be lying. I know the girl worshipped the ground Trent walked on, but … are you saying … are you telling me he deigned to marry his head housemaid?”
Sam shook his head. “There was no deigning about it, Mother. Trent married her as his equal. They are very much in love.”
“Heavens.” She gazed up at Lowell. “I don’t believe I have ever been on such a stormy sea of emotion … but this … this makes me so happy. Sarah Osborne—the housemaid of Ironwood Park—is the new Duchess of Trent. I couldn’t imagine anyone better suited for the role.” Her lips twisted. “Though I am sure society does not agree.”
“It doesn’t matter what society thinks. Trent would agree with you, and that’s all that matters,” Sam said.
She gave a heartfelt sigh. “I believed Trent was on the verge of marrying one of those ton debutantes—someone like the Stanley chit. That was one spectacle I was glad to leave behind. But I cannot tell you how happy I am that he came to his senses.”
“Luke is married, too, Mama,” Sam said softly.
She sat up straight, looking at him hard. “Now I know you are joking.”
Sam shook his head. “I’m not.”
She pressed her lips together. “Allow me to guess—he was caught tupping some innocent country milkmaid and was dragged to the altar, gun pointed at his head, by the poor girl’s enraged father.”
Sam chuckled. “That’s how I would have guessed it, too. But no. How it actually happened was quite different from that.”
She leaned forward. “Tell me.”
“In his search for Roger Morton, he met Emma Anderson, a woman who was also hunting for Morton. The man ruined her family.”
The story was a complex one, and this was not the time to go into detail about it, so he cut to the chase. “The two of them traveled up and down the country together in their search for Morton. She seemed to dig through that dissolute shell that had always covered Luke, to the core of him. He thought her too good for him for the longest time, but she helped him see the error of that thinking.”
The duchess sighed. “Are they happy together?”
“Very.”
“So my leaving Ironwood Park led to something good, after all.”
Sam shook his head, bemused. “If you’d like to think of it that way, then for Luke, yes it did. He’s a changed man. You’d hardly recognize him.”
Sam glanced upward, realizing that somewhere in the midst of this conversation, the sky had grown dark and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Stars were popping out in the clear indigo darkness, and the full moon hung low over the lake.
He slipped his arm around Élise and drew her close. She locked into place against him, making that perfect fit, like she always did; then she snuggled even closer.
His mother’s dark eyes took this in, but again she didn’t comment. “Are you finished with your dinner?”
He nodded, then checked Élise’s bowl. She’d eaten about half the meal, and the temptation to order her to eat more was strong. But half the bowl was about twice as much as he’d eaten, so he could hardly complain.
His mother collected the bowls and, without another comment, bundled the dirty dishes in a large pan, then carried them to the lake to wash them.
The three of them watched her for a moment; then Élise rose. “I will go to assist her.”
Before Sam could protest, she’d lifted her skirts and hurried after his mother.
Leaving him alone, for the first time in thirty-two years, with his father.
They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Then Lowell asked, “Did you procure a room at the inn?”
“No.” Sam knew his answer sounded abrupt—even clipped—but he wasn’t about to explain how Dunthorpe and the Agency were after Élise and him.
Lowell didn’t seem affected by his terseness. “Then you must stay here tonight. If it will not offend your lady, of course.”
Sam nodded. “We will stay.” He didn’t comment on Élise. His mother and Lowell would soon learn that, though she was an aristocrat bot
h by marriage and by blood, she wasn’t easily offended, especially not by lack of servants and a soft bed.
Truth was, it was already dark, and it would be difficult finding a new camp tonight. Plus, Élise must be tired.
He and Lowell sat for a few more minutes in silence, Sam staring broodily into the fire. He didn’t know how to go about this business of having a father. What could he possibly say to the man?
“She told me all about you,” Lowell said.
Sam slid him a glance. How was he supposed to respond to that?
“She is very proud of you.” Lowell hesitated, then added quietly, “And so am I.”
Something clenched inside Sam, and anger welled up in him. This man didn’t know him. He didn’t have the right to have feelings of pride for a son he’d never bothered to know. But he pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything. He was well versed in keeping his silence, in keeping his emotions to himself. He had learned the necessity of doing so during his childhood. His fatherless childhood.
After a moment, Lowell added, “I wanted to marry your mother, Samson. I wanted her even more when she told me about you. I asked her to take you and run away with me, so we could be a family together. She would not do it.”
Sam forced his head to move in a nod.
“She believed it would be better for you to be raised in a duke’s house with all the rights and privileges that upbringing could offer you. She felt the same about your sister.”
“Yet she ultimately chose this life over that one.” Sam gestured around them. The fire crackled; the air was fresh; stars glittered overhead. This was a kind of peace that had never been found at Ironwood Park, especially when the old duke was alive.
“Most would not choose this life if given the option,” Lowell said.
Sam couldn’t argue with that.
“Sometimes it isn’t such an easy life. We work hard, and the work is constant. Your mother and I are taking a honeymoon of sorts, but we will return to the endless toil soon enough.”
“So, you finally married her.”
“I did.” Satisfaction played around the edges of Lowell’s lips.
The Scoundrel’s Seduction Page 25
