Antonia had shared everything with him when they’d walked through the park near her boardinghouse. All her secrets. All her shames. But he’d never been able to return the same level of faith and trust. He still held his secrets close.
Antonia deserved to know about the ghosts that haunted him. He desperately wanted to ask her a question, offer a proposal, but he couldn’t. Not now. Not yet. Not as long as he kept his past hidden from her. How could he base their relationship on a false beginning? If he wanted a future with her, then she needed to know the risk involved. It was the right thing to do.
The honorable thing.
Robert took a deep breath and stilled his movements, relaxing his hands and letting them fall to his sides.
“Is something wrong?” Antonia asked, taking a step back from him.
“I have something I need to tell you.”
She brushed her hair away from her face and then pressed her fingertips to her lips. She kept her gaze fixed on the corner of the desk as she worked to compose herself.
He drove both hands into his hair to stop himself from dragging her back into his arms. All he wanted to do was kiss away that look of hurt and confusion. To pull her closer and repair their broken connection.
She glanced at him, and when she took in his turmoil, her expression softened. “What is it?” she asked. “What do you want to tell me?”
“It’s a long story. It has to do with what we discovered in the passageway last night. Wait here a moment. I need to get something.”
Robert moved to the bookcase that hid the entrance to the passageway and deftly twisted the release, opening the door wide. It only took him a moment to locate the small box. He stepped back into the study and closed the door behind him.
“Now I’m ready,” he said as he reached for her hand. “Come. Sit with me.” He noticed the wool blanket on a nearby table and snatched it up as they moved toward the sofa.
He set the small box down on an end table. The room was cool, so he tucked the blanket around them both. Antonia lifted his arm up and draped it over her shoulders. She tucked up against him, fitting perfectly in the hollow next to his heart.
Robert inhaled deeply, and then began.
“You entrusted your secrets to me, and I’m humbled by your faith. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t been as open with you.”
“I deserve no compliment for revealing my secrets,” she scoffed, tilting her head back to gaze into his eyes. “I would have kept them if I could, but after weighing my options I realized I had little choice in the matter. One does what one must.”
“I left you no other alternative.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but he touched his finger to her lips to forestall her. She raised her eyebrows at him in irritation.
“I know you want to help, but I need to get through this. Please. Just let me speak.”
She nodded. “No more interruptions. I promise.”
He gathered his thoughts. “When I was twelve, I learned my father had committed an act of treason. He informed me of this in a letter he left for me. I found it in there on the desk in front of his body.” He gestured toward his desk. “I was the first person to enter the room after I heard the gunshot.” He swallowed. “It was suicide.”
Antonia’s eyes widened.
He took a deep, steadying breath. “The letter next to his body was addressed to me. In it, he confessed his crimes, said he couldn’t live with the shame any longer, and asked me to help Mother.”
Antonia watched him. He could tell she wanted to offer words of comfort, but she was true to her word and didn’t interrupt.
He had to force himself to continue. “A second letter was found with his body. It was addressed to a woman— not my mother— but my mother read it anyway before handing it over to the other woman. In it, he told the woman he couldn’t live without her.”
Antonia shook her head in confusion.
“Which story was the truth and which was the lie? Is that what you’re wondering?”
She nodded, but didn’t speak.
“The story about the other woman was the lie. He hoped it would protect us from his crimes.”
Antonia seemed to murmur his name, but her voice was as soft as a breath, and he couldn’t be certain she’d even made a sound. He wanted to pull her closer and bury his face in her hair, but instead, he splayed his fingers and raised his hand before them both, examining it as a way to gauge his self-control. Would it shake or remain steady?
“His letter to me insisted that Mother and I protect the family from his misdeeds by promoting the alternate story he’d concocted. The second letter he wrote was to a widow known for her many lovers. In it, he claimed to have become obsessed with her. He accused her of spurning his affections and banning him from ever seeing her again.” A single tremor ran through his hand. “Mother and I were obliged to conceal his crimes with a despicable lie. I don’t know if I would have been able to do it if she hadn’t begged me to. Father provided ample evidence to support the false story. The widow’s footmen ejected him from a dinner party the night before his suicide. Apparently he’d tried to force his way in to see her during a dinner party and created quite the scene.” He clenched his hand into a fist— steady and solid.
“Father intended the rumor as both protection and retribution. In truth, the widow in question had been blackmailing him after discovering his secret. He paid her for a while, but she’d become greedy. He’d gone to her house that night because she’d threatened to expose his secrets to the House of Lords the following afternoon. Father’s death and the subsequent rumor of their relationship effectively prevented her from revealing the truth. In the eyes of London, we’d become her innocent victims.
“As the days passed, we concealed Father’s treasonous act. We did what we could to make amends to the people he’d harmed with his scheme, but we couldn’t repair all the damage. It was too far-reaching. Ever since then, I’ve been tormented by the fear that his secret would come out and the world would shun my family. After all, at what point does his secret become my secret? I share in his guilt.”
Antonia took his hand and slid her fingers inside his fist, easing it open. Then she took his hand in both of hers, holding it gently but firmly. At her touch, her forgiving, tender touch, some of his tension left him.
Robert sighed. “I made sacrifices, but not to the extent my mother did. She and Father had been lauded as one of the few true love-matches of their time, so the fiction he’d invented proved to be a humiliating one. The lies she had to nurture were almost as bad as the truth. And Frederick?” Robert let out a huff of air and shook his head. “His guilt drove him to dedicate his life to serving the Queen as one of her spies. This way, he can both ease his feelings of shame and burnish the family’s tarnished honor.” He gave Antonia a half-hearted smile. “He’s been trying to convince me to join him in that world for a long time, but I was able to resist until that night at the embassy. After this experience, I can promise I’ll never be tempted to do it again.”
“I’m glad you helped him. If you hadn’t, we never would have met.”
Robert’s throat tightened. He hadn’t considered that possibility. What if he’d made a different decision? What if Frederick hadn’t been burned? A sudden thought struck him. What if Lord Percival hadn’t been drunk at the ball? Bloody hell. Did that mean he owed Lord Percival a debt of gratitude? He closed his eyes for a moment to contemplate the complex bit of logic, but the idea was too irritating to focus on for long. He opened his eyes to discover Antonia gazing at him, her brows furrowed together.
“What did your father actually do? What was his crime?”
Robert let out a deep sigh and shook his head. “Treachery, deceit, larceny— take your pick. He was guilty of them all— and many more. He used his position in the House of Lords to lure people into investing every penny they owned in a proposed railway project. Some people even borrowed money to invest. He owned part of the new railroad that was selling
shares. The scheme worked well for him, but he wanted even more. He ended up devising a plan to make himself even richer. He manipulated the process so an entirely different route and railroad would be chosen. He sold off all the shares in his own company and invested everything in the competing one, taking it over. He made an obscene amount of money, and some of his closest friends lost everything, but his most egregious crime, the crime which would have ruined him, was treason. In his blind drive to convince people to invest in his company, he forged the Great Seal of the Realm.”
“Was he mad? Forging the monarch’s seal is high treason! Queen Victoria would have been incensed.”
“She was, but she never had any proof.”
He reached out and picked up the small box sitting on the end table.
“Look inside,” he said, handing it to her.
She accepted it cautiously. She hesitated a moment before opening it. When she saw the engraved disk, she let out a gasp of shock. “Is this what I think it is?”
“I’m afraid so. It’s the forged copy of Queen Victoria’s Great Seal. It’s been hidden right there all along, behind that bookcase.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m not sure. I told Frederick about it this morning. He plans to take it to the Queen.”
“Why would your father be so foolish as to forge the Great Seal?”
Robert raised his hands in submission. “I’ve never been able to make sense of his thought process. Mother says he changed that last year of his life— became a different person. I never saw it. When he was with me, he continued to be the same measured and controlled man he’d always been. Father was a demanding taskmaster. He was fond of saying that people would live up to expectations, but they’d live down to them as well. Perhaps that mindset explains why he thought he could get away with forging the seal— he simply convinced himself he’d never be caught.”
“But he was.”
“Only by his blackmailer, but she never revealed the truth after he implicated her in his suicide. She probably realized no one would believe her without proof.”
“I’m sorry, Robert. I can’t imagine how difficult this must have been for you.”
“Losing my father was terrible, but when I learned how many of our friends had been financially devastated because of his scheming, it was like losing him all over again. The man I’d believed him to be died as well. I became furious with him. I didn’t know how to help the people he’d swindled at the time, but I promised myself I’d do everything in my power to return every farthing he stole. It’s working, and so far I’ve been able to keep them from learning I’m behind their good fortune.”
“They don’t know you’ve been helping them? How?”
“Bit by bit,” he said. “A favor here, a windfall there. So far, they’ve all chalked it up to good luck and wise investments.” He paused. “Your father was one of the men Father swindled.”
Comprehension swept over her face. “That’s why you were at our house five years ago. You were returning the money.”
“I’m sorry. I—” But wait— how did she know he’d been to her house?
“I saw you that day, you know. I slipped downstairs to watch you. I knew who you were the night of the embassy ball.”
He must have looked stunned, because she grinned at him. “You and I recognized each other that night, but for entirely different reasons.”
He kissed the top of her head. “At least I was able to return the money your father lost before he died.”
“How did you do it? Come up with all that money, I mean. Didn’t we discover all of it hidden in the passageway last night?”
“Lord Huntley was generous enough to advise me regarding a number of investments, and I’ve made enormous headway. Now that we’ve discovered the missing money, I’ll be able to give back the rest of it immediately.”
Antonia looked impressed. “Even I’ve heard of Lord Huntley’s Midas touch.” She thought for a moment. “It’s good you were able to help the people your father swindled. It must have been an all-consuming task.”
“When Mother asked me to keep this secret, my only condition was that we pay everyone back. She agreed, but with a single condition of her own. Any aid I provided needed to remain anonymous. She didn’t want to remind them of my father’s misdeeds.”
“Living that lie, day in and day out— it must have been terrible for her.”
“Terrible doesn’t begin to describe it.” He brushed a strand of hair away from Antonia’s cheek. “People can be spiteful. They might not have realized my father intentionally swindled them, but nonetheless they lost money based on his recommendations. Since he wasn’t around to face their anger, they’d occasionally unleash their ire on Mother. She endured their barbed comments with grace, but they still stung. She tried to conceal her pain, but I saw it. Frederick did as well. Children see more than their parents realize.” Robert tucked the blanket up under Antonia’s chin and gave her a sad smile. “She found it galling, but I suppose that’s why Father chose that particular bit of subterfuge. If everyone believed Mother was mortified because Father committed suicide over another woman, they’d never suspect she was only supporting the fiction in order to hide something even more humiliating.”
“That’s terrible. How could he have been so cruel to her?”
“I’ve given up trying to understand the man. My best guess is that he thought the lie he invented would be easier for her to endure than the truth.”
“Did your mother believe the same thing?”
“I assume so, since she perpetuated the lie.”
“Perhaps knowing that she was protecting her children made the sacrifice worthwhile.”
“You might be right,” he said, and then thought about it more carefully. “In fact, I believe you are. She would have done anything for us. I asked her once how she managed to bear their scorn, and she said, ‘People can only hurt you with their words if you grant them the power. I choose not to. Nothing they say matters because I’m doing this to protect my children.’”
“Your mother sounds like a strong woman.”
“I wish the two of you had met. She would have liked you.”
Antonia reddened. “An actress?”
“A woman who protected her sisters. You did everything you could to provide them with a home and recover their birthright. Mother would have been impressed. You both were willing to do whatever it took to shield the people you loved.”
Antonia’s eyes filled with tears, and one spilled down her face. “I did what I had to do.”
He cupped her cheek and brushed the tear away with his thumb. “You never turned your back on them. Never saw them as a burden.”
She took his hand in hers and then looked down at it. She wiped away her tear. “It struck me that you and I have another thing in common. We both faced the consequences of our parents’ poor decisions. If my mother and father hadn’t willingly entered into a bigamous marriage, Uncle Walter never would have tried to prove my sisters and I were illegitimate…”
“…And if my father hadn’t tried to swindle people, my family never would have been obliged to conceal his crime with more lies.”
“In fact, my newly discovered half-uncle happens to be in the same situation. If his father hadn’t lied to his mother about the loss of her infant, a kind gesture I might add, albeit ill-advised, Nicholas never would have been named Czar of Russia. After all, he has two living older brothers. Surely one of them could become czar.” She shifted to face him again. “I’m certain if we search through our family trees, we’d discover a multitude of secrets hidden among the branches. In my opinion, as long as revealing those secrets does no great good in this world, they should remain private.”
He gazed into her eyes as he interlaced his fingers with hers. “You’re safe now. The book is of no use to anyone.”
“Everything’s changed.”
“For you, but I still have that Sword of Damocles hanging by a threa
d over my head. If someone reveals my father’s treason, my entire family could be denounced and our property seized.”
“That danger has always been there for you, hasn’t it?”
“It always will be. His blackmailer died a year ago, but I don’t know if the truth died with her. That’s why I wanted you to know. At any moment, that slender thread could snap and the sword could impale me.”
Her eyes clouded with confusion. “That’s why? What’s why? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I want you to be fully aware of the risk associated with becoming a part of my life. It was necessary for you to understand so you can answer my next question.”
She tensed and closed her eyes. She appeared to be bracing herself for something she both did and didn’t want to hear. “What might that be?” she asked in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Will you marry me?”
Her hands clenched, squeezing his fingers. She sat bolt upright as she swiveled to face him. She stared at him with an intensity that seemed to transform her face with a luminous glow. “What did you say?”
“Will you marry me?”
“You’d marry an actress?”
“I don’t care if you’re an actress, a lady, or a scullery maid. It’s you I want, not the position you hold in this world.”
“But no one will receive me.”
“Then we won’t receive them either. Our true friends will support us, and as for the others, most of them will come around if we give them long enough. In a year’s time, almost every door in London will be open to us. If you prefer, we could live somewhere else. What if we divide our time between London and Maidenhead?”
She cocked one brow and the corner of her mouth twitched. “You know people in Maidenhead?”
“There’s you,” he said, holding up a finger as he began enumerating people on one hand. “Your sisters, your governess, although I think she ought to count for two since she’s worth her weight in gemstones after everything she’s done for your sisters…”
Once Upon a Spy: A Secrets and Seduction Book Page 39
