“Who are you to tell me this?”
“His son.” Peter looked away, his hands massaging wearily at his neck as he looked away out the windows and onto the lawn where Kate, Betsy, and Jeanne, Peter’s youngest daughter, were playing blind man’s bluff with the older girls. “His other son.”
“No son would have done what you did. I don’t want you to think I hold my mother blameless, but — ”
Peter’s eyes blazed with anger. “Your mother was completely innocent in this. She was the victim of a controlling old man and a young man with much too much self-conceit.”
“I cannot excuse her for what she did, and you should not either.”
Miranda intervened at last, with a gentle pull on his arm. “Look out there, Simon.” She pointed to the window. “Look at those girls, laughing, playing games as children should.”
Simon looked, reluctantly, just in time to see Juliet captured by a blindfolded Jeanne.
“Your mother was younger than Juliet when she married.”
Simon had known her age — fifteen — at her marriage, but he had not stopped to imagine her as a girl, like Juliet. It was impossible even to imagine. “I doubt she ever stopped to play a game. She was never as young as those girls out there.”
Peter’s hushed tone disputed that contention. “Oh, yes, she was. So very young and so very serious about her new role as duchess. She had no idea what my father wanted of her. I doubt he knew, at that point, either. He had not thought beyond a child to the years of marriage ahead.”
“Why did he not have you marry her, then?”
“Control, Simon. Control. I was entering a dangerous profession, and he did not want to risk having to fight my widow for control of the fate of any child of mine.”
That certainly meshed with what Simon knew of Sinclair Watterly. He disliked defiance and used every weapon necessary to demolish it at the first sign.
Simon took the wrinkled, water-stained envelope that had remained sealed since he received it. Now broken, the Watterly seal sat above a strong bold hand declaring, Honor and Truth in All.
Another fairytale, he thought bitterly. There were three pages enclosed, in three separate hands: Sinclair’s, the Eighth Duke; Mortimer’s, the Fifth Duke, and Geoffrey’s, the Third Duke. Three generations. He read, Miranda’s body warm next to his, lending him strength to face this last hurdle.
After a long silence he looked up to see Peter staring into the fire. He knew Sinclair’s sin, and now he knew the reason for it. An unbroken line from father to son. It was a lie. Mortimer had been injured in a hunting accident, unable to father children, and had taken his dying sister’s bastard to raise as his own son. Geoffrey had been afflicted with syphilis and had conspired with his younger brother to impregnate his unknowing wife.
“Do you expect me to be comforted by the fact that we both spring from a line of men who do not know the meaning of honor?”
“They made sure the blood was true, and that was what they honored most.”
“I cannot be like them. I will not.”
“I understand. I tried — and failed.”
Looking into the pain-shrouded gaze of his father, Simon suddenly felt understanding flood through his heart. He knew why Peter had never come back. It had not been cowardice but honor. The same twisted Watterly honor that held him here against his will.
He stood watching his father. The man was willing to give up the woman he loved, the child he wanted. For what? Not for the same reason the men in the letters had. Only to restore Simon’s own sense of honor.
Peter rubbed a weary hand across his sun-weathered skin. “You’re going to have to succeed me, Simon. I’m sorry. I hope you can reconcile it in the years to come. But I don’t see any other way. We’re both the true heirs to their tradition.”
“No.” Simon stood and went close to the fire.
“We’re not their heirs.” He tossed the generations old papers into the fire and watched them burn.
In the flare of light, his eyes met Peter’s. “We’re beginning a new tradition.”
Peter eyed him warily, as if he was afraid to dare believe that Simon meant what he said. “And what tradition is that?”
Simon crossed to where Miranda still sat, watching him with hopeful eyes. “The tradition of the happy ending.”
Peter allowed a small smile to soften the rough-hewn planes of his face. A thread of doubt crossed the older man’s features. “Are you sure you can live with this? Because once I marry that woman and take her away, I’m never coming back.”
“Honor and Truth in all. Our family thought to circumvent that motto to keep the bloodlines passing from father to son. We won’t pass on that legacy. Instead, we’ll begin a new generation who’ll learn what’s most important in life.”
Miranda rose to face him and asked softly, “What’s that?”
“A happy ending, of course — and no more lies.”
“Except that Peter Watterly is dead.” Peter’s eyes darkened.
“Is that a lie?” Simon could not break his gaze from his wife’s dawning joy.
He shook his head slowly. “No. Peter Watterly died a long time ago.”
Simon looked away from Miranda’s joyful gaze for a moment. “Yes, he did. And Peter Watson has a woman who loves him. I’d have to be a fool to stand in the way of his happy ending.” He held his wife close. “Or my own.”
Miranda whispered to him, softly. “To new traditions, and happy ever afters.”
He replied in her ear, “To sons or daughters as they may come — no more will the Duke of Kerstone put a cuckoo in his nest to satisfy pride. Honor will out, now and forevermore.”
“Not love?” she teased.
He held her against him, tightly, and yet without binding her so that she could not breathe. “Of course. How else can one have a happy ever after, if not with love?”
Does Valentine ever win Emily?
The next book in the Once Upon a Wedding series tells Valentine’s story. Are you curious whether he and Emily can overcome their star-crossed status?
Here’s a hint:
Valentine has agreed not to pursue the love of his life Emily. But will his resolve remain firm when he learns her life is in danger?
Read The Star-Crossed Bride.
About the Author
Kelly McClymer loves every version of Cinderella ever told, including the ones that don’t seem all that Cinderella-like. Her favorite movie version is the Lesley Ann Warren TV movie. Watch it, if you ever get a chance.
If you enjoy all things Victoriana, join Kelly’s Victorian Romance Reader group and get weekly tidbits, secrets and trivia about life in Victorian times.
You’ll also get a surprise — Miranda’s annotated copy of Mary Shelley’s Falkner. Free!
For more information
@kellymcclymer
kellymcclymerbooks
kellymcclymerbooks.com
[email protected]
Also by Kelly McClymer
Historical Romance
Galatea’s Revenge
Once Upon a Wedding series
The Fairy Tale Bride
The Star-Crossed Bride
The Unintended Bride
The Infamous Bride
The Next Best Bride
The Impetuous Bride
The Twelfth Night Bride
Chicklit
The Ex-Files
Secret Shopper Mom Mystery series
Shop and Let Die
License to Shop
The Mall is Not Enough (coming soon)
Shop Another Day (coming soon)
FOR TEENS…and the young at heart…
Blood Angel
Getting to Third Date
The Salem Witch Tryouts
Competition’s a Witch
She’s a Witch Girl
Must Love Black
Must Love Halloween
Boxed Sets…
Once Upon a Wedding Bks 1-4
O
nce Upon a Wedding Bks 5-7
Dangerous Secrets
A Very Romantic Christmas
Summer Magic (available 12/27/15)
Something Completely Different…
EverTwixt, an immersive fantasy storyverse
[Once Upon a Wedding 01.0] The Fairy Tale Bride Page 27
