“What do you know, Naomi?” he whispered, his voice rough.
She flinched, and his stomach turned.
“Oh, Simon. Why don’t you start with what you know and I shall fill in the gaps,” she finally said, her voice filled with pity and pain that twisted the knife already in his heart.
Quietly he told her of the evidence he had found about their father’s duplicity in politics. His back-alley dealings and secret money exchanges didn’t seem to surprise his sister in the least.
And then he reached the part about the abandoned son.
“Henry Ives,” his sister said quietly.
He tensed. “You know his name?”
She shut her eyes. “Like my own.” When they came back open, they were filled with tears. “And do you know about the others?”
Simon flopped back against his chair as his breath left his lungs in a great gasping whoosh. This was his greatest suspicion, his deepest fear, come true. “There were others?”
She nodded slowly.
“How long have you known?” he asked, his tone sharp.
At that, she got to her feet and paced away through the mass of paperwork. She hardly seemed to see where she was going, but somehow managed to avoid dumping the piles over as she stepped around them.
“You don’t understand what it was like,” she murmured. “You thought your relationship with Mama was strained, but there were disadvantages to being her favorite, too.”
When she looked at him, his heart swelled in pain for her.
“She told you her secrets, his secrets,” he finished for her when it seemed she was unable to do so herself.
A nod was her only reply for a long while, then she sighed.
“I was her confidante, her partner in poison, sometimes I felt like a prisoner to her hate. How I despised hearing her go on and on about our father’s sins. But if I turned away, she would have no one to share her pain with. I feared it would drive her mad, and then who knew what she might do.”
“What she did was unfair to you,” he cried, lurching to his feet.
She held up her hands in entreaty. “You don’t know the life she has led, Simon. What she has endured!”
“Then tell me,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Tell me how much more I have left to find. Tell me the secrets that are still out there. How many children did our father abandon? How many lies have I been told?”
His sister looked up at the ceiling with a groan. “I have kept their secrets for so long. I know you deserve the truth, I’ve known that all my life, and yet the idea of being the one to tell you…to hurt you…”
She trailed off as she lifted her hands to her face and began to cry softly. Simon watched her, awash in a combination of anger and pity. Finally he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around his sister. She wept into his shoulder for a few moments more, and he brushed her hair as comfort.
“She put you in the middle,” he soothed. “And now I’m doing the same. It isn’t fair, I know.”
She looked up at him, hiccupping back a final sob. “Nothing about this is fair.”
“Can you at least point me in the right direction?” he whispered, wiping away one of her tears with the back of his hand. “If it pains you too much to tell me yourself, could you at least give me that?”
She nodded. “I can give you two clues which will surely end your search,” she whispered. “First, look to where Mother vanishes. That is one place you’ll find the truth.”
“That is a riddle more than a clue,” Simon said, just biting back a curse of frustration.
“And this is a direct fact,” his sister said softly. “Father had a secret stash of papers he thought no one knew about. They are hidden beneath the floorboard under his desk. Once you’ve read them, you’ll understand the riddle.”
Simon spun to face the desk and then back to his sister. “How do you know that?”
She frowned, and a ghost of pain moved over her face. “Because I was hiding in this room one day when he placed papers there. Years later, as I understood more, longed to know more, I came and read them all.” She reached out and touched his arm. “They contain the answers you seek. I only hope you’ll be able to stand them once they are yours to bear.”
She gave him one last touch on his cheek and then silently left the room. Left him alone with the knowledge that everything he wanted to know had literally been beneath his feet all along.
Simon turned and paced the floor to the desk. Pushing the chair aside, he got to his knees and began to slide his hands over the gleaming wood. Back and forth he moved, searching for a loose board or something to indicate that this was the place his father had put all his secrets.
And then, he found it.
A rough piece of panel clearly different from all the others, with a notch in the corner to allow a person to slip a finger beneath its edge. With a firm tug, the plank pulled away. In the dim light, he saw a box tucked into the cubbyhole. His hands shook as he withdrew it and got to his feet.
He took the box to the lamplight beside the fire and sank into a chair there. There was nothing ornate or interesting about the container, just a plain pine box, rather like a tiny coffin. He shivered as he considered that. His father had all but buried his secrets.
And now Simon was about to raise them from the dead. All he had to do was lift the lid and see what was waiting for him there.
Chapter 19
Lillian lay on her side across Simon’s bed, staring at the door as she awaited his return to his room. He’d said he’d meet her at midnight, but it was already a quarter past that hour. She glanced at the clock nervously and then back to the door.
Where could he be?Getting to her feet, she moved across the room restlessly, fiddling with a book on his end table, absently touching an arrangement of spring flowers on the mantel.
The longer she waited, the more she believed his talk with Naomi hadn’t gone well. Lillian suspected his sister might have new information about their father. If that was true, she shuddered to think of what it was, for nothing that had been uncovered so far was good.
She pictured how tormented Simon had been when he found out he had a brother who had been abandoned. If Naomi’s information was worse than that…
Pivoting, Lillian made for the door. She had to find him and verify that he was well. She had almost reached the chamber entrance when the door opened of its own accord. She stepped back with a gasp, expecting Simon to come inside.
Instead, Naomi was revealed when the door swung away.
Lillian froze in her spot. Although she had already been ruined, it was still a humiliation to be caught waiting for Simon in his bedchamber.
But if Naomi thought ill of her, it did not show on her pale, worry-lined face.
“Good, I have found you,” she said, breathless as if she had been running.
Lillian stepped forward, her embarrassment forgotten in the face of Naomi’s obvious distress. “What is it?”
“My brother—” She cut herself off and clenched her fists at her sides as she drew a few long breaths.
“What about Simon?” Lillian cried, grabbing for the other woman’s arms and squeezing. “Is he hurt?”
“No,” Naomi burst out. “Not in the sense you mean. But—but he will need you tonight. He’ll need someone and I’m not the one who can help him now.”
Lillian stepped away, confused and unwilling to go without more information, though her heart ached to simply run to Simon’s side. “What do you mean? What has happened?”
Naomi shook her head. “I know you have been privy to some of Simon’s investigation into our father’s less savory dealings. He told me you assisted him.”
“Y-yes,” Lillian stammered, shame flooding her at the true reason behind her “helpfulness.”
“Well, there is far more to discover and I’ve set him on the path of it. What he learns tonight will—” She broke off again and let out a heaving breath that bordered on a sob. “He will need y
ou, that’s all. Please, go to him. He’s in the office our father used.”
Lillian didn’t need further encouragement, without a word or a look behind her, she hurried from the room and rushed down the stairs. For the first time, she didn’t care who saw her streaking through the halls in the middle of the night. She didn’t care about judgments.
She only cared about finding the man she was to marry. She only cared about helping him in whatever lame, useless way she could.
Within moments, she had reached the office. Her hand trembled as she reached for the door. Whatever happened, she was about to face a man who needed her. And she wouldn’t let him down.
The chamber was cold and dark except for a few eerie shadows cast by the faint light from the low lanterns and the nearly extinguished fire. She scanned around, but didn’t see Simon.
“Simon?” she said softly.
There was such a sense of sadness to the room that she dared not call out too loudly. It seemed irreverent to do so.
There was no answer and she stepped deeper into the room. “Simon?”
Still nothing. Had Naomi been wrong? Had her brother left this chamber? And if so, where had he gone, for Lillian hadn’t passed him in the hallways when she rushed downstairs.
She clenched her fists at her sides and finally forced herself to speak louder. “Simon!”
“That isn’t my name.”
The slurred, pained voice came from a darkened corner of the chamber, and Lillian didn’t hesitate to rush toward it and him. As her eyes fully adjusted she finally saw him, sitting on the floor almost beneath his father’s desk. All around him were letters, ledgers, paperwork.
He looked up at her, and his beautiful jade eyes glittered in the low light. His expression was the most heartbreaking she had ever seen. It put her to mind of her father the day her mother died.
“Oh, dearest,” she breathed as she reached for him, then pulled her hand away. He seemed so stiff she feared he would shatter if she touched him. “Let me raise the light.”
After a few moments of fumbling with the lantern on his desk, the light in the room lifted, and it took everything in Lillian not to stagger back at Simon’s face. He was…broken.
And all she wanted to do was fix it. Fix him.
Setting the lantern aside, she got to her knees and moved toward him slowly.
“What is it, Simon?” she whispered, using the same tone she would have with a skittish colt.
“I told you, that isn’t my name,” he said as he pushed to his feet and turned away.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, watching his stiff posture with tears stinging her eyes.
“You do not wish to marry me, Lillian.”
She struggled to get up and moved on him. “What are you talking about, Simon. What do you mean?”
Turning, he speared her with a sharp, clear stare. He wasn’t drunk, that was something. Regardless, he seemed to be impaired, if only by a pain so deep that it radiated from him.
“I’m not the man you think I am. I don’t even know what or who I am.”
She reached for him then, determined not to be lost in his riddles. Clutching his forearm, she whispered, “Tell me what has happened. Explain why you are in this state.”
“Yes,” he mused absently as he stared at her gripping fingers like they were a foreign object he didn’t recognize. “You deserve to know. After everything, you shouldn’t be lied to like I was.”
She forced herself to remain silent as he extracted himself from her grip and gathered up a few of the items at his feet.
“My sister came to me tonight and told me about hidden papers in this office. Something that would explain more about my past, my father’s past.”
He clutched the items to his chest as he stared at her evenly. “I never thought they would tell me this.”
“What?” she asked, covering his clenched fingers with her hand. “What is it, Simon?”
He flinched. “That is exactly it, my dear. I’m not Simon Crathorne. I am not the Duke of Billingham at all. My real name is Henry Ives, and I am the eldest bastard son of the biggest liar in all of England.”
Simon watched as Lillian read over everything he had found in the hidden cubby beneath his father’s desk. She was sitting in a chair by the fire he had stoked an hour before, but despite her position, she seemed unsteady. Off kilter.Just as he was. In such a short span of time, his entire world had changed. Nothing would ever be the same.
She finished the last item and set the pile aside gingerly, as if she feared the words she had read might bite her.
“Let me see if I understand this,” she said softly, steepling her fingers on her lap.
When she lifted her gaze and looked at him evenly, he felt relieved she didn’t shy away. God, she was strong. Stronger than he was at the moment.
“The real Simon Crathorne was permanently injured in an accident at the lake here on the estate thirty years ago, when the boy was just two.”
He nodded. That certainly explained why his mother and father hated the place and were so protective about him going there.
“Apparently he nearly drowned. He was revived, but his mind was never the same,” he choked out.
“Your father, not wanting to lose the chance to have the next Duke of Billingham come from his own blood, came to London, found your real mother, and essentially bought you and her silence. You and the real heir were almost the same age and looked similar enough that after a few months your father and the duchess felt comfortable enough to bring you out in front of guests as the real Simon. No one was the wiser, including you, because you were so young.”
He nearly choked as he heard the words out loud. It sickened him to think of the lie his life had been. And all for what? For his father’s vanity?
“But why did your father not simply have another child with your mother?” Lillian asked. “Why instigate such a ruse?”
He shook his head. “She has always said that my…” He hesitated. “Simon’s birth did some damage to her body. She was told she could bear no more children.”
Lillian shut her eyes. “And so he simply replaced one for another. Without thought to you or to anyone else around him.”
He nodded. “Yes. They raised me as if I was their legitimate son. And apparently believed I’d never know. Never question.”
Lillian frowned. “But the items you found earlier that explained your father had an illegitimate son…you…why would he leave those for you to find?”
“I don’t think he intended to,” Simon said with a sigh. “All other references to the bastard children were hidden in the cubby below the desk, never to be found. I think the first information I found about…well, myself, I suppose, was left in the ledger accidentally. He fell victim to his own disorganization.”
Which would be ironic if it wasn’t so bloody sad and pathetic.
“Even if he did know there was evidence for me to find,” he finished quietly, “he died suddenly of an apoplexy. There was no warning or way for him to organize his affairs first.”
Slowly, Lillian stood and moved toward him. Part of him wanted to back away, but a greater part wanted her comfort. Especially since he saw no pity or disgust in her stare when she reached for him. If there had been that, he couldn’t have borne it.
She reached up to touch his face, and the sadness in her expression made his own eyes sting with tears.
“Simon—”
“No. That isn’t my name,” he snapped, pulling away.
She grabbed for him and clung surprisingly tight for such a small woman. “It is your name. This information, it changes what you know, it doesn’t change who you are.”
“Of course it fucking does, Lillian,” he cried out, pulling away from her and making his way across the room.
“No!” She followed him, tenacious as a bulldog. “A life is made of experiences, choices, friendships…your father and mother—” She stopped and then corrected herself. “Your father and the duc
hess might have taken away your name, they might have slipped you into their son’s life, but they didn’t take away those experiences or choices or friendships. Since you were two, you have been Simon Crathorne.”
“But there is a real Simon Crathorne still out there somewhere,” he argued, fisting his hands at his sides in pure frustration. “He didn’t die in that accident, his mind was just maimed. I’m living his life, Lillian. I stole his life. And this title, if the real Simon is not capable of serving with it, then it should go to our cousin, whether he wants it or not. I have stolen that man’s title.”
“You stole nothing!” Lillian cried out, and there was such passion in her voice that it silenced him.
He stared at her as she came toward him, a passionate Valkyrie, ready to fight for him, whether that meant she dueled with him or the world.
“You had something thrust upon you that you did not choose,” she said, her voice much softer. She looked as if she understood, even though that was impossible. How could she?
“And now what do I do with it?” he asked, sinking into the nearest chair. “What do I do, Lillian?”
She knelt down on the floor before him so they were at eye level. Taking his hands, she let out a long sigh as she pondered that question.
“When you gave me those things you found, you told me your sister said if you discovered where your mother went, it would reveal all. What did she mean?”
He blinked, trying to clear his mind.
“For as long as I can recall, my mother…” He caught himself. “The duchess disappeared for long periods of time when we came to this estate. Sometimes hours, once for a few days. Father never commented on it. Once when I was eight, I tried to follow her, but when she caught me she beat me with a switch and was more careful after that.”
Lillian flinched, but made no comment. “And your sister said once you read the facts, you would understand the riddle.”
Simon nodded. At present his mind was so tangled he couldn’t understand anything except pain. So much pain. So many lies.
What the Duke Desires Page 19
