“Hello, Mr. Weston,” he said quietly.
“Do I know you, sir?” Weston asked.
“The last time I was here, you were the clerk outside this room. Now look at you.”
Recognition dawned in Weston’s eyes, with a flicker of something Edward couldn’t quite define. Annoyance?
“Edward Mason!” Weston’s lips pressed into what Edward supposed was a smile, and he came around the desk, hands outstretched in welcome. He gripped Edward’s hands, giving them a hard, painful squeeze, then released them. His expression reminded Edward of one of the guards in prison, a man who took particular delight in making sure all of his interaction with prisoners resulted in just a little pain.
“I am delighted to see you, Edward. You are so like your father. I cannot believe I didn’t see the resemblance immediately. Please, do sit.” He gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk. He went back to his own, seeming to take comfort in having the desk between them. Edward sat in the chair, much lower than it appeared. As he sank into it, his head was nearly even with the top of the desk. He felt disconcertingly like a mouse, peering up at the cat.
Weston assumed a paternal air. “Where on earth have you been, Edward? We all presumed you were dead, as our efforts to contact you after your parents died—you do know about your parents?—came to naught.”
Edward’s palms itched with the need to smack the man. “As you can see, I am very much alive. I have been informed of my parents’ death. Thank you so much for your sympathy.”
“Of course, of course. It was terribly tragic, terribly.” Weston shook his head, oblivious to Edward’s sarcasm.
“Indeed. I am back and will stay to rebuild my family home and recover control of the shipyards. The Mason Shipyards.”
Weston leaned back in his chair, making a bridge out of his fingers and tapping them against his lips. “I’m sorry to say, dear boy, but Mason Shipyards no longer exists. I kept it going as long as I could, but when you did not return after your parents’ tragic passing, well, I felt it was important for morale to move forward.”
Edward’s tone was calmer than he would have expected, given how badly he wanted to wipe the smug grin off Weston’s face. “The shipyards did not belong to you, Weston, nor did any of the property on which they sat. My father showed me his will before I left. In the event of his death, the entire concern was left to me.”
“Ah, yes. But in the event of your death, the shipyards were left to your sister. Her husband refused the bequest on her behalf, and I was the tertiary beneficiary.”
“Was I ever declared dead?”
“Ah, no.” Weston frowned, as if this were only a minor setback in his plans. “However, I have several papers here to do just that.”
“I’m so sorry you won’t be able to file them.” Edward rose from the ridiculous chair. “I appreciate your keeping the concern going while I was gone, Weston. However, I have returned, and will honor my father’s wishes and assume control of the shipyards.”
Edward twirled and strode out of the inner office, nearly taking off the nose of the clerk, who had obviously been listening through the key hole. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “My solicitors will be in contact. In the meantime, I suggest you make plans to vacate the premises.”
The glass rattled in the outer door as he closed it behind him, with a bit more force than was required. His hands trembled as he returned to his horse. This was not the homecoming he had envisioned all those years he was away. No, this was not at all what he had expected.
Chapter Three
Without realizing it, Edward had steered his horse toward Wallsend’s only pub. He blinked to clear his head and dismounted. Leaving Galahad tied to a post, he walked toward the pub, idly glancing at the sign. The name had changed since he had left. It was now called the Silver Gull Tavern, and the sign featured a wooden carving of a seagull. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t imagine why. Entering the pub, he was assaulted by the odors of beer, whisky, and fish, which somehow calmed him. They were the scents of home, and even if nothing else was going according to plan, at least he could eat good English food.
He spotted an empty table in the corner and made his way to it, ignoring the quiet stares of the pub’s other occupants. He sat with his back to the wall and waited for the conversation to resume. When it did, he looked around. He recognized a few men, but most were strangers. The boy he had seen on the street on his way to the shipyard walked in from the kitchen, moving through the tables with the ease of familiarity. He called out good-natured greetings to the patrons. Edward took a moment to watch him. He was seven or eight, Edward thought, with dark hair and lively, intelligent blue eyes.
He caught sight of Edward and stopped, his brow creasing. He moved toward Edward’s table and smiled.
“Good day, sir. What can I get you? We have a very good cottage pie today.”
Edward frowned. “Aren’t you a bit young to be working in a public house?”
“Oh, I don’t work here,” the boy said. “Me mam’s the owner, and Molly didn’t come to work today.”
“Molly?”
“The barmaid, of course.” His tone held a hint of derision, as if he thought Edward an idiot for failing to know who Molly was.
“Of course.” Edward was amused. “Well, then, I suppose I shall have the cottage pie, and an ale. And perhaps I could have a word with your mother, when she has a moment?”
“What do you want her for?” The boy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“I used to live here, many years ago, and would like to speak to someone about…” Edward broke off as a woman emerged from the kitchen, carrying two plates piled with food. She had fiery red hair and a lithe figure, and moved easily through the tables. After setting one of the plates before a man sitting near the bar, she turned and scanned the room. Her gaze alit on the boy first, and she smiled. Then she spotted Edward. All color drained from her face, and the remaining plate slid from her hand, shattering on the stone floor.
“Mam!” The boy raced to the woman and clutched at her skirts, but Edward was unable to move.
“Anna,” he whispered.
****
Anna stared at the man she hadn’t seen in seven years and froze. She barely registered the sound of the plate shattering at her feet. The feeling of Zachary’s small warm hand placed in her own released her from her trance. She looked down at him, confusion and fear etched upon his face.
With one last look at Edward, she held tightly to Zachary’s hand and fled into the kitchen.
“Anna!” Edward called to her from the other room.
She raced up the back stairs with Zachary in tow, not ready to see him yet. How could he be here after so long, with no warning?
“Mam?” Zachary asked breathlessly as they entered their rooms above the pub, and she bolted the door. “Mam, what’s going on?”
Anna pulled him into a close embrace and smoothed the dark hair from his forehead, but did not answer. She listened to the sounds of shouting below. He would try to follow her, and eventually she would have to talk to him. She had spent so many years imagining what she would say when he showed his face again, and now the moment was here, she had forgotten all the speeches she had planned in her head, turned tail and run. She was a damned coward, and the realization only served to make her angrier.
****
Edward watched incredulously as Anna grabbed the hand of the boy and ran away from him. It slowly dawned on him that the boy had called her “Mam.” Anna had a child. Was she unwed? This must have been what Templeton meant by “her current situation.”
Who was the child’s father?
Snapping out of his stupor, he called her name and raced after them, but by the time he got through the crowd of curious patrons, they were gone. Damn it! Edward raced into the kitchen to see where Anna had gone. A staircase led upstairs, and there was a door leading outside.
What had the boy said? His mam was the owner, and his mam was clearly
Anna. They must have gone upstairs. He took the stairs two at a time and pounded on the door at the top.
“Anna!”
The door opened as he was mid-knock, and he barely avoided punching Anna in the nose. He stood there and stared at her. This was the woman he had held in his heart and seen in his dreams ever since the moment he parted from her. The woman who had kept him from giving in to despair as he marked off each day he rotted in prison. The woman who now looked at him with obvious contempt.
“Edward.” Her voice was deeper than he remembered, sultrier, even as it dripped with anger.
“Anna.” He felt like an idiot. Faced with the reality of her, and the boy at her side, he had no idea what to do next.
She gave the boy a loving pat completely at odds with the look she was giving Edward. She gave her son a quick embrace. “Zachary, please go to your room. I will explain everything soon, I promise.”
Zachary shot a suspicious glare at Edward. “Are you sure, Mam?”
She smiled reassuringly. “Yes, darling, I’m sure. I will be fine. Mr. Mason won’t be staying long.”
Zachary glared again but retreated. Before he closed the door and left Edward’s sight, he turned. “I’ll be in here, Mam, if you need me.”
“I’ll be fine, Zach.”
Edward heard a door close in another room and looked toward Anna. “May I come in?”
“No, you may not.” Anna was more beautiful now than he remembered, but she looked fierce. It was, he thought, almost the same expression she had used when they were children and she had discovered he had thrown her doll into the upper branches of a tree. “What are you doing here, Edward?”
“How can you ask that? I have spent the last seven years trying to get back to you.” He reached for her and she backed up, one side of her mouth quirking down in annoyance.
“Really? Why did you never write, then?”
“I did, at least at first. After that, I couldn’t. I was, um, detained.” It sounded pathetic even to his own ears, and he knew she didn’t believe him. He couldn’t tell her the truth, not yet.
“I don’t need you,” she said, “and I don’t want to see you at all. Leave my pub, now, or I’ll summon the constable.”
“But…”
“But nothing! Get out, Edward, I mean it.” She grabbed a rolling pin from somewhere behind the door and held it menacingly. He had little doubt she would hit him with it if he didn’t go, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Anna, what the hell is going on? What are you doing here, in a pub? Why has your father thrown you out of the house?”
Anna’s pale face suffused with color that rivaled her hair. “Because I had a child, you ass. Your child. And you never came home!” She slammed the door in his face, and he heard the bolt slide home.
****
Once he’d gotten past the immediate shock of the discovery he was a father, Edward knocked on the door for at least twenty minutes. He finally had to admit she was not going to let him in. She always could outlast him; when they were children, she could hide for hours longer than he. Once her parents even had to send out a search party to look for her. When they found her, hours later, she’d been sound asleep, curled in a small cave at the base of a hill, oblivious to anyone’s distress.
He swore to himself, then returned to the bar downstairs. He sat at a stool next to the bar and ordered a whisky. The man behind the bar took one look at him and poured him a double.
“You look like you could use a little extra,” the man said.
Edward chuckled without mirth. “No doubt.”
“Are you new to these parts?” the man asked.
“I suppose that depends on what you mean by ‘new.’” Edward peered into the bottom of his glass as if he would find an answer within. “I was raised here, but I have been gone a long time.”
“So what brings you back to town?”
“Family. Or at least I thought so. Turns out I haven’t any left.”
“So why were you up there screaming and pounding on Miss Templeton’s door?”
Edward’s head snapped up. The bartender chuckled. “There are no secrets in a place like Wallsend. It’s just too small. Not to mention I’d have to be dead not to have heard you.”
He poured Edward another drink, and his grin disappeared. “Miss Templeton is a fine woman. I’d advise you not to harm her if you value your continued fine health.”
Edward knocked back the contents of the glass and held it out for a third pour. “I don’t want to harm her. I want to marry her. But first I have to get her to talk to me.”
“Marry our Anna?” The bartender laughed. “Not bloody likely. She’s sworn off men. Not that I haven’t tried.” Edward saw red—it took all his will not to throttle the man. Obviously catching the murderous look in Edward’s eye, the man hurriedly added, “Nothing happened! She would have none of me. Or anyone else.”
Edward threw some coins on the bar and stood. “See that you don’t try again. She is mine, even if she doesn’t remember that.”
“I am nothing of the sort, Edward.” Edward whirled at the sound of Anna’s voice behind him.
“Anna.” Edward closed the distance between them in a matter of seconds, then stood before her, hands outstretched. He wanted to touch her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Given the angry look in her eyes, though, he suspected that if he tried she’d rip off his limbs with her bare hands. “Anna, will you let me explain? You owe me that much.”
“Ha! Owe you? I don’t owe you anything, Edward. Now get out of my place and don’t come back.”
“What about my son?”
Anna turned away. “He doesn’t owe you anything either. Please leave.”
Edward grabbed her arm and turned her roughly toward him. “I will leave now, Anna. But we are not finished. Not by a long shot.” And then he surprised himself by grabbing her face in both hands, and kissing her, hard. Every moment spent without her, every night in prison, every mile at sea was forgotten as their lips met. Hers softened after only a moment, and he leaned into the kiss, willing her to remember what they had been like together. Instead she broke away and slapped him hard.
“Get out!” She turned and ran back up the stairs. This time he didn’t follow. He rubbed his stinging cheek and smiled. Ignoring the other patrons, incredulous looks on every face, he strode out of the pub and into the street.
****
“Argh!” Anna slammed the door of her apartment shut behind her and paced. “The nerve of that man!”
She went to the sideboard and poured herself a glass of whisky, downing it in one gulp. She couldn’t remember ever being quite so angry, even when her father threw her out. Edward had always been the one who could stir her passions, both in love and in anger. Growing up, he had thrilled and irritated her in equal measure.
Now, as much as she wanted to admit to herself that she no longer had feelings for him, that kiss had stirred her deeply. It had taken every ounce of will she possessed to pull away rather than melt into a puddle at his feet. Slapping him had been a reflection more of anger at herself than at him.
She sat in the overstuffed armchair her mother had given to her when she left home. It had always been her favorite, and her father’s as well. She wondered, not for the first time, what her mother had told him had happened to it, but her mother had died so soon after she was forced to leave home that she never had an opportunity to ask. She wondered, too, what life might have been like if Edward had stayed. If they had wed as they planned. If their child had been born to two parents, two—maybe even four—doting grandparents.
She shook her head before she gave in to tears. No point in such imaginings. Edward had left. Her son had no father. No grandparents. Only her. But that was good enough. She rose and walked softly down the hall to Zachary’s room. She opened the door and peeked in. She was amazed he had fallen asleep, but there he was, splayed upside down on the bed, the coverlet wrapped around his waist. She marveled, as she always did, h
ow he could possibly be comfortable, but whenever she tried to move him the right way round, he woke up. It took ages to get him to go back to sleep. There was truth in that old adage about sleeping dogs.
She gently brushed Zachary’s dark hair off his cheek and straightened the coverlet, then kissed him on the forehead, closing her eyes and lingering for just a moment. It amazed her, sometimes, how much love she was capable of feeling for this little boy and how uncomplicated it was. Especially when she compared it to her feelings for his father.
She tiptoed out of Zachary’s room and went to her own. Feeling calmer after just a few minutes with her boy, she undressed and climbed into bed. But it was a long time before she fell asleep.
Chapter Four
Edward rode back to Tynemouth in an odd mood. Of all that had occurred in the last several days, finding out he was a father was the strangest. He didn’t feel like a father. He wondered if he was supposed to feel like one. Somehow, he thought he should have known all along, that he should have sensed it, even from thousands of miles away.
He and Anna had talked about children a few times. She had wanted them, and he supposed he did too, but it was hard to imagine being a parent when he was only eighteen—still a child himself. It had seemed then as if they had all the time in the world.
But of course, they hadn’t. He only hoped it was not too late to start again. He wanted to know his son, and he wanted to love Anna, but if today was any indication, it would not be easy to convince her to allow either one.
After a sleep-challenged night, he spent the following day with the household ledgers. Although he hadn’t thought about it before, he had returned home just a month shy of the seven years necessary to declare him dead. Fortuitous, perhaps, but at the moment he didn’t feel particularly lucky.
He found his father’s will in the family safe, which had survived the fire and was hidden, curiously, by the Grahams in their cottage on the grounds of the estate. His father had left the Grahams a life estate in the home and money to live on. They didn’t live in it, preferring instead to keep their rooms in the manor house. They lived frugally, and as far as Edward could tell, they had squirreled away a fair amount. The manager, according to Mr. Graham, had left after his parents had died, so Mr. Graham had taken over, maintaining the homes, collecting rents. The estate was entailed; if Edward had died, or been declared dead, the barony would have died with him, and the estate would have reverted to the Crown. Walking back from the Grahams’ cottage to what remained of the main house, he suspected the Queen would have been unimpressed.
Secret Promise Page 3