* * * * *
Silence lay like a blanket of heavy wool over the three. He had not expected this. A lover. An affair. But not this twisted … no. His mother was many things, but he had never known her to create elaborate fictions to hide her own crimes.
He could not bear to look at Miranda. He had expected her to be shocked. But she had done nothing but give as small gasp. He had not believed that she would turn against him. But he did not want to see her eyes. Not yet.
"And you agreed to this?" His accusation came sharply, cutting through the silent pall. He had no use for expedient truths. His mother had lain with his father's son to conceive him. Could it be true? "How much were you paid for your compliance?"
His mother's smile infuriated him. Of course, she was the duchess. What other payment could she expect? The thought made him ill.
"The duke thought it best if I were to remain unaware of his plans." Even now, her voice was cool and mocking. Even now, when the truth was no longer their secret, but Miranda's as well. "Your father came to me in the dark and left before daybreak."
He watched Miranda, not his mother. Her eyes were wide with shock. What did she think of him now that she knew? Would she repudiate him?
He asked mockingly, "And you didn't know the difference between a man of fifty and an eighteen-year-old boy?" Had she not always known when he was into some mischief as a boy, even when he thought himself safe from her eyes at school? How could she have been so blind?
"I'm certain you cannot credit it, Simon, but at the time I was young and innocent." His mother's answer was so dry, the voice he hated when she'd used it to argue with the old duke when she knew she could not win. Not against Sinclair Watterly, Duke of Kerstone. "I had no reason to suspect that my husband was not the one exercising a husband's right. But now that I have told you what you wanted to know, I hope you see that you are the true-blooded duke and no bastard."
Simon stared at her in bitterness for a moment and then suddenly stood. "Thank you for telling me the name of my father. I believe you are not lying about that. But this absurd fabrication about the duke condoning — ordering — it, that I cannot accept. Our indisputably direct descent was a source of pride for him. I cannot believe that he would sully it with a bastard."
"He never considered you a bastard, Simon. You were of his blood and his making — his son would never have bedded me without your father's command."
"Perhaps it is well that my true father died, then, for he could not have been a man of great character. The duke always hinted that he was not cut out for running the estates."
"I did not realize that Sinclair ever spoke of Peter to you." She seemed surprised, even somewhat alarmed.
For the first time, he wondered why the duke might have been so insistent that Simon was a better man than the duke's older son. "He said little, only that Peter was cut out to be a warrior and didn't understand duty and loyalty."
A spark of anger lit in her eye, surprising him. "Your father had a different dream, Simon. That does not make him lacking in character. You have no idea what the sacrifice cost him. He left before he knew that we had conceived you."
Simon remembered her cryptic comment that he might not have been born if ... it was too painful to consider.
"He confronted Sinclair, refused to continue the charade, forced him to pay the commission fee, and left that very night. We never heard from him again."
"What if you had?" The horror struck through him. "What if you had to live here with him? All of you knowing—"
"Do you not recall Sinclair clearly enough? Do you think that would have perturbed him? If Peter had come home, to become duke and leave you as second son, Sinclair would have been overjoyed."
"And my father?"
"Who can say?" The dowager looked away, her eyes closed, her face shut in tight lines of pain. "The duke did not realize what harm he had caused, of course."
She sighed. "Not even to his dying day. He sent news of your birth to Peter." She put down the stitching she had been gripping in her hands. "It was shortly after that when we received the news of his death. He never even knew he had a son."
His gaze sought Miranda, sitting silently through the news of his disgrace and humiliation. Her glance was one of sympathy, as she rose in one graceful move and came toward him, her arms held out. He remembered the time long ago, the night of her scandal, that he had known even then she would not hold his birth against him.
"Thank you for this information, Mother." Simon's eyes did not focus when he glanced toward his mother. He had to get away. Away from Miranda, away from his mother, away from this ill-fated life. His bow was brief, and then he was gone. Gone as far away as he was able, to ride away from this house of guests who all thought him the Duke of Kerstone. To ride away from his pain, his shame.
His brother his father, his father his grandfather.
His mother — could she have told him the truth? Could the old duke and his son really have acted so callously? Creating him as a spare against the possibility that Peter might not return?
The Fairy Tale Bride Page 40