by Liz Tyner
‘Your Grace. Such behaviour from a peer.’ He clucked his lips. He tapped the nib of his pen on to the paper in front of him. With the nib still on the paper, he looked at Edge. ‘Who do you think told me of your father’s mistress?’
The words hit Edge just below the ribs, knocking him a step back.
‘Yes.’ The publisher nodded. ‘And she was at Sophia Swift’s house this morning.’
A lone drop of perspiration ran down the side of Edge’s face and his temples throbbed redness into his vison.
If the man lied, Edge would take the shop from him and destroy his livelihood. The man would beg for crumbs.
He slammed from the room. He could have walked the globe in the time it took to get to his carriage. If he’d stayed, he would have ripped the man into the same pieces as the smallest print. But he had to leave. He must find out the truth.
Lily.
A lie. It had to be a lie.
But there’d been flint in the man’s eyes. And he’d known about Edge sending the woman away. Edge had taken such care to keep it quiet.
And the publisher had recognised Lily at the theatre.
How dare she?
She’d—
His family.
* * *
His manners barely held when the butler greeted him at the Hightower residence.
‘I’m here to see Miss Hightower.’
The butler studied Edge, thought for a moment, then showed Edge to the sitting room.
Edge didn’t sit, but stood at the window, studying the recent repair. The sill had been repainted. The room reeked of paint. He touched the sill. Wet. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the smear on his finger.
He didn’t wait long before he heard her voice. ‘Edgeworth?’
‘Lily,’ he answered, not turning and still jabbing at the repair. ‘Were you at Sophia Swift’s recently?’
He didn’t have to see her. He could hear the truth in the silence.
‘I was searching for my mother.’
‘I have just spoken with an acquaintance of yours—a newspaper man.’
She didn’t speak.
He turned on one foot.
She still stood in the doorway, but when their gaze met, she stepped inside and shut the door.
‘It’s tempting.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s tempting to break the window again. But then your butler would send someone to summon the man back who repaired it and your father’s man of affairs would get the bill, and the sum would be deducted from the accounts and it would mean absolutely nothing.’
He blinked. ‘You couldn’t send a messenger to Sophia Swift’s?’
‘I wore the old clothing. No one saw me. I know it.’
‘Someone did.’
‘Only Sophia could have known of it, which is no doubt how you came to hear of it. She sent for me. Mother was there. She thought Sophia owed her for the trouble she caused in the book and the fact that they’d been friends. But, really, Mother had nowhere else to go but there or here.’
‘Your father could have gone for her.’
‘I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want more things thrown.’
‘You ignored my words to let them sort their problems.’
‘You should leave.’
‘Before you throw something at the window or before I do?’ His eyes locked on her face.
‘Does it matter?’
‘One thing does above all else. You knew. Of the mistress. All along.’
‘Yes.’
His head recoiled an inch. She could have hit him full on with her fist and he wouldn’t have moved that much.
‘Well, so you did.’ His lips moved in the direction of a smile. ‘Why did you not tell me?’
‘You were the... You were your father’s son. I couldn’t tell you such a thing. “Thank you for rescuing my kite. Did you know that my sister and I are not at my mother’s house today because my room was needed as a rendezvous place for your father?”’
He raised his chin. ‘Are you telling the truth?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’ Her words barely reached his ears. ‘Your father had quite the airs, walking about as if he could do no wrong and yet he had a mistress. My mother and his mistress were good friends. Your father visited my mother’s house to meet her.’
* * *
Lily remembered how it felt. The old Duke had a mistress nearly the same age as Edgeworth and he’d looked at Lily and Abigail like so much dirt under his heels since he’d found out they knew of his secret.
And Lily had marched to the publisher herself and asked why he printed so much about her mother and ignored the Duke and his baby.
The man’s jaw had dropped and Lily realised he’d not known about the Duke. He’d apologised to her. He’d been nice.
But the Duke’s youngest son, the illegitimate child, had been mentioned in the next publishing. And she’d known. Known it was her fault. She’d only wanted the publisher to ignore her family, but she’d got angry and betrayed the Duchess and Edgeworth. The two people in the ton who’d treated her with respect. Who’d been nice.
Edge’s eyes pierced her. She knew how it felt to be plucked from the earth by a hawk, talons piercing the soft skin, and being rushed to a nest above the earth with the finishing insult of being torn into bite-sized pieces.
‘I cannot undo what I did,’ she said.
He stood at the window. He took one fingernail and scraped away a dot of the new paint on the glass, before facing her again. ‘When we were children, you acted as if you cared. You acted fond of me,’ he said. ‘You didn’t seem to know I was different than everyone else.’
‘I thought you fascinating. Your perfect family. The vast garden separating my imperfect one. Yet later I discovered my family was more honest in its outward appearance than your father was.’
‘When my father was foolish, you showed it to the world.’
‘It’s better to hide?’
‘It’s better to do the right thing. But you completely avoided that path when you spoke to the publisher and destroyed my family.’
‘Your father did.’
‘No.’ Edge put the force of his size into the quiet word. ‘Our family might have been imperfect, but we were still a family until those words blasted into our faces and into the rooms of everyone who knew us and many who didn’t.’
‘My parents didn’t hide them behind a façade.’
‘It wasn’t a façade for me. And that doesn’t make you less at fault because my father did wrong. My father died with a rift between us that can’t be solved—ever. I will go to my own death knowing that our last words were bitter.’
‘It is not the newspaper story that caused your father’s deceit.’
‘I will grant you that. But it doesn’t change what you did.’
‘No.’
‘You purposefully destroyed my family.’ He closed the distance between them, his eyes showing an intensity she’d never seen in anyone before.
‘Not on purpose.’
‘You could not hurt him without hurting us. And Mother felt the pain most. The woman who’d had you to tea so many times.’
‘How could you not have known unless you closed your eyes to it? When you went to the family that summer, your father stayed behind and spent days and days with my mother’s friend. I knew because I was sent here and he didn’t appear the whole time.’
‘I did not know. I can assure you, he kept it from us.’
She had to turn away and she saw the open door, and wondered how much of their conversation had carried. Just a betrothal had turned friends into enemies. ‘You believed a lie because you didn’t open your eyes and ears. The servants had to have known.’
He shook his head. ‘No. The
servants didn’t know.’
She whirled around and let the pause lengthen, disputing his words with her eyes.
‘He said he stayed at the club often while we were gone. They would have thought him there.’
‘I suppose.’
His chest rose. ‘The club. Because the house felt so alone without us.’
‘I would say he didn’t like to be alone.’
The glance had more strength than a slap. ‘I don’t know how you could look my mother in the eye.’
‘No one had trouble looking at me when my mother’s indiscretions were the talk of the town. They had no trouble with their eyes and their chins would go up or their noses would point my direction and they’d squint.’
‘I never did that to you. Never.’
‘No. Your nose was already up in the air because you were the heir. Your nose stayed there for everyone so I was equal in your eyes to all the people around you. And it was a game to try to pull you from being the heir. And you seemed to like it. You even seemed to like me. And I thought you special not because of your birth but because of your actions.’
‘I had a role to fulfil and I knew it.’
A clash of eyes.
‘You did what was proper,’ she said. ‘Always. Always. Rescuing the little girl’s kite. Sending the girls back to their governess. Studying your lessons. Always so proper.’ She turned away. ‘I thought you a saint, of sorts. The one who might walk by us with a kind nod as he went to do his great works. Who could walk alone on the uppermost clouds. I believed you better than everyone else. Just as you did. And do.’
‘I did not have a choice. I couldn’t make one mistake on my lessons. I had to be perfect. I could not risk an error that I could catch. Because if I didn’t learn to excel, then how could I be the leader I needed to be? Even at the clubs, I could not drink more than two drinks. I could not do anything that others might remember later and talk about. I had to be the future Edgeworth.’
He raised his hand shoulder height and clenched the air. ‘And you know what happened. My father was out ruining the family name while I was doing exactly as he told me I should do.’
‘But you’re blaming me.’
His eyes stared into her. ‘For the publication only. All my life, I accepted that I could not swear, have another drink, or have anything but the best of manners unless I was alone in my room. I upheld the name. You splashed dirt on it.’
He moved closer. ‘I wanted to be like my father. It would have been nice if I could have believed he didn’t live a lie just a little longer. But even if I’d realised he was betraying my mother—I would not have hurt her with it. I wouldn’t have displayed it for everyone else to judge. People should respect their leaders. It gives everyone something to believe in and more ability to trust in the decisions. And they must trust the decisions. The people are working all day to eat and they do not have extra time to study every law and every decision that can starve or feed them.’
She flicked her brows in response.
‘I learned how much mistakes cost when I sent the woman and her child away,’ he said.
‘You didn’t have to do that.’
‘At the time I thought I did. And it fixed nothing. Nothing. I wanted that ducal family more than my father did for us. And I couldn’t get it back.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Gone. One little voice in the right ears and my family shattered.’
‘Nothing changed. Except you knew.’
‘Except everyone knew. Everyone who could read or listen to someone who could.’
‘You said your brothers knew.’
‘Foxworthy told them.’
‘But he didn’t tell you and they didn’t.’
‘No. I had a role to fulfil and no one could even tell me the truth of my family. Or they wouldn’t tell me. That was why I needed to find out what it was like to be a common man. I realised an invisible wall stood between me and the people I want to serve.’
‘You are the perfect Duke. Too perfect to listen to imperfection.’
‘When I almost died, I realised I wasn’t doing enough. All I have ever done in my life is follow the path designated.’
‘You did have time to meet Genevieve.’
‘Yes. I did. That was scheduled as well. Once a month. I could not spare more or I’d risk letting my heart be involved. I did not have time for that.’
‘And you chose me.’
‘I was dying. And you brought life into me. I lay there recovering and I remembered that you had once asked me to play dolls. Dolls. You had thrown a biscuit at me and didn’t care who I was. You must have spent an hour trying to fly that kite on to my head before it finally caught in the tree. You even brought a handful of half-mashed strawberries out to share with me one day and I told you I didn’t want them—but I did. No one ever dared serve me anything not carefully prepared. And, yes, I noticed the little heart drawn with a pencil on the bench. The one with the words Lion Owl inside it. I looked forward to walking out to the gardens to do my studies because I could see the words you’d written. After they’d faded, I still looked for them.’
‘I forgot about the heart.’
‘You forgot that. But you remembered how my father looked at you and you took your revenge.’
His words slowed and he closed his feelings away. ‘Don’t misunderstand. I wouldn’t trade away my birthright. Or sell it. I have a chance to make a difference in the world. It was worth the lost pleasures. To keep the country as best that it can be for the blacksmith, his family and the daughter he didn’t have. And people who would smear my family name into all the mud they can throw.’
He moved to the door, but he kept his path wide around her and he spoke in his perfect, calm tones. ‘I came over to tell you the betrothal is off. I know that a man cannot call off such a thing normally, but in this case I’m putting aside my role and doing as I wish.’
Then he left.
Chapter Fourteen
Edge walked to his bedchamber. He’d been betrayed. Lily had cut out the heart of his family, sent his mother into spasms of pain and helped push his father into the dark box of death.
She’d made the people who disliked his family smug.
His father had done wrong. Edge had no doubt of that. But Lily had taken the wrongness, sharpened the tip of it and shoved it into all the people he loved. Every. One.
He’d known his brothers and his friends had kept the truth from him, but he had expected Lily to be different. She’d suffered from her own mother’s deceit, just as he’d experienced his father’s.
But she hadn’t been different; only more wrong.
Now he saw Lily through the shades of her deceit. And she’d known all along. Lily.
His mother had invited her for tea and Lily had arrived, knowing how she’d decimated an innocent woman’s marriage.
And he’d let her into his house and taken her to his bed and put his heart at her feet. He’d wanted her to have his children. His name. And be at his side. He’d wanted to whisper with her in the night and let their touches soothe everything else away. He’d wanted them to be a part of each other.
And like all the people who’d known about his father’s mistress and not told him; she’d had her own secret—every moment she was in his home.
He would find a way to forget he had known her.
* * *
Abigail’s voice took up all the empty spaces at the dining-room table. Their mother had left after picking at the food. She’d hardly spoken.
Lily stared at the lemon tart she couldn’t finish. She’d taken one bite of the confection which had the texture and flavour of creamy glue covered with a sprinkle of sawdust.
All Lily could think of was when she’d stolen a pencil from her father’s desk, taken it to the bench and written the letters h
er governess had taught her. She’d already known how to make a heart. And learning to write Lily had been much easier than learning the words Lion Owl. She’d thought it his real name and the grandest name she’d ever heard. The governess had been snickering while she taught Lily the letters, but Lily didn’t care. Then the governess had mentioned her own lofty background and told Lily that dukes didn’t care for little girls with less breeding than their staff.
Then the governess had pulled Abigail’s hair one day and Abigail was such a baby she didn’t have any hair to spare.
Lily had thought about it before she went to sleep that night. She’d remembered her mother telling the nice cook to leave. And the ladies’ maid.
Her mother might have ignored that the woman pulled Abigail’s hair, but she’d never overlook the mention of having less importance than the governess, Lily knew.
But now Lily stared at the pastry and she couldn’t bear to lift the fork to her mouth. She didn’t even want to move from the table. She was turning as morose as her mother.
Abigail mumbled some nonsense and Lily nodded, still looking at her plate. Lemon wasn’t as good as orange, but she couldn’t bear to think of orange more than one second. In the past few days, everything had tasted like ash.
‘I just told you I am going to run away with Fox and become a courtesan.’ Abigail waved her fork so close in front of Lily’s face that Lily jumped, her mind warning her she could be rapped on the nose. She leaned back, shoving aside her sister’s arm, but didn’t speak.
‘I’m going to have Fox’s child,’ Abigail said.
Lily looked again at the mound of yellow on her plate. ‘Best of luck to you.’
‘I was just seeing if you were awake,’ Abigail said. ‘I’m not going to have a baby.’
‘Probably for the best. Especially if it had his chin and your whiskers.’
Abigail rapped the fork against Lily’s knuckles.
‘You’re about to have lemon-scented hair,’ Lily stated.
Abigail reached over and scooped up the yellow confectionery from Lily’s plate. ‘You’ve not sneaked out to the gardens in days. Not since—I don’t know—the theatre? What happened at the theatre?’ Abigail said. ‘You have to tell me. You don’t keep a diary.’ She took another bite. ‘You really should keep a diary for those days you don’t feel like talking.’