A Return of Devotion

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  Daphne’s mouth dropped open a bit in confusion. What was the man talking about? She sorted through his sentence, which sounded exceptionally formal and perhaps a bit muddled, despite the confidence with which it had been delivered.

  Oh no. He couldn’t possibly be thinking Benedict was his brother, could he? That William’s father was also Benedict’s father? The very idea made Daphne shudder a bit in revulsion.

  Benedict made a choked noise, and Daphne turned from the marquis to see that her son’s shoulders had slumped forward and his blue eyes glistened with unshed tears. He wasn’t watching the marquis. He was watching her.

  She wanted to go to him so badly and hold him tight as she’d done when he was a young lad with a splinter from his latest woodworking attempt. This was so much more than a splinter, though. This was probably his worst nightmare come to life—his identity dragged into the light and examined with ruthless scrutiny.

  Her feet refused to do more than wiggle in her boots. If she took one step it would lead to running from the room, because it wasn’t only Benedict having to face the shadows of his past.

  It was Daphne, too.

  The accusations and questions about Benedict’s parentage fell on her like boulders. Every statement made her see her father’s disappointed face once more, made her feel the desperation that sent her and Kit fleeing from London, made her choke on the notions of worthlessness and regret that had only been alleviated by holding her precious baby boy and seeing there was, indeed, still some reason to keep living.

  She couldn’t fall apart now. Later, she could cry into her pillow. Later, she could escape by imagining life was still the way it had been six months ago.

  Of course, first she would torture herself by imagining all the ways she could have handled this situation better than she was currently doing.

  “You’ve nothing to worry about, my lord. Your title remains untainted, at least in this instance.” She had no idea what else he or his father had done, and she didn’t want to think about it. She’d managed to separate the sin from the children she’d raised, including her own, and she needed to be able to do the same with her employer if she wanted to continue working here.

  “I am the head of the Oswald family.” Lord Chemsford’s gaze swung back over to Daphne. “And you’re going to have to do an awful lot of talking to convince me this boy doesn’t fall beneath that authority.”

  Another guttural moan drifted from Benedict as he pulled himself out of his slump, but he said nothing.

  “And what if he does?” Daphne was stunned to discover her feet did indeed know how to move. She stomped across the floor until she was close enough to stab the marquis in the chest. It was difficult to say who was more surprised when she actually poked him, but surprise didn’t stop the words from continuing. “What do you intend to do? Wrap him in fine tailoring such as yours and present him to society? Perhaps hide him away? I’ll not allow you to drag him off to the wild country so he can conveniently disappear.”

  A muffled squeak sounded from the corner where Benedict was standing.

  Mr. Leighton cleared his throat.

  Daphne’s cheeks grew hot. She’d forgotten the man was in the room.

  The woodworker crammed his cap onto his curls. “I think the lad and I should step out and leave you two to, er, come to terms here.”

  “No.” Benedict’s voice was small but the shake of his head was strong, almost violent. “I want to know. We’ve never asked who our parents were. It seemed easier not to know, but I don’t like this feeling, Mama Daphne. I don’t like being here like this and not knowing.”

  The glare of superiority Lord Chemsford gave Daphne made her want to poke him again, but he stepped around her and approached Benedict. “Where did you grow up, lad?”

  “Here,” Benedict said on a rush of air.

  Daphne knew how he felt. All her air rushed out, too, as she gazed at their similar faces now only inches apart.

  What did he think? Did he believe her when she said this man wasn’t his father? Frankly, if Daphne hadn’t been there for his conception, she’d be thinking the mother had lied, too.

  “Here?” The marquis glanced around the room. “At the manor? And who is ‘we’? You said ‘we’ve never asked.’”

  “I, uh, well.” Benedict shifted his gaze from the marquis looming over him to Daphne. There was terror on his face. He knew he’d let information slip out that was not meant to be shared.

  It was too late now. Daphne tried to give him a reassuring smile even as she fought for a new idea. She could leave the room. But would the marquis follow her? Probably only if she’d managed to attract his attention back to her somehow.

  She couldn’t think of anything to say, though. But then she didn’t have to because the man turned back around to spear her with his gaze. “Has my father been inadvertently running a charity house on this property?”

  That was uncomfortably close to the truth.

  The marquis didn’t seem angry anymore. A cold neutrality had taken the place of the earlier heated emotions. Did that mean he found the idea intriguing? Or even good? Or did it mean he’d gone so far past angry that he moved into some sort of controlled rage?

  “I’m sure you’ve seen the books, my lord. This was not, nor has it ever been, a charity.” It had been a home, and Daphne refused to think of it as anything else. Besides, they’d never taken a penny of the upkeep allowance for the children. It had all been used exactly as it was allotted.

  Lord Chemsford rolled his shoulders back and braced his feet. “The boy’s father. Who is he?”

  His name and his face formed in Daphne’s mind, but she couldn’t have wrapped her tongue around the words even if she’d wanted to. Never had she spoken of that night to anyone other than Kit. Jess only knew the generalities of the situation.

  Now, as Daphne stood there, she was overwhelmed by every memory—not just that night but all the days and years that followed. The myriad of emotions attached to those memories curled through her. Despair, shame, and fear . . . but also joy and love and hope. All of it melded together in a massive lump in her throat that threatened to choke her.

  She knew God had forgiven her. She knew she was a valuable person, that she’d gone on to do something good with her life. She knew that while parts of that evening had been her fault and she’d made poor choices, she’d also been taken advantage of and manipulated.

  She knew all of that but right then, at that moment, not a single statement felt true. Loneliness and exhaustion washed over her, chilling her, while guilt and shame battled within her for the role of foremost emotion. Armies of memories stabbed her heart until Daphne rather wished she was one of those women who could faint on command.

  Darkness crept into the edges of Daphne’s gaze, threatening to make her wish come true.

  “Mama Daphne?” Benedict’s voice punched through her cloud of misery. Arms, so thin yet so strong from the years of woodworking and farm labor, wrapped around her. “It’s okay. I don’t have to know.”

  “But I do,” Lord Chemsworth said.

  “Why?” Daphne choked out. “If you give me a good reason why, I’ll tell you who his father is.” But not the mother. Never the mother. Benedict would never forgive her for keeping that a secret.

  She prepared herself for a lecture on honor and responsibility, on maintaining reputation and name. As if she wasn’t acutely aware of their importance. Instead, he held up the drawing of the desk.

  “Would you have him hide this here? Restrict his talent to making fancy egg-retrieval systems for chicken coops instead of spreading wide his ability to design something like this? The boy is thirteen. Imagine what he’ll be able to do in ten years. Do you wish to hold him back?”

  Daphne wrapped her arms around Benedict and sputtered, “Of course not!”

  “Then you have to know he’s going to encounter more people like me—more people who know me. If we are not properly prepared, the obvious unacknowledged connection w
ill be the end of whatever success he could have.”

  She blinked. Of all the things he could have said, all the reasons he could have named, he’d chosen Benedict’s future. It was the one thing she couldn’t fight against, the one thing she’d do anything to secure. She took a deep breath and intertwined her fingers with Benedict’s. For him, she could conquer the fear threatening to weaken her knees.

  Still, the words wouldn’t form. The stern expression of Lord Chemsford, filled with thoughts she couldn’t begin to guess, stole her ability to breathe, much less speak. She shifted her gaze to her son, standing so close she could see how much taller than her he’d grown. Tears still shimmered in his eyes, and he seemed terrified and excited at the same time.

  What would happen to him? Was his obvious connection to the marquis going to limit his future?

  “He’s right. I need to know.” Benedict’s jaw clenched until the lines of his neck stood out.

  As much as Daphne didn’t want to admit it, at some point it was better to be prepared than protected.

  Benedict pulled back a little, not letting go but not holding her close either, as if he wanted to offer comfort but wasn’t sure about receiving it. “I never really thought about you knowing details of my life that I didn’t, and I don’t particularly care to be in that position with anyone else. I don’t know where I came from, but you do. You know my father.” He swallowed. “And my mother.”

  “What happened to his mother?” Lord Chemsford asked, his voice still strong but a bit softer on her ears.

  She couldn’t look at them, either of them, or she would be ill. Already her stomach was trying to crawl out of her throat, trying to swallow the words she was attempting to force out. She could do this. She could tell them who had fathered Benedict, but nothing more.

  “His mother is living a good life.” Well, she had been. Daphne was reserving judgment on her current situation. “There’s nothing either of you can do for her.”

  Benedict pulled away a bit more, his arms slipping to his sides. She risked a glance at his face and saw something she’d never seen before. He’d closed himself off from her, and it hurt. It hurt more than she could have imagined. If he felt this way now, knowing the truth would make him hate her.

  One step at a time, she whispered in her mind. They would deal with the father’s identity now because they had no choice. Hopefully soon Benedict would move on from wanting to know who his mother was and everything would be the way it had been.

  With her eyes shut tightly enough to block out every vestige of sunlight, Daphne licked her lips and took another deep breath. “His father’s name is Maxwell Oswald.”

  Chapter fifteen

  William had cut himself off from his family so much over the past ten years that it took him a moment to sift through his memories and find the man. Maxwell Oswald. The son of his father’s younger brother.

  As boys they’d spent quite a bit of time together, but when William had gone to attend Harrow, they’d become two people who occasionally had a reason to be in the same room rather than any sort of friends. Their appearances were similar, he supposed, but he wouldn’t have thought the other man could father a child who looked so remarkably like William. Then again, Maxwell’s father had looked enough like William’s father that the two could have easily passed for twins.

  This was an instance of “blood will tell” if ever there was one.

  William cleared his throat and dropped his gaze from the housekeeper. It wasn’t difficult to do. She looked utterly broken and miserable and somewhat accusing, as if he’d caused her harm in getting her to reveal a secret everyone in the room—well, excluding the master woodworker—should have already known.

  No, he didn’t feel any guilt when looking at Mrs. Brightmoor. Looking at the boy was another story entirely.

  The young man’s teeth were clenched, defining his jawline and making him look even more like the man he was becoming.

  William curled his hand in a fist to resist the urge to run a hand across his own face, measuring the similarities and seeking the differences. He should do something. He just wasn’t sure what.

  If this had come to light thirteen years ago, there would have been no question as to the appropriate path to take. There was also no question the men who had headed the family at the time wouldn’t have taken it.

  None of that mattered now, as the boy was nearly grown. They couldn’t slip him into the family as a ward or cousin, couldn’t pretend his birth was something other than what it was. Even admitting his existence would be problematic now. The boy hadn’t been raised to face the scrutiny or the questions, wouldn’t possess the refinement to be brought into the family.

  It wasn’t as if the boy was seeking a life of leisure anyway. He obviously enjoyed the work of the path he was on, was settled into a good position, and had a future in front of him. If William fled the room now and hoped no one ever had the gumption to broach the topic with him, the boy would likely lead a fine life.

  So perhaps that was what he should do. The idea of shirking his duties made William cringe—that had always been his father’s inclination, after all—but in this case he simply didn’t know what else to do.

  It appeared no one else did either. Probably because it was one of those impossible situations where there was nothing to be done, there was no way to change the course they were on.

  Yet, at the same time, how could they all continue forward?

  William’s gaze dropped to the paper in his hands, the desk plans that had spurred this encounter in the first place.

  It was as good a subject change as any. William needed a way out of this conversation and he rather thought the boy could use an escape as well.

  “You designed the desk?” William asked, holding the paper aloft.

  Benedict nodded, the tendons of his neck stretched tight by his clenched jaw.

  “It’s ingenious.” And it was. William had been impressed when he’d thought it was designed by Mr. Leighton. Knowing a mere apprentice—an incredibly young apprentice—had done it, well, he couldn’t help but be a bit fascinated.

  “Thank you,” the boy choked out. He glanced to Mrs. Brightmoor and then back to William. “I like making pieces where all the space is usable and easy to access.”

  William’s grip tightened a bit on the paper as he fought for a way to have some form of control. He avoided personal situations such as these, as they always tended to become messy. He’d rather handle a problem with the marquisette or one of his estates any day. After all, he’d been preparing for those his entire life. But this . . .

  “When you’ve time, we should meet. I’ve some points of discussion that might require an alteration in the design to make it function better for me.”

  He felt a bit ridiculous speaking in such a tone to a thirteen-year-old boy, but maybe treating Benedict like a man was the only way forward here. William hadn’t felt like a boy at the age of thirteen, having already come face-to-face with his father’s lack of regard for anything or anyone other than himself. Perhaps granting the boy some credibility would give him back the dignity that had just been taken from him.

  And he did appear as if something had been taken from him. William had seen a similar look on men who suddenly realized their purse had been stolen sometime during the evening and they were going to have to ask someone to pay their tavern account for them. Only this was worse.

  It was the look of a man whose purse had been stolen and there was no one he could ask to pay for him.

  The boy looked at the paper and nodded, his weight shifting back and forth on his feet as a bit of the tension left his body. “I can do that.”

  “Excellent.”

  William wasn’t out of the situation yet, though, because they all still stood there. Staring at one another.

  Well, William was staring at the other two. Mrs. Brightmoor wasn’t staring anywhere but at Benedict, and the boy refused to take his eyes off William. They were just as stuck as the
y’d been ten minutes ago.

  He could simply leave. No one would stop him. But it felt wrong. Maxwell had already turned his back on the boy, knowingly or not, and William couldn’t bring himself to do the same.

  “We could look at it now,” the boy croaked out. He licked his lips and swallowed, but it was obvious the words had come rattling through a mouth dry as dust.

  William had to admire Benedict. He could have turned and run and no one would have blamed him. He, too, was seeking the escape that maintained his dignity while still getting him out of this room.

  “Right, then,” William said slowly, wishing they shared the trait of wanting to be completely alone in the face of emotional turmoil. He glanced at Mrs. Brightmoor but quickly returned his gaze to Benedict. The boy’s attempt at stoicism was far easier to manage than the agony in his housekeeper’s face. “The library?”

  Benedict nodded and preceded William from the room.

  The walk to the library seemed much farther than a house of this size could accommodate.

  The library was just as silent as the dining room had been, but it was immeasurably more peaceful. William had expected being alone with the boy to be worse. Instead, he felt somewhat of a camaraderie with him. Neither of them had known a confrontation such as this one could occur. Both had been surprised, hit from nowhere by the sense of betrayal and confusion. Somehow, being unified in that stupefaction made it easier to be in the room together, even if looking at him was still more than a little disconcerting.

  William glanced at the plans in his hand once more. It was as good a place to begin moving forward as anywhere. He crossed the room and spread the plans out on the desk. “I’d like a place to hold my ledger books. Perhaps somewhere in this vicinity.”

  Benedict was slow to cross the room, so William stayed braced on the desk, looking down at the paper. He could wait. He even welcomed the few moments to better prepare himself before looking at his own younger face again.