He was similar to Russell in many ways, but he wasn’t evil the way Russell was. He wasn’t spiteful and he wasn’t a degenerate. He was a good man but besides that, he deserved to know. A child didn’t fit into his playboy lifestyle, but he should have at least had the opportunity to know the truth.
Okay, you tell him the truth and then what, I thought. He wasn’t going to restructure his life around being a father all of a sudden. He lived in New York for one thing. He wasn’t interested in bringing a four-year-old into his bachelor pad. He was an Earl. How would the news of Riley, supposedly the heir to another man’s title being his illegitimate son go over with his family? They would have to know since inheritance would become involved. He wouldn’t be thrilled to find out and they would be even less happy about it. I knew that I wouldn’t be happy to find out I had a child all along if I was in his position. This wasn’t the time to say this to him. This was never what he wanted out of the connection that we had. After this, when we went our separate ways, he didn’t want this hanging over his head. I was saying nothing.
I wriggled out of his arms.
“I have to go back to the house,” I said.
“Stay.”
“My son will be asking for me.” I sat up and pulled my top back on.
“Will we be heading to London together tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The boy?”
“He’ll stay here with the housekeeper. I don’t think he’ll be well enough to make the trip,” I said, thinking about Riley bouncing off the walls right now waiting for me to put him to sleep. One day, all these lies I had told Niall would come back to bite me in the ass and there would be nothing that I could do about it.
“So, when will you spend a night with me and not run away during the night?”
I sighed, standing up. “It’s not running away when I tell you first. And besides, if I chose to stay here with you instead of going home to my son, that would make me a bad mother.”
“You could never be a bad mother. When do you have fun?” he asked.
“Clearly you’ve never raised kids,” I said.
He chuckled softly. “I understand,” he said.
“You sound upset.”
“I am but it’s okay,” he said. I looked over at him, laying there still naked. What if I told him right now? What would he say to me if I told him that the little boy in the house who was allegedly sick and needed me was his son?
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
I left the room and quickly cleaned the dishes, gathering them into the basket with the containers that weren’t empty yet. That wasn’t happening. I was probably dying with this secret. That was that. I walked out of the cottage and picked up my umbrella, trying to think about other things.
The trip to London tomorrow. Speaking of all the lies that I had told Niall lately, I needed to figure out what I was doing about the watch.
17
Niall
Did I risk it? I squinted, holding the razor to my face to examine it. It looked about seven hundred years old. The blades were rusted and who the hell knew when the last time it got washed was. Who the hell knew who the last owner was? No. I was not going to risk it. I felt like me and the last resident of the cottage had gotten pretty close at this point, but that was crossing the line. I wasn’t risking tetanus to get a shave in. I put it back in the drawer next to the sink. I ran a hand over my stubble, inspecting it in the mirror. It didn't look bad; I just wasn't used to it. My accommodations were making it so that I was getting used to a lot of things that I wasn’t used to in my normal life.
I walked out of the bathroom to the bedroom. I had taken a shower, and that had gone off without a hitch. I thought I'd be a lot more uncomfortable at night sleeping on the old, lumpy mattress, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The night would have been made better if Eddy had stayed there with me, but I knew there was no way to convince her. I tried. I wasn’t going to convince her not to be a mother to her child just because I wanted to spend time with her which honestly, made me respect her even more.
I went through to the living room to see whether my clothes were alright. They had spent the night drying by the radiator. Drying, more like baking. My jeans were dry but they were stiff and they smelled a little funny. The same with my shirt. I wasn't really keen on putting them back on. Did Eddy have a lot of men’s clothes lying around the house? If she hadn’t gotten rid of Russell’s things already, she would. I wasn’t sure how I felt about wearing the clothing of the man whose widow I was sleeping with. I had technically slept with her before she was his widow. No, I wasn’t going to walk over there half-naked to ask.
This place had turned out more than a couple of items that I could use, maybe there would be clothes left behind? I wondered what state I would find them in. The search was kind of fun. It was like camping, out foraging for my own food. I went back to the bedroom and searched the drawers. Most of them were empty, but then I came across a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt, plaid. Both of them smelled kind of musty, the smell that clothing got when it spent too much time in storage being unworn. They were in better condition than my clothes though, so I figured why not.
I changed and looked at myself in the mirror. I had to laugh. It was definitely a new look for me. I didn't usually dress like this. I didn’t consider myself a fashionista but I cared about what I looked like. I never would have been caught dead in hand-me-downs that I found in a caretaker’s cottage. Usually, the price tag on my clothes tended to be a little high as well. That wasn’t the case here, but the outfit was decent. The clothes were worn but nothing had holes in it. They fit rather well and were comfortable. I looked kind of... rustic in a way. I look like I might have been the actual caretaker left at that cottage.
Not bad. Now, coffee.
While the bedroom had yielded some treasures, the kitchen had not. There were some old, dust cover dishes, but the refrigerator wasn't connected and there was nothing available in the drawers, much less coffee or tea. My caffeine dependence was over a decade in the making and it wasn’t about to let me get anything done before I had downed something strong and black. I let myself out of the cottage. The scent of fresh dew and earth that has been freshly watered welcomed me. The sun shone and I could hear the birds chirping. That wasn't a sound you heard very often in New York City. It was somewhat refreshing in a way, even though I hadn’t had my coffee yet. Sometimes you lived in the city for so long that you forgot what the horizon looked like when it was unobscured by skyscrapers. The estate wasn’t all bad. A little unkempt but nothing a good groundskeeper couldn’t fix.
I started my trek up to the house. I came around the front and was welcomed by the sight of a little boy in rain boots at the foot of the porch, launching himself into the puddles that had collected during the night. I froze like I had just walked up on a wild animal. It was him; it was Eddy’s son. He had bright red hair freckles and he was squealing with joy to himself as the water splashed up over his clothes, making him a muddy mess. I couldn't help smiling a little bit. I caught his attention as I walked up.