He drew in a deep breath before saying, in a rush, “She was my mother.”
“Oh.” The word escaped her on an exhale. Eyes wide with shock, she stumbled back to a chair and sank down in it. “Goodness. Then the cradle in the bedroom at Swallowhill…?”
“Was mine,” he verified grimly, ignoring the pain in his chest as he recalled the beauty of the piece. As he watched the shifting emotions on her face, however, the question that had come to him at Swallowhill took shape again in his mind: Why had it still been in her bedroom?
Surely, she hadn’t loved him.
“How did you find out?” Clara asked.
He shook his head, banishing his conflicting thoughts for Miss Brandon. He had no wish to think well of her.
“The duchess told me.” His mouth twisted as he approached her and sank to his haunches, taking up her hand in his. “She admitted that I was born out of wedlock, the product of my father’s affair with Miss Brandon, and that he forced the duchess to raise me as her own.”
Unshed tears shone in her eyes. “Oh, Quincy,” she whispered, cupping his cheek in her palm.
The betrayal of a man he had revered still fresh and painful, he closed his eyes and cradled her hand to his face. “If you were to marry me, you would for all intents and purposes be marrying a bastard. I had to make certain before I asked you that I was as honest and open with you as you’ve been with me.”
He expected all manner of reactions, from assurances to tears to denouncing him completely. What he did not expect was for her to scoff, “As if I would care about that.”
His eyes flew open to find her looking at him with equal parts frustration and affection.
“You silly man,” she continued. “I loved my son, who would have been a bastard had he lived, with everything in me. Do you honestly believe I could love you less for it?”
Love.Hope began to bloom in his chest. Before it could take hold, however, she frowned.
“But this makes no sense. From what you’ve told me of your father, it doesn’t seem in character with him at all.”
It was exactly what had been simmering in his gut throughout that horrible day, making the betrayal so much more potent. “There was no benefit to the duchess in lying to me. And that woman never did anything that wasn’t of benefit to her.”
“Your unhappiness would be reward enough,” she muttered acidly. “I swear, that woman is the devil incarnate.”
He smiled, an unexpected lightness filling him as he pressed his lips to her palm.
“There must be something of your father’s that tells the truth of the matter,” she muttered, her outrage and frustration clear in her voice. “He loved you too well to leave you in the dark forever.”
“I doubt it,” he said, reaching out to tuck a stray curl behind her ear, anxious now to put this whole mess behind them and renew his offer of marriage. “My brothers either destroyed or sold off almost everything else. I was lucky they didn’t know of the secret compartment in my father’s desk, else I’d not even have my father’s travel book. But I’m done with the past, Clara. I would focus on the possibility of a future together.”
She hardly seemed to hear him, though her eyes went wide with dawning excitement. “The travel book. Of course. There was more in that compartment than the book. The bundle was there as well, with the deed, a dance card, a brooch. And—”
“The stack of letters,” he breathed, finally catching up to her wonderfully agile mind.
“Please tell me you kept them.”
He jumped to his feet, pulling her up with him. “I did,” he said, grinning. “Not only that, but I had the wherewithal to bring the whole damn lot with me.”
The smile she gave him was as bright as the sun. “Let’s get them.”
Excitement pumping through his veins, they slipped into the hall and hurried to his room. He wasted no time, lighting a fire in the hearth and heading for his trunk in the corner. The letters. How in hell had he never looked at the letters? He had given all the pieces in that bundle a cursory glance, of course—and it was only now he realized that the dance card and brooch with its lock of jet-black hair were quite possibly mementos of Miss Brandon. If that were the case, wasn’t it possible the letters were, as well?
Of course, there was every chance they could have nothing to do with Miss Brandon—his father’s correspondence with a friend or his parents, for instance. He shouldn’t get his hopes up, not when it didn’t matter a bit what the truth was.
But as he dropped to the floor and lifted the lid, he knew it did matter. The moment the duchess had revealed the truth it had destroyed something in him, that trust he’d had in his father. If there was even a chance he could understand why that man had kept something so important from him, he would take it.
They were easy to find, the neat bundle tied with ribbon sitting on the top with his father’s book. He untied the packet, then lifted the letters out, surprised at how his fingers shook. As one he and Clara moved to the bed and sat down on its edge. Still he stared at the letters. What if they verified his worst fears, that his father had not been the man he’d loved and respected? What if they completely destroyed every good memory he’d ever had of him?
Clara’s hand, gentle and calming, touched his back. He remembered that time at Dane House, when her touch had been the only thing tethering him to earth. How had he not known then and there that he loved her?
With her strength guiding him, he untied the ribbon and opened the first letter.