Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Yvette…” Her father began to blubber as he crept toward her. “I am so sorry. I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
Yvette continued to look at the Duke, her expression cold. “You’re drunk, Father.”
“I am.”
“How long has this been going on for?”
“It’s not my fault!” he wailed. “I… the Duke… I tried to resist. You must believe me. But it has been so hard without you…” He tripped as he continued toward her, nearly going to his knees. “I need you back home, Yvette. You have no idea how much I have struggled.”
“You need me?” She pulled her gaze from the Duke and looked at her father with pure venom. “Yet you are the one who sent me here. As I recall, I had no choice in the matter.”
“No!” Her father gasped and looked desperately at the Duke. “That is not… I had no choice. I promise, I had no choice! Tell her!”
Yvette stayed in the doorway as she looked between her father and the Duke. Her father, drunk out of his mind, blubbered and was red-faced, and she had never seen him look so ashamed.
The Duke too, shame was written across his handsome face, and he could hardly bring himself to look her in the eyes.
“I want to know what is going on,” she said. “No more lies.”
Her father winced. “Yvette… please… you must know, everything I did… I had to. You must believe me!”
“How can I possibly believe you?” she said coldly. “When you will not even tell me what is happening.”
“It is not his fault.” Finally, the Duke spoke. He straightened himself the best that he could, and he looked at Yvette with sadness and regret. “Your father only did as I asked him.”
“As you paid him, you mean.”
He grimaced. “That… that was necessary. I am not proud of what I have done but know that I did it for the right reasons. Everything I have done was for the right reasons. Even if it does not seem that way.”
“And what did you do?” she demanded. “Why won’t you tell me?”
Her father looked pleadingly at the Duke. “I should not have come here. I… this was a mistake.”
“It was,” the Duke agreed. “But it is too late now. Miss Norleigh…” He gestured into the room; toward the couch her father had fallen on earlier. “Perhaps you would like to sit?”
“No.” She straightened her back and kept her arms folded. “I am perfectly fine here.”
The Duke almost smiled. It was her stubbornness that did it and was this any other time, it might have brought a sarcastic comment from him. But the time was not right for that, and the cold look she held him in smothered the Duke’s lips so that a smile might very well have been impossible.
“Very well.” The Duke looked between her and her father, his expression stern, his lips pressed together. “I suppose we best start at the beginning, with Hugh.”
Yvette said nothing. Her heart raced. Her body trembled from head to foot. And while she knew that she had no reason to worry, as she had done nothing wrong, she felt it in her stomach as it twisted itself into knots.
“As you were told, your father learned of Hugh several months before I asked that he stay with me. We made it seem as if his discovery was an accident, and as soon as it was known who he was, I acted to adopt him. This is a half-truth at best.”
“And what is the whole truth?”
“I knew about him for some time longer than I let on.” Her father’s entire body slumped with defeat. “As you know already, I was close with His Grace’s father, and after he passed, I made sure to keep an eye on the boy. Even when he was with his mother, I always kept a close watch.”
“His father…” She looked at the Duke. “What does he have to do with any of this?”
“It wasn’t until Hugh’s mother died that I sought the Duke and told him about the boy. Until then, his Gace had no idea that he even existed.”
“When I learned of Hugh, I acted as quickly as I could,” the Duke hurried to explain.
“First, I made sure that he was well, and then I asked that your father keep an eye on him until I could arrange to bring him here. I acted only in Hugh’s best interests, and I made sure from day one that he was not in any danger. ”
Yvette shook her head to clear it. “I know all of this.”
“My fear was that people would ask questions,” the Duke continued as he fidgeted with his hands. “That they might pry into Hugh’s past if too many people learned of him. That, I could not allow.”
“He blackmailed me,” her father moaned. “That is why –”
“Quiet!” the Duke snapped. “I did no such thing.”
“You did.” Her father pointed at the Duke. “I wanted to tell you the truth, Yvette. From day one, I wanted to. He forced me to keep it a secret!”
“I regret to say that I did not trust you…” The Duke looked away with shame.
“I knew little of you, Miss Norleigh, and I was unable to say if you could keep my secret. So, when I hired you as a governess, it was done for two reasons. One was to educate the boy, as you have done. The second was to keep an eye on both you and your father.”
Yvette took a step back. “An eye on… why would you…”
“So that he would not talk,” the Duke explained with clear unease.
“And with you under my roof, not to mention the money I paid him, I knew his silence could be counted on.” He then sneered at her father.
“What I did not expect was that he would turn into a drunken fool and demand more money for this silence.”
“It’s not my fault,” her father blubbered.
“Talk about what?” Yvette started to become irate herself. “What is going on? Why all the secrecy? Everyone knows that Hugh is your son! That he is adopted! What secret are you trying to keep?”
The Duke bowed his head and his shoulders fell.
“That’s just it, Miss Norleigh. Hugh is not my son…
” Slowly, he raised his head, and his eyes were watery, and teaming with sadness and regret and pain.
It was such a pitiful sight that Yvette might have felt sorry for him, was it not what he said next.
“Hugh is my half-brother. He is my father’s son, not mine. ”
The world turned.
Yvette gasped and stumbled back. She half-turned as if to flee. It was as if the Duke had slapped her across the face, and the walls of her reality collapsed. She stared at the Duke, searching for the joke, any sense at all that he was lying to her.
But he is not lying. Why would he be? And suddenly, so much of what I did not understand before makes perfect sense… even if I feel more confused than ever.
“No…” she said in a whisper. “That is not… how?”
“I had no idea of his existence until after his mother died.” The Duke took a step toward her, one hand extended as if he was trying to calm her. “That was when your father found me and told me the truth.”
“I knew of the boy when he was born,” her father sighed with regret. “But I was sworn to secrecy. Which I meant to keep, until the death of the boy’s mother. Once she passed away, I knew that I had to tell the Duke the truth of it.”
“And once I learned who he was, I knew that I had to act.” The Duke took another step towards Yvette, and she took one back. “I considered sending him to a boarding school, but that idea held little merit. The real problem came down to who he was, and what I would tell people.”
“What does it matter whose son he is?” The confusion was real and she tried desperately to search her way through it. “Why the lies?”
“Reputation,” the Duke said with a sneer of his own.
“As my son, most would look down on me, and they would judge me for what I did. But as I am not married, as I did not commit adultery, it would cause little uproar. As has been proven. But if it was learned that my father had a lovechild…” A shake of the head. “It would destroy his legacy.”
“So, it was to protect you,” she said. “Everything you did was for your own –”
“No!” The Duke cried. “It is for Hugh. As my son, he will adopt my title, my lands, everything. That is why I did this.”
“But it’s not,” she pleaded as it call came together.
“You just said yourself, that it was to protect your reputation. You…” She looked at the Duke with sorrow, because he was a stranger now, and she did not know him.
“You may tell yourself that you have done the right thing, and for the right reasons, but if that was the case, you would not have kept it a secret from me. You would not have worked so hard to hide it.”
“I had no choice. For Hugh –”
“For you,” she pressed. Yvette wasn’t angry, she realized.
She wasn’t maddened, nor did she feel betrayed.
Rather, she was disappointed, because the Duke was not the man who she thought, and that hurt more than she could possibly comprehend.
“You did it for yourself, Your Grace. Yes, Hugh will benefit, I do not deny it. But that was not what drove your decision.”
“I…” The Duke could not bring himself to look at her.
“Tell me that I am wrong.” Her voice was soft and defeated. “Look me in the eyes and tell me I have it wrong. Please…” Her chin began to wobble. “You have found it so easy to lie to me until now, so what is one more lie?”
Yvette wasn’t upset that the Duke lied to her. She wasn’t upset that her father lied to her. She wasn’t even upset that they had conspired together to keep this secret – that they had used her.
What upset Yvette the most was that the man who she thought to be the Duke, the same who she cared for and had fallen for, was not the man that he truly was.
Even if his actions seemed pure, they were done for selfish reasons.
He adopted Hugh not because he cared about the boy, but because he cared so deeply about what others thought of him. He did it to protect himself.
Never before had the gulf that existed between Yvette and the Duke felt so vast as it did right now, and that the Duke could not even look at her, that he could not even defend himself… that told that she was right, and that he knew it to be true.
How could I have been so wrong about him? How could I have convinced myself of so many lies… ones I needed to believe to justify my feelings. I feel like a fool.
“I…” She took a step back, knees trembling. “I need to… I need to be alone.”
“Miss Norleigh…” He reached for her, but he did not try and stop her. He stood frozen in the room, one hand outstretched, shame written clear across his face. “I am so sorry.”
“I know that you are,” she said. “As am I.”