Chapter Four #2
“It is why I’ve stood back and permitted you to decide the matter.
” The Earl leaned forward, intent. “I love you as my own, Richard, but I can never be sure the truth won’t out.
No secret is absolute.” He shook his head.
“I can’t, in good conscience, use my connections to secure you a wife that would be appropriate to the son of an Earl when I know you are not one.
I also don’t want to repeat what my father did to me.
I want you to choose your own wife. I let Thomas choose his.
I wanted him to marry to secure the title.
I didn’t feel it would be right for it to go to you. ”
“So, you gave me the choice of the army, navy or church instead?” Flailing anger rising in him, Richard snapped, “Were you pleased when I chose the army? I’m surprised you paid for my promotions. You’d have better luck getting rid of me if I were a lower rank.”
The Earl sank back in his chair. “I do not wish to be rid of you.”
“You should have told me. It’s not as if I was going to hunt this Mr. Wansley down and demand the inheritance due me from my—” he nearly choked on the words “—my father, and then be set upon by my uncle. Even if you and Mother were correct about the danger to a babe, I’m a grown man now and have been for some time. ”
“Set upon?” The Earl shook his head. “I didn’t think you’d be set upon.
Wansley was a schemer, a gambler and a cheat, if not worse.
If you’d known he was your uncle, if you’d established any sort of rapport with him, he would have conned you into paying his way.
He’d still be alive, undeserving sot, and you’d be destitute from funneling money into him. ”
“I’m surprised you settled as much on me as you have, what with me being another man’s welp and the risk that I’d pass Matlock wealth along to my undeserving relations.”
The Earl stared at him, nonplussed.
Richard realized he clutched both chair arms. He eased his grip, then reached up to pass a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t know why I’m so angry with you.”
“Because I’m the only one left with whom to be angry.”
Richard nodded. Gripping both chair arms again and trying not to squeeze them until his knuckles went white, he looked away from the Earl.
His gaze met the beady glass eyes of a stuffed weasel, its mouth pulled into a snarl to show rows of tiny sharp teeth.
“I don’t care for this room.” He looked back to the Earl.
“Why sit here surrounded by dead things?”
The other man frowned. “I’ve never thought of them that way. They’re the trophies of my ancestors.”
“But not of mine.”
“No. Indeed not. Would you want them to be?”
Richard studied the fine Oriental carpet spanning the space between their chairs, tracing the endless spirals and twists of the design with his gaze.
“I want it to be an hour ago when you were my father, and my greatest worry was that you’d side with Thomas in his anger at me and Darcy for firing the governess he recommended for Georgiana. ”
Spring and wood creaked. A pair of polished hessians moved into the section of rug Richard studied. A wrinkled hand settled on his shoulder.
“Richard, Son, I raised you. I’ve cared for you. Supported you. Sustained you. I could not love you more if you were my own. I will always be your father because you are my son, and the son of a woman I loved more than my own life.”
Richard squeezed his lids closed over eyes that suddenly burned.
The Earl gave Richard’s shoulder a pat, then moved away.
The chair springs creaked anew as the Earl settled back into his place near the fire.
“And I do not side with Thomas. You had to fire the woman, no matter who her great, great, great grandfather was. I don’t care if the Duke of Devonshire asked to court the girl. She’d barely turned fifteen.”
“You arranged Abigail’s union when she was fifteen.”
“Yes. I, her father, Earl of Matlock, arranged it, with her consent, I might add. Not her governess. The woman overstepped no matter who wished to court Georgiana, let alone a fortune hunter. Thomas is being unreasonable in his anger. He places far too much stock in lineage.”
Richard grimaced at the reminder.
The Earl let out a sigh. “Was I wrong to tell you?”
Richard shook his head. “No. A man should know where he comes from.” He shook his head again. “I’m not looking forward to the day Thomas learns the truth, though.”
“He’s not a caring man, my eldest. Sometimes I wonder if that is because I didn’t love his mother. Do you think a boy of one or two can tell such things?”
Richard shook his head. “I’ve no idea. I always knew that you loved my mother, though.”
The Earl’s gaze sought back through time before refocusing on Richard.
“I see no reason to ever tell Thomas. It is not his lineage, his secret or his concern.” The Earl scowled.
“Besides which, you are his brother. You grew up together, and you are legally my son. In the normal course of events, when a child is born six months after a wedding, that child is legally the child of the man who is married to the mother. No one even remarks on it.”
“Except a few snide remarks behind their backs,” Richard said.
“Or, if a child is born to a widow within nine months of her husband’s death, the child is simply a posthumous child, and no one remarks on it,” the Earl continued, ignoring Richard’s remark.
“So legally, I would be whose child?”
“Both? Neither? I don’t know. To be certain, I had documents drawn up at your birth, proclaiming you my son.” The Earl leveled an assessing look on Richard. “You do not intend to tell Thomas, do you?”
“No, but as you said, eventually, secrets always come out.” And when this one did, Richard doubted the Viscount Wilmington would share the Earl’s view. That meant Richard must devise a new plan to assure a respectable livelihood. He could no longer rely on the old one of simply being an Earl’s son.