Chapter 19 #2
He nodded toward the locked door. “Zack was taken by surprise, too. Honestly, I don’t know what to do about him. I wish I could claim him, but that might be worse for him than letting things lie. At least this way the world thinks he’s legitimate.”
“Yes, but if something ever happened and he ended up in line to become the heir, would not the people in authority examine the circumstances of his birth? Could they not uncover the truth fairly easily?”
“You have a point, although let’s hope I sire an heir long before it comes to that.” He glanced at the closed door. “Perhaps I should fetch the keys and unlock the door.”
“You could. But that might shatter his trust in you entirely.”
“True,” he said with a sigh. “Very well. I’ll give him a chance to take it all in.”
“A few hours at most,” she promised him. “He will surely come out when he gets hungry. That boy gets hungry all the time.”
“He does indeed.” He glanced down the hall, torn between camping outside of Zack’s door for those hours and doing what he knew he must. The latter won out. “But in the meantime, I must talk to you about something privately. Let’s go to my study.”
She looked perplexed by that, but she nodded.
He led her there, somehow managing to avoid any of the servants or his two brothers. Once they were inside, he closed the door and began to pace. “I need to find out the truth about Yates.”
Clearly, that wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “What do you mean?”
He gestured to the well-worn marquise chair where he’d spent many an hour being lectured by Father in his youth, but she ignored him, choosing instead to glide about the study.
So, he walked over to sit on it himself. “If Yates knew everything about Zack, then obviously he realized I had behaved badly toward Lily. I have to wonder what Mother told him. Did she paint me the feckless, thoughtless son that I was? Or did she excuse my behavior?”
“Does it matter? Obviously, he decided to fight for custody for reasons of his own, perhaps those financial reasons you mentioned.”
A sigh escaped him. “Actually, none of my investigators or Pitney’s men have found one scintilla of evidence that he is stealing from the boys’ properties. Not in all this time. And neither have I.”
“Perhaps he hid it well.”
“Perhaps.” He grimaced. “Or perhaps I’ve misjudged him as badly as he misjudged me.
Mother entrusted him with the knowledge of Zack’s true parentage.
So, even though she called him Frigid Freddy, she also involved him in Zack’s and Lily’s care.
That speaks to her having a great deal of trust in him indeed. ”
“I suppose it does.” She was watching him with her arms wrapped about her waist, clearly waiting for him to explain further.
“And when you so skillfully questioned the boys about how he treated them, you uncovered no evidence of dishonesty or neglect, either. Just the image of a bachelor of some years who had tried to do his best by them.”
“It did seem that way,” she said cautiously.
“Even now, Pitney is working hard to find proof of his wrongdoing.” He shook his head.
“That’s not right if Yates isn’t actually in the wrong.
What skeletons might he have in his closet that Pitney will unveil, perhaps skeletons that have naught to do with why he wants custody?
What if all this time he’s simply been doing what my parents told him to do because they had no faith in me? ”
“It is possible, I suppose.”
“I have to know the truth, Giselle. If he has been looting the boys’ inheritance, then I’ll fight him tooth and nail. But if he hasn’t—”
“You would give up custody?”
“No! Yes. I don’t know. I’ll cross that bridge after I talk to him.
” He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs.
“But I have to know why he’s fighting me.
Because there’s one other dangerous possibility that could harm more people than just me.
What if Pitney cornering Yates pushes my cousin into revealing the truth about Zack to the court or the press? I can’t let that happen to the lad.”
“Or to Lily, for that matter,” Giselle pointed out.
He lifted an eyebrow. “I’m shocked you care what happens to Lily, given that the woman insulted you more than once.”
“I merely understand what it is like to feel trapped, to seek an escape from the plans your family made for you. In that respect, I sympathize with her.” She sighed. “Even if she was too stupid to see how lucky she was to have your love.”
“I don’t know how lucky she was,” Heathbrook said ruefully.
“She ended up having a child she had to pass off as some other woman’s.
I misjudged her completely. As you said, she was trapped and did the only thing a woman of her station could do who found herself with child and without a husband to claim the babe. She let my mother lead her.”
“True,” Giselle said, though she looked momentarily discomfited by his answer.
“Not that it changes anything,” he said hastily. “It doesn’t change my feelings for you in the least. But it does lessen my anger toward her. Given the circumstances, she did the only thing she could, I suppose. And perhaps Yates did as well. But I can’t know until I talk to him.”
“So, why are you telling me all this?”
He dug his fingers into his knees. “Because I need to ask you for a favor. A rather big one.”
“Oh?” she said warily.
“I’m going to London. And if I leave tonight, I can be there by midday tomorrow. Yates is still in the city, trying to gain custody through legal means, so it’s better if I catch him there. Otherwise, I’ll have to go all the way to Broadstairs.”
“Then what is the favor?”
“I’d like you to look after the boys while I’m gone.
” When she blinked at him, he added hastily, “You needn’t worry about Jones—I’ll have men posted at every corner of the estate.
That’s assuming he even knows where the estate is, which he doesn’t seem to, since he hasn’t tried to reach you out here. ”
She marched up to him, her eyes ablaze. “I am not worried about Jones. I am worried about the boys. Zack needs you here right now. What if he tells Evan and Kit the truth? What if . . . what if I am not good at looking after them?”
Uttering a self-deprecating laugh, he pulled her down onto his lap.
“Thus far, you have been better at looking after them than I have been. Zack adores you, Kit fought Jones for you, and even Evan has softened toward you to an astonishing degree. I’m much more worried I’ll come home to find them ready to toss me out rather than risk me harming a hair on your head. ”
“That is very sweet of you to say.” She shook her head. “But what about Maman? Is she allowed to know about Zack? And I cannot let her go into Bath alone, so—”
“I’ll be back long before she needs her next trip into Bath. No more than two days.”
“You cannot be sure of that,” she murmured, clearly worried. “Anything might happen.”
“I’m asking only for what I know you can handle,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand. “Because so far you’ve proven you can handle quite a lot.”
She pressed a kiss into his palm. “We could all go with you.”
“No,” he said firmly. “The boys have been uprooted too much as it is. Besides, I like the idea of coming home to you, knowing you will be here waiting.” If she was in London, she could choose not to come back, after all.
“It gives me the strength to face whatever I must with Yates. So, will you do it? Take care of the boys while I’m gone? ”
That enigmatic smile of hers crossed her lips. “Whatever you wish, Lord Heathbrook.”
“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it,” he growled, and looped his arm about her waist to hold her fast. “Because at the moment I wish only one thing—not to spend time discussing this when I can be making love to you instead. Now. Here.”
“In your study?” she protested.
“Right here on this marquise.”
She eyed him skeptically. “That will not work.”
“Trust me, it will.” He dragged her skirts up and slipped his hand between her legs to find her already wet for him, which immediately roused his cock. “What’s more, you want me to do it, too.”
Coloring fetchingly, she murmured, “The chair will break.”
“Good. I hate this ostentatious chair.” He nuzzled her neck, then tugged at her earlobe with his teeth. “It’s ugly and old-fashioned and very much in my father’s taste. If we break it, I’ll buy one more to our liking.”
“Our?” She eyed him askance. “I have not yet said I will marry you.”
“Then allow me to convince you.” In his eagerness, he took her mouth too roughly, but she rose to the kiss like a gazelle to the sky. And when he leaned her back in his arms, she threw hers about his neck and kissed him so thoroughly that he went hard as stone beneath her bottom.
Giselle was everything warm and sweet and endearing, with a little bit of tart at her center. He loved that about her. He had to have her in his life, no matter what.
He kissed his way down to her bosom, so beautifully lifted for his pleasure, then worked at her gown and undergarments so he could expose one breast for his mouth.
“What if one of the boys comes in?” she whispered, then let out an inarticulate sound of pleasure as he sucked hard on her nipple.
“Then they’ll learn to knock, won’t they?” he murmured against her breast. “But I don’t think they will stumble upon us. They don’t know we’re here.”
“Of . . . course.” When he slid his hand up beneath her skirts to thumb her pearl, she arched up against his hand with a gasp. “I . . . no longer . . . care . . . who finds us.”
He chuckled. “Nor I.”
She shifted atop him, which only further aroused him.
“God, mon petit chou, I cannot take my time with you tonight. I want you too badly.” He slid her off his lap and onto the wide marquise seat just long enough to unbutton his trousers and drawers so he could shove them down to his knees.
Then he pulled her back on top of him, but with her legs straddling him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.