Chapter 2
Sebastian stilled, his very breath suspended. Then a chill struck clean through his chest like a poison-tipped dagger. “I beg your pardon. What did you say?”
Silence tightened the room as the girls stared at him, rigid with fright.
The only sounds were the soft tick of the mantel clock and the whisper of rain against the windows.
Then he noted their gazes. Two of the girls had eyes a deep, arresting blue, his very shade, and the small cleft in the youngest girl’s chin echoed his father’s.
Shock hammered through him. He took one step forward and halted. Across from him, Miss Whitley rose, her fingers twining so tightly her knuckles blanched.
“Your father—” she began.
“No.” The denial cut across her words like a heated blade. Anger and disbelief surged through him, swift and scalding. “My father would never have betrayed my mother, or our family, in such a fashion. Certainly not for years, Miss Whitley.”
Sympathy and something he could not name gleamed in her gaze. “He did, my lord. I am afraid it is true.”
A rough laugh escaped Sebastian. He had never taken a married woman to his bed, nor would he take as a mistress or lover any woman bound to another man by marriage, betrothal, or attachment.
He had learned those honorable guidance and principles at his father’s knee, and now this woman would have him believe these girls were his father’s illegitimate issue.
Had the honor his father preached been a falsehood?
“How old are you?” His voice dropped low. “And your sisters?”
“I am three-and-twenty,” Miss Whitley said, scarcely above a whisper. “Emelia is sixteen, Jane is thirteen, and Sarah is eleven.”
His breath came sharp and painful. Three-and-twenty, and the youngest only eleven. This was not evidence of a single lapse; it was evidence of another life. Was his father a bigamist, or was their mother a kept mistress?
Four illegitimate children.
Sebastian’s stomach turned. Thank God, his mother and younger sister had been settled in Bath for the past fortnight.
Even a whisper of this would devastate his mother and shatter his sister.) Many men of fortune and rank kept mistresses; yet his parents, by every account, had loved one another deeply, respected one another’s sensibilities, and guarded their vows.
To think otherwise set his teeth on edge.
A hollowness opened beneath Sebastian’s ribs.
Had he known his father at all, the man he had admired above all others, whose counsel he still carried into the Lords whenever he rose to speak on relief, trade, and the duties of a nobleman toward those in his care?
The voice he had tried to emulate in committee rooms and in the chamber might be the voice of a hypocrite.
The thought struck like cold iron, and he gripped the edge of his desk to steady himself.
“My lord—”
“I have heard enough, Miss Whitley. You will break your fast in the morning and then quit my house.”
Her face drained of color. The youngest flinched at his tone, and the middle two pressed closer as if seeking shelter from their eldest sister.
“Please, my lord, allow me to explain all that I know of this matter. Perhaps then, you—”
“I have no wish to hear another word,” Sebastian said. He would not allow anything to harm his mother and sister. “Press me further, and you will leave tonight.”
Tears sprang into Miss Whitley’s golden-brown eyes; her lips trembled, and she whispered, “Please.”
The single syllable carried enough fear and desperation to echo in the spaces between them.
Sebastian’s jaw flexed. He could not endure the sight of those girls shrinking into themselves, nor could he stomach turning them out into the street at this hour in such weather.
Yet he could not allow one breath of scandal to touch his mother, his sister, or his family’s legacy.
“We have nowhere to go,” Miss Whitley said quietly. “That is why I risked the journey to London with my sisters. Your father… he is our father, too. He cared for us as best he could, and then he died, and Mama… Mama could not endure—”
“Enough,” he snapped. “I will not hear another word of this blasted tale!”
She flinched. The youngest gave a soft, wounded sob. Miss Whitley glanced at the girls and gathered them closer with trembling hands.
“Our mother died two years after your father,” she managed, as if steadied by will alone. “As the eldest, I did my best to care for my sisters. I had no choice but to seek you out for help, my lord.”
“For what, precisely?” His tone cut like ice.
“Did you imagine I would throw wide my doors to strangers and call them kin? That I would welcome into my home those hidden from me all my life like some foul, shameful secret? For all I know, you are a resourceful impostor seeking to fasten a claim upon my family.”
A single tear traced her cheek. “I am sorry,” she said hoarsely. “I was as shocked to learn of your existence as you are by ours. I did not know that the connection between our parents was not… respectable. We are alone, without family or funds, and I did not know what to do.”
So the connection had not been respectable; her mother had been his father’s mistress.
Sebastian curled his hands into tight fists to resist the urge to slam them into the wall.
How could his father have conducted himself in a manner that allowed this woman to believe her parents had been properly wed?
That suggested family dinners and celebrations.
That implied his father had been a constant presence in their lives.
How in God’s name had his father maintained a second family for so many years without his own son suspecting?
The longer Sebastian considered it, the more suspicion rose alongside his disbelief.
They had to be charlatans; it was the only explanation he could bear.
“You claim a connection to my father. If there is any truth in what you have said, you will provide names, dates, every particular, and whatever proof you possess.”
“I have some measure of proof,” she said quickly.
“Some measure?” A harsh sound escaped him. “Do you take me for a fool, Miss Whitley? Nothing short of certainty will do.”
Miss Whitley reached into her pocket with a trembling hand and drew out several envelopes, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a frayed ribbon.
She crossed the room toward him. The ribbon rasped softly as she offered the bundle.
His temper surged anew at the treacherous memory of the awareness stirred by the tilt of her mouth and the lush curves of her figure.
Bloody hell! If this were true, he had stood in that bedchamber and desired his own damned sister.
He ruthlessly thrust the memory aside and accepted the packet.
The paper lay cool against his palm, faintly scented of dust and lavender.
Sebastian drew a long breath and banked the fury burning in his chest.
“I will allow you to stay the night.”
Visible relief swept through them. “Thank you, my lord,” Miss Whitley said. “We—”
“You will not call yourselves my sisters in this house,” he said quietly.
The youngest’s eyes filled with tears. He looked away before the resemblance could work upon him further, then fixed the eldest with a hard gaze.
“You will speak to no one outside this room of the purpose of your visit. If a whisper of this tale reaches the servants’ hall, society, or, above all, my mother, I will know where it began, and I will not hesitate to crush you. Do you understand me?”
Miss Whitley nodded, tears held fiercely at bay, but her mouth trembled when she replied, “Yes, my lord. We will not speak of this to anyone. You have my word.”
He rang for Gerald. When the butler appeared, carefully impassive, Sebastian said, “There shall be no discussion among the servants concerning my guests. No one is to speak of their arrival or speculate upon it. You will ensure that Miss Whitley’s claim of kinship goes no farther than this room. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” Gerald said, and bowed.
“And Gerald,” he added, still watching her, “have Peabody attend me first thing in the morning.”
“Very good, my lord.” Gerald withdrew.
Sebastian held her gaze. “Tomorrow at ten, you will come to my study and give me a complete account of your lives. You will answer every question I put to you. If I determine your tale is false, you will depart my house at once. If it proves true…” He stopped, his throat tightening around words he could not yet shape.
“Then we shall speak of what is to be done.”
Miss Whitley inclined her head. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Do not thank me,” he said with bare civility. “Thank the rain.”
She nodded and ushered her sisters away.
The youngest cast him a last, searching glance.
In profile, the cleft at her chin looked more pronounced; his heart gave a betrayed thud.
When the door closed behind them, the room felt too large and too quiet.
He stood a long moment, the rain whispering at the panes, the clock marking out seconds.
Sebastian went to his private study, set his shoes by the hearth, and flung his jacket across a chair. His cravat hung loose at his throat. Rain brushed against the tall windowpanes, and the fire burned low and steady, casting a dull glow across the grate. Leather and old paper scented the room.
All the letters bore his father’s seal. The wax had long since been broken, yet the signet’s impression remained clear.
The hand was unmistakable, the same measured strokes he had seen in ledgers and a hundred notes.
Sebastian chose one of the later letters.
The paper had softened at the folds, the edges furred where fingers had worried them, as if the message had been read until it learned the reader’s touch.
His throat burned as he read.
My dearest Mary,
The weather has played the tyrant with the post, and only this morning did your letter reach my hands.
I wish I could be with my family this Christmas Day to see our girls around the hearth.
I miss Emelia’s sensible smile, Jane’s quick curiosity, and dear Darcy, whose care so sweetly steadies the younger two.
Pray tell me the parcels pleased them. I long to picture their faces when the ribbons were untied, and each treasure made its appearance.
I fancied Jane would lay immediate claim to the pencils, while Emelia would divide the comfits with judicial fairness and then scold Darcy for pretending she wanted none.
You chide me unjustly when you suppose I am disappointed for want of a son.
I am perfectly satisfied, more than satisfied, to be blessed with daughters only.
God be praised, our newest little one has come safely into the world.
If it pleases you, grant me the honor of calling her Sarah, for her grandmother.
The name has long lived in my thoughts, and I should count it a privilege to bestow it upon our child.
I am grieved beyond measure to have been absent during your confinement.
Forgive me for not being by your side. I miss you more than is seemly to confess, and I loathe that business keeps me so long from our little household.
The cares of town and the duties of the earldom are obligations only; my true comfort is with you in the quiet of the country, where the evenings fall gently, and the girls’ laughter makes a music no London concert can rival.
Take care of your strength. Sit by the fire when the wind rises, take broth, and let the nurse carry Sarah to you only when you are rested.
Send to me at once for anything you lack.
I will contrive it, however tiresome the town may prove.
Kiss each girl for me and tell them their papa thinks of them every hour and keep them in his prayers.
Ever your devoted,
James
Sebastian read the lines again and again.
I wish I could be with my family on this Christmas Day.
I miss you more than is seemly to confess, and I loathe that business keeps me so long from our little household.
The words struck like ice. In his father’s sentences, London and the earldom, his mother, his sister, and Sebastian himself were reduced to business, while the hidden household in the country was the true and cherished family.
Cold bitterness spread in Sebastian’s chest until even the fire in the room offered no warmth.
He set the letter upon the desk with care, as if gentleness might undo what he had learned.
Why did this knowledge sit upon his chest like grief?
The rain kept up its soft assault upon the glass; the longcase clock ticked with maddening civility.
Sebastian pushed from the desk and strode into the hall, taking the curve of the staircase two at a time.
He was a fool for having allowed them even a night.
He owed them nothing. He did not know them, and he did not wish to.
Servants gossiped; London lived upon whispers and scandal; a single careless word could find its way into a scandal sheet by morning and ride the first post to Bath.
His mother’s heart had broken once already when his father died, and she had not yet recovered.
He would not permit anything that might break it again.
How had his father contrived such a life?
The man whose steadiness he had sought to imitate in every vote and speech had written of another hearth as home.
Had duty been no more than a mask worn with perfect ease?
Had affection been so divisible? The questions pressed until Sebastian’s chest ached.
He reached the eldest girl’s door and opened it without knocking, careless of courtesy.
Sebastian halted halfway to the bed. All four lay asleep together, curled about the eldest as if she were the tree that kept them rooted and safe.
He stood for a long moment, then turned away, unable to comprehend the impulse that had driven him up the stairs.
It felt as if he needed to fight and rail, to give voice to his fury in a manner wholly unbefitting an earl.
With a harsh breath, he left the chamber and walked to the east wing.
In his own chamber, he crossed to the bed and let himself fall upon it.
Sleep kept its distance for a long while before, at last, darkness closed over him.