Chapter 27 #2
Sebastian arrived in London beneath a sky heavy with the remnants of rain, the long journey having done nothing to ease the unease lodged within him.
By the time his carriage halted before his townhouse, he had braced himself for whatever waited inside.
He entered swiftly, surrendered his coat and hat to a footman, and swept the entrance hall with a searching gaze.
“Where is my mother?” he demanded. “Is she well?”
“Her ladyship is well, my lord,” the butler replied, though the gravity in his eyes contradicted the reassurance.
“Where—”
“Sebastian!” Caroline’s voice broke through his question as she hurried down the corridor and threw herself into his arms.
He caught her instinctively, holding her close for a brief moment before drawing back to study her face.
“You have returned,” she said, relief evident in every line of her expression.
“As soon as I got your letter, I departed. Where is Mother?” he pressed. “What has happened?”
“The physician attended her yesterday,” Caroline said, falling into step beside him. “He prescribed rest and insists she must not be agitated. He said she should never have undertaken the journey against Dr. Gallimore’s advice, given the palpitations she suffered in Bath.”
Sebastian frowned slightly at that. “And yet she traveled.”
“She would not be dissuaded,” Caroline admitted.
They turned toward the Rose Room, the most intimate of the sitting rooms. Sebastian was preparing himself for the conversation ahead when movement upon the staircase drew his attention.
His mother descended slowly. She was, as ever, impeccably presented, her gown arranged with care and her bearing still possessing the quiet elegance that had always commanded attention.
Yet her complexion was pallid, and her eyes held a listlessness that unsettled him more than any visible weakness could have done.
“Mother,” he said, stepping forward at once. “Are you well?”
He reached her and drew her into his arms with a firmness that bordered upon urgency.
For a moment, she rested against him, one hand upon his shoulder in a gesture that felt almost fragile.
Only then did he notice the lady descending several steps behind her.
Something about the woman seemed faintly familiar, though he could not place her.
His mother withdrew from his embrace and smiled faintly.
“Sebastian, allow me to present Miss Frances Briar,” she said. “She has been engaged as my companion during my stay in Bath.”
Miss Briar curtsied with quiet grace. “My lord.”
He inclined his head in polite acknowledgment, offering a brief greeting before turning his attention back to his mother.
“Come,” he said, his tone gentler now. “You should not remain standing.”
He guided her toward the Rose Room, his hand steady at her arm, aware of the slight hesitation in her step.
Caroline exchanged a glance with Miss Briar before allowing Sebastian to lead their mother away. Relief softened his sister’s expression. His return had lifted a burden from her shoulders, and the responsibility had passed to him once more, as it always did.
Sebastian settled his mother upon the sofa within the Rose Room, taking a seat opposite her, his gaze intent, searching.
“What has caused this?” he asked quietly. “You do not suffer such distress without reason.”
His mother’s fingers tightened upon her gown. Without warning, her composure fractured. Her breath hitched, and a strangled sound escaped her as tears spilled unchecked down her cheeks.
“How could you?” she cried, her voice thick and shaking. “How could you parade about with that woman’s daughter?”
The words struck him with such force that Sebastian went utterly still.
That woman’s daughter.
The truth settled into him with cold, inexorable clarity. His mother had known of her husband’s betrayal, not as a passing suspicion, but with enough certainty to recognize Darcy Whitley by name.
He saw the depth of that knowledge in the tremor of her hands and the anguish twisting her features. Sebastian moved to her side at once.
“You knew,” he said, his voice rough with disbelief. “You knew of Father’s affair.”
“Affair?” she repeated, her voice rising with sharp, wounded fury. “Do not insult me with that word. That was no mere affair. He had another family.”
The accusation hung heavily between them. Sebastian absorbed it in silence before asking, “When did you discover the truth?”
Her gaze dropped as she drew an unsteady breath. “After his death. I was spared the knowledge while he lived, spared from looking into his eyes and knowing that some part of his devotion belonged to another woman.”
Her voice faltered, and she closed her eyes briefly, as though the memory itself were a wound that had never healed.
“I found the letters,” she continued, her voice quieter but no less charged with pain. “They were hidden in a box within his study. “I read every one, though with each letter, the wound seemed to cut a little deeper.”
A heavy, unrelenting pressure settled upon Sebastian’s chest.
“I learned her name,” his mother said. “Mary Whitley. A widow.” Her lips trembled. “And I learned that she had a daughter.” Her gaze lifted sharply to his. “Darcy Whitley.”
The name landed between them with quiet finality.
“When the scandal sheet appeared, I paid it little heed at first,” she continued.
“Such gossip is constant and frequently without merit. But Miss Briar has correspondents in London who take an unwholesome interest in society gossip. She told me that Lord Raine appeared quite enchanted with a Miss Darcy Whitley.”
Her expression hardened, grief giving way to something far more cutting. “There could be no such coincidence,” she said.
Sebastian did not deny it. Yet the objection came swiftly and fiercely.
His father and Mary Whitley had broken those vows, not Darcy.
She bore no guilt for the circumstances of her birth and deserved none of the blame.
But his mother’s hand trembled against her chest, and this was neither the time nor the moment to challenge her grief with a truth she was not yet prepared to hear.
“Mother—”
“No!” She waved away whatever he had been about to say.
“I knew there could be no coincidence,” she repeated, grief sharpening into anger. “This woman must be her daughter. The daughter of the very woman who destroyed my marriage.”
Her breath caught, and she pressed a hand more firmly to her chest, as though struggling to contain the emotions threatening to overwhelm her.
“She stole my husband,” his mother said, her voice breaking beneath the weight of a hurt she had carried for years. “She took what was mine and made a mockery of the vows he had sworn to me. And now her daughter would dare set her sights upon my son?”
Her mouth tightened, grief hardening into bitter contempt.
“That she has inveigled her way into your life tells me she knows precisely who her mother was to your father. She knows what that woman did to me, to our family, and still she came near you.” Her breath trembled.
“I will not endure the daughter taking my son after the mother took my husband.”