Chapter 22 #2
There were details of his life he hadn’t yet shared with her, repugnant details.
He hadn’t been keeping them a secret by not telling her, but, now, he felt if he didn’t, he would be.
And while he was shaky on what was transpiring between him and this woman, he didn’t want secrets threatening their connection.
“You know that until a month ago,” he began, “I was the bastard of an aristocrat.”
A sympathetic smile shone in her eyes. “I and all of London.”
He nodded. “But what you might not know is that I was raised in his household.”
Her brow furrowed. “Oh?”
“My mam was his cook. The countess was his wife. And Gemma and I were his bastard children. Bolton’s life was ordered just as he wanted it.”
“I don’t understand how that…worked.”
An abbreviated version of events was all that would be necessary.
“Bolton married my mam in Ireland, promptly thought better of it, returned to England, married the countess, then tried to beget heirs and couldn’t.
So, he fetched his first wife from Ireland, immediately got her with child, and she bore him twins. ”
“And the countess?”
“She accepted the arrangement.”
“Did she know about the first marriage?”
“Not until after his death.”
“That must’ve been devastating.”
“Oh, she’s devastated.”
“What a strange upbringing that must’ve been.”
“I can see it now.” He shook his head. “But at the time, it just felt like life, if you take my meaning.”
She gave a slow nod, her mind clearly working. “Children don’t have any other point of reference.”
He’d known she would understand. “Aye. Bolton brought in tutors and had Gemma and me educated, I’ll give him that.
But I won’t give him much more. He controlled all of us.
Made us feel our lives weren’t our own, but only extensions of his.
Gemma would call us the shadow children.
The children who weren’t supposed to be.
The countess acted like we didn’t exist.”
“That’s abhorrent.” Outrage and revulsion flashed within Saskia’s eyes. “You were blameless children.”
“After Mam passed, Gemma and I escaped.”
“Escaped?”
“Bolton never got out of the habit of viewing us as his. Such is the corrupting nature of total power. No living being should exercise complete domination over another living being.” There was the entirety of Liam’s beliefs about life in short and plain.
“What’s clear now is that Bolton was hedging his bets.
His marriage to Mam was legitimate, and so were Gemma and I, but if the countess had borne a son, he would’ve taken the Irish marriage certificate out of his private safe and burned it, destroying my legitimacy along with it. ”
“But the countess didn’t provide an heir.”
“And now I’m Bolton.”
Would the wonder he felt at that strange outcome never cease to sound in his voice when he spoke it aloud?
“And the countess?” Saskia’s eyes made it clear she wasn’t nearly finished asking questions. “How does she fit into everything now?”
“I asked her where she wanted to live out the rest of her days. She said she’d always preferred Bolton’s house near Dover.”
That got a lift of Saskia’s eyebrows. “After the way she treated you all your life?”
“She thought I would turf her out on her arse. That’s how highly she thought of me.”
“So, you proved her wrong.”
“Aye.”
“Good.”
“The Dover house was unentailed, so I was free to give it to her, along with the dowry she brought into the marriage. I don’t like the countess, and I never will, but she, too, suffered in that household. And she continues to suffer. I won’t add to it.”
“No living being under your care will ever suffer, will they?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“See?”
“See what?”
“That’s why you can’t be that other sort of earl?”
“What other sort?”
“The insubstantial sort. Yes, you’re charming and handsome, so society enjoys having you within its ranks.
” Fervor shimmered about her. “But, Liam, all beneath your care will be looked after. You’ve done it for your horses all these years, and now you will be that sort of earl. You’re a man of substance.”
Again, that feeling of closeness…of intimacy…washed through him.
It wasn’t because Saskia was writing his memoir that she knew him.
Or that they’d tupped—twice.
This kinship linked them at the place of the soul.
A complex thought for ten in the morning.
His mouth quirked into a smile, the one that made his eyes sparkle. “Charming and handsome, you say?”
If he wasn’t mistaken, that was a blush pinking her cheeks. She exhaled and shot him an exasperated scowl. “You know this about yourself.”
“One never tires of hearing it, nonetheless.”
A wry shake of the head was her answer.
He could accept a compliment. His charm, looks, affability, and skill with horses had won him plenty over the years. But it was the deeper compliment she’d paid him that struck home now.
It wasn’t merely that this woman saw him.
She saw qualities in him he’d never seen himself.
When the traffic cleared enough for them to cross Piccadilly with the horses, he led them to a cut-through that opened directly onto Rotten Row.
“Here we are,” he said. “Ready for your first riding lesson?”