Chapter 10 #3
“You knew my father?” Giovanni stared at Grafton in alarm. Whatever he had been expecting as an answer, it had not been this.
“I did,” Grafton nodded, twisting the signet ring on his finger. “And I know he loved your mother.”
“That can’t be,” Giovanni felt as if his world was spinning out of control. Why would such a prestigious man know about the father of a nobody? “The housekeeper always told me it was a rake who got her with child.”
“That was a lie,” Grafton said vehemently. “She was much beloved. She was married.”
“Married?”
Giovanni leaned back against the bench, his heart pounding.
All this time, he had thought he was a bastard, the discarded, unmentionable remnant of some unhappy union.
The housekeeper had gone so far as to suggest his mother had been taken against her will.
How Giovanni had felt the weight of that burden to have incidentally been the cause of so much suffering for a woman he had never had a chance to meet. Now he was being told differently.
“They said I was a bastard, unwanted,” he said in a hoarse voice. “If she was married, why would they tell me that?”
“It was a secret marriage,” Grafton sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “My friend married her in secret and then, when his father found out, all hell broke loose.”
“Why?” Giovanni wondered why the father of another servant would be so concerned his son had married.
Surely they would have just organized a wedding and settled it like most Italian families did, with the exchange of livestock and a blessing from a priest. Then another possibility occurred to him.
Perhaps his father had not been a servant.
His father might not have even been Italian. Why else would Grafton have known him?
“My father was a gentleman?”
Grafton nodded, smiling sadly. “He had a title.”
An English gentleman. Giovanni swallowed hard, feeling like he was struggling to breathe.
So he was not entirely Italian, as he had always thought.
He was half-English. He struggled with his turbulent thoughts and continued to ask questions, trying to follow the story of his heritage that was unravelling before him.
“And my father’s father was angered by my mother and father’s union? He did not want his son to marry an Italian servant?”
“He did not.” Grafton nodded again. “He was so angry that he… he separated your parents. He sent your father back to England and when your mother died, he told his son you had died also.”
“He didn’t want me. I was tainted.” Giovanni felt hard, angry tears pop up in the corners of his eyes. Even now, years later, the sting of that rejection from his paternal grandfather was deep. “So my father never knew I lived?”
“No,” Grafton shook his head. “Not until many years later. On his deathbed, your grandfather felt moved to confess his actions. That was fifteen years ago. By then you were far away.”
“Not so far,” Giovanni muttered.
“What do you mean?” Grafton frowned.
“He kept me,” Giovanni answered dully, thinking about the grandfather who had not loved him enough to save him but did not hate him enough to leave him to die.
“He kept me at Grafton house in Italy until I was seven and the house closed down. Then the housekeeper took me to a workhouse in Rome.” Giovanni shrugged.
“I escaped. When my father was told of my existence, I was living on the streets there.”
“You were at the house?” Grafton stared at him, blue eyes filling with sudden tears. Giovanni was alarmed. He knew his story was tragic but not enough to move a perfect stranger. He watched as Grafton struggled to collect himself.
“He told me you were at an orphanage in France,” Grafton gasped out, staring at Giovanni desperately. “He told me you were far away and that I would never find you, even if I searched the world. Even in his final moments, he was still lying to me.”
Giovanni couldn’t trust his ears. He stared at this man, Thaddeus Tabiner, the Duke of Grafton, who, in a few moments, had changed his life.
“To you? He told you?” Giovanni asked, stumbling over his words. “Do you mean?—?”
“Yes, Giovanni.” Grafton nodded tremulously. “The friend I spoke of is not quite a friend.”
“Y - you? This can’t be happening—“ Giovanni stared at the man, unable to finish a sentence, feeling like he was unable to breathe until he heard the words out loud. He needed Grafton to confess it, or he would never believe it was true.
“I have moved heaven and earth to find you,” Grafton whispered tenderly. “I have looked all over Europe for fifteen years. I had no idea that he had kept you, and kept you so close for such a large part of that. If I had done…”
Grafton’s fingers curled into fists and Giovanni saw protective rage lighting in his eyes.
“I should have stopped it,” Grafton said quietly. “I should have found you earlier. I am sorry, my son.”
“Son?” The word sounded strangled, but Giovanni knew it had come from his own mouth.
“Yes, dear Giovanni,” Grafton smiled through his tears. “I am your father.”