The Duchess Hunt (21 page)

“Sorry for disturbing you like this. I
know you just arrived home and haven’t had time to settle,” Simon began. Sam
had sent him a note yesterday afternoon, saying he was in Town for a few days
before heading north again. He’d also mentioned that he’d encountered only
blank stares and non-answers for his part in the search for their mother and
had made no progress. “But there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Sam gazed at him, very still in his chair.
“Mother?”

“No.” Simon blew out a frustrated breath.
“We’ve found nothing since the recovery of Binnie.”

They both sat in silence for a moment.

“Luke has gone off to search on his own,”
Simon finally said. “He might have discovered something, but he’s angry with me
at the moment, so I’m not entirely sure he’d let me know.”

Sam shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on
Luke. He’s likely to get distracted by the first thing in skirts that crosses
his path.”

“Perhaps. Though I’m not so certain in
this case. He’s taken our mother’s disappearance hard.”

Sam’s brows rose. “Can it be that our
younger brother has finally decided to become responsible?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” Maybe he
was taking small steps, though. Then again, Simon remembered how the coachman had
found Luke curled on the ground outside Trent House and doubted it. He sighed.
“For my part, I feel as though I’ve run out of options. I’ve hired a man to
continue to investigate, and he has turned up empty-handed as well.”

“She couldn’t have simply disappeared off
the face of the earth.”

“She’s got to be somewhere,” Simon agreed.
“But this isn’t why I’m here. I came to see you about another matter. I need
your advice.”

“Of course.”

And here it was. He braced himself to tell
his brother what had transpired between himself and Stanley and took a deep
breath before saying, “I’m being bullied into marriage.”

Sam raised a dark brow. “Not like you to
allow yourself to be bullied, Trent. Who is it?”

“Our neighbor, Baron Stanley.”

“Ah.” Sam’s lips tightened. “Never liked
the man.”

“Neither did I. Nor did our parents.” Now
he knew why. Geographically, the Stanleys had owned the closest house to
Ironwood Park, yet they had never engaged in neighborly friendship with the
Hawkinses.

“Right,” Sam said. His gaze narrowed on
Simon. “Who is he attempting to shackle you to?”

“His daughter.”

“Don’t believe I’ve ever met the girl.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. They keep her
sheltered.” He gave his brother a bleak look. “They’ve been grooming her to be
a duchess.”

Sam leaned slightly forward, his eyes dark
brown slits. “Why? What does Stanley have on you that he could possibly think
would force your hand?”

Simon rubbed his temple against a sudden
headache. “He is holding a family secret over my head. Says if I do not marry his
daughter, he will expose it to the world.”

“A family secret? I thought the well of
our secrets had finally run dry. Our mother and your father’s exploits have
been bandied about publicly for years.”

“Not this one.” Simon met Sam’s eyes.
“This is one even you and I didn’t know about.”

Sam sensed the direness of the situation –
maybe from Simon’s tone or from his expression. He braced himself, his palms
against the edge of the desk. “What is it?”

There was no choice but to lay it all out,
plain and in the open for Sam to see. “He told me that our brothers are all
illegitimate. That Luke is his son by our mother. And that Theo and Mark are
the product of my father’s relationship with a woman named Fiona Atwood. He
claims to possess proof. And he claims Esme is illegitimate, too, although he
admits to having no proof of that.”

Sam stared at him, very still. A long
moment of silence passed. Then he said, “That’s ridiculous.”

“Right. I thought so, too. But he told me
exactly how it happened, in detail that wasn’t easy to hear. He offered to show
me the papers he signed promising to never acknowledge Luke as his. And he said
he’d direct me to Fiona Atwood so I could question her myself.”

“Papers can be forged,” Sam said. “Women
can be paid to lie.”

“I know.” Simon felt like he was choking
out the words as he told Sam the one thing that had had his blood running cold
since Stanley had left his drawing room. “But he looks like him, Sam. Luke
looks like Stanley. His face. His eyes…” His voice faded.

Again, he felt sick, like something dark
and poisonous was twisting around his innards.

Sam grimaced. “Do you believe him?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice raw with the
pain of admitting it aloud. “Yes, I do.”

Sam blew out a long, slow breath between
his teeth. “All right,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do?”

“That’s where I need your help.”

“First of all, what are your feelings
about marriage? About the lady?”

“I’d planned to find a suitable bride this
year.” Sam already knew that, because Simon had told him in one of their
conversations just after the new year. “But even if I hadn’t…” He hesitated,
then began again. “Georgina Stanley isn’t who I would have chosen.”

Sam was too sharp to not pick up on
Simon’s small blunder. “So you’d already chosen another lady?”

“No,” Simon said quickly. Then he
hesitated, because that wasn’t entirely true. He pushed a hand through his
hair. Burton would blow out one of his long-suffering sighs when he saw Simon’s
hair later, but the valet would survive. “Perhaps. Not to marry, but…”

“I see,” Sam said, but Simon was quite
sure that he didn’t. Simon didn’t even completely understand how his feelings
for Sarah had overlapped with his hunt for a duchess.

“We’ll get back to that,” Sam said. “So,
you wouldn’t have chosen Georgina Stanley. Why not?”

“She’s a beautiful girl. Very proper. I’d
thought before that she would make a perfect duchess – just not one for me.
There’s something about her that doesn’t
fit
with me. I can dance with her. I can
converse with her. Indeed, I can spend a pleasant evening with her. But marry
her? No.”

“That’s understandable. Some people are
compatible in every way but the ultimate finality of marriage.”

Simon thought of Sarah. Of how he’d never
been able to strip off the shell of Trent so completely with anyone else.

“I wouldn’t say I’m compatible with Miss
Stanley. It’s just… well, she’s agreeable. But no more.”

“And you have no wish to marry her.”

“None at all.”

Sam’s gaze sharpened. “So then, what are
you willing to sacrifice for our brothers and sister, Trent? How far will you
go to save their names and their reputations?”

Simon met his brother’s gaze evenly. “You
know me,” he said quietly. “You know how far I will go.”

He’d spent his life protecting himself,
protecting his siblings, and protecting his family name from those who would
slander them. Where his parents had built themselves a house of cards and then
proceeded to blow it down in hurricane fashion before burning the pieces with a
flourish, from the moment he’d attained the title at the age of ten, he had
built it back up slowly, fortifying the foundation and each wall with solemn
maturity and propriety.

“Yes, I do know how far you’d go,” Sam
said. “But first, you must ensure his proof is solid. Check the legality of
these papers he claims to have. Verify them with your solicitor.”

Something suddenly struck Simon. “Did
Prentiss work for our parents back then?”

“I think so.”

“Well, there it is.” Simon sank deeper
into his chair. Prentiss had been a trusted member of Simon’s staff ever since
he’d become the Duke of Trent, and before that, the man had been employed by
his father. “Prentiss supposedly signed that document. He wouldn’t lie to me
now, so I can bring the alleged proof to him, and he can confirm once and for
all whether it is a forgery.”

“And the woman? Fiona Atwood?”

“I’ll meet her,” Simon said, though his
throat seemed to tighten as he spoke.

“I’ll go with you, if that would help.”

“Yes.” Simon lowered his head, trying to
draw air. The dark, sick thing inside him tightened around his lungs, and his
breath came in short puffs. “Is it so bad, Sam? Being labeled a bastard?”

There was a long silence before Sam spoke.

“Simon.” Sam hadn’t called him Simon in
years, and that word coming from his brother’s lips made the dark thing
residing within him coil tighter. “I’m not sure Luke has the strength to bear
the stigma of it. This news could be the thing that will ultimately destroy
him.”

“I know.”

“He is our brother.”

“Yes.”

“And Mark and Theo… That label will snatch
their futures from before their very eyes.”

Simon nodded, but he still didn’t meet his
older brother’s gaze. He was going to confirm Stanley’s statements – and the
sick feeling entwined in his gut gave him a dark assurance that everything
Stanley had said was true – and then he was going to propose marriage to
Georgina Stanley.

And he was going to break Sarah Osborne’s
heart in the process.

And his own.

“You’ve done it,” he choked out, a
drowning man reaching, searching for that floating debris that would keep him
alive. “You’ve surpassed all expectation. You’re a success.”

Sam shook his head slowly. “At too much
cost,” he said. “Too much. And what do I have to show for it?” He gestured at
his shabby office. “Really, it’s not much.”

And Simon realized it wasn’t. Sam had been
gifted with moments of happiness and of fulfillment, he knew, but they had all
been stolen away for one reason or another. And what did he have now? A small
apartment in Town and one dangerous secret assignment after another for the
Crown. No one to come home to. Few friends outside his family.

“And then there’s Esme,” Sam said quietly.
“We both know her, her difficulties, her reputation, which is only kept
sterling due to your influence. But even your influence couldn’t protect her
from this. Our sister will be ostracized if even the lightest whisper of ‘Esme
Hawkins is a by-blow’ was unleashed into the air. You can’t let it happen.”

Simon raised his bleak gaze to his
brother. “I know.”

“You do. I know you do. If you can think
of a way out of the marriage without Stanley spewing his venom…”

“I can’t.” Simon had thought about it,
wracked his brain, in fact. But Stanley wouldn’t be convinced. His plan had
been in the making for years – probably since his daughter’s birth. A plan that
had taken that long in its execution could not be so easily dismissed.

Sam gave him a faint smile. “At least
she’s not disagreeable.”

It was a feeble attempt to make him feel
better. And it didn’t work.

“Ah. I see how it is. Who is the other
lady, Trent?”

Simon looked away.

“Do I know her?”

He wouldn’t betray Sarah. That simply
wasn’t going to happen.

Sam sighed. “And you’re not a man who will
continue an affair while you’re married to another.”

“That would be our parents,” Simon said
bitterly. “Not me.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a long minute.
Finally, Sam murmured, “Luke I might believe, but Theo and Mark? Mama raised
them like they were her own.”

“I know. What kind of a mother raises her
husband’s mistress’s children as her own flesh and blood?”

Sam hesitated, then shrugged. “Ours.”

“Right.”

No one was quite like their mother. And no
one, not Simon, not his father or any of his siblings, had ever been able to
understand some of the choices she made. She was one of those people who
actively avoided conformity. Some of the kinder gossip about the Duchess of
Trent proclaimed that she was an utterly one-of-a-kind woman, and no one in her
family had ever disagreed with that.

Ultimately, it was within her character for
her to whisk away the sons of her husband’s mistress to raise as her own.
Hadn’t she done a similar thing with Sarah? If something had ever happened to
Sarah’s father, Simon had no doubt that his mother would have officially made
her part of the family.

Simon looked up. “Once I’ve verified the
truth, should I tell them? Theo and Mark? Luke? Esme?”

“If it were you, would you want to know?”

“Yes.” Simon’s answer was instantaneous.

“But you’re not Luke. You’re not Esme.
Theo and Mark…”

Simon’s lips twisted. “Luke wouldn’t
believe it if he heard it from my lips.”

“And if he did?”

He met his brother’s eyes. “He wouldn’t
take it well. But he deserves the truth.”

“I don’t think you should tell him,” Sam
said quietly.