The Duchess Hunt (30 page)

Sorry, Robert. I am so sorry.
But she knew all the sorrys in the world wouldn’t save her from
Robert’s probing gaze.

She looked away from him and felt the
hardness of his stare for long moments. She gazed down at her hands twisting in
her lap.

Finally, he said in a low voice, “It’s the
duke, isn’t it?”

Every nerve ending in her body jolted as
though each one had been struck with a tiny bolt of lightning.

“What?” she gasped, swiveling her head to
look at him.

“It’s the duke. You fancy yourself in love
with him.”

Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.

“I…” She shook her head vehemently,
gathered her wits, and then stilled and growled out, “I daresay that is none of
your business.”

“And that’s enough of a confirmation for
me,” he said in a gravelly voice. Then, he added, “Sarah, even if you have
engaged in some sort of liaison with the Duke of Trent, you must know nothing
can come of it.”

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t sit here
and discuss her love for Simon with Robert Johnston.

“He would never marry you,” Robert
continued. “He’ll never give you his home. I want to share my life with you,
Sarah. My home. My children.”

She met his eyes, her own stinging with
tears. “You don’t understand, Robert. It’s too late.” It had always been too
late for the two of them. “Too late for any of that.”

Robert understood. She watched as
understanding dawned in his eyes.

“Hell,” he whispered. “You gave him
everything, didn’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Your love. Your body.”

She closed her eyes as his gaze lowered to
where her hands were pressed against her stomach.

“You’re with child, aren’t you? His
child?”

Bending her head, her shoulders slumping
as her body closed in upon itself, Sarah burst into tears.

Chapter
Nineteen

To everyone’s surprise, Luke had arrived
at Ironwood Park sometime between midnight and dawn. When Simon and Sam had
gone down to breakfast, Luke was slouched in the breakfast room drinking coffee
and talking to Theo and Mark. The Stanleys were not yet up, nor was Esme.

Luke seemed sober, but black bags puffed
beneath his eyes, and he was in a dour mood as he reported that his search for
their mother had not resulted in any revelations. Simon had known that from the
investigator he’d hired, so it came as no surprise.

Luke didn’t offer any apology, an excuse,
or even an acknowledgment of the last time he had seen Simon, and for that,
Simon was grateful. He had enough on his shoulders at the moment without being
dragged down by an old encounter with his brother. He was content to start
fresh.

Over poached eggs and coffee, Simon told
his brothers how Sarah had learned that James would be at Bordesley Green
today. Again, Simon wasn’t surprised when all of his brothers insisted upon
going there with him. Half an hour later, they were packed tightly in the
family carriage.

Last night, Simon had decided that he
would take this opportunity away from the presence of the Stanleys to tell his
brothers the secret that had been weighing on him. He was glad they would all
be together in the privacy of the carriage, and he was especially glad for
Luke’s arrival. Having Luke remain the only brother in ignorance seemed wrong.

So as the rattling carriage progressed in
a northerly direction, Simon told his brothers everything. About how Stanley
had come to him and suggested marriage. About how he’d refused, and about how
Stanley had pretended to be regretful about “being forced” to give him this
information.

He told Mark and Theo that they were the
result of an affair between their father and Fiona Atwood, who now dwelt
outside London. Mark and Theo stared at Simon in stunned amazement as he told
them how he and Sam had gone to see the woman and she’d corroborated Stanley’s
story.

Theo swallowed hard. “Does… does she look
like us?”

Simon looked away, sighing. “She is an old
woman now, clearly one who has led a difficult life.”

“There was a near-empty decanter of gin on
her table, and she reeked of the stuff,” Sam added flatly. Their oldest brother
was never one to mince words. “She was jaundiced and generally unhealthy in
appearance.”

Theo cast an alarmed look at Mark, who
still hadn’t moved.

Simon winced. “She doesn’t look like you,
per se, but she does share features with you both.”

Theo stared at him.

“You are still my brothers,” Simon said.
“That will never change.”

“But we…” Theo breathed. “We aren’t… We
aren’t legitimate.” He looked terrified, like the thought of losing the “lord”
in front of his name would be akin to ripping off a limb.

Mark finally spoke. “Mama never treated us
as anything less than her own, Trent. How do you explain that? If we weren’t
hers, she should have shunned us, not spent so many years with us practically
tied to her skirts.”

“Our mother is still our mother. She took you
in and made you her sons. And we must take something away from that.”

Luke snorted. “What’s that?”

“That we are all members of this family.
That we all carry the Hawkins name. That we are brothers, and shall remain so
until the day we die.”

Luke leveled a cold blue gaze on Simon.
“That’s not all of it, is it, Trent?”

Simon slid a glance to Sam, who sat beside
Luke. But this was Simon’s responsibility. He was the head of this family,
which meant it was his duty to tell his family members news that they didn’t
want to hear. News that could devastate them.

“You are illegitimate as well, Luke,” he
said quietly. “I am sorry.”

“Let me guess – I am the son of some other
whore our father yanked out of a London gutter.”

“No,” Sam said.

“You’re not our father’s son at all,”
Simon said. “You’re the offspring of our mother and Lord Stanley.”

The silence was instant and thick, the
only sounds the rattle and groan of the carriage and the clomp of the horses’
hooves as they traveled down the road, the air the brothers shared in the
carriage redolent of shock and dismay. Simon watched Luke take in the
information. His face was stony, impossible to read, but his eyes – so much
like Stanley’s – glimmered ice blue in the dim light.

Finally, Luke licked his lips. When he
spoke, his voice was raw and jagged, like his throat was coated with shards of
glass. “You’d best bloody tell me that you are joking.”

“He’s not joking,” Sam said quietly.

Luke bent his head forward and laughed. It
was the bitterest sound Simon had ever heard. “So first I have one bastard for
a father, and now I have another. And not only that, but I am now officially a
bastard as well.” He looked up. “How validating. I’ll bet you weren’t
surprised, were you?”

“I was deeply surprised,” Simon said
truthfully. “I still am.”

Luke gave another one of those bitter
laughs. Simon glanced up at Sam. “Will you tell them about Esme?”

Sam did, his voice even and low. Their
brothers listened. And then Simon explained Stanley’s plan to extort marriage
from him. Finally, he told them how Sarah had learned about Bertram Stanley.

An hour later, as they walked along the
path that led to the front door of the looming gothic structure, Theo and Mark
still looked pale and shocked – stumbling and weaving in their steps as if
Simon were to tap them on the shoulder, they might tumble over. It would take
time for them to absorb what they’d learned this morning.

As for Luke, he looked angry. But he also
looked bemused. He definitely seemed the least surprised of the three of them.
And as they’d climbed down from the carriage, he’d made a sneering remark about
gaining another idiotic brother today and that he was looking forward to
meeting Bertram Stanley.

A half an hour later, they sat in a
Spartan private receiving room drinking tea. There were no decorations on the
walls and no furniture save the chairs they were seated on and two plain,
square wooden tables. Once the master of the place, a Quaker named Mr. Mills,
had learned Simon’s identity, he’d been more than accommodating. He told him
that James was already here visiting his mother, and he’d send him in
immediately.

A few minutes later, James himself opened
the door and entered the room. When he saw the five brothers gazing at him from
all angles, he stopped short, his mouth falling open.

“Close the door, James,” Simon said
quietly.

James turned, fumbled with shaking hands
to close the door, then he turned back to face them. “Y-your Grace. I… er… I
didn’t expect to… see you here.”

“I imagine not,” Luke said dryly.

“We have some questions for you,” Simon
said.

James glanced furtively from one brother
to the next. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Just bloody tell us where our mother is,
if you please.”

Simon cast a surprised look at Mark. He
was always the most lighthearted of the brothers, and Simon couldn’t remember
ever hearing him swear. But right now, he stood tall and squared his shoulders,
and his expression was black.

She wasn’t even his mother. Not really.

But she was his mother in spirit. Always
had been. And while Mark must be angry with her for a lifetime of lies, Simon
knew he still loved her.

“Er.” James swallowed again. “I… uh… don’t
know.”

“You disappeared the same night she did,”
Simon said. “You never came to us to give us any information regarding her
whereabouts. Indeed, you remained hidden despite the fact that we’ve been
searching for you for almost four months.”

“Perhaps you murdered her,” Luke said, his
voice as sly and wicked as a snake’s. “Perhaps it was you who stole her jewels,
and then you killed Binnie as well. That’s a rather fine coat you’re wearing
today, James.”

“No!” James gulped in a breath. “She paid
me…”

Sam had been standing in the corner, but
now he stepped forward.

“Stop this nonsense,” he told them all.
His gaze narrowed in on James. “Tell us everything. From the night the three of
you disappeared. Spare no detail. We need to know why you left Ironwood Park,
what happened, and where the duchess is now.”

James shook his head. “I might not be able
to —”

Sam raised his hand, cutting the man off.
He gestured to a chair that faced the brothers. “Sit there. Start at the
beginning, if you please. The night you left Ironwood Park.”

“Very well.” James wrung his hands as he
lowered himself into the chair. “Er, well…” He looked at each of them, then
down again. He cleared his throat. “Well, her Grace was preparing for bed that
night, and a stranger arrived at the dower house. I wasn’t sure if he was a
gentleman, or someone pretending to be one. He was quite intent upon speaking
to Her Grace. She agreed to see him in the upstairs drawing room.”

“What was his name?”

“He introduced himself as Mr. Morton,”
James said. “Roger Morton.” He took a breath. “After a while, they began to
argue. The duchess grew very angry. Binnie and I went to see what was the
matter, but she commanded us to go. We didn’t know what to do. When she finally
returned downstairs, she told us we were leaving; we were all going on a long
journey. Binnie and I packed quickly, and we left at around two o’clock in the
morning.

“We traveled through the night and the
next day, heading west, into Wales. Her Grace and Mr. Morton hardly spoke.
Neither Binnie nor I understood what was happening; why we were leaving
Ironwood Park. Truly…” He gave Simon a frightened look. “Her Grace seemed
resigned and worried, but she also seemed to be in control. She would order Mr.
Morton about, and he would obey. I didn’t understand it.

“We came to Cardiff, where the duchess
secured lodgings in a house. We remained there for almost a month – the duchess
never venturing outdoors – and then, one night, Her Grace brought us into her
room. She handed a bag of jewels as payment to Binnie and another to me, and
she said we must leave that very evening. That we must go to London and sell
the jewels, but we must never return to Ironwood Park or show our faces to any
of her family. She made us promise to never reveal ourselves to anyone
associated with the Hawkinses.”

“Good Lord,” Simon muttered.

“We obeyed her, Your Grace. She was our
mistress, our employer, and she’d compensated us well. We traveled to London,
but…” He looked down at his lap. “In the stagecoach, Binnie was showing off the
jewels Her Grace had given her. Said she was going to sell them in London and
she was going to be a fine, rich lady. Just outside London, we stopped at a
coaching inn for the night. The next morning, she was gone.”

He stopped talking, rubbing his hands up
and down over his thighs, sweat gleaming on his brow.

“What did you do?” Sam asked.

“I looked for Binnie that morning, but I
couldn’t find her. I figured after all that showing off, something bad had
happened, and I feared that whoever’d got Binnie was after me, too. I was too
afraid to continue on to London, so I turned around and went to Birmingham. I
sold the jewels there.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door. “I knew I
could not return to Ironwood Park, but I wanted to remain close to my mother,”
he said awkwardly.

Simon leaned back in his chair and
steepled his hands in front of his chin. “Where is the duchess now?”

“Cardiff? I’m not sure. Binnie and I left
her there. She and Morton – well, I had the feeling they were waiting for
someone, or perhaps something to happen. But I didn’t know who or what – Binnie
and I just performed our duties, and they never shared that kind of information
with us.”

“So you left her with this man, Morton,”
Luke said dangerously. “With no help or protection?”

James cast a nervous glance in Luke’s
direction. “She ordered us to go,” he said in a voice not much louder than a
whisper.