The Scandalous Love of a Duke (16 page)

Even that ridiculously worn bag was an embarrassment to her.

John was nowhere in sight when they entered but Katherine’s heart pounded when she heard Eleanor say to the stiff butler, “Has His Grace returned?”

“Not yet, Ma’am.”

“At this rate he shall not even be here for his own dinner party,” Margaret complained.

“Papa cannot believe he asked us all and then was not here when we arrived,” Eleanor responded. “When I see John I am going to give him a talking to. I swear he avoids us all in town. Harry says he has a reputation as a boor.”

“I do not think him dull…” Margaret responded, taking Katherine’s arm.

Eleanor held the other and they led Katherine towards the stairs.

“…He always strikes me as elemental,” Margaret continued, “but he has that brooding, haunted look, like Grandpapa, he glowers at people in town and scares them all off. George says he tried befriending John in the House of Lords but gave up because John is so standoffish.”

“Precisely, I did not mean boring, I meant
boorish
. Harry says he is always irritable and sharp with people.”

“Mama said we should be patient with him,” Margaret progressed. “And Papa said he was always more silent as a boy because he never had a father to turn to.”

“He had Uncle Edward.”

“Not until he was ten…”

Drawn along between them, Katherine did not know what to make of their conversation. She’d never heard them disparage John before. When they’d been young, they’d idolised him. She knew he’d changed, but it seemed strange to her that he would keep himself distant from a family she’d dream of having. She did not understand him anymore than Eleanor or Margaret seemed to.

But then he’d admitted to her he trusted no one, perhaps he did not want anyone to understand him. It was probably the shield he used to hide himself behind so no one would see the vulnerability she kept sensing. Perhaps she knew him more than she thought she did. Perhaps he had not hidden himself well enough from her.

Katherine was taken to the drawing room first and found it bursting at the seams with John’s family and full of noise.

All his extended family were here. But not John.

After being reintroduced by Eleanor and Margaret who ensured the whole family recognised Katherine and made her welcome, Eleanor then drew Katherine away and insisted she dress in her rooms. “My maid shall do your hair and make you look ravishing tonight in
that
dress, it was such a good idea of John’s to ensure you have something to wear. At least the brute can still show the occasional kindness.”

~

As John entered the hall of Pembroke Place, Finch followed his welcome by announcing the receipt of an urgent letter.

John instantly knew who it was from when a footman passed it to him on a silver tray. He had spent enough hours studying this writing in the last few weeks to recognise Wareham’s hand.

“Has everyone arrived, Finch?”

“They have, Your Grace, your guests are in their rooms, dressing.”

After his mother’s little
tête-à-tête
, John had left the house to his family and gone back to town to avoid them, though he had fulfilled his promise and let Robbie drive the curricle before leaving. That afternoon had been amusing, although it had only stood to prove to John how distant and different he was to his brother.

Robbie laughed frequently, chatted constantly and smiled readily, as John could never remembering doing, but then Robbie had been raised by two loving parents and did not bear the weight of any anticipated title. John’s stepfather was the
second son
of an Earl. Robbie could do what he wished with his life.

Glad his family were out of the way, John went to his rooms to read the letter, anger broiling in his blood as he jogged upstairs and then strode along the grand hall. There was a cold hard knot in his stomach and a sick feeling in his throat as he opened it in the privacy of his sitting room.

It said very little, it was just two lines, but the words struck John like a fist to the jaw.

If you do not wish the world to know of your mother’s shameful past,

you will give me the sum of fifty thousand pounds.

His mother’s shameful past? She had no secrets… But then…
Where was she before I was ten?

John’s hand shook as he swept back his fringe. What did Wareham know that he did not? God, it made him angrier to think Wareham knew her secrets than it did to suffer the threat.

The letter fell from his fingers and spiralled to the floor. But then John realised he would not wish his servants to see it. Instinct bid him destroy it, but that would be foolish, even though it bore no signature it was still evidence. Snatching up the note again, John then secured it in his personal safe, locking away his anger with it. But then he turned and strode out of the room, every muscle in his body tense.

Now was the time to ask the question he had denied himself all these years.

The heels of his boots hit heavily as he strode along the hall, announcing his arrival as he stopped before the door of his parents’ rooms. There was noise within, children’s voices, and Mary’s.

He knocked.

“Come,” his mother called, humour and happiness in her voice.

The sitting room adjoining his parents’ bedchamber was full of his siblings. The girls were excitedly looking over his mother’s and Mary’s evening clothes, while the boys were playing a rough and tumble game with his stepfather.

“John!” It was Robbie’s bright voice which greeted John.

John could remember these hours before a ball. His parents had always spent time with their children before they went out for an evening, so he,
they
, would not feel so excluded by the adult world.

“John?” his stepfather said, his expression changing as he swung David, one of the younger boys, from his shoulders down to the ground. The very youngest must already be in their cots.

“I didn’t know you were home,” his mother stated, rising too.

“I have just returned. May I speak with you privately, Mama?”

“Did you have bad news in town?” Mary asked from across the room. “You look like thunder. In fact you look like Grandpapa.”

John cast his gaze at her and felt cold darkness swamp him, he felt like stone inside, like a statue, unable to live or breath anymore.

“Come on children, out,” his stepfather said. “I’ll walk you back upstairs. Dress in your room, Mary, and Robbie, you must go and get ready too.”

Immediately the exodus began, as his siblings fell silent and were herded from the room by his stepfather.

Carrying her dress over one arm, Mary smiled as she passed, and gently, briefly, gripped his arm. Robbie looked at John more uncertainly but smiled anyway as though he did not know how else to react. However, Harry, John’s third sibling, who’d been born when John was already at Eton, gave his older brother a suspicious, guarded look.

Most of them looked at him like that, especially the girls, and they gave him a wide berth as they left.

When John looked at his mother, a crushing disappointment swept over him. He was in turmoil internally, and he felt revulsion for her. He felt betrayed. What shameful thing had she done that would give his enemy the power of blackmail.

“John? What is wrong?” she said, walking towards him, as she reached to touch his arm. He moved it back.

He did not want her touching him. She had deserted him and now deceived him.

“Sit down,” he stated, without preamble.

She looked hurt but she moved away and occupied one of a pair of chairs before the window, perching on the edge of it, sitting stiffly with her hands clasped together on her lap. Perhaps she hoped he’d sit in the other. He did not. “How can I help, John?”

“You may tell me where you were before I was ten?” His pitch was deep with accusation, his emotion overwhelming, although he knew his face was set like granite. “Where did you live? What did you do?”

Stunned shock froze her expression, and her porcelain skin paled to a sickly grey. “I am not having this conversation,” was her answer as she rose and crossed the room.

Something like a knife-blow thrust into his chest, but he was not going to let her escape this, he had waited long enough to ask, he wanted the answer. “Then it is true,” he growled at her, moving to stand before the door so she could not leave. “You have something to hide! Are you not going to tell me what it is, Mama?”

“John? Do not bully me,” her eyes held his, defiant and horrified as he gripped her arm.

A bitter feeling of dislike bit at John, not of her, but of himself. He loosened his grip and let her go, but he did not want her to leave.

Her fingers rubbed her arm where he’d held it. He’d hurt her.

“I’m sorry,” he forced out. He hated himself. He hated himself for being weak and angry. He hated himself for caring about this –
but I do
. “Just tell me where you were and why you were not here?”

“No, John.” Her eyes shimmered with tears. “You are my son.”

Surely his being her child should be even greater reason to speak. He should have been the most important thing in her life then. She should have been with him.

“Mary is right,” she whispered then. “Every day you grow more and more like your grandfather. Whatever this is about, John, I am sure my past can have no bearing on it. I’ll not talk of it to you.”

“Why would it have no bearing? Why do I not know where you were? Why were you not with me?”

His questions were not about the blackmail note. He hardly cared about it anymore. Why would she not speak? It had never occurred to him in all the years he had questioned why, that, if he did dare show his weakness and ask, she would refuse to speak.

His hand lifted and swept back his hair. “And I am not like
him
.” For a start he was never going to trust anyone again; he was never going to be stung by any man like Wareham. He didn’t bloody need people, he had proved that he could live alone in Egypt, he could do it here. After tonight he would have nothing more to do with her – with any of them.

“You are sounding like him, now.” His stepfather had opened the door behind John without John knowing.

John turned.

“Son, what is this about?”

“I am not your son, and I asked to speak with my mother, alone, not with you.” The words that came out of John’s mouth surprised even John, but he was too lost in anger and pain to care who he hurt. They had hurt him. They had betrayed and deceived him. He did not doubt Edward knew the truth; they told each other everything.

John watched his words sting, and felt glad, and then hated himself still more. His stepfather had never treated him differently to the others, or been unkind –
but he had lied
, and he had helped John’s mother lie. He shared her secrets, secrets which even Wareham knew and John did not – secrets which had fractured John’s life in his youth and made him half a man.

“John,” Edward’s hand lifted, reaching out to reassure, regardless of John’s cutting words.

“I wish to know where she was and what she did before you two were wed, before the night you came to Eton to collect me?” John ground out. “Will you tell me?
She will not
.”

“It is not my story to tell,” Edward stated, before glancing at John’s mother.

She rushed into Edward’s arms then, sobbing.

John stared at them in silence for a moment, feeling the monster he’d become, but then he turned and left, knowing he’d learn nothing from them.

Through the open door he heard his mother sob. “I told you this day would come. How can I tell him, Edward?”

Whatever secret she was keeping, it could not be good.

John felt icy cold and cut in half, and in a couple of hours he had to face a house full of people.
Damnation!
He was not in the mood. He had no allies left. He could not trust his staff, or his family. He had no one but himself. Katherine’s bright eyes came back into his head as he thought of trust.

It was no longer his choice. Too many people had let him down. He’d not try again.

Damn
, he had to face her tonight too, at this bloody foolish dinner party.

He went down late, in no mood to socialise, and set his face with a false, hard, closed-lip smile as he greeted guests.

Katherine did not come over to him and he did not go to her, but he saw her, he had seen her the moment he entered, clothed in the light blue satin he’d chosen for her. Her hair had been curled and beautifully piled, and the cut of the dress showed off her slender neck and pale-skinned shoulders. He was conscious of her presence constantly. At any moment he could have said exactly where she was in the room, no matter that it was full of people, even if she was behind him.

When dinner was announced, he wished to partner Katherine and bathe in the consolation of her company for an hour, but that was impossible he could not single her out so blatantly.

Instead, he led his grandmother into the grand stately dining room which glittered with silver, cut glass and pure white linen. The table was forty feet in length and he left his grandmother at one end then walked to the other. Aunt Penny was to occupy the seat on one side of him while Aunt Sylvia sat on the other.

At least with his family positioned in order of importance, his mother was further down the table and so he need not speak to her.

She had not looked his way since he’d come down. However, Edward kept glancing at him.

John saw Katherine enter much further back, on the arm of her vicar.

What damned idiotic benevolent mood had overtaken John to invite that bloody man?

The vicar was seated beside her too, while Phillip was on her other side, but they were right at the far end of the table.

John wished he was there, among them, not seated at the head – irrelevant – without duty, merely himself as a young man, laughing with Phillip and teasing Katherine as if the world was not carried on his shoulders.

As dinner progressed John spoke with his aunts and uncles on shallow subjects which did not interest him. But he regularly glanced at the far end of the table.