“Zeke, you’ll do nothing of the sort,” the earl said, stonily.
For a timeless moment, Kitty heard nothing save the sound of her own choked gasps.
“Well?” Zeke demanded.
When the earl said nothing, Zeke made a sound of disgust and lowered himself until he crouched beside Kitty. He pitched hisvoice low with menace. “Hope you got an earful, young man. Because it’ll be the last time you get one over on me.”
His boots made a rapid click over the marble floor as he stalked from the library. A moment later, the front door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows.
She lifted her watery gaze. Utterly miserable, she stared at the earl across the room in his usual window seat overlooking the courtyard.
“My lord,” she began in a quavering voice, then broke off. Nothing she said would make up for what she’d done.
“Kitty.” The disappointment in his voice twisted her heart.
He deserved an apology at the very least. “I’m so very sorry. After all you’ve done for me. I don’t know what came over me. I was coming to join you, and I heard voices—”
“Kitty, get up off the floor.” He patted the empty place on the seat beside him.
She rose and dragged her feet toward him. “I assumed it would be just us for tea. Then I heard the two of you having a row. I thought it would be a brief, meaningless tiff. But instead…” Her words died in her throat. “I eavesdropped. I have no excuse.”
“Sit down, Kitty.”
She lowered herself onto the bright cushion nestled in the bay window. Outside the sun shone and birds sang. Why couldn’t it be raining to match her dismal mood?
“Once I started to listen, I found myself riveted. It struck me how little I know of your lives. Not that I have a right to know. I’m not family, and soon I’ll be gone and—” She broke off, unable to speak over the burning lump in her throat.
He patted her hand. “It’s only natural you’re curious about us. I’m sure you’ve deduced by now I love my grandsons more than anything or anyone in this world. Perhaps more than I loved their father—my only son.”
The earl’s faded blue eyes clouded. “Joshua was vibrant, full of life, like Zeke. He also had undeniable charm, just drew people to him like flies to honey. Caden, Zeke’s younger brother, inherited that trait.”
“Joshua, your son, my lord?”
He smiled. “Yes. We spoiled him terribly, his mother and I. Everyone did. Everyone fell under his spell. There was just something about him. When he misbehaved, when he cheated on exams, when he showed no inclination to grow up—we turned blind eyes. We thought he’d outgrow his reckless ways in time. And then, much to our delight, it seemed he did, when he fell in love with Marjorie—Zeke and Caden’s mother.” The earl chuckled. “She had a will of steel, that one.”
Zeke clearly inherited her trait, she thought, but wisely kept the opinion to herself.
“They married. Started a family. And if he drank a little too much, or gambled a little too freely when Marjorie went to the country or on holiday, we all chalked it up to him being a man’s man.
“After she died, and their unborn babe with her—” He shook his head—“Joshua’s bad habits came back with a vengeance. He sank into depravity with nary a care for himself, much less the welfare of his two sons who needed him more than ever with the loss of their mother.” He paused a long moment, then added in a low voice, “He died in a gaming hell—drank himself to death in a filthy back room.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She ached for the earl—and the two little boys who’d deserved so much better.
“Zeke was barely fourteen, and his brother only ten when I tried my hand again. I sometimes wonder if I made the same mistakes.”
“That’s not possible, my lord.”
He gave her a querulous look.
She arched her brows. “Your grandson is a hardly a…”
“Ne’er-do-well?” Claybourne filled in.
“Precisely. Anyone can see he’s disciplined. And fit…fitter than most. So that rules out him being a drunken sot, as well.”
The earl laughed and covered her hands, clasped tightly on her lap. “Oh, my darling girl, you have such a way with words.”
She sent him a tentative grin. “Does this mean you forgive me?” Her grin vanished. “I understand if you can’t.”
