Colin nodded slowly. He was obviously not going to get any further with this man, who had always hovered in the background of his life, it seemed to him. Perhaps his father. And perhaps not.
He would probably never know for certain.
He would not ask his mother.
Perhaps it did not matter. Perhaps the mere asking of his questions would clear the burden from his mind at long last.
Perhaps it simply did not matter.
“Good day to you, sir,” he said, inclining his head curtly and making for the door. Lord Ede stood aside to let him pass.
“Do give my regards to Lady Hodges,” he said. “I believe you have done well for yourself, my boy. Despite the discrepancy in your ages, I believe she is the very one for you. Well done.”
Colin paused a moment but did not either look at Lord Ede or respond. He continued on his way out of the room and out of the house.
Twenty-three
Elizabeth spent an hour with Araminta and then called briefly at South Audley Street to see her mother and Wren, who were in the nursery with Nathan. When she arrived back at the hotel she found Colin already there and walked readily into his arms when he stood to greet her.
“This feels like coming home,” she said with a laugh when she stood back from his kiss to remove her bonnet and set it aside with her gloves and reticule.
“It does now,” he agreed, smiling at her. “You had a good visit with Miss Scott? She seems like a pleasant lady.”
“She is and I did,” she told him. “Did you thank your mother for coming to our wedding yesterday and tell her how much it meant to you? And to me? Did you ask if she really plans to come to Roxingley?”
“I did not call on her, Elizabeth,” he said. “I never did intend to, I am sorry. I called on Lord Ede.”
“Oh?” She looked at him in some surprise.
“I needed to ask him a question,” he said. He examined the backs of his hands for a moment and then curled his fingers into his palms before tapping them a few times against his thighs.
“I had better complete what I began to tell you last evening,” he said. “When my father was in the library with the vicar on the day of Justin’s funeral and showed him the miniature from his desk drawer, he spoke three words that have haunted me for eleven years, though I have sometimes pushed them deep enough to be almost forgotten.My only son. That is what he said. He sounded as if he was weeping.”
Colin had been fifteen at the time. He had been brought home from school because his brother had taken his own life. He had been sitting on the window seat, where he had sat often as a child, drawing comfort from the presence of his father. The curtain had been half drawn so that he was hidden from the eyes of his father and the vicar as they came into the library. And his father, grief-stricken, had not chosen his words with care.
“You were young, Colin,” she said, setting a hand on his arm. The knuckles of his clenched hands were white, she could see. “You were still a schoolboy. It must have seemed to your father at that moment as though the only son of his who was adult and ready to take over from him as his heir was gone at a moment’s notice. He doubtless did not mean the words literally.”
“It is what I have told myself more times than I can count,” he said. “And of course the vicar reminded him that he had another son, who was a good lad and would make a worthy heir.”
“What did your father say?” she asked.
“Yes,”he said. “He said yes. That was all.”
Why had Colin been to see Lord Ede? She was not sure she wanted to know.
“My father arranged to have Wren taken away,” he continued. “He sent for our aunt. She did not come by chance. I learned that only very recently. And he so willingly agreed to send me away to school that it seemed almost as though he had intended it all along. I was so happy that that latter possibility never occurred to me. Whenever I used to write to ask if I might spend holidays with friends, terrified that he would withhold his consent, he always said yes. He secured a place for me at Oxford before I even asked. I thought he did it all because he loved me.”
“Oh, Colin.” She leaned a little toward him. “Are you sure that was not the reason?” He might also have done it to rescue his younger son from the clutches of his mother.
“No,” he said. “I am not sure. But he might have done it because he hated me. And Wren. Or at least because he wanted us out of his sight. I am not sure he was capable of hate. Just as I am not sure he was capable of love.”
“Then you must think the best of him,” she said. “You must not torture yourself with suspicions that cannot be proved.” It was obvious what his suspicions were. It was equally obvious that his mother could not be trusted to tell him the truth.
He turned his head to look at her at last. His eyes were very blue—and very troubled. “My mother often said that Wren’s strawberry birthmark was a judgment on her,” he said. “On my mother, that is. A judgment forwhat? And I was always her favorite.”
“You were the youngest,” she said.
“And the prettiest?” he said with a fleeting smile. “I went to see Lord Ede this morning. I asked him if he is my father. And Wren’s.”
