Dear Freddie. Of course he would have said so. In truth, she did not know better, and she had committed more sins in her lifetime than she could count. She was not a good person. She was no one for her son to pattern himself after.
Something twisted painfully inside her chest then. A river of guilt deluged her, rushing over the grief. Edward had lost the only father he had ever known, but his flesh-and-blood father was somewhere beneath the same roof. She had deceived her son for seven years, and for a mad moment she wished she could unburden herself to him now. To reveal to him his father was Clayton Ludlow.
But she could never, ever do something so foolish.
If Clay discovered Edward was his son, she had no way of knowing how he would react. Already, he was icy and aloof. He spoke to her as if being in her presence was abhorrent. If he found out she had kept his son from him for all these years…
Then again, perhaps he would not care. After all, he had left her without a word. Abandoning her to face her father and her shame alone. Leaving her with no choice but to accept the proposal of any man who offered. Ara had done the only thing she could. That she and Freddie had found each other at all was a miracle, and she would forever be grateful to him for being the best man she had ever known.
A truer and finer gentleman than he had never lived.
Blinking back tears, she released Edward with great reluctance. “There now, you have turned me into a watering pot.”
“Papa was always smiling,” her son observed with a gravity that belied his age. “He would want us to smile too, Mama. He always hated when you cried.”
Yes, he had. Much to her shame, there had been days when—despite the fulfillment of being Edward’s mother and despite the comfortable companionship she’d shared with Freddie—she had been miserable. Days when the past and what might have been had returned to swallow her whole. Freddie had always managed to chase her doldrums in one fashion or another. Sometimes, with chocolate. Others with bawdy jokes.
She smiled sadly to think back on those innocent days. Her old self would not have been able to fathom what lay ahead. Indeed, she could scarcely wrap her mind around it.
“You make me smile now,” she told her son. “I love you so very much, my darling boy.”
“I love you too, Mama,” he said, looking down at his shoes, shuffling them as if embarrassed.
Who was this young man he was turning into before her eyes? Was it Freddie’s death that had manifested it, or was it merely a part of growing into a young man? She could not say, but either way, her heart hurt.
“We will go on an excursion soon,” she told him suddenly, wanting to chase the sadness from his eyes. “Anywhere you like, I shall take you. Think on it, and then we will go.”
He beamed. “Thank you, Mama.”
She fixed him with a stern look. “Now off with you, my love. You must return to your studies. I shall see you in a few hours, and I expect a report on everything you have learned.”
Looking lighter, his shoulders not stooping quite so low with the weight he carried in the wake of Freddie’s death, he bowed. Then he was gone, leaving her alone in her sitting room with only her guilt and her sadness to keep her company.
Damn it allto hell.
His bloody cat was missing. Clay had searched his apartments, sinking to his knees on the plush woolen carpet to peer beneath the bed, looking atop furniture, beneath chairs. Anywhere he could conceive of the feline hiding, he had examined. After half an hour of thorough searching, he had reached the conclusion that someone—likely a Burghly House chambermaid or other such domestic—had inadvertently allowed Sherman to escape.
The little fellow had a fondness for freedom, and Clay could not fault him for it. Lord knew he longed for the same, and more than ever now he was forced to do his duty in such proximity to the woman who had betrayed him. But since he had been keeping Sherman’s presence to himself, locating the feline could prove all the more difficult.
Today marked his third at Burghly House.
He grimaced, making one last, cursory search of his chamber before he ventured onward in his quest. Three days of being within the same walls as Ara. Two nights of sleeping a scant few chambers away.
For the differences between them and the ugliness of their past, she might as well have been in another country rather than just at the opposite end of the hall. She was as far removed from him as she had ever been. At least on this second go around, he had the benefit of knowing precisely where he stood with her.
She had no longer wanted him when she finally realized it would mean giving up her title and her riches. She had seemed so innocent and good when he had first met her in the forest joining their fathers’ lands, and he had been a fool to believe in her protestations that his bastardry did not matter to her. Like any man hungering for more than he had been apportioned, she had been a siren’s song for him. The beautiful earl’s daughter with violet-blue eyes and fiery hair, with the sweet kisses and beseeching gazes and the promises he never should have believed.
Hell yes, he had believed every one of them. But the blade of a knife had dispelled his disillusions just as swiftly. For when she had truly understood that doors would close to her, that she would not be treated to the manner of respect she was accustomed, that she would not possess the prestige and wealth she desired, she had betrayed him.
Your blood for the blood you spilled,the man who had sliced open his face had said coolly.The earl considers the debt paid now. You will never speak to Lady Araminta or look upon her again.
On that day, he had made a firm promise to himself he would never again be weak. On that day, he had begun fashioning himself into the hardened man he had ultimately become.
How ironic, then, that the warrior he now was—the trained assassin, the man who could wield a blade or pistol or the strength of his hands with lethal results—was now searching for one errant feline.
“Sherman,” he called one last time for good measure, lest he linger in the chamber all day, trapped in the muck of his past.
The cat did not materialize, not so much as the hint of a meow or a swish of a tail. Clay exited his chamber and stalked down the hall, knowing from past experience the first place he ought to look was outside. The furry devil adored fresh air, and he considered an opened door his own personal invitation.
