“Because we care about each other.” Lord knew he was more in love with the maddening woman than he had ever been before. “And because we have something we wish to tell you.”
“You are going to marry each other,” the lad guessed, his expression solemn.
Ara jerked her gaze back to their son, wetting her lips. “Not precisely, Edward.”
“Yes,” Clay gainsaid her without a dash of compunction. “We are.”
A gasp flew from her throat as her eyes snapped to Clay once more. “We are?”
The decision had come to him without thought, without hesitation. The words simply fled him. He didn’t regret them. Ara had always been meant to be his wife. She was the other half of him, and he knew it with a certainty that was elemental, as natural as his knowledge that the sun would rise each morning. No one would ever complete him as she did.
“If you will have me,” he said softly.
Emotion shimmered in her eyes. “Oh, Clay. Of course I will.”
He pulled her into his arms for another embrace, burying his face in her silken hair. Gratitude washed over him. He was so damn thankful for her, to have found her again, to have found their son. He’d never known such joy, and he was terrified and elated all at once. He kissed her cheek. “Thank God, Ara mine.”
Suddenly aware of their audience and the real reason they stood in the library—not his impromptu proposal at all, but rather to tell their son the truth—he stepped back, putting a respectable distance between himself and Ara. Half of him was bloody tempted to haul her back into his arms and kiss her silly, even with the lad looking on.
She wanted to be his wife.
Just as she should have been eight years and a hell of a lot of scars ago.
Clay sank to his haunches before Edward, looking his son in the eye. “I know this will be more change for you, lad. You have endured a great deal in the last few months, and your mama and I do not wish to upset you, but there is something else we must tell you as well.”
Edward regarded him seriously. “Do you want your cat back now?”
A reluctant laugh tore from him. “No, lad. You and Sherman have bonded, and it is plain the feline prefers you to me.”
His son gave him a shy smile. “Thank you, sir. When you marry Mama, will you be my father?”
Emotion swelled inside him, constricting his throat. He glanced back at Ara for assistance. Every carefully planned word he’d prepared had vanished from his mind.
She placed a soothing hand on his shoulder, granting him her support. “Yes, Mr. Ludlow will be your father, Edward. But not just because I am marrying him. Mr. Ludlowisyour father.”
Edward’s brows furrowed as his mind absorbed Ara’s words. “I do not understand, Mama. Papa was my father, and he is gone.”
Clay found his voice at last. “Before your mama married the duke, she and I were in love. We were going to wed, but then…circumstances would not allow it. The duke graciously stepped in when I could not. He will always be a father to you. Nothing will change the love he had for you or the love you have in your heart for him. But I am your father, lad.”
“Mama?” Edward looked to Ara, shock on his small, pale countenance. “Why did you never tell me?”
Ara sank to her knees on the thick carpet of the library, her jet silk skirts pooling around her. “I was not able to tell you. I am so sorry, Edward. I acted in my best capacity as your mother to provide for you and keep you safe. I did what I had to do, but now the time has come for you to know the truth.”
“Then I am not the Duke of Burghly,” Edward said slowly. “I am Edward Ludlow.”
“You are both of those titles,” Ara said, gripping the lad’s thin shoulders. “There is no surviving male heir but you. Freddie wanted you to be the next Duke of Burghly, to keep the line going. He made every provision for you accordingly. You must honor his wishes, though you now know the truth.”
Clay gritted his teeth against the notion of the lad never taking his surname, but he knew that perpetuating the lie was necessary to avoid ruin and scandal for both Ara and Edward. Since Burghly did not have a rightful heir, no one was being harmed by it. Only his pride suffered. But there was also a certain, delicious irony to the notion that the son of a duke’s bastard would be a duke himself. One day, Edward would lead the life Clay had always wished could have been his.
And he was grateful for that. Grateful his son would never know the scorn that had dogged him his entire life. Humbled that the Duke of Burghly had been a kind and loving father to his son when he had not been able. All the anger and jealousy seething inside him dissipated, vanquished by happiness and love and a great, abiding sense of peace.
The past was over.
The time to move forward had come, and he was walking into it, headlong and openhearted.
“I am sorry, lad,” he said, his throat still thick with more pent-up emotions than he knew he possessed. “I know this must be a shock to you.”
“Did you not want me as your son?” Edward asked, hurt and confusion lacing his voice.
