She searched his pale gaze, seeking answers. “Did you mean what you said at the Children’s Foundling Hospital before you went in after Verity?”
He was solemn. “That I love you?”
Sybil nodded, swallowing against a knot of emotion threatening to rise, unable to speak.
“Yes.” He cupped her cheek. “I meant it. And I know you are in love with another, but I hope you will at least grant me a chance. It was my intention to speak with you at the Children’s Foundling Hospital. After you left my study, I realized I couldn’t bear to let you go. Not without fighting for you. I couldn’t let him win you.”
Confusion washed over her.
“In love with another?”
“Your footman,” he bit out, as if the words themselves were epithets.
“My footman? I don’t… You mean Henry?”
It occurred to her that Verity had spoken similarly on their way to the Children’s Foundling Hospital what now seemed a lifetime ago.Does this have to do with the footman of yours?
Understanding hit her with the clarity of the sun emerging from behind a cloud.
“You think I’m in love with Henry?” she asked, incredulous.
Everett’s jaw tightened. “Before you try to convince me otherwise, you should know that I saw you embracing him afterour wedding breakfast, and I overheard you telling him that you loved him and would miss him.”
Suddenly, everything made awful, perfect sense.
Everett’s shift from charming suitor to cold, sullen husband who abandoned her on their wedding day. The reason he had left. The reason he had been so furious with her when she had gone to his room at Wingfield Hall—aside from the water she’d poured on his head. The reason his nature was so inconstant, going from tender and passionate lover to brooding, aloof stranger.
He believed she had betrayed their marriage vows. That she was in love with someone else.
“I do love Henry,” she said. “But as my brother. Because that is what he is.”
Everett’s brows drew together. “I beg your pardon?”
“The footman you saw me embracing after our wedding breakfast is my illegitimate half brother,” she explained. “He is the product of a liaison between my father and one of the chambermaids at Eastlake Hall. When we were children, we had the same nursemaid. My mother insisted upon it. But when he was old enough for service, my father decided that he mustearn his bread, as he phrased it. My mother wasn’t given any choice in the matter. It was either obey—or suffer the consequences.”
“My God.” He raked his fingers through his damp, dark hair, leaving it in an unusual state of disarray. “The footman is your half brother. Not your lover?”
She shook her head, a tickling in her throat forcing her to cough before she could continue. “If you don’t believe me, you can ask my mother. She loves Henry like he is her own, despite the unusual circumstance of his birth.”
“When you came to me, looking for a situation for him here or at Riverdale Abbey, why did you not tell me who he was then?”
“I supposed you knew. Henry was a poorly kept secret. Most of the servants at Eastlake Hall were aware that he is my father’s by-blow, born on the wrong side of the blanket. I believed that word must have traveled to you somehow, knowing how tongues love to wag when it comes to gossip. You called him a bastard.”
“Bloody hell,” Everett breathed, then coughed, the sound a rattling reminder of what they had all just endured.
“But you didn’t know, did you?” she asked softly, tears blurring her vision.
“I didn’t know. If I had…”
Her heart ached. For Verity. For the children of the orphanage. For poor Mr. Gritton and any others who had perished, losing their lives to the flames. For Everett. For herself.
Perhaps it was the weight of what had happened that day or the worry still curdling her stomach for her sister-in-law. Perhaps it was the miserable months she and Everett had spent at odds, each thinking the worst of the other.
The tears came, swiftly and steadily. She sobbed with a soul-deep sorrow, and he took her back into his arms, holding her close. So close that she could feel the steady, reassuring thump of Everett’s heart. She held him tightly, staining his fresh shirt and waistcoat with her tears.
“If you had known who Henry truly was, would things have been different between us?” Sybil dared to ask.
“Without doubt.” She felt him press his cheek to the top of her head, his arms tightening around her, though she knew it must pain his burned flesh. “I’m so sorry, Sybil. If I’d had an inkling, I would have asked you at once. But I knew nothing of an illegitimate sibling, and you never mentioned him to me.”
