“She’s lovely,” he said softly, meaning it.
“She died two years ago.” Lauren’s voice cracked. “I wish she could be here to see that her son is alive and the heir is not lost…” She trailed off, watching his face with desperate hope.
The twist of grief in his chest surprised him. He mourned not the mother he couldn’t remember, but the fact that he couldn’t remember her. That he’d been alive and well in Ireland, working his small piece of land, while this woman died, believing her son lost.
A crash from above made them all start. Heavy footsteps stumbled across the upper floor, and Lauren’s face tightened with something like resignation.
“Father,” she whispered, just as a man appeared at the top of the stairs.
The Earl of Danvers was a wreck of a man, his clothes fine but rumpled, his face flushed with what could only be strong drink despite the early hour. He swayed slightly as he stared down at their group.
“My boy? Are you a ghost come back to haunt me?” The words came out slurred.
He half-stumbled down the stairs, and Lucien tensed, fighting the urge to step back. The earl reached the bottom and lurched forward; his arms outstretched. This time Lucien did pull back, an instinctive retreat that made the older man’s face crumple.
“Of course you are a figment of my imagination. My son is long dead, and I have no heir. God is punishing me… I’m sorry, so sorry.” The earl’s hands fell to his sides. “Lauren, forgive me…” Then he turned to go back upstairs.
“Father,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m not a ghost. It’s me. Lucien.”
His father slowly turned and then slid to the floor. “Lucien?”
“Perhaps we should move to your library, Lord Danvers,” Rockwell suggested smoothly, stepping forward. “There’s much to discuss.”
The men helped his father stand but his lordship brushed them away and swayed his way to the Danvers library. Then he collapsed into a worn leather chair, while Lucien remained standing, his body humming with the need to move, to run, to escape back to his simple life in Ireland.
But that life had been built on lies, he reminded himself harshly. Ava’s lies. Ava had stolen his true identity, and he was here to claim it back.
The once-grand library of Lord Danvers bore silent witness to the family’s declining fortunes. Tall Georgian windows, their paint peeling and wood frames warped, still managed to cast long rectangles of summer light across what remained of theTurkish carpet. The room stretched two stories high, its upper gallery accessed by a curved mahogany staircase.
Empty spaces between books told their own story—precious volumes likely sold off, one by one, to keep the family afloat. The remaining collection stood in uneven rows, their leather bindings dry and cracked, some sprouting tufts of green mold along their spines. A musty sweetness pervaded the air, mingled with the sharp tang of wood rot from the sagging shelves.
The ceiling’s ornate plasterwork, once cream and gold, had yellowed to the color of old teeth. Water stains mapped continents across its surface where the roof leaked, though strategically placed copper pails caught the worst of the drips. Their dull surfaces matched the tarnished oil lamps that hadn’t been polished in some time.
“Please excuse the…” Lauren stuttered to a halt.
Lucien was beginning to see the extent of the fiasco he’d come home to. He suddenly understood why, on the journey home from Ireland, Rockwell had urged him to make marriage for a large dowry a priority.
He walked further into the room, his dismay barely able to be hidden. A massive marble fireplace dominated one wall; its mantel cluttered with miniature portraits in gilt frames too precious to sell. The armchairs grouped nearby—once plush crimson velvet—all faded to a tired rose, their stuffing visible through worn patches and frayed seams. Yet he sensed there was still a certain dignity to them.
Near the window stood Lord Danvers’ desk, its leather top cracked and dry as autumn leaves. Stacks of unpaid bills and increasing other correspondence weighed down one corner, while a half-empty decanter suggested how his lordship often chose to face them.
A single footman entered to tend the meager fire, carefully rationing the coal and wood. Through the windows, theuntended wilderness of what was once a formal garden spoke volumes about the current state of the Danvers town house.
Lucien couldn’t bring himself to wonder about the state of their country estate—or was it estates? He didn’t even remember. He sank into another chair, staring at the man who was his father. He ignored his sister and his friends.
“The debts,” the earl said suddenly, his voice thick with shame. “I thought you dead, boy. Dead like your mother. The cards…the dice…they helped me forget, just for a while.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened. “How bad?”
“Bad enough to lose it all, if something isn’t done soon,” Wolf said bluntly, ignoring Rockwell’s warning look. “He should know the truth of what he’s coming home to.”
“We need a moment with Lady Lauren,” Rockwell said quietly. “If you’ll excuse us?”
They withdrew to the corridor, leaving Lucien alone with his father. The silence stretched between them, heavy with five years of absence.
“Ten thousand pounds,” the earl said finally, staring into his empty glass. “At least. The money lenders are circling like vultures. I’ve mortgaged what I could, but I can’t touch the entailed estates. Still, they too are almost ruined…” He looked up, his bloodshot eyes desperate. “I never thought to saddle you with this burden. When you disappeared after the rebellion…when months passed with no word…I lost myself in grief and guilt. If I hadn’t picked that stupid argument with you about taking that trip with Rockwell—”
“I don’t remember any of it,” Lucien cut in, his voice harsher than he’d intended. “Not the rebellion, not my reasons for being there, none of it.” He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture that felt familiar though he couldn’t say why. “My life began five years ago in a village near Dublin, with a head wound and no memory of who I was.”
