‘A guess, Lady. I have seen that look on a woman’s face before, and already, you protect the child. I am heartened by your news, and I will bid you good day and leave you in peace.’
A thought struck Grace. ‘What woman?’
‘No matter. It was long ago.’
‘Do you think Rawden will be pleased about the child?’
‘A child will carry on the family name and right the wrongs of the past.’
‘I don’t think they can ever be righted, and part of Rawden will always hate the burden of his birthright. Even now, I think he tortures himself that he has an inheritance only because Will died.’
Reeves stared out at the park, and to Grace’s horror, a tear rolled down his cheek. ‘It was never Will’s inheritance in the first place,’ he said.
‘Reeves, what do you mean?’ said Grace.
The man turned hard eyes to hers. ‘Rawden is no bastard, as far as I know, but Will probably was.’
All the breath left her body. ‘That cannot be true. How do you know that?’
‘Because Will was mine. He was my son.’
‘You mean you and Rawden’s mother were….’
‘Lovers, yes, for a time. I can see by your face you have a hard time imagining it. We were both stuck at Marshgrave, abandoned, lonely, without hope. I tried to shield her and Rawden from the worst of the earl’s cruelties, but I did not always succeed. It is my unending shame. Agatha and I became close, an unlikely friendship developed, and then one day, it tipped into more.’
‘She was in love with you?’
Reeves gave a bitter laugh. ‘Who can say?’ he replied. ‘For my part, I loved her to distraction, and yet, all I did was drive her back into the Earl’s bed. I saw how wounded she was, sold in marriage to a man whose heart was a block of ice and her so lively, with such a lust for life. It was a death sentence to her spirit. I will never understand why she came to like me, but I never fooled myself that it was love on her part, more a means of avenging herself on her husband.’
‘But that does not sound like the sort of woman Rawden describes.’
‘He has a child's memory of her, but while Agatha was a loving mother devoted to her sons, she was no soft little kitten like you. Her great beauty was a weapon. She used people, married for money and position, and did not even bother with any pretence of affection for her husband. Agatha craved attention relentlessly. I think she lay with me to spite her husband, but she worried that she might get with child, and how could she explain that away, having avoided her husband’s bed for so long?’
‘And how did she manage it?’
‘She talked the Earl into holding a grand ball at Marshgrave. She could be very conniving at getting her own way. They came together for a few weeks, and that was enough. I was banished to her house in London during that time, sworn to secrecy. And I kept my mouth shut out of loyalty all these years, for why taint her memory with more scandal?’
‘So Will might have been your child, yet he grew up as another man’s son. That must have been torture for you.’
‘He was most certainly mine. I could see it in his eyes as he got older. And Will had everything he could ever want – wealth, safety, a father who took pride in him. I got to see him now and then when I visited Marshgrave. He grew to be a fine lad, did he not? But he was the fruit of a quick and sordid tryst, nothing more. I had no wish to be a father to him, and so I grieved his death as I would a stranger’s.’
The tears in his eyes belied his words.
‘I do not believe your indifference, Reeves. And why are you telling me? Do you want me to tell Rawden?’
‘No,’ he said, most violently. ‘What would it serve to tarnish his mother’s memory along with Will’s? I don’t exactly know why I have told you. But I have carried this secret, and my guilt, like a stone in my heart for all these years, and it is a relief to finally set that burden down to someone with a kind heart.’
‘Yes, but now you have handed that burden it to me.’
‘In that, I am unkind, I know. But I think you can bear it. And Lady, you also have a burden of guilt over Will that you must set down. You think you do not deserve this happiness you have with Rawden, but you are wrong. You have given him what he has always needed – affection, a family and a future. I thank God that you came into his life. Think of this day as a fresh start for all of us.’
‘Reeves, I don’t know what to say, I….’
‘Then best say nothing, Lady, about any of this.’ He nodded goodbye and walked away, leaving Grace in shock. She took a few deep breaths, so cold, they made her throat ache. Such a tangle of secrets and lies lay at the heart of the Voss family. How could she possibly unpick it, and should she even try? She dearly wished Reeves had not told her the truth, for it changed nothing. What did she care if Rawden was the legitimate Earl of Harston? She would love him if he was a pauper. And Will might not be illegitimate. Only his mother, Agatha, could have known that for sure. And if Rawden found out, then all those years of torturing himself for his illegitimacy would have been for nothing.
‘Oh, damn this secret,’ she said aloud.
‘What secret?’
