“The Earl of Penderdale has lost his courage if he’s not pursuing every course of action.” Rowles took a deep breath and looked around the Penninghams’ ballroom as if remembering the eyes and ears around him. “This is not the time or place but soon it will be, and you’ll have more than me to contend with.” He gave Collin a meaningful stare.
Joan. Collin nearly groaned out loud at the implication of all his sister would have to say onthe matter. Still, as soon as the emotion rose within him, it dissipated like fog in the sunshine, leaving nothing.
Nothing.
Collin lifted his glass and took a sip.
Flat, just as Rowles had predicted, and it was warm as well. His lips twitched in disgust as he glared at the offending liquid in the glass.
“I warned you.”
“I never said you didn’t,” Collin replied.
“Just making sure to keep my name clear,” Rowles added, a little of his merriment returning.
“A fine evening!” Collin quelled a startled jump as a booming voice rang out next to his left ear.
“Fine indeed, Lord Woolworth.” Rowles offered a smile as the older viscount nodded with respect.
“Fine,” Collin echoed, hoping the quite deaf gentleman would moderate his volume for any further conversation.
The viscount turned to Collin. “Wanted to pay my respects but didn’t make it earlier.” He patted Collin’s back once. His tone softened. “He was a good man, a good man. Gone far too soon, while the old stubborn ones like me live on. I’ll never understand it all. There’s not a day I don’t miss him.”
Collin froze; all that remained moving was his heart, which seemed to pick up an accelerated beat as his mind caught up with all that the Viscount Woolworth was implying.
How could he have forgotten?
How could he have let it slip by?
And why the hell didn’t Joan drag his ass to the grave site? There was no way she’d forgotten as well.
Just him.
The shock thawed enough for his scrutiny to flicker to Rowles, whose expression said more than any words could have conveyed.
He knew too.
The son-in-law of a man he’d never met had remembered…while the man’s own son forgot.
“Never a day goes by… I remember when Eloise passed, your father said, ‘Life is colorless until you find love.’ He was right. Hell, he usually was.” The viscount chuckled. “Regardless, wanted to pay my respects to you and, of course, your lovely wife as well, Your Grace.”
“Thank you,” Rowles replied.
As the viscount left, Collin turned on his heel as well. He could feel Rowles’s stare at his back, watching his hasty retreat, but it wasn’t enough to make him hesitate. It was only a quarter-hour ride to the Penderdale house from the party, and the moment Collin darkened his own doorstep, he tugged his cravat loose and tossed it on a table lining the hall. As he took the next step toward his study, he ran his fingers through his hair, tugging, feeling the minor pain, needing to feel something other than the intense shame coursing through him.
He wrenched open the study door and shoved it closed behind him. Shrugging out of his coat, he tossed it on the leather chair beside the flickering fire and braced both hands on the mantel, gripping the wood tightly, his back muscles contracting as he leaned down. The fire crackled, and each snap echoed inside of him until he slowly knelt before the fire and glanced back to his desk, his father’s desk. It was the place he remembered his father most clearly, where the majority of his memories took place, and where he’d learned that the weight of the title had passed from his father’s shoulders to his brother’s and finally to his.
It was the place where he’d learned of his twin brother’s death in the fire, and the long-ago loss of his mother during her fight with pneumonia.
It was the same place he’d been given the news that someone was using his name to commit crimes against the Crown.
The same name that his father had carried when he worked for the War Office, the same name with which he carried the legacy, now dragged through the mud. It didn’t matter that the War Office was aware it wasn’t Collin.
It was still his name.
His. Name.
His father’s name.
