Bethany tucked her hand into the crook of his arm but didn’t clasp it fondly as she had on other occasions. When a shiver ran through her, she didn’t lean into him for warmth.
“I hate that you believed I would…” His throat thickened. There was so much to tell her and yet he found himself at a loss for words.
“I hated it too.” She stepped away, putting distance once again between them, in order to study a delicately exotic blossom. “How do these grow outside of a hothouse?”
“A friend of mine experiments grafting different varieties. He’s had some success propagating strains that grow in cooler climates.
“A gentleman of theton?”
“The Earl of Tempest. His country estate neighbors Blackheart’s.” Chase indicated that they follow a narrower path. She stepped onto it and he trailed behind her, their footsteps crunching along the path made up of crushed shells. “He’s a private sort.”
“I’d like to be a private sort as well…” Her voice trailed off. “But in exchange for that, I would miss out on seeing people I care about. I enjoy being with friends. I enjoyed dancing last night. It’s not something I require often, but I like to know the possibility exists.”
She’d have lost that possibility if they hadn’t married.
Chase cleared his throat. He’d made enough compromises in his own life to understand a desire to withdraw from public life.
“My father lived two lives”—he’d avoid any preamble—"a public one with my mother, and a private one with his mistress… and her daughters—their daughters.”
Hands behind her back, Bethany didn’t so much as stumble. “And you inherited them both.” It was not a question.
“There’s an ironic truth to that statement.” Matching his pace to hers, Chase withdrew a cigar from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers. “Their existence came as a shock. My father’s solicitor told me about them moments after reading the will.”
He’d thought the bastard was joking.
“Mrs. Beverly Jones and her two daughters, aged twelve and ten. He’d set them up not more than five minutes away. Just a quick jaunt between South Audley and Farm Street. Convenient, don’t you think?” He moved over to one of the torches lighting the path and held the tip of the cigar near the flame.
In the silence that ensued, he felt Bethany’s eyes boring into him.
The news wouldn’t have been as sordid if his father hadn’t made such a spectacle of himself in his public life, doting on his mother while in the company of others, showering her with gifts, presenting an illusion of the most unusual of marriages within theton—one of affection and love.
His mother, of course, had loved his father desperately.
“But that wasn’t all. Mrs. Jones was expecting another child. In the matter of a ten-minute meeting, I gained all but three sisters.”
“Your mother never suspected anything?”
“She might have, but in case you’ve failed to notice, she’s rather talented at ignoring reality.” He pinched the cigar between his lips and then, leaning forward and inhaling just so, touched the tip to the flame.
Bethany hugged her arms in front of her. “Some might consider such an ability a gift.”
He tilted his head back and allowed smoke to curl past his lips, his gaze not straying from her for a second.
“My father failed to set up any provisions for them.” He’d have her know the entire sordid tale. “He’d been urged to set up a trust or an annuity but put it off one too many times. And although it had been unethical for his man of business to reveal my father’s secret, the man believed that not to do so would have been inhumane.”
And it would have been.
Beverly and the girls would have been destitute. They’d had nowhere to go. His father had been the beginning and the end of their world. He’d been their hero.
As well as Chase’s.
“You never suspected anything?”
“I respected my father above all men.” The sixth Baron of Chaswick’s betrayal had all but shattered Chase at the time.
“You loved him.” She frowned. “You would have discovered them living in the house eventually, wouldn’t you?”
“Occupants of the house on Farm Street were to be evicted upon his death. From my understanding he’d signed off on the clause before meeting Beverly. Before settling down, so to speak. I can only assume he’d kept other mistresses there at one time.”
