Paul raised an eyebrow in question.
“Because of Clara,” he explained. “I want my child to know her grandparents.”
Paul nodded his eyes wet with pleasure. Michaeline was not so restrained. Her cheeks were immediately damp from the steady fall of her tears.
Brandon lay beside Shannon,not touching her, simply taking comfort in the serenity of her expression. He regretted no part of deceiving the Marchands as profoundly as he did causing Shannon pain. And to what purpose? He had wanted to keep Paul and Michaeline’s illusions intact, only to find they had none concerning their daughter. They made no attempt to defend her actions. Instead they accepted it, reconciled to the fact that they had only been hoping she had changed. That is what he thought they had been forced to abandon this night: their hope.
None of them deserved the evening’s other revelation. He would never forget the Marchands’ anguished faces when they realized they had been gulled into separating Shannon from her sister, nor Shannon’s suffering when she understood what her mother had done. How was he to make amends for bringing her to this pass?
“Brandon?”
His voice was hushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You didn’t,” she said sleepily. “Tell me what you were thinking just now. You looked, I don’t know, so…so tortured.”
Brandon leaned over and kissed her cheek. “It was nothing,” he said, and meant it. He was already thinking of the letter he would write on the morrow to Eric Redmond. If there was something to be uncovered in the events of Shannon’s birth, the earl of Glen Eden would find it. “Go back to sleep. The morning is soon enough for us to speak of this night’s work.” Shannon complied by slipping into the comfortable curve of his body. In the moment before she fell asleep, he thought he heard her murmur something about being Clara’s aunt. He had to smile. She would find the gift where he thought none had existed. She was a survivor.
Parker Grant cockedone black eyebrow, watching the rise and fall of Aurora’s breasts with amusement. “You are about to sacrifice your modesty, Rory,” he said, pointing to the hastily tied knot in the sheet that was her only covering.
Her violet eyes blazed as she witnessed Parker’s mouth lift lazily to one side. The same expression could indicate derision or diversion. Aurora did not always know which one she was being treated to, but this was not the case now. “Don’t mock me,” she said, yanking at the knot. She lifted the tail of the sheet, threw it over her arm, and continued to pace the floor. “I have been trying to think of a way for days to keep that bloody bastard—”
His expression didn’t change, but his green eyes glittered. “I would have a care with that word, m’dear.”
The air whooshed from her lungs as she sighed heavily. “Your pardon,” she said sardonically. “To keep your bloodybrotherfrom divorcing me, and you are doing us no favor by pretending we have no problem.”
Parker rolled on his back, cradling the back of his dark head in his palms. His lean body arched slightly as he stretched and made himself comfortable. “Wehad aproblem,” he told her, closing his eyes. “I’ve already arrived at the solution.”
“Parker!” she yelped, running to the bed. “That’s wonderful!” The sheet caught under her knees as she hopped on the mattress, and the knot was completely undone. She pounced on Parker, her naked breasts flush against his chest. “What is to be done?” she asked excitedly, unable to hide her eagerness.
“You are such a child,” he admonished. He felt her leg insinuate itself between his thighs. “Well, notsucha child.”
She placed teasing kisses on the strong line of his chin. “Tell me.”
He shook his head. “Not yet. There are some matters that bear examining first. When I have full knowledge of them, I’ll tell you everything.” He opened his eyes and held her gaze. “I will be gone for a few days. I am going to Williamsburg and also to the folly.”
“Williamsburg? Again? And the folly? Brandon will not let you set foot in his house.”
“I won’t be staying at the house. Do you remember the cottage by Miller’s Creek?”
“How could I forget?” she asked, smiling wickedly. “We met there often enough. But I would scarcely call that miserable hut a cottage.”
Parker admitted it lacked certain amenities, but it accommodated his purpose. The deserted farmer’s house sat on the northeast edge of the folly’s property line, bordered on three sides by trees that had never been cleared for farmland. Far back from the infrequently used road, the log cabin often went unnoticed by travelers. Parker knew it had been a trysting place for William and Hannah. In later years, when Hannah felt free to visit the folly openly, she always pointed out the cabin to Parker when they passed it. He was thirteen, and feeling rather full of himself from his first tumble in the stable loft, before he finally understood the significance of his mother’s wistful expression when she looked at the cabin.
Parker had met Aurora there secretly when he was supposed to have been at Belletraine. He would stay there for a few days at a time, and she would meet him on her early morning rides. He enjoyed the seclusion of the cabin, the hours he spent hunting and fishing, but he admitted he liked the ease of his visits to the folly better, when Aurora could merely slip from her chamber at night and come to him.
“Well,” Parker said, running his palms across the back of her legs and buttocks. “That miserable hut is where I’ll be staying. Brandon will never know.”
“But why do you want to go there?”
“Just to observe,” he shrugged, refusing to be drawn out.
Aurora’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me? Do you know something about this divorce? Did your spies tell you something?”
“Spies, Rory? You’re imagining things.”
“I’m not. You always seem to know what is happening at the folly. Who is she, Parker? Who is your spy?”
“She?” The side of his mouth curled upward.
