“Father, I want to present to you Celia Dane and Rosalinde Danford,” Asher said. He swallowed. “I think you might already know them, though. You see, their name before they married Gray and Mr. Dane respectively was…was Fitzgilbert.”
The cup in Seyton’s hand slipped away and shattered on the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. He stared at the two women, just stared at them with wide and disbelieving eyes.
Any doubt that Asher might have carried with him into this house was dashed away. The truth was clear. The truth was real.
“Rosalinde,” Seyton whispered, his voice shaking. “And CeliaFitzgilbert.”
“Yes,” Rosalinde said, her voice thick. “We are the granddaughters of Gregory Fitzgilbert, we are the daughters of Agatha Fitzgilbert. And…and…”
“And of…” Celia’s voice caught. “You. It’s you, isn’t it?Youare our father?”
To his surprise, Asher’s father spun away, lifting the back of his hand to his mouth as he began to make great heaving cries that shook his body from head to toe. Asher stared at him, felt all the pain that bled out of this man he had loved all his life. And his own tears fell.
“Father, please look at us,” he said, slipping up to stand with his sisters. “Please.”
It took a moment for Seyton to turn, but when he did, Asher was stunned. His father was smiling as he wept. He was smiling as he stepped forward and fell into the arms of all his children, crying out, “My girls! My beautiful girls.”
It took some time for the crying and the hugging to subside. It seemed the moment they gathered themselves, one of them would start to cry again, and that brought the entire circle back together. And once that was all finished, there were introductions and reintroductions to be made of husbands and friends and family. And a lengthy explanation of how they had come to discover Seyton’s identity as the mysterious servant who had sired the girls.
An hour later, Asher sat in his father’s parlor, Felicity sitting quietly by his side, his sisters gathered close to the old man.
“There are so many questions,” Rosalinde said as Celia rested a head on her shoulder, a permanently wide smile on her pretty face.
“From all sides,” Seyton said with a sigh. “But yours are the most important. What do you want to know?”
Celia lifted her head and met his gaze evenly. “Did you love our mother?”
“With all my heart,” Seyton answered without hesitation. He sent an apologetic look toward Asher. “I have had two great loves in my life. I lost both. Asher’s mother and I married so very young and we had so little. When she died, I was heartbroken and with a child to take care of. I needed a new position and Fitzgilbert took me. I should have known what a bastard he was when he wouldn’t allow my son to come to the household, but there was little choice.”
“I never blamed you for that, Father,” Asher said. He felt Felicity gently rest a hand on his back as he said the words, her quiet comfort more meaningful than even she likely realized.
“I blamed myself,” Seyton said with a shake of his head. “Especially once I fell in love with Agatha and we were forced to run.”
Rosalinde shivered. “I can only imagine how angry our grandfather was. He could be…” She lifted a hand to her throat, and across the room Gray shifted and his face grew hard with anger. “He could be cruel.”
Seyton shut his eyes with a pain breath. “To you?”
“He tried to choke Rosalinde,” Gray managed to grind out past clenched teeth.
“That bastard,” Seyton burst out, surprising Asher with his passionate response. He’d always known his father as the dutiful servant, not the righteously angry man.
“He is dead,” Dane said softly, reaching out to place a hand on Celia’s shoulder. She reached up to cover it without looking up at him.
Seyton nodded slowly. “I wish I could feel sorry for that,” he said at last. “But after all he did, I do not.”
Rosalinde bent her head. “It is complicated for us, of course. But he grew crueler as the years went by, so I cannot say I’m sorry that he’s gone. He did attack me, when I thwarted his plans for Celia to marry Stenfax.”
“That is the thing I understand least, actually,” Stenfax said, stepping into the family drama. “Celia and Rosalinde might not have known who you were, but you must have heard that I was engaged to Celia Fitzgilbert or that Gray married Rosalinde Fitzgilbert. At that point, couldn’t you have…reached out somehow?”
Seyton let out a long sigh. “It was more complicated. Let me try to explain. When Agatha and I ran, I hoped Fitzgilbert would eventually run out of rage at her betrayal. But he didn’t. He continued to seek us out. We were never safe. We were happy, but I was always waiting for him to burst into our home, to take Agatha and my daughters away. It was why I kept Asher with his aunt and uncle, to distance him from the consequences in a way I couldn’t with the rest of my family. But when Celia was born, Agatha was not well.”
Celia caught her breath. “We’d always been told it was an accident that took you both. But when Grandfather revealed the truth, he took great pleasure in letting me know I killed my mother.”
“You didn’t,” Seyton assured her, leaning forward to take both her hands. “She had been sickly before you were born, it was not your fault. And she was so pleased to have another daughter.”
He got up and Asher watched him, watching the pain on his face. Without thinking, he reached for Felicity’s hand. She took it without comment, holding it in her lap with both her own.
“She died,” Seyton choked out. “On a Tuesday afternoon. And by Wednesday night Fitzgilbert had found us.”
