Haven’s gasp of disbelief was expected, but it didn’t lessen the piercing pain shooting through his soul.
“As soon as I could leave the bedside, she left me to the wet nurse and nanny. She didn’t want anything to do with me. I was a burden she didn’t want to bear, and would rather forget completely, but I was my father’s son, his heir, and the issue of the wife he loved and spoiled. Even though my mother hated me, my father took me into his heart and under his wing. After my birth, the marriage turned sour. My father began taking lovers, and my mother, not one to be set aside for anyone else, grew jealous and spiteful. When he refused to give up his dalliances, she began to take lovers of her own, men who would dote on her, tell her anything she wanted to hear, ply her with the treasures and gifts my father failed to give her. One summer, when my father was traveling in Spain, Aunt Mildred came to stay. My mother didn’t care for my well-being in the least, so when myfather left, someone had to come to make sure his heir was cared for.”
Shuddering against Haven’s warm, comforting body, he continued.
“As my aunt tells it, after a particularly festive dinner party, one of my mother’s wealthier lovers commented off-hand that he would take her away from her life of dull drudgery, and treat her like a queen in Paris. When she, in all seriousness, asked him to do as he boasted, he reportedly answered, ‘In a heartbeat, my beauty, but you must leave your brat behind’.”
Another audible gasp brought his gaze to hers. Haven’s eyes telegraphed anguish and anger.
Heat flushed over his face, burning the tips of his ears.
He sighed.
“Aunt Mildred was affronted, but she knew the nabob had spoken through the wine in his veins. Unfortunately, mother wanted, more than anything, to believe her lover’s promises.”
“How could she not know he was joking?” Haven’s voice filled with shock, and incredulity soured her expression.
He swallowed, and said what he’d been dreading to share for the last twenty-two years. “She was desperate to leave me, to forget about me, to irreparably cut any tie to my father, to fulfill her dream of flitting away and living a life free of the noose of her family.”
“So she tries to kill you?” He nodded, and her eyes widened. “I’m sorry, Logan, I cannot imagine the pain, the burn of betrayal?—”
He raised his hand to cut her off. “That wasn’t the worst of it.”
Visibly shaken by his admission, she fell silent, her face paling.
“That night, long after the clock struck midnight, as I lay staring up at the ceiling, I heard my door open. As a young man,I didn’t have need of a nanny, and my father was still abroad so I couldn’t fathom who had entered my room at such an hour. The first thing I recognized was her scent. She smelled of roses. I heard her voice next—but it was different, it didn’t carry the usual carefree, lilting tone. Her voice sounded...heavy. Intent.”
The weightof the air in the room pressed down, and Logan’s face transformed. It was no longer the face of the grown man Haven feared she was beginning to love, but one of a scared, vulnerable little boy.
His dark eyes turned vacant, the memories of long ago stealing him from her presence.
“Logan, you don’t have to finish. I don’t need to know. I swear.”
She gripped his hands, squeezing with everything in her.
“She walked toward the bed, and stopped where I’d thrown the excess pillows. Grabbing tight to one, she moved toward me, repeating the same thing, over and over, her voice flat and yet still shrill,‘I’m better than this. The brat must die. I can begin again. I’m better than this...’”
Haven’s heart sank.
He trembled against her.
The tears burning the back of her throat finally broke through the dam, falling in wet, salty rivers down her cheeks.
“I was terrified. I didn’t know what was happening—I knew I had to get away, but I couldn’t move. She stood over me, her beautiful face pinched and strangely…unfamiliar. Her empty eyes glared at me from above a chilling smile. If I had any doubts before, I knew then that she didn’t love me. It devastated me.As she pushed the pillow down over my face, I wept. I cried into the back of the soft silk as she held it firmly over my mouth and nose, repeating,‘The brat must die, the brat must die...’”
“Oh, God.” Her tears erupted like a flood, and Haven knew she couldn’t stop him. The memories were there, eating at him, and he had to finish what they’d started. She hoped when he was finished, there would still be enough of him left for her to save.
Logan’s vacant gaze changed, and his voice strained as he pushed through the tremors. His pupils dilated, breathing ragged, and his expression frenzied.
“I could feel it, the cold hiss of death licking across me. I knew I was going to die. Then suddenly, the pillow wasn’t there anymore. Frantic hands grasped at me, and a voice screeched for me to breathe, to live, to come back. It was Aunt Mildred.”
Haven loved the old woman now more than ever.
“She’d come to check on me, worried that my mother might try something after the way she acted at the party. When she saw what was going on, she called for the footman, and then dragged my mother from me with her own hands. The footman held tight to my mother, but she fought desperately to return to my bedside and finish what she’d started. Despite being held fast, she kept pulling against them, chanting in a shrill voice, ‘The brat must die. I am better than this. The brat must die. I will begin again!’When they finally pulled her from the room, she was screaming those words.”
Hot tears streaked down Haven’s cheeks, and her heart pounded against her rib cage. She wanted to claw her way to the past, and choke the life from that terrible woman, but she could only hold Logan tight as the tremors left him.
“Logan?” Her voice broke, her throat sore and scratchy.
