“As you paid him, you mean.”
He grimaced. “That… that was necessary. I am not proud of what I have done but know that I did it for the right reasons. Everything I have done was for the right reasons. Even if it does not seem that way.”
“And what did you do?” she demanded. “Why won’t you tell me?”
Her father looked pleadingly at the Duke. “I should not have come here. I… this was a mistake.”
“It was,” the Duke agreed. “But it is too late now. Miss Norleigh…” He gestured into the room; toward the couch her father had fallen on earlier. “Perhaps you would like to sit?”
“No.” She straightened her back and kept her arms folded. “I am perfectly fine here.”
The Duke almost smiled. It was her stubbornness that did it and was this any other time, it might have brought a sarcastic comment from him. But the time was not right for that, and the cold look she held him in smothered the Duke’s lips so that a smile might very well have been impossible.
“Very well.” The Duke looked between her and her father, his expression stern, his lips pressed together. “I suppose we best start at the beginning, with Hugh.”
Yvette said nothing. Her heart raced. Her body trembled from head to foot. And while she knew that she had no reason to worry, as she had done nothing wrong, she felt it in her stomach as it twisted itself into knots.
“As you were told, your father learned of Hugh several months before I asked that he stay with me. We made it seem as if hisdiscovery was an accident, and as soon as it was known who he was, I acted to adopt him. This is a half-truth at best.”
“And what is the whole truth?”
“I knew about him for some time longer than I let on.” Her father’s entire body slumped with defeat. “As you know already, I was close with His Grace’s father, and after he passed, I made sure to keep an eye on the boy. Even when he was with his mother, I always kept a close watch.”
“His father…” She looked at the Duke. “What does he have to do with any of this?”
“It wasn’t until Hugh’s mother died that I sought the Duke and told him about the boy. Until then, his Gace had no idea that he even existed.”
“When I learned of Hugh, I acted as quickly as I could,” the Duke hurried to explain. “First, I made sure that he was well, and then I asked that your father keep an eye on him until I could arrange to bring him here. I acted only in Hugh’s best interests, and I made sure from day one that he was not in any danger.”
Yvette shook her head to clear it. “I know all of this.”
“My fear was that people would ask questions,” the Duke continued as he fidgeted with his hands. “That they might pry into Hugh’s past if too many people learned of him. That, I could not allow.”
“He blackmailed me,” her father moaned. “That is why –”
“Quiet!” the Duke snapped. “I did no such thing.”
“You did.” Her father pointed at the Duke. “I wanted to tell you the truth, Yvette. From day one, I wanted to. He forced me to keep it a secret!”
“I regret to say that I did not trust you…” The Duke looked away with shame. “I knew little of you, Miss Norleigh, and I was unable to say if you could keep my secret. So, when I hired you as a governess, it was done for two reasons. One was to educate the boy, as you have done. The second was to keep an eye on both you and your father.”
Yvette took a step back. “An eye on… why would you…”
“So that he would not talk,” the Duke explained with clear unease. “And with you under my roof, not to mention the money I paid him, I knew his silence could be counted on.” He then sneered at her father. “What I did not expect was that he would turn into a drunken fool and demand more money for this silence.”
“It’s not my fault,” her father blubbered.
“Talk about what?” Yvette started to become irate herself. “What is going on? Why all the secrecy? Everyone knows that Hugh is your son! That he is adopted! What secret are you trying to keep?”
The Duke bowed his head and his shoulders fell. “That’s just it, Miss Norleigh. Hugh is not my son…” Slowly, he raised his head, and his eyes were watery, and teaming with sadness and regret and pain. It was such a pitiful sight that Yvette might have felt sorry for him, was it not what he said next. “Hugh is my half-brother. He is my father’s son, not mine.”
The world turned.
Yvette gasped and stumbled back. She half-turned as if to flee. It was as if the Duke had slapped her across the face, and the walls of her reality collapsed. She stared at the Duke, searching for the joke, any sense at all that he was lying to her.
But he is not lying. Why would he be? And suddenly, so much of what I did not understand before makes perfect sense… even if I feel more confused than ever.
“No…” she said in a whisper. “That is not… how?”
