“I did it!” Hugh pulled up and threw back his head. The water came up to his shoulders, but he stood ably as he flicked the water from his hair and laughed. “Did you see? Did you see?”
“I did.” Alistair clapped. “I swear that you are half fish.”
“It is not as hard as I thought.” He grinned proudly. “I wish Miss Norleigh was here to see it. Can she swim? Is that why she did not come?”
Just like that, the joy of the morning fled from Alistair as if it had never been. His stomach dropped. His smile left him. And the cloud returned so that it blotted out the sun and he started to shiver from the cold.
“She… she wanted to,” Alistair lied as he rubbed his arms for warmth. “But she is busy with Lucinda’s baby.”
Hugh nodded his understanding. “Next time?”
“I will insist,” Alistair lied again.
Hugh laughed and then dove back under the water, again set to swimming in circles around where Alistair stood.
It had been two days since Alistair’s confrontation with Miss Norleigh, a moment that still made him feel sick with guilt whenever he thought about it. He had considered speaking to her privately since that moment, but fear stopped him. Fear… and tremendous guilt.
She is right to be furious with me, just as she is right to never want to speak with me again.
That she had not left the estate yet might have given Alistair hope, the notion that she was willing to forgive him and all she needed was time. But Alistair knew too that she had likely only stayed for Hugh’s benefit, and was she given a choice, that she would happily leave him and never look back.
It was no less than he deserved…
Alistair did not expect Miss Norleigh to forgive him, nor was he going to try and convince her to do so. He had done the wrong thing; there was no denying it, and all he could do now was try to make up for his mistakes.
Those mistakes started with Hugh, his half-brother, and today, Alistair planned on telling him the truth. All of it.
Alistair was terrified of what he meant to do. He had planned on simply sitting the boy down and explaining the reality to him, but when he found Hugh in his room earlier, and when he had seen the look in his eyes, he had balked. Hugh thought he was Alistair’s son; his whole life had been upended based on this lie, and he wretched when he pictured how Hugh might react… the likelihood that he would be as upset as Miss Norleigh had been.
Panicking, Alistair pivoted and suggested to Hugh that they spend the morning together. The lake that they were in existed on the outskirts of the estate, and he offered to give Hugh swimming lessons.
To delay the inevitable is what I am doing. As if this one gesture might make up for the lies and the deceit…
But he could not keep delaying it. If he did that, he might never tell him the truth. Alistair needed to be brave. Dammit, for once, he needed to do the right thing.
Thus, once the lessons were done with, Alistair and Hugh sat themselves down on the shore by the water’s edge. Their feet dipped in the lake, the sun shone on their backs, and while they sat closely, it was not so close that Alistair could put his arm around Hugh if needed. That still felt entirely too familiar.
“Hugh…” Alistair looked nervously at Hugh, who gazed across the crystal blue water of the lake, a smile on his face and laughter on his lips. “I… there is something…”
Hugh frowned as he turned to look at Alistair, and when he did, Alistair saw in the boy shades of their father. The same dark eyes. The same short nose. The same dark colored hair. Only… it wasn’t him, and it never would be. Their father was a mean, cruel monster of a man, and Hugh was innocent.
In that, Alistair decided what to do and what to say.
“Have I told you about my father?” Alistair started. “Do you know anything about him?”
Hugh shook his head. “No. I… I don’t think so.”
“Probably for the best…” Alistair chuckled. “He was not a kind man, my father. And even if he was, I never saw it. Growing up, he treated me with contempt and hatred that was vile.”
“He did?” Hugh seemed confused.
“I do not think he ever wanted children,” Alistair said. “While knowing at the same time that he had to have them. If that makes sense?”
Hugh nodded with caution. “An heir, you mean?”
“That’s the short of it,” Alistair sighed. “I resented him for so long… hated him, in fact. And it wasn’t until I was much older that I came to accept that the way he treated me, likely, had nothing to do with me at all. I think he hated himself, his life, and he saw in me a reflection of that.”
“All right…” Hugh eyed him warily.
