“Do you have an understanding?” he asked.
This time, his mother smiled. “We do. When he retires, not too long from now, he will be given three acres and a house. We shall marry or maybe just have a simple handfasting. It matters not. We shall live out our days together.”
Grayson nodded. After the briefest hesitation, he asked, “Is he my father?”
“What? No!” his mother said at once. “If your father were Mr. Stanley, why wouldn’t I have told you?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps to give me a better life than if I were the bastard child of a butler. Without a known father, I’ve been able to move easily between the world of servants and the Angsleys. For my whole life that I can remember, I’ve been the best friend of a man who inherited the earldom. Cam treats me like a brother. You made that possible by keeping my father a secret.”
When his mother pursed her lips tightly, he shook his head.
“It’s no matter. Now I know the reason you wouldn’t come live with me, even after you retired. You have your Mr. Stanley, and I’m happy for you.”
However, Mrs. O’Connor didn’t look happy, not one bit. She rose to her feet and silently went into her bedroom.
Eleanor exchanged a questioning look with Grayson.
“Do you think she’s all right?” she asked.
“Maybe you should go in there,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know what I said wrong.”
Just then, his mother returned, her face pale, and Eleanor thought it was with fear, not anger. She looked terrified.
“Eleanor, dear girl,” Mrs. O’Connor began, and she was positive Grayson’s mother was going to ask her to leave. “I want to thank you again for teaching me to write. And I shall use what you’ve given me. I might make up a poem or write down my recipes. Wouldn’t it have been nice if old Cook had done that before she passed?”
She was talking quickly, clearly not expecting an answer. “And now, I can read, too. Those primers were easy, and I returned them to Nanny Wendall. I’ve borrowed a book by Ellis Bell,Wuthering Heights, and I don’t even know what the title means, but I’m muddling through it. Frankly, it’s a bit dour.”
Grayson and Eleanor remained silent. They knew his mother wasn’t really wanting to have a discussion of literature at that moment. She had something else on her mind.
She leaned a hand on the table, staring at her son.
“Grayson, I haven’t told you the truth. Now you’re marrying, I know I did wrong keeping it from you. I don’t think it will make a difference, but you have a right to know. I was going to put it in a letter for after I’m gone.”
“Mum!”
“I know. That was being cowardly. Eleanor tried to tell me.”
He turned to her, his eyes questioning. “Do you know what this is about?”
How hurt he would be if she had known!She’d never been happier than that moment to be completely ignorant of something. “I do not. I promise.”
“Of course not,” his mother said. “Listen, for I must get this out before I lose my nerve. I did something stupid when I was a lass, but I have no regrets because I have you.”
He nodded. “Then Iama bastard?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
Eleanor watched this unfolding, ready to jump in and assure him it made no difference to her desire to marry him, not a whit!
“And the reason I can never live on the Cambrey estate is because,” Mrs. O’Connor hiccupped, and Eleanor realized the woman was beginning to cry, “because I promised your father I wouldn’t.”
With that, she opened the hand she had fisted on the table and a gold ring rolled off her palm toward Grayson.
He stared at it a moment before picking it up. Eleanor could see it was a signet ring, small enough for a man’s little finger, where it would rest, ready for sealing documents whenever necessary.
“It was a mistake,” Grayson’s mother continued. “I thought I loved him, but, for him, I was a momentary madness. He truly loved his wife until the day he died, and I had vowed to him never to bring her a bit of grief.”
Abruptly, Grayson stood up. “Does Cam know?”
