He scowled. “That boy needs to be whipped.”
“You know you don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I? No. Sorry. I’m forgetting. I was the one who needed it. It did me such a lot of good.”
“Sebastian—”
“No. No. Don’t you dare pity me. Notyou.”
Don’t make me a victim.
He’d begged that of her once. She’d pressed a kiss to his knuckles. The same hand that now lifted his glass to his lips. Hedrank deeply until the glass was empty. When he glanced at his father, he saw clear water in his glass, sympathy in his eyes.
“You had an argument?”
“She was unhappy with my choice of wife.”
His father’s eyes widened. “Your wife?”
“I’m marrying Lady Frances. Don’t act surprised. It’s been my plan for months, and I’ve already informed you of it. Though perhaps you were too drunk to remember.”
“But…” His father looked as stupid as a fish, mouth working on nothing but air for a moment. “I was certain you and Mrs Ardingly…” His brow pinched, his lips turning down. It was a very old look. One Sebastian hadn’t seen in decades, not since he was a very young boy, caught in some daft mischief. His father wasdisappointedin him. “But you love her. She loves you. It has been obvious for weeks.”
“Lust, Father.” He refilled his glass. “Lust, not love. Very easy to confuse the two. Four letters. Both start with L.”
“Sebastian…”
“You won’t blame me. She’s an attractive woman. Beautiful even. I like the way she smiles. I like the way she moves.” He drank half his glass, businesslike. He reallydidknow how to get drunk. How gratifying to find he still had control over one area of his life. “We’re two men together, you won’t mind me being crude. I like the way she fills a dress and the colour of her lips and imagining how they’d look wrapped around—”
“Sebastian!” His father’s face was frigid. “You stop that, right now. This is no way to talk of any lady, and especially not one who has been such a good friend to our house.”
“Oh, country parson’s daughters. You know how they are. Friends to all, high and low.” He took another sip of wine then gestured with the glass towards his father. “You’ve changed your tune, though. Weren’t you one of the first to drop Lord Pemberthy when he married her aunt? We can’t tolerate thatsort of mésalliance, you know. Letting the riff-raff into our ranks, the house of Thorne kowtowing to upstart mushrooms. Unthinkable.”
His father took a moment to answer, as though debating the wisdom of continuing any discussion with Sebastian in his current state. But if there was one thing Thornes truly were, it was stubborn. And proud. His father did not like to be called a hypocrite.
“The thing about suffering and loss, Sebastian, is that they unavoidably teach one a little wisdom, no matter how unwilling one is to pay the price. When you lose what’s most important…it…it makes you realise what really matters in life. Did any of my rank or status or money help when your mother was dying? I could do nothing. Nothing to save her. Nothing to ease her. But…but there was a nurse from the village. A simple, coarse country woman, as brusque as she was tender, butkind, Sebastian.Good.”
“Oh please.”
“Isn’t Tom proof? Doesn’t he show that—”
“Do you think I don’t value humanity!” Sebastian exploded to his feet. “Does anyone truly think I have gone my whole life without realising that Burton, or Daniels, or Mrs Clare, or any servant, or anyone ofanyrank at all, isn’t just as human as anyone else? Have I ever once in my life been cruel to someone who works for me? Hit them? Turned them away without references? Swindled them of their pay or even raised my voice? I already know that they are all every bit as human and vital and valid as you or I or anyone else. But what does it matter? Society has its rules, and we are all,allof us, as tied by them as anyone else. Marrying a no one is beneath me because the whole world agrees it is, the servants and the beggars too. This is…this is thesystemwe live in. What has five hundred years of history… Our family name…”
“Bugger the system.”
Sebastian shot his father a startled glance.
“Are you a Thorne or aren’t you?” the old man said. “What’s our pride worth if it’s built on other people’s opinions?”
Sebastian sat back down. He picked up his glass, but more to steady his hand. “You raised me… You raised me to believe that—”
“I didn’t raise you at all. Let’s be honest, if honesty is the agenda for tonight. And perhaps it’s about bloody time. I didn’t raise you, Sebastian. I failed you. And that’s a grief I carry just as much as your mother’s death. More so, often enough.”
Sebastian stared into the ruby depths of his wine, his heart pounding.
“This isn’t the time to tell you,” his father continued, “but we’re so close to the topic it seems dishonest not to speak of it. I have decided…” He paused to take a breath. “I have decided to speak to my solicitor. About divorcing your mother.”
His heart gave a flip, but he mumbled, sullen as a child, “She is not my mother.”
