“I saw the worst, too. I’m not blind, Kit.”
“I’m certain you weren’t. However”—he drew the word out—“this information you share convinces me more than ever that Old John is not your father. I’ve never known a man with a titlewho didn’t use it. Even a knighthood. The fellow in Moorcock is a dodgy sort. Moorcock draws disreputable characters from all over. It is almost the middle of the country, and thieves come from all over to change what they stole into money. Old John makes his livelihood separating the lowest of the low from their ill-gotten gains. He is quite good. Then again, those who steal are not the brightest of fellows. Old John can easily outplay them. He certainly taught me a thing or two. Perhaps, at some point, Old John met your father, who taught him his unique shuffle?”
“So you have suggested before. And that is all the more reason I must go to Moorcock. I need to know the truth.”
He shook his head. “And if the truth is disappointing, Elise?”
“If he isn’t my father, then I’ve lost nothing, have I?” But this Old Johnwasher papa. Deep in her soul, she knew it.
***
Kit had done his best to warn Elise.
He knew Old John. The man played at being a genial gentleman but beneath his exterior, Kit sensed he was a lying, thieving fox. Old John could not have sired anything close to the intelligent woman Elise was. But she wouldn’t listen,and perhaps he didn’t blame her. At one time, he’d wanted to believe his father had given a care for him, too.
Except men weren’t afraid to take off the blinders.
Women, on the other hand, believed they could fix anyone. Elise had looked up at him with eyes as clear and bright as stained glass and babbled the things that women always say. It was the way they were. Eternally optimistic.
Of course, a new trouble had begun niggling away at Kit. What if she was right and Old Johnwasher sire?
He couldn’t leave her with him. It was one thing to learn Old John’s card tricks and laugh with him over an ale; it was another to hand Elise over. A loving father didn’t abandon his family, and that is what he’d done, all of Elise’s excuses to the side. If Old John was that man, what other sly acts could he be capable of against his daughter?
And she would be his unwitting victim. She had unshakable faith in him. Old John could make up excuses to explain away his bad behavior, and she would believe every one of them. He knew. His mother had been that way.
She’d held his father up as a paragon. She’d claimed his father was a great statesman and had admonished Kit that he must work very hard to measure up to his sire. A sire who rarely came home from London. Oh, yes, he understood whatElise meant about eagerly waiting for a father to make an appearance.
On the rare occasions when the former duke had come home to Smythson, his mother had acted like a giddy girl in love. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him. She’d held dinner parties where Kit remembered his father would wax on about the important generals he knew and how he’d been in discussions over the French. Whitehall needed his advice, he’d claimed. That was why he couldn’t come home often. After all, he held the king’s counsel.
What were a wife and a son when compared to Affairs of State?
All of those stories had been lies.
Kit had learned the harsh truth at school. When he had bragged of this father’s connections, he’d been set straight. His father had rarely made an appearance in the Lords, let alone offered time to his king. He’d been too busy spending his money on women and gambling.Whoring Winderton, they had called him. The name was one they’d overheard their fathers use to describe the Duke of Winderton.
He’d never shared this information with his mother. She’d loved her husband. Her faith in him had been rock solid, even when it was discovered upon his death that he had gambled away most of the Winderton fortune. There had even been a fear they would lose most of Smythson’s lands as well, but did she criticize him? No,she’d held on to her theory that he had been a good man led astray.
Fortunately, the estate was saved by her brother, Kit’s guardian, his uncle Balfour... the one who had won the lovely Kate’s heart, even after knowing Kit loved her.
Was it any wonder he didn’t trust families?
Of course, he’d not handled Kate’s rejection well. And so had started his downward spiral into self-pity. He’d been so angry, he’d acted out as if he’d had this need to prove himself to be—a what?
A man? A duke? A lover?
And when he’d failed at all of those roles, when he’d botched everything, he’d run... which actually hadn’t been a terrible idea. He had been given a title, an education, and wealth. And he had taken them for granted.
He could have turned to his uncle. Balfour was highly respected and had tried his best to give Kit guidance. And Kit might have listened—until the lovely Kate. After that, Kit had been too proud and stubborn to ask for help.
Consequently, his ruin had been quick.
Except his mother had not been so understanding with her son as she’d been with her husband. He remembered his mother confronting him. The words she’d used over his appalling behavior still rankled.You are Winderton. That must stand for something.Then she’d told him he needed to go out into the world.He needed to make something of himself. His father, she had assured him, would never have behaved as he did.
It had been on the tip of Kit’s still slightly drunk tongue to set her straight, to tell her that her husband had been no saint.
He hadn’t. He’d kept his mouth shut. Her husband’s behavior had not been her fault.
Instead of arguing with her, he’d just left. He’d walked away from Smythson and had been walking ever since. He didn’t even understand what he searched for. Or how to find his way back.
