“Huh?”
Penelope scrutinized him with inquisitive eyes. “You look a bit sick. I hope you’re not—”
“I’m fine,” he more or less gasped as if he were being strangled.
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Trust me, I…” He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I’ll do it today. Fix it, I mean. I promise.”
Penelope’s entire demeanor changed from stern to soft. “Good.” She moved closer to him and he shifted, letting her take the wheel for a while.
“Penelope,” he said after several minutes of silence had passed. “Tell me about your father.” He hadn’t meant to broach the subject with her, but he’d realized as he stood there thinking of facing Cassandra again that he really didn’t want to askher. She’d only get defensive and he would only get jealous and then they’d probably argue again. But it occurred to him that he really didn’t know much about the man she’d hoped to marry and that maybe he ought to. Maybe knowing more about him would make Cassandra’s position easier to understand or maybe it wouldn’t, but now that Devlin had posed the question, he realized he had to know everything there was to know. For his own peace of mind.
She shrugged, the sort of shrug that conveyed detachment. “I never knew him. He died before I was born.”
“Of course. But surely your mother must have mentioned him, described him or…something.” Penelope tilted her head up at him, her expression startlingly blank. Devlin crossed his arms and considered, then thought of something. “What was his name for instance? I mean his full name?”
It was peculiar to think he would not know at least that much, but Cassandra had only ever referred to him as Timothy or Penelope’s father. She’d known him since childhood, for Christ sake, so the informality would have made sense to her, but it also meant that Devlin had nothing on which to form an opinion, no clue as to where the man came from, who his family had been…nothing. To him he’d never been more than a name, and maybe that made it worse. He wasn’t sure, but he wanted to figure it out.
“Bertrand Olivier Timothy Dawson,” Penelope said with a flourish. “According to Mama, he hated his first two names so those closest to him always called him Timothy.”
Devlin felt his brow crease with recognition. There was something awfully familiar about that name. As if he’d heard it once, a long time ago. “Was he titled?”
Considering Cassandra’s heritage as the Earl of Vernon’s daughter, it stood to reason that she would have gotten engaged to a lord. And although Devlin wasn’t as familiar with the British peerage as he ought to be as the son of a duke, seeing as he’d left the country at the age of eighteen and had made no effort to mingle with thetonon the few occasions when he’d returned, he was curious.
Penelope nodded. “It’s funny how things turned out. If he hadn’t died, I’d be a proper lady and Mama would be—” She stopped herself and glanced at him apologetically. “I’m glad she married you.”
Devlin’s chest tightened. “Me too.”
“And I’m glad you don’t care about my illegitimacy.”
“It’s of no consequence. Character is far more important and you have a fine one, Penny. One of the best, in fact.”
She grinned and then told him with an impressive amount of pride, “None of my grandparents thought so, you know.”
Devlin clenched his jaw and curled his hands into hard fists. It wasn’t right and they didn’t know what they’d been missing by turning their back on this wonderful girl. “Who are your paternal grandparents?” he asked, realizing she’d not answered his previous question about her father’s title.
She tipped her nose up and told him haughtily, “The Marquess and Marchioness of Weatherly.” Blowing out a breath, she added, “My father was the Earl of Ludlow.”
And while Devlin’s heart did not exactly stop beating, he did feel as if the deck opened beneath his feet and dropped him into the ocean.
One hour later, he wasn’t exactly foxed, but he wasn’t exactly sober either.
He’d needed at least three glasses of brandy in order to think straight. Or perhaps not to think at all, he decided while trying to figure out what he should do.
No.
Strike that.
He knew what heshoulddo. The problem was finding the courage required to do it.
His mind whirled. He could scarcely recall what he’d said or done since Penelope mentioned her father’s title. Except Monty had shown up at some point to relieve him of his duties, and now Devlin was here, in the hull of all places. Sitting on a crate with both forearms resting on his thighs, he stared down into the half empty glass between his hands.
This was it. He’d never be happy again. And neither would Cass.
Not once she learned what he knew.
And damn it all, he had to tell her, because living with the guilt of not doing so would most likely kill him. “Hell and damnation.” He set his glass to his lips once more and drank.
