Page 55 of The Beastly Earl

"What in god's name are you talking about, my lady," Ewan snapped as an uneasy sensation formed in his stomach.

"Tell him, Wallis." The dowager countess took a step toward her sister with a look of fury that made Ewan shift his body to keep his mother from reaching his aunt. "Tell him how, just like his pretty Mrs. Morehouse, you parted your legs for another master of Argaty Keep."

"Don't do this, Elspeth. Please."

There was a deep note of pain in his aunt's voice as Ewan jerked his gaze toward his aunt. Tears shimmered in Wallis's eyes as her expression silently pleaded with her sister. Ewan shifted his gaze back and forth between the women as he struggled to make sense of his mother's words. What master of Argaty Keep was she referring to?

His father had been an only child, and as the eldest, Ewan had become the earl upon his father's death. Confusion engulfed him as he studied his aunt's face. Pale and visibly shaken, he saw shame and guilt in her eyes before she bowed her head.

"Since you refuse to tell him, I will." The dowager's voice held a note of vindictive malice as she looked at Ewan. "My sister is a whore. She entered my husband's bed after I became the Countess of Argaty, and she bore my husband a son."

The revelation left him dazed and battered as if he'd been knocked off his feet by a large wave during a bad storm at sea. In the dark recesses of his mind, he experienced the beginnings of an understanding that rocked the ground beneath him. Fighting to comprehend his mother's words, he remained silent in the face of her venomous glee. Not since childhood had he ever been so bewildered by her hatred for him. Ewan shook his head slowly as the dowager countess eyed him with a revulsion she might a soiled piece of cloth.

"You are not the Earl of Argaty. Gilbert is." The poisonous spite in his mother's voice made him jerk backward a step. The dowager countess looked at her sister. "I think he's taking it quite well, Wallis, wouldn't you agree?"

An incoherent note of pain and anger escaped the woman he'd called aunt all his life, and Ewan turned sharply to face her. The expression on Wallis's face told him the answer to his question before he even asked it, but he asked it nonetheless.

"Is it true?" he rasped harshly. Wallis flinched but met his gaze steadily as she nodded.

"Yes," she said softly. "But it is far more complicated than your—my sister makes it sound."

"Complicated?" he ground out with anger and pain. "There is nothing complicated about any of this. Either I am your son or I am not."

"You are my son."

The quiet words pounded against his ears as if he were on the battlefield once more with the cannons booming. For more than thirty years, he'd been living a lie without even knowing it. An invisible vise encircled him and squeezed his chest until it became difficult to breath. It was as if he'd been thrown into a raging river that threatened to drag him beneath the surface.

The past rose up to greet him as he remembered moments as a young boy when he'd tried so hard to please his mother, only to have her scorn him. Close on the heels of those memories was that of Aunt Wallis offering him the comfort and love he wanted so badly from his mother. As if from a great distance he heard his mother laugh. The moment he thought of the dowager as his mother, he was forced to correct himself. Wallis was his mother, not the countess.

"Your Mrs. Morehouse won't want anything to do with you now when she learns you're not really the earl." The sneer in the dowager's voice made Wallis step forward.

"Ewan will remain Earl of Argaty. Dougal saw to that when he convinced you to claim Ewan as your son, and I will see to it you do nothing to change that fact."

Wallis's voice was quiet, yet filled with a steely not he'd never heard in her voice before as she met her sister's gaze steadily. When the dowager started to interrupt, Wallis shook her head.

"Even if you try to sow seeds of doubt, Elspeth, too much time has passed. No one will believe you."

"'May you and your bastard rot in hell." The dowager countess spat out the words like a viper spitting venom. Sadness darkened Wallis's features, as she studied her sister's expression of hate.

"I pity you, Elspeth."

"Pity me? Whatever for?" Lady Argaty snapped.

"You've allowed hate to eat away at your soul," Wallis said quietly. "I've asked your forgiveness over and over again in both word and deed."

"I will never forgive you. You stole everything from me."

"I stole nothing from you because you had nothing to steal. You never loved Dougal. You loved his title. I'm the one who held Dougal's heart. That belonged to me from the moment we met," Wallis shook her head, her voice filled with dignity and quiet conviction.

"But you, you did something far worse. You punished a child for the sins of his parents, and you punished me after Dougal died by threatening to banish me from Argaty Keep knowing full-well I would endure anything simply to watch Ewan grow to manhood. But it's over now. It will be Ewan's choice whether I go or stay, not yours. You no longer hold any power over anyone, Elspeth. You surrendered that the moment you told Ewan the truth."

Rage twisted the dowager's face as she swung her hand toward her sister, but Ewan managed to emerge from his stunned state to grab the dowager's arm and stop her from hitting her target.

"Enough."

In a sharp, abrupt gesture, Ewan released his hold of the woman he'd called mother all his life. Suppressing the shock that had him reeling as to the truth of his birthright, Ewan pinned Lady Argaty beneath his gaze. "You, my lady, will remain in your chambers today, and see to it that my bro—your son, does not go anywhere without you or Brown at his side. Do you understand?"

"What are you going to do?" Despite the visible anger and hatred on her face, there was a thread of fear running through her question.