Page 66 of Daring the Forbidden Earl
“I believe you heard me,” Johanna retorted. “In all the years I was married to him, I never knew how despicable he was. Mark has informed me of everything, and I hate to tell you if you do not already know, but your father was a monster.”
Mark skirted around the back of a tall stack of crates and slipped down the side. Reaching the far side, he crouched low and peered cautiously around the edge of the covered crates. There, kneeling in the center of an open circle of floor, was Johanna. Her hands were bound, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. And standing over her, with an expression of unbridled rage, was The Mastiff himself.
And that girl I saw at the boxing match…
She had just rushed up to Hugh and grabbed him by the arm, tugging him away from Johanna.
“She doesn’t know what she’s sayin’, love,” the girl pleaded. “Don’t get cross with her. Ye’ve kidnapped her and tied her up—of course she’s goin’ to say things to rile ye up.”
Hugh seemed to soften, as he leaned down and placed a kiss upon the young woman’s head. “I wasn’t getting cross, love. I just don’t like to hear ungrateful harpies talking about my father like that.” He shot a dark glare at Johanna. “He was no monster. You might’ve been married to him, but you don’t know anything about him.”
“I know he brutalized an innocent woman!” Johanna seethed. “Did you know that about your dear father? He assaulted Mark’s mother in the most vicious way and suffered no retribution. And yet, that poor woman eventually wasted away and died because she could not bear the torment of living with that memory!”
A swell of love expanded through Mark’s chest as he heard Johanna’s impassioned defense of his mother. It had not been easy for him to tell her about that devastating moment in his life.
Hugh whirled around, his face twisting up in a frightening grimace. “Is that what he told you?” A bitter laugh ricocheted through the warehouse. “Of course he twisted the story. Do you really believe that a child’s eyes can be trusted to see the real truth? He did not know what he saw that day, but my mother and father have both told me the real tale.”
Johanna’s confused face reflected Mark’s. “What do you mean?”
“My father did not assault my mother.” Hugh sneered. “They were in love.”
Johanna shook her head slowly. “No… that cannot be true.”
“They had adored one another since they were children and had always hoped to marry.” Hugh’s voice thickened. “That is, until my grandfather decided that his daughter would marry the eldest son of the Carlton family instead. She was forced into a union with him, instead of my father, though they never lost their love for one another. I was the result of their enduring affair.Thatis what Mark saw that day—my father and my mother enacting their love for one another. There was no assault, no brutalization, no force whatsoever.”
Unable to bear such lies being bandied about, when heknewwhat he had seen, something snapped inside Mark. Stretching his pistol arm out in front of him, he stepped out from behind the crates and aimed the barrel at Hugh.
A flicker of surprise rippled over Hugh’s face. “I see you didn’t need my final letter, after all,” he said, smirking. “It’s good to see you on your own, at last, Brother. Truly, you do not know how long I have waited for this day. Though I hope you did not hear too much of that, for I have wanted to tell you everything myself. It wouldn’t have quite the same satisfaction if you merely overheard.”
“You are no brother of mine,” Mark hissed back, while he tried to stop his pistol arm from shaking. “And if my mother is truly your mother, then it wasnotby choice.”
He thought of those long, sad months after he had witnessed the attack upon his mother, when she was absent from the country estate. After so many years thinking she had been sent to a sanitorium, he realized the truth. There had been no sanitorium, but perhaps a quiet, isolated place where she could give birth to the blasted fruit of that brutal encounter.
How could I have neglected to figure that out sooner? It is no wonder my mother was never the same again.
“You are mistaken, Brother.” Hugh smiled. “I do not blame you for wanting to believe that your mother and father were a loving pair, and I do think your mother was fond of your father. But she never loved him like she loved my father, Peter Carlton. Your uncle. I have the letters to prove it, written in her own hand while I was languishing in an orphanage that she was forced to send me to. An orphanageyourfather demanded I was sent to, so he could continue to pretend his wife belonged to him.”
Mark’s throat constricted, his heart thudding too fast, his breaths too shallow. “No. You are wrong. My mother and father were besotted with one another. She would never have done such a thing.”
“You may speak with Mrs. Roberts if you do not believe me.” Hugh gestured to Johanna. “It is wonderfully coincidental that you took such an interest in the very orphanage where I was raised, Dear Stepmother, as it will make it that much easier for your beloved to learn the truth. Mrs. Roberts has all my letters from my mother and father, and she will tell you of the tearful visits my mother used to make, when she would watch me in secret. My father, too. Every time he came back from sea, he brought me something. Mrs. Roberts has kept every gift safe for me, too.”
Trembling violently, his head throbbing from the influx of unwanted information, Mark thought he might keel over. He could not, and would not, believe what Hugh said. He had seen his parents’ love with his own eyes. That could not be falsified.
But what if I was mistaken? What if Iwasseeing it all through the eyes of a naïve child? What if I saw only what I wanted to believe?
The questions bombarded his brain, making him sick to his stomach. Indeed, the very foundations of his world felt as though they were cracking beneath him and threatening to crumble away all together.
Were they cries of passion that I heard from my mother? I thought they were screams, but… I have heard so many passionate howls in my time. And they do not sound dissimilar.
And then there was the obvious to consider—if his mother really had been brutalized by his uncle, then his father surely would have killed the bastard without hesitation. Instead, his uncle had received no kind of punishment. He had even been allowed to marry Johanna at the estate’s chapel.
Did that mean that Mark’s father had been aware of the affair? Had he known that his wife loved another man, and merely… endured it? Was it only when she fell pregnant with that man’s child that his father decided to intervene?
“I can see you’re beginning to understand,” Hugh said. “As for our mother, she died of heartbreak. She pined away for my father, and for me, until there was nothing left. You have your father to blame for that. If he had accepted me, she would still be alive.”
“Do not speak!” Mark roared in reply, pressing a palm against his temple.
Hugh chuckled softly. “You and I are brothers, Mark. I have always wanted to know you, but I feared your father’s retribution if I sought you out.” He paused. “However, that is not the sole reason I have been pursuing you. You see, when my father passed, he left me a small sum, but I have spent it all to make my name great. And now, I would like the rest of what is owed to me, from you.”
