Page 94 of Deceiving an Earl
“Then make me understand why you would want to marry a man like Needham. He has people killed so he can cut them up and pretend he is this great person in front of other people. He lies to you about me and about Father and he implies that you are less… That you are a…” His throat was slick with outrage and an emotion he couldn’t quite name. Sadness that she was unwilling to defend his father and herself.
“That’s enough,” she said. “No more, Philip. Just know that…what I’m doing is important for you.”
“No. I will not accept that. I want… Idemandan explanation.”
Finally, color flooded her face. He didn’t even care that it was anger. “You have no right to demand anything.”
Philip took a step forward and pointed to his face and his swollen eye. “He hit me, and you allowed it. You didn’t even defend me.”
“Everything I do, I do for you. Make no mistake about that.”
He had no words left. He felt that she wasn’t hearing him, that she had created this wall between them that he was banging his head against. After his father had died they had become close, but it seemed that lately that closeness had evaporated. Part of it was his fault, he knew. He’d behaved abominably and had no excuse for his actions.
He could say he was sowing his wild oats, but really he’d felt out of control, lost without his father. Angry that his father had left him, and he’d acted out in inappropriate ways.
But this rift between he and his mother frightened him more than losing his father had. At least he’d had his mother after his father’s death. If he lost her, he had no one. And he feared he was losing her not to death, but to William Needham.
“You will be returning to Eton in a few weeks,” she said. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was concentrating on the floral pattern at the top of the stuffed chair, running her finger over the edges. “I want you to stay there through the holidays.”
Philip felt the blood drain from his face. His eye throbbed with the beat of his frightened heart. “You’re sending me off? You’ll not allow me back even for the holidays?”
She drew in a shaky breath. “You saw what he did to you. Staying at Eton is safer than being here, with him.”
She was claiming that she was protecting him, but it didn’t feel like protection. It felt like abandonment.
“Needham doesn’t want me around,” he said flatly. “And you won’t fight for me.”
“Iamfighting for you. You just don’t understand.” But she still wouldn’t look at him, and there was no heat in her denial, so he knew it was true.
“Why?” he whispered. And then an idea came to him, a horrible thought that had to be voiced. “It’s true, isn’t it? What Needham said about my father. Armbruster sired me, didn’t he? My father…” He swallowed through the lump in his throat. “Isn’t really my father and Needham is blackmailing you with the information.”
She lunged toward him, grabbed his arm in such a tight grip that he flinched. “Don’t ever say that again.Never. Do you hear me, Philip?” She shook his arm. “You are never to say those words again.”
They stared at each other, her with her anger and desperation, he with his fear and dawning horror.
He shook off her grip and walked out of the parlor and the house.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He walked all night, without a destination, without an idea of what he should do.Couldhe do anything? He was just a lad of sixteen, trying to get through this strange life he had been given.
Two months ago, he’d been on top of the world, attending his father’s school, well-liked by the other students, known for his exploits both in the classroom and out. Some of his reputation was not good, but he’d thought that was fine. It wasn’tallthat bad.
Then he’d been kicked out for swiving one of the servants and the funny thing was, the swiving had been disappointing. Not what he’d expected. He’d bragged about his exploits, but in all honesty, the maid in the linen closet had been his first. He’d been a bumbling fool, and she’d laughed at him while showing him what to do.
It hadn’t been at all what the older boys had described. Truth be told, it had all been a bit embarrassing.
And certainly not worth being kicked out of Eton.
If his father had known, he would have been severely disappointed.
His father.
Not Arthur. The man he’d thought of as his father all his life.
But Armbruster. Oliver.
At some point the tears came, running down his cheeks so fast that as soon as he swiped them away, more came to take their place. He walked and cried like a damn baby, and he mourned the life he thought he’d had.
