Page 54 of Anything But a Duke
Aidan stepped into the room the old man indicated and found it filled with personal mementos, photographs, and framed drawings.
“Ask me what you will, sir, but first tell me your name.”
Aidan turned and fixed his gaze on the landlord’s dark eyes. “Iverson.”
The man’s trembling, wrinkled hand came up. He clapped it over his mouth as his eyes bulged. “You’re the boy.”
“Yes.” Aidan stepped forward and barely resisted gripping Callihan by his shirtfront. “Tell me what you know about my mother. About Mary Iverson.”
The landlord stared at him for a moment and then bent on his cane to make his way across the room.
Aidan held his breath, struggling to maintain calm. He waited, somehow, for the man to open a small tin box and extract a piece of paper. Callihan shuffled toward him and stretched out his hand, offering the fragment of newsprint.
A death notice for one Mary Iverson. His fingers trembled so fiercely, Aidan almost dropped the fragile, faded clipping. She’d died so long ago, two years after he’d escaped the workhouse. All those years he’d imagined her, wondered who she was and where she might be. For most of those years, she’d been dead and buried.
“Tell me everything.” He pointed to the threadbare chairs arranged in front of the fireplace. The old man collapsed into one with a heavy sigh, hooking his cane over the arm.
“The story is a sad one, sir.”
“I know.”
Aidan scanned every item in the parlor, wondering if one of the photographs had any link to his mother. In one of the rooms above his head, Mrs. Tuttle had watched over his mother while he came into the world. Perhaps she’d given birth to his sister here too.
“Tell me all of it, Mr. Callihan.”
“I know less than I suspect you’ll like.” The old gentleman inhaled sharply. “I was hired to help with repairs here at the boardinghouse. Knew your mother was in a delicate way when she first arrived, and I took a liking to her.” He frowned. “I mean nothing by that, sir. We became friends.”
“Did she ever tell you where she hailed from?”
“From London, sir.” Callihan shrugged. “Like most.”
“Her family.” Aidan clenched a fist against his knee. “Did she speak of them?”
“She spoke of her past rarely and of her predicament even less. Had many secrets to keep, Mary did.”
“Who fathered her children?” There had always been the possibility that he and his sister did not share the same sire.
“I cannot say, sir.”
“You must know something, Mr. Callihan.” Aidan’s patience was a fraying, broken thing. Edging forward on his chair, he said quietly, “Anything.”
The old man lifted an arm, almost as if he wished to lay a comforting hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “I would gladly tell you if I knew. Mary never revealed the father of her children to me. She lived here while you were very small and returned shortly after your sister was born.”
“Returned where?”
“Back to her employer. The Earl of Wyndham.”
Aidan didn’t have to be a mathematician to fit the equation together in his head. The probability was that Wyndham, or someone in the earl’s household, was his father.
“Never saw her for many years after she returned to Belgravia. Then one day she appeared.” Callihan’s eyes took on a glassy faraway look. “She was ill, in a bad way. I think trouble might have found her after she left the Wyndhams. Might even have run afoul of the law.” Slowly, he turned his gaze on Aidan. “I cared for her until she passed. Saw to her burial and that notice.” Flicking his wrist, he indicated the scrap of newspaper still clutched in Aidan’s hand. “Keep it if you like, sir.”
“My sister. Mrs. Tuttle said you mentioned my sister to her when she visited you.”
The old man’s gaze grew wary. He fussed with the doily pinned to the arm of his chair. “Can’t recall, Mr. Iverson. An old man’s mind tends to stray. Sometimes I say things that mean nothing at all.”
Aidan shot up from his chair. His days of brawling with other young men as hungry and desperate as he’d been were long past. But the same urge to strike out burned in him now, to get rid of the pain, to feel that he had some measure of power.
“I run a gambling club, Mr. Callihan. I know when a man is lying to me.” In two steps, he was in front of the landlord’s chair. Aidan towered over the frail man, but he felt as powerless as he ever had in his life. “Tell me the truth.”
