Page 60 of The Soldier
Ten
“So you’ll leave us on the morrow and take Mozart with you?” the duke asked as he pushed a brandy decanter toward his firstborn.
“Val seems ready for a change, and there’s plenty of peace and quiet in Yorkshire,” St. Just replied, pouring himself half a finger of brandy and watching as His Grace cut a deck of playing cards.
“Not drinking much these days, are you?” His Grace observed. “You’re my witness; I’m trying to behave, as well.”
“On the advice of the physicians?”
“Who else?” The duke rolled his eyes. “And once Her Grace gets wind of something like that, I am a doomed man.”
“I’ve never quite understood how she manages you,” St. Just said, taking a small sip of very good brandy.
“Neither have I.” His father smiled. “That’s part of her genius. Val gets his music from her, Westhaven his brains, and you…”
“Yes?” St. Just arched an eyebrow, for what could he possibly have inherited from a woman with whom he shared no blood?
“Your heart, lad.” The duke tossed his brandy back in a single swallow. “Hell and the devil, that’s good stuff.”
“My heart?”
“You were a puny little thing when your mother left you here.” The duke eyed his strapping son. “I am ashamed to say I did not take an adequate interest in your early years, which is part of what haunted me about Rose’s situation.”
“Would you care to explain that?”
“Let’s walk, shall we? Elsewise I’ll be pouring myself one more tot, and one more, and so forth, and Esther will be wroth.” He hoisted himself to his feet and led the way to the back gardens, St. Just ambling at his side.
“You were saying you were negligent,” St. Just prompted.
“I was.” His Grace smiled thinly. “Just as Her Grace informed me we were to become parents, the title befell me, and your mother attempted to renew her acquaintance with me. I sent her packing at first, but she was savvy enough to contact Esther a few years later and threaten to put it about I’d walked away from my by-blow.”
“So you were indeed negligent,” St. Just said, bewildered his father would so blatantly admit such a thing.
“It wasn’t until she contacted Esther that your mother bothered to let on you existed.” The duke sighed heavily. “Just as Gwen Hollister neglected to inform Victor of his paternity.”
“The circumstances were very different.”
The duke waved a dismissive hand. “Keep your powder dry, for God’s sake. We can all agree those circumstances were unfortunate all around. But in your case, I assumed your mother got pregnant on purpose then bided her time until I was invested. She approached me then waited until we had both heir and spare in hand before threatening us with you.”
“What do you mean, threatening you?” St. Just asked, his stomach beginning to rebel against even the small amount of brandy he’d imbibed.
“She wanted a king’s ransom to keep her mouth shut. Said she’d talk to the gossip rags, write her memoirs, drag my name through the mud, and so forth. I was younger than you are now, lad, and hadn’t much bottom. It was Esther who understood Kathleen’s real agenda.”
“Which was?”
“Kathleen said we could either pay, or she’d leave you on the doorstep for all the world to see. Esther told her we’d take you gladly, and Kathleen handed you over. The only condition Esther put on the transaction was that the woman was to stay away from me. My duchess is no fool.” The duke smiled dryly.
“So that’s why I never saw my mother again?”
The duke cocked his head. “You never saw her because she didn’t want to cost you what providence had tossed in your lap. Her Grace wrote to your mother every six months until your mother died when you were twelve. She sent likenesses and a lock of your hair. She took you to the park so your mother could sit in a closed carriage and see you from time to time, and when your mother passed on, Her Grace kept in touch with your Irish cousins. Her Grace accurately divined that Kathleen’s plan had become to see you raised under your father’s roof.”
St. Just heard his father’s voice, a tough, pragmatic bray that had been part of his life for more than a quarter century, but the words were barely registering over the pounding in his chest.
“I don’t understand,” he ground out. “Why wouldn’t my mother want me to know she was seeing me? I was five when she left me. I knew very well whose child I was.”
“Your mother,” the duke said with uncharacteristic gentleness, “wanted you to prosper, St. Just. She wasn’t a bad woman; she was a good woman, in fact, but she made hard choices, and in the end, did what was best for you. She wanted you to believe you were a son of this house and felt you’d not make that transition were she tugging your heartstrings in a different direction.”
St. Just sat there in the growing darkness, hearing crickets chirp and cicadas sing. A soft breeze was wafting over the flowers, and his whole life was being turned inside out.
