Page 103 of Ladies in Hating
“Thank you, Percy.” Ambrose jerked his head toward the exit. “You first, Beckett. I don’t turn my back on weasels.”
With a single pathetic backward glance, Beckett preceded Ambrose out the door.
When they were gone, Cat, Georgiana, and Jem emerged from behind the statue of Saint Sebastian. Jem moved toward Fawkes, and then the duke too was in motion, striding closer to meet Jem halfway.
The resemblance between them was even stronger now that they were face-to-face. The ginger hair, of course—but the long lines of their noses too, and the shape of their fingernails, and the breadth of their palms.
With Beckett gone, all of Fawkes’s focus was fixed upon Jem, and the space between them almost crackled with tension.
“James,” Fawkes said. The command had dropped out of his voice, leaving behind a faint note of hesitation. Almost, Cat would have said, of fear. “You are… Patience’s son, then?”
Jem put his chin up. “I am James Lacey.”
Fawkes nodded. His gaze roamed over Jem’s face and, for the space of a breath, he looked almost stricken.
And then he put out his hand. “My name is Oliver. I am your brother.”
Very slowly, Jem reached out and gripped Fawkes’s palm.
Fawkes swallowed. “My… Our father looked for you for a long time. It was his greatest regret, I think. That he could not find you.”
“I don’t understand.” Jem’s face was very pale, and Cat’s heart twisted in her chest. She had known about this for two days now. But Jem had had only his suspicions—only his impossible hopes. “He—the duke… He knew about me?”
“He knew that your mother was with child when they parted. You have to understand, I did not know any of this myself—not until I was an adult and my father told me everything. My father and mother were married when he sired you. He—” Fawkes broke off and shook his head. “I don’t pretend to know what was between them. They were complicated people, my parents, and I loved them both. But when my father learned of Patience’s condition, he offered her money. It was the most, in his mind, that hecouldoffer her. But she refused it. Told him that she did not want his charity.”
“I understand that,” Jem said. His chin was still high, his gaze just about level with Fawkes’s.
Fawkes gave him a searching look. “I suppose you do. After my mother died—six years ago now—our father looked for you again. But you and your mother had vanished utterly. There was no trace of Patience or the child he’d fathered. You were gone from Wiltshire as though you’d never been.”
“Six years ago,” Cat murmured. “We were in London by then.”
“Yes.” Fawkes’s gaze landed on her. His eyes were blue, not green like Jem’s—but just as careful and deliberate. “I understand that you left Woodcote Hall quietly.”
They had. Walter Lacey had made certain they had. To protect her and Jem—and to protect the man he’d loved.
Cat nodded. Her eyes burned.
Fawkes cleared his throat and went on. “It was Martin Yorke, finally, who turned you up. He confirmed your identity during his last visit.”
Jem was stiff and still across from Fawkes. His gaze flicked toward Cat, and the expression on his beloved face was all uncertainty.
Can this be real?he seemed to be asking. And:What happens to us now? To you and me? To our family?
Cat took a step toward him, and then another and another, until she was close enough to reach out and grip his hands. “Nothing has to change,” she whispered fiercely, “unless you wish it. You are still my brother. You are still James Lacey.”
His fingers felt cold in her hands, and he gripped back, his eyes on hers.
“I love you,” she murmured, soft enough for his ears alone. “And Father loved you. You were ours in every way that mattered. But for your family to expand—to grow—that’s a gift, Jemmy. You needn’t fear it.”
“This house,” Fawkes said, “is yours, James. My father left it to you, just as Beckett said. But I”—he looked pained—“I’ve visited here half a dozen times since my father’s death. There’s no money in the house, not anywhere that I could see. I think he meant it as a gift, but I fear it is in such a state of disrepair that it will be nothing more than a burden to you. A millstone about your neck.”
For the first time since they’d arrived at the house, the revelation of it all struck Cat with the force of a blow.
Renwick House—strange and crumbling and so special to her—was Jem’s. It could belong to Jem now.
“No,” Jem said, very softly.
Fawkes was still talking, a thread of anxiety creeping into his voice. “You can sell it, if you like. The property, at least, should be worth a great deal.”
