Page 49 of Tutoring a Lady into Sin
“I…I do not know what to say,” Phineas admitted.
“Phineas,” Felton whispered with his eyes still shut tight, “I wish for you to understand me fully. Your mother and I once agreed that keeping this secret forever was paramount to protecting the family’s good name. We vowed never to tell you, your brother, or even the former duke of what had evolved between us because we understood how such a scandal could rock an already precarious boat.”
“I can appreciate as much,” Phineas murmured as he thought about the conversation he and Felton had with Percival just a few days before. Percy was constantly getting into trouble in one way or the other, and the family was always just one crude news story away from having their name run through the wringer. “But if you were so desirous of keeping this secret, why tell me now?”
“Because you need to know,” Felton answered simply. His eyes opened slowly, and he pierced Phineas with his gaze. “A choice lays before you, Son. You may keep your family united in maintaining this secret, but I think, in doing as much, you will lose the love of the fair Christianna.”
Phineas inhaled sharply. “What does Christianna have to do with any of this?”
“Did I not just overhear Percy say the wedding is but two days from now?” Felton questioned feebly.
“You were awake then?” Phineas asked.
Felton nodded once, as it seemed to take a tremendous amount of effort for him to bob his head in assent. “I can tell that you cannot decide what to do about your brother, and it pains me to see you so forlorn and confused.” He squeezed Phineas’ hand. “You have always been so headstrong…so determined…my son. Ahhh…” He breathed deeply. “It feels so very nice to finally say those words aloud.”
Phineas shook his head as he tried to sort his thoughts. “You said I had a choice before me. I could either keep quiet about my true parentage and lose Christianna or…? What is the alternative?”
A flash of Felton’s old, spirited self emerged as he arched his eyebrow sardonically. “I think you already know the answer to that question. If you wish to keep Lady Christianna and even wed her, you must tell everyone you are the heir to the earldom. It is the only way that you can protect her from being overcome by this scandal.”
“But how can I possibly erase one scandal while drawing her into another?” Phineas asked.
Felton made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a sigh. His breath was noisy as he released it. “I am sorry to lay all this at your feet, my boy, but there is no other way. I waited too long…much too long…and now…” His words trailed off, and he tipped his head forehead as a raging cough overtook him.
Phineas watched as Felton’s body jerked and bucked. His shoulders shook furiously, and it seemed that this time, Felton was not going to be able to clear his airway. “Felton!” Phineas cried. “I know what to do. The choice is easy. I will not forsake you. I will not abandon Christianna.” He prayed that in saying these words, he might recall Felton to him.
By accepting his true parentage, he might somehow infuse Felton with the strength to persevere, but his words were for nought. When Felton’s coughing seized, he fell backwards on the pillow and lay there with his eyes open and glassy. Phineas leaned forward and placed his hand underneath Felton’s nostrils, but he could feel no breath. His fingertips fluttered to Felton’s neck, but there was no pulse there.
With Felton’s dying breaths, he had finally told the secrets he had harboured for so very long. And Phineas could not help but see so clearly that in hiding away that old love story, Felton had condemned himself to a life of pain. He clutched Felton’s hand tightly and wept.
“I should have known,” he whispered as the tears fell freely. “I should have been able to see what was right there…all along.” Phineas abhorred the fact that he had been so naïve. A man like Felton should have been able to wed any lady of thetonhe wanted, but he had spent not just his youth but all his days anchored to Phineas’ mother’s side.
What...but love…could make a man act so irrationally?
He wiped his tears with his free hand, but it did little good. In all his days, Phineas had never been so overcome by grief, and he wished to wallow in it.
A small sound, almost as if someone was clearing their throat, interrupted Phineas’ moans of despair.
“Is it true?” he asked without turning his gaze away from Felton to address his mother. He already knew it was she standing there because no one else would be able to just linger in the doorway as primly as she was doing.
“Yes,” his mother replied gently. She stepped clear of the doorway and turned to shut the door behind herself. “I know not what Felton told you precisely, but I am sure he was honest in his dealings with you. He never wanted it any other way.”
Phineas choked on the tears that were so thick, they now threatened to strangle him. He dropped Felton’s hand and turned to fix his mother with his gaze. He could not make out her features properly because his tears were obstructing everything.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed his eyes, and blinked several times so that his mother would no longer seem like a blurry figure. She stood there, austere as ever, with her head held high and her shoulders thrown back. “Felton wanted to tell me?”
“Long ago,” his mother whispered as she walked elegantly toward them. “I was betrothed to the duke when I was but eighteen years old. I met Felton when I was twenty, and we fell in love so quickly. It was not that I did not admire the duke and even think highly of him, but with Felton, there was something special. He understood me in a way no one else had ever dared to before, and I took comfort in his loving embrace.”
“But if you loved Felton, why did you not just…I do not know…could you not have just run away with him?” Phineas floundered as he tried to come to grips with the situation.
His mother shook her head sullenly. “We discussed doing as much, especially after you were born. Felton worried someone might learn of our affair, but we ultimately decided against it.”
“Why?” Phineas probed. “Why did you consent to live…like this?” he asked as he nodded at Felton’s still form. “You could have spent many wonderful years together…living with each other…loving each other.”
“We did,” the dowager duchess said softly. “That is exactly what we did.”
“But you were not free,” Phineas protested. “You had to hide your love. You not only kept the truth from me, but you hid it from everyone else as well.”
“I know this will be difficult for you to understand, Phineas,” his mother said as she came to stand on the other side of Felton’s bed. She reached out and brushed her fingertips through the soft waves of his hair, pushing the strands away from his face.
