Page 57 of A Baron's Scandalous Quill
“It is not easy to stay away from one another,” he read out the words the man before him had written. “But I will do as you ask and keep my distance, as you wish me to.” William paused as Lord Longfellow hung his head in his hands. “She asked you to stay away.”
“She did when she was carrying you. She was quite determined on that matter, fearful of our affair being discovered by George.”
“But he did discover it, did he not?” William said sharply, tossing the letter down on the table. “Why else would these letters be in his room unless he had them. He knew about them. He knew about it all.”
“Not at first,” Lord Longfellow insisted, shaking his head. “Now, do not be mad, William. Life hardly ever goes the way we wish it to. It is not always easy to play according to the rules.”
William looked at Becca, seeing her face turn pink, for she had to be thinking the same thing as him. They had broken the rules. How could he be angry at his mother for doing the same thing?
“It is not that simple.” William abruptly stood, towering over Lord Longfellow. Despite the fact he was sure the man was taller than him, the earl stayed sitting, clearly not minding that William took the taller position now.
“My father made her life a misery toward the end of it. When she fell ill, when he refused to see her, where he sent her…” He backed up, away from the earl. He needed that distance. “When he sent her to the convent, he refused to go and see her and would not let me see her either.”
He hadn’t even told Becca these truths yet. He was not sure he could bring himself to speak such things about that dreaded convent, but now, it was all coming out. From the corner of his eye, he saw her hands were raised over her mouth.
“He discovered the truth then, did he not?” William asked, motioning to the letters sharply. “That is why he sent her away. It was her punishment. Not allowing her to die at home but sending her to a convent to die alone instead.”
“William.” Lord Longfellow stood.
“Stop calling me that.” William turned his back on the earl, not sure he could bear another minute of this conversation. Yet the earl pursued him across the room. He walked around William, then took his shoulders, refusing to let William escape again and look away.
“She did not die alone.”
The words made silence fall. The only thing William could hear was his own breathing, inhaling sharply and then exhaling in a shuddery breath.
“You mean…” William raised his eyebrows, barely able to say the words.
“It took me six months to find where he had sent her, but I tracked her down.” Lord Longfellow spoke solemnly, refusing to look away from William’s eye. “I found her two days before she passed, and thanks to the benevolence of the sisters in that nunnery, they allowed me to visit her. She couldn’t speak clearly by then, she was too sick, but she knew I was there. Believe me, William, do not think your mother was alone when she passed, for she was not.”
William felt an explosion in his chest. It was as if every feeling he had been holding onto since walking into this house now erupted out of his control. He sniffed, feeling tears on the very edge of falling. His vision blurred, and he could no longer see Lord Longfellow clearly, though the man squeezed his shoulders in comfort.
The earl did have kindness in him. That and the knowledge that the man had made sure Anne did not die alone made William take a step toward this man now.
“Ah, William,” Lord Longfellow said, his voice even softer than before. “I am sorry to cause you all this sorrow.”
“Relief,” William murmured. “It is relief.” He had thought for so long that his mother’s heart had been duped by George. To know that actually, her heart had always been safe from him, that she had loved another and known that happiness was everything. “Thank you,” William said, his voice softening.
“Don’t thank me. I am only sorry I could never let you know myself. After she passed, I tried to see you,” he whispered in a rush. “I came to the door of your house, saying that Anne’s son deserved to know how she clutched to a miniature portrait of him as she passed, that she thought only of him, and yet George would not let me see you.”
A memory stirred in William’s mind. He could remember pressing his nose to the window of his bedchamber, looking down at the track in front of their house as George argued with another man. They were wild in their argument, both waving their hands madly. The dark brown hair and the tall figure were all too familiar to William now.
“You argued with my father that day,” William said, recalling the moment.
“I did. He told me that if I ever tried to see you again, to talk to you of your mother, that he’d have me killed.” Lord Longfellow’sface was taut, the skin around his eyes pulled tight. “I didn’t know whether he would carry out the threat or not, but I did not know what to do.” He breathed deeply, then tried to steer William back across the room. “Come, take a seat, William. This has all been so much.”
William allowed the man to steer him toward the chair and sit down again.
“My lord,” Becca spoke for the first time in a few minutes, leaning across the table. “Why did you wish to know Lord Lancaster’s age?”
The earl nearly missed his seat as he sat down. He sighed loudly, and William realized the earl had still not let go of one of his shoulders. He held onto it, comfortingly.
“Because I think I now understand the letter Anne sent to me before she was taken to that convent. I have not understood it. Not for years, though, believe me, I have picked it up often enough to try and work out why she was speaking in riddles. To my shame, I feared her mind might have been going from her sickness.”
He shifted to look William in the eye. “She spoke of dark brown hair, of brown eyes, too. She spoke of a scar from falling out of a tree.”
William flinched. He looked at Becca, who reached across the table between them. She pushed up the sleeve of his jacket, revealing the thin white scar that passed from his wrist to his forearm.
“She spoke, too, of a birthmark on a shoulder, shaped in a perfect circle,” Lord Longfellow looked at William, who now felt as if he had been winded. “She spoke of similarities, of fathers and sons, and she was never specific. Not once. Then you have walked into my house, and what do I see before me? I see the younger version of myself staring back at me. I see my eyes.”
