Page 112 of In the Prince's Bed
“No hemlock?” he said acidly.
“Fortunately for you, Mrs. Emson sends me breakfast every morning on the sly, and I thought it would suit you better. Only the coffee is Mrs. Brown’s.”
Emson’s wife had been the lady’s maid at Edenmore until the death of Alec’s mother. Then the woman had married Emson, the valet-turned-butler who’d always fancied her. They’d both left service, and he’d probably never thought to return. But here he was, still waiting until Edenmore could afford another butler.
Alec sighed. The old man would be waiting a while longer. He pushed the tray aside. Even good food couldn’t tempt him. “It might be better for everyone if you gave me hemlock.”
“Nonsense. Your lady merely needs time to consider the situation rationally. Then I am sure she will return.”
Alec gave a harsh laugh. “She won’t. You don’t know her. She has principles, and they don’t bend for anyone. Certainly not for a bastard like me.”
He’d meant “bastard” in a figurative sense, but when a long silence ensued, and Alec glanced over to find the hoary-headed servant staring oddly at him, a chill swept over him. “You know? About my…”
Emson nodded tersely. “I did serve your father for forty years, my lord.”
A shiver ran down Alec’s spine. “Who else knows?”
“Only me and my wife. It was hard not to notice when our mistress turned up with child, even though the master had not gone to her bed in months.”
Alec sighed. Servants always seemed to know things before anyone else. “I suppose you also know who my real father is.”
“Your mother told Mrs. Emson it was a certain…royal personage.”
“She told me the same.” That was something else he hadn’t told Katherine, and she’d definitely deserved to hear it. “Odd, isn’t it? The earl wasn’t even my father, yet despite all my efforts to avoid his mistakes, here I am, right in his place. At least he managed to hold on to the woman he married for money.”
Emson looked perplexed. “The old earl didn’t marry your mother for money. He loved her then. Thought the sun rose and set in her.”
Alec snorted. “Yes, I could tell from how he treated her.”
“But it was not like that when they were courting. Your mother considered his lordship a very attractive prospect, and he thought her quite amiable. Yes, she had a fortune, but that was merely icing on the cake. She was young and pretty and made him laugh, something you know he rarely did. So he was sure that once they married, she would be the one to help him overcome his problem.”
Alec glanced at him, perplexed. “What problem?”
Emson stiffened. “I beg your pardon. I thought you knew. Since you know all the rest, I thought somebody must have told you—”
“Told me what, damn it?”
Emson actually blushed. Alec didn’t think he’d ever seen the man’s papery cheeks turn pink. “The old earl could not”—he gestured to the drawer that heldThe Rake’s Rhetorick—“attain the physical state required for those activities illustrated in your reading.”
Alec gaped at him. “He was impotent?”
“I believe that is the term for it, my lord,” Emson mumbled.
“How in God’s name would you know such a thing about him?”
“I was his valet in his salad days, if you will recall. I slept right off his room for many years. And whenever he brought…er…ladies to his rooms, I was the one who…paid them. For services or nonservices, as the case may be. Not to mention that my wife was your mother’s—”
“Enough.” He’d have to watch what he told any valet he ever hired. “So in all the years the earl was married to my mother, he never—”
“Never, from what your mother said to my wife.”
Alec wheeled away from the writing table, hardly able to take it in. He’d painted the old earl as the devil incarnate when the truth was far more complicated.
A sudden thought occurred to him. “That’s why the old earl spent all that money on quack remedies, isn’t it?”
Emson nodded. “He wanted a son very badly.”
“His own son,” Alec bit out. “Not another man’s bastard.”
