Page 52 of Her Beautiful Bastard
Sinclair nodded, his brow furrowed, lips pinched. “I first met Miles a few weeks after becoming the master of Buckton. He had just taken ownership of an estate not far from this one and had wished to make the acquaintance of Hertfordshire’s infamous cherry farmer. By then, word of how I’d worked my way toward claiming Buckton had spread through the county. We became fast friends … or so I thought. It did not take me long to notice the way Drucilla looked at him, the way she seemed to purposely put herself in our path whenever he happened to visit the manor.”
Lydia shook her head in disbelief, still unable to understand how any woman could set her eyes upon another with someone like Sinclair to call her own. He was her heart’s one true desire, and having him would be the manifestation of her sweetest dreams. She could not imagine allowing her head to be turned should she be fortunate to call him truly hers.
“I thought nothing of it in the beginning,” he went on. “Drucilla had always been flirtatious. It was part of what made her charming, part of what drew people to her. But I was so sure of our love for each other, of her devotion to me. She’d waited for me to earn my way into her father’s good graces, to win her hand. She loved me, and I did not think her glances and smiles would grow to become anything more than harmless flirtation.
“The changes happened so slowly, her demeanor toward me shifting as she became more and more familiar with Miles. She began spurning my affection, turning me away from her bed, often using her fragile health as a shield to bar me from getting too close. Yet, I began to notice her sending off notes in the hands of servants, her frequent carriage rides to visit ‘friends’ throughout the county … visits that would last entire days, and once even an entire week for a house party. By then, I’d spread my efforts over Buckton and my other estates, as well as a handful of burgeoning investments. I worked often,toooften, perhaps, to watch her vigilantly. Looking back now, I see things so clearly … but back then, the moment I realized she had been unfaithful to me with him … I felt as if the rug had been pulled out from beneath my feet. As if my entire world had been destroyed. Perhaps because at that time, shewasmy entire world. I had built my existence around Drucilla, only for her to betray me with a man I counted as a friend.”
Leaning forward, she reached out to run her fingers through his hair, a tight fist of pity wrapped around her heart and causing an ache deep within her chest. “How did you find them out?”
He scoffed. “I quite literally walked in on the two of them in bed together.”
She gasped, her free hand coming up over her mouth as his words sank in. He’d said them in such a matter-of-fact manner, but she heard the years’ worth of hurt underneath them, saw it in the harsh lines marring his face as he seemed to struggle to keep his composure.
“Drucilla did not expect me home from London for another fortnight. Otherwise, she’d have never been so indiscreet,” he continued. “I had thought to surprise her, to return home early so that I might make up for so much time spent away. When I came upon them together, the shock of it … I cannot explain how it overtook every other emotion—the anger, the sadness, the pain. It numbed me, and all I could do was turn around and leave the room without a word to either of them. It did not quite settle in until hours later, and by then, Miles, coward that he is, had tucked tail to run off to his own estate.”
“Did you ever confront him?” she prodded, intrigued by the story now that she was being given all the little pieces she’d been missing.
“Not right away,” he replied. “But I did demand an explanation of her. It was all my fault, she claimed. I was never at home, did not give her enough of my time and attention. I was no longer the fun-loving young man she’d married. I’d become too serious, too invested in protecting our assets. I had changed since we’d married, and she no longer felt the same way about me as she once had.”
Lydia snorted derisively, unable to believe what she was hearing. “You became a man, like any other who finds so much responsibility thrust upon them. You grew up, Sinclair.”
He nodded in agreement. “Yes. But Drucilla did not. She wanted parties and to be constantly surrounded by people so she could be admired. She wanted the sort of life I found to be filled with shallow pursuits, while I wanted nothing more than a home and a family … children.”
Her gut twisted at the broken way that last word fell from his lips. She thought of Henry, the boy he had claimed as his own, but who had clearly been sired by someone else.
“I had hoped Dru and I would have several of them by now,” he confessed. “It was my dream. Buckton, Drucilla, and the children who would fill this place with so much life. When she sent a letter to Essex to inform me that she was with child several weeks later, I began to grow hopeful. I thought that perhaps this would be the thing to bring us back together—a child, our child. Becoming a mother would change her, soften her, and … I do not know what I was thinking.”
She stroked his hair again, inclining her head and giving him a small smile. “Perhaps you thought that your dreams hadn’t been destroyed, after all. You were willing to forgive her, if there was even the slightest chance you could be a family again.”
He nodded. “Yes. Yes, that is it exactly. Those months spent waiting for Henry’s arrival were good. We decorated the nursery, interviewed nannies, spoke of names for both boys and girls. Miles had become like a ghost between us—there, but never spoken of. We were having a baby, and we were happy, and … I thought things could only get better from there. All that changed the night of Henry’s birth.”
Lydia held her breath, sitting as still as possible as she waited for him to confirm what she already knew to be true.
“I sat outside her chamber for hours, waiting for him to be born,” he said with a little laugh. “I was nervous, excited, a bit afraid for Drucilla. Her health has always been a fragile thing, and I would have been devastated to lose her in childbirth. Yet, late in the night, a maid emerged from the room to tell me my son had been born and his mother had gotten through it well. I waited while they prepared the babe for me, for Drucilla to be made presentable, because even after our long years together, she’d never allow me to see her any way other than perfectly polished. Then, at last, I was ushered inside, where Drucilla lay abed with the boy in her arms. I approached the bed, took one look into her eyes, and I knew … I justknew.”
Her shoulders sagged, her gaze dropping to the hand she held in her lap. “You knew that you hadn’t fathered him.”
“It was not just Henry’s face,” he replied. “It washerface, its expressions I had come to know so well in all my years of loving her. Her face told me everything I needed to know, but, I could not be content with that. I had to be absolutely certain, so I asked her. I held the babe in my arms and glanced from him, to her, then back again, and asked, ‘Is he mine, or is he Wortham’s?’ She simply said to me, ‘What does it matter, Sin?’. Just like that. And I always wondered whether she said it out of spite, because she knew I’d be forced to raise him regardless of who his father happened to be, or because she truly did not know which of us had sired Henry. I left for London the very next day.”
Her eyes widened as she realized what had happened next. “Where you met me.”
He nodded. “I went to London to escape her, to escape the truth of what awaited me here. A wife who did not love me, who perhaps never did. I went to gather my bearings and prepare myself to return and raise a child that I hadn’t had a hand in creating. I hate London … I hate the parties, the people, the false veneer laid over the hypocritical corruption of people who call themselves my ‘betters.’ I was just as miserable there as I’d been here, but at least there, I did not have to face Dru, or the babe, or any of it. And then …”
He shifted closer, until her knees were forced apart to accommodate him, her gown hitching up a bit. Kneeling between her legs, he reached up to cup her face with both hands.
“Then a shoe fell out of the sky and struck my shoulder,” he murmured with a little smile. “And my life was forever changed. I saw all the things I’d striven for and realized how meaningless they’d become without someone I could truly call my own to share them with. Withoutyou.”
Her eyes stung with unshed tears, her hands shaking as she brought them up over his. Knowing what he’d suffered before the night they had met, understanding what had driven him from Hertfordshire to London and right into her arms, Lydia felt like the worst sort of person for the things she’d accused him of.
“I was so wrong,” she whispered, a tear slipping free and splashing her cheek, wetting his fingers. “Sinclair, I am sorry.”
Shaking his head, he swiped the tear away, then kissed her cheek. “There is nothing for you to be sorry about. You could not have known. I wanted to tell you everything, even having just met you. But, the way you looked at me, the way you felt in my arms, and the way you tasted … I did not want to spoil it. Even for that short time sitting up in that tree, I wanted a moment, something sweet, and pure, and mine. Something I could bring back to Buckton with me to get me through the days and years ahead.
“So, I returned home and went into Henry’s nursery. I sat and held my son and looked at him—really looked at him in a way I had not on the night of his birth. And even though he was not mine by blood, there was one thing tying us together from the beginning—the distinction of having been born in sin, under circumstances outside our control. I knew then that I would love him, Ichoseto love him, because I knew what it was to live in a home where I felt out of place and unwelcome. I would never let another child feel that way … not when I stood in a position to give him the best of everything life had to offer.”
She smiled at him, turning her head to kiss his palm. “Henry could not ask for a better man to care for him, Sinclair. It does not matter what part Wortham played in his conception. In all the ways that count,youare Henry’s father.”
With a heavy sigh, he leaned forward, resting his head against her breast. She clung to him, holding him there while stroking his hair, lowering her head to nuzzle his crown, to inhale his scent … the sorts of things she’d wanted to do for so long but had not allowed herself to. But, no more. She’d come to realize that she loved him, that she could no longer deny him or herself.
