Page 9 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
To my surprise, Merlin’s eyes flash a hot, furious onyx. “I’ve been in love,” he says in a careful voice. “But I always knew my life was a lonely path. I did what needed to be done, so that I could do this work with you. For you.”
“So was Embry revenge? You gave up love to work for me, and I had to be denied the same thing?”
“You’re tired and you’re hurting, so I’ll excuse the accusation that I’ve orchestrated the intentional destruction of your happiness. Lest you forget, if you’d married Embry all those years ago, you wouldn’t have Greer.”
That stops my anger cold in its tracks.
“Embry said the same thing last night,” I say, looking down at my hands. “You’re both right.”
I wouldn’t be complete without her, and neither would Embry. She was made to be my wife, and we were made to be a three.
Merlin stands up. “If that’s all?”
“It’s not,” I say, although I wish it were. I wish I’d woken up this morning with my wife on one side of me and my lover on another. I wish that the ghosts of everything I’ve ever done wrong, and everything my father did wrong too, would stop haunting me. “My son.”
Merlin stiffens, and for the first time this morning, I realize I’ve truly caught him off guard.
“Tell me you didn’t know,” I nearly plead. “Tell me that you wouldn’t keep this from me.”
Merlin is struggling; I see it in his face. Feel it inside his mind, like a wind is blowing all his thoughts away like dry leaves on a tree. I also feel the moment he decides to tell me the truth.
“I’m not proud of it,” he finally says, meeting my gaze. I see something much, much older than his forty-some years in his crow-black eyes. “I had thought…well, I’d hoped…not to repeat old sins. Not to make the mistakes of the past.”
“Old sins? Are you talking about my father?”
He blinks, as if coming back to himself. “Yes,” he answers, but he’s lying again, and I’m not sure why.
“You don’t have to protect me from Penley’s mistakes, Merlin. I would have given anything not to make them myself.”
“You couldn’t have risen very far with a child born out of wedlock, not in politics, and I had ambitions for you even then,” Merlin says. “Before we officially met, I had my eye on you. Morgan wanted to hide it from you, and Vivienne and I saw no reason why it would help anyone—you or Morgan—to stop her from hiding the truth.”
“We didn’t know back then Morgan was my sister, Merlin. It would have been okay.”
He doesn’t answer right away, and a cold suspicion tugs at me. “Merlin.”
He takes a breath, those black eyes looking ancient. “I knew before then, Maxen. I’ve known for a long time.”
“Jesus Christ.” This new betrayal is like a spear through my side. “How did you know?”
“My first job out of university was at a law firm in Manhattan responsible for carrying out certain provisions in Penley Luther’s will. They involved conferring a settlement on Imogen Leffey’s youngest child. When I found you, it wasn’t hard to see that you were his child as well. You have Imogen’s coloring, but your features, your bearing…It’s all Penley.”
“When you found me,” I echo his earlier words, staring at him.
“The fair. Do you remember? You’d just pulled a sword from a stone.”
I’ve thought of that moment almost every day since it happened, of the tall stranger who knew my name, but time had blurred away all the details, scrubbed away the reality of the moment. It had become something like a dream. “It was you.”
“I found you, and then I found Althea Colchester and left her the settlement funds. Didn’t you ever wonder how she was able to pay for your college tuition?”
“She said there’d been a scholarship…” I trail off. “But it was you. And Penley.”
“Yes.”
“But if you knew all those years ago, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you tell me never to sleep with anyone who had the last name Leffey?”
“I wrongfully thought you were too young to hear such a dire warning. To know the truth about your real parents. And so I was too late. As always.” And he smiles ruefully, as if at some private joke with himself.
“How did you learn about it?”
