Ezra wanted to deny it on impulse, but he recognized this as the naïve thought of a child, not the rational allowance of a grown man. He’d been raised to be wary of pretenders to the family name, to fear interlopers and opportunists who would seek to enrich themselves by claiming connection to the Lightholder name.
But that wasn’t the same as knowledge, and Ezra prided himself on being a man who sought knowledge. Facts. Truth.
And did he trust his grandfather to have been faithful to his wife? His uncle? Any of his cousins?
Well, all right, he actuallycould notsee his cousins having affairs. The lot of them were absurdly besotted with their wives.
“It is… possible,” he allowed, all too aware of Miss Knightley’s eyes on him as she waited for a response. “Who knows what they all get up to?”
She frowned at this.
“What?” he demanded.
She scrunched her nose. “I am sure it’s not my place to say...” she said demurely.
He fixed her with a droll look, and she rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” she said. “Fine! It’s just… You don’t seem to like them very much. Your family, that is.”
Well, that was his own fault for pressing her, he supposed.
“There is no quarrel between us,” he said, which was mostly true.
“Really?” she asked, looking doubtful. “Because they do rather talk as though you are somewhat more absent than the rest of the clan.”
Ezra cursed himself for all the times that he’d thought that it was nice to have someone who wasn’t afraid of him around the house. All the times that he’d been charmed by Miss Knightley’s obduracy. This was his own fault. He should have hired some sort of shrinking violet who cowered whenever he spoke, no matter if this governess was the one who had clearly changed everything for Iris. What was the point of being a duke, after all, if you could not be a selfish sot who cared only for your own interests?
But here he was, lying in the bed he had made for himself.
“They are charmers,” he insisted dismissively. “They use their polish to hide their secrets, flaunt their wealth to stop anyone from asking any questions.”
Her lips pressed together into a thin white line.
“Some people,” she said airily, “might suggest thatyouare charming. And some people—say, governesses who have been paid handsomely to keep a little girl’s presence in a ducal household quiet—might argue that you use your wealth to stop anyone from asking questions.”
This was an infuriatingly fair assessment. He tried another tactic.
“I attend all the formal family events,” he said. “Weddings. Funerals. Christenings.”
“Right. Well, I suppose that’s that, then. You are all as close as hand and glove then, aye?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” he accused.
She smiled as though she knew this was not true in the least. He sighed. His own damn bed, indeed.
“When I was a young man,” he began, surprising himself as the story spilled from his lips, “there was a fire at my uncle’s house. Xander and Helen’s house, now.”
“I know the story,” she said quietly. He supposed she would. There were still some places on the estate that bore scars from that dreadful night.
“Three of my uncles died. Three of my cousins inherited. My father lived—and that was good,” he hastened to add. “I wasn’t jealous of them for inheriting. I knew I was the lucky one for having my father survive. But he was badly burned.”
Miss Knightley—Letitia, he thought on a sudden impulse—watched him levelly with those blue, blue eyes.
“It was never the same after that,” he continued, tracing a finger over the carved arm of the chair. “The family, I mean. My father was on the outside. He wasn’t arealLightholder, you see.”
“And you?” she prodded gently.
He scoffed. “Why should I want to play happy family with people who treated my father like he was less than nothing?” he demanded. “Even when they were alive, my uncles were clearly one set, and my father was on the outside. It wasn’t right.”
