“No, Mother,” he said, going to stand by the window. He stared down at the street below, worry for his little sister still churning in his own gut. “He’s taken her to France. I’m going to have to hire someone to find her and bring her home.”
“France?” She sounded shocked, and he was glad to have finally proven how serious the matter was. “He’s taken her out of the country?”
He ignored her. He wasn’t here to speak of Allison. “I have some questions for you, Mother. About something that happened a long time ago. And I require complete honesty if we are going to continue to have any sort of relationship at all.”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw her lift her teacup to her lips, obviously flustered and stalling for time. “Whatever are you talking about, Lucien?” she asked after taking a delicate, precise sip.
“Nearly eight years ago, I spent the summer in the country rebuilding Hawkesmere House. Do you remember?”
She swallowed nervously and put her cup aside. “That was a long time ago. How can you expect me to remember anything that happened back then? I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night.”
He scoffed at that. She was sharp as a tack, and they both knew it. “I’m speaking of Serenity Pratt, Mother.”
“Who?” She gave him a rather convincing blank stare, as though she’d never heard the name before.
“The woman I was in love with. The woman I planned to make mywife.” Though he’d never actually said that word before in relationship to Serenity, he knew as soon as he did that it was right. If Serenity had not disappeared, he would have married her. His mother had somehow known that, which was why she’d done everything in her power to drive them apart.
Having her scarred youngest son marry beneath him had been bad enough in her eyes, but she’d never given a damn about Adrian. However, he knew under no circumstances would she have allowed that from theheir.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted, but she couldn’t hold his intense gaze, and a muscle in her forehead began to twitch.
“How did you know?” he mused, narrowing his eyes. “Did you have Miss Cross spying on us?”
“I couldn’t allow you to be drawn into that little hussy’s trap,” she snapped, abandoning all pretense. “A gamekeeper’s daughter, Lucien? I am appalled.”
“As am I,” he told her. “You snatched her away from me, Mother. Took the one woman who made me happy. And what else did you take? Please tell me you didn’t take anything else!”
She flinched and pushed to her feet, striding for the door. “I don’t have to listen to this nonsense.”
He ran to cut her off, putting himself in her path. “Yes, you do. I am the earl, and you are beholden to me for the very food you put in your mouth. Answer my question, or I swear to God, I will turn you out on the streets.”
She glared at him, her eyes snapping with outrage. Her second husband had left everything except for a small cottage in the country to Roger. And there was nothing she’d hate more than to be sent away from London. For once in his life, he had the upper hand where she was concerned.
“She was going to birth your bastard!” she admitted at last. “You would have been paying for that child in one way or another for the rest of your life. You should thank me!”
All the air left his lungs in a whoosh as his worst fear was realized. He had to shove his hands in his pockets to keep from wrapping them around her neck. “What did you do to my child?”
“Roger saw to it,” she said, with a flick of her hand. “We told the chit the baby died, and he made sure that none of us would ever have to deal with the child again.”
“You told her the babydied?” He thought of the pain and sadness in Serenity’s eyes, and it slayed him. He couldn’t imagine what she’d suffered, having been left to grieve their baby all on her own.
“It was a kindness,” she said, and her complete disregard for her own grandchild shocked him to the core. “If she’d raised it, the child would always have thought itself better than it was. Roger made sure it knows its place in life.”
“It?” he questioned hoarsely. “Don’t you even know if the child was a boy or a girl?”
She sniffed. “I didn’t ask. I hardly think that it matters.”
Her cavalier dismissal of the matter turned his heart to stone and killed whatever love he’d still had for her. Knowing he’d get nothing more from her and that Roger probably hadn’t bothered to tell her what he’d done with the child anyway, he stood aside. “Someone will come up shortly and help you pack. You’re leaving London. You can stay at your dower house in the country until I’ve made up my mind what to do with you. For now, I can’t bear to look at you.”
“You can’t do that,” she said, aghast and suddenly concerned by the thought of not being able to continue living in the style to which she’d become accustomed.
He gave her a bitter smile. “Yes, I can.”
Her palpable anger crackled between them, and her eyes flashed with avarice and calculation. She must have thought better of putting any of her plans into motion at the moment, though, because she gave a furious huff and turned away.
Once she’d left the room, he strode to her fine china set and threw one piece after another against the wall, feeling only marginally satisfied when they shattered into a thousand pieces. When, it was all broken, he scrubbed his hand over his face, fury and despair battling within him.
Serenity had been pregnant when his mother had taken her from him. She’d gone through childbirth by herself, then had to suffer alone through the grief of thinking that their child had died. And their baby... Somewhere he had a seven-year-old child, living with strangers, in who knew what kind of conditions.
