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Cam looked up when his mother entered the cabin. She sat down next to him on the bed and stroked his hair.
“She’s gone now, Cameron, and she’s not coming back.”
Cameron sniffed, his heart so broken he feared it could never heal. “You sent her away?”
“Yes. I won’t let her hurt you anymore.”
“This is silly, Mum.” Maybe she would believe his falsehood. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, Cameron. I’m your mother. You don’t need to try to be strong for me.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she gestured him to be quiet.
“It’s unfair, what you’ve been forced to do for us because your father died. You’re a musician, Cam, and a fine one. If only you could have had the proper training. But that wasn’t possible. Even so, you could have made it on your own if your father hadn’t died.”
“I don’t blame any of this on him, or on you, Mum.” And he didn’t. He loved his family. How could he resent them?
“I know you don’t. You’re a good boy, Cam, and a fine man. Any woman would be lucky to have you. But Rose isn’t worthy of you.”
He let out a broken laugh. “That’s where you’re wrong. It’s I who am not worthy of her. She is…amazing. She’s not like some of the nobility. She sees people for who they are, not who they were born to.”
Mrs. Price shook her head. “If she truly cared for you, she wouldn’t have rejected you. How can you defend her after what she’s done to you?”
“We did it to each other,” Cam lied. “Neither of us is more to blame than the other.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Well, that’s the truth of it.”
“It’s not the truth of it, Cam. If she really loved you, she would have…” Mrs. Price closed her eyes.
“She would have what?”
“Cam.” She opened her eyes and took one of his hands in her own. “There’s something I need to tell you. Perhaps I should have told you long ago.”
“What is it?”
“God forgive me for keeping this from you.” She let out a breath. “I’ve always told you that my parents—your grandparents—were dead.”
“Yes.”
“Well, they may be, for all I know. But they may not be. The truth is, they abandoned me.”
Cam widened his eyes. “What? Why?”
“Because I married your father.”
“I don’t understand.
“My father was a baronet, Sir Rexford Lyttleton, a member of the gentry. I was Miss Clementine Lyttleton, and your father was a groom in our stables.”
Cameron jerked forward. His mother’s eyes held honesty.
“He came to work for my father when I was but ten and he was eleven. He was the bastard son of a l
ocal woman who died of cholera. Colton didn’t know who his father was, only that he was a young earl. Your grandmother had been a housemaid in his father’s employ. When he found out that she was pregnant by his heir, he tossed her into the streets. Her name was Joy, and she was not but sixteen.”
