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“Of course.”
He grabbed the post of the bed and hung on to it like a lifeline. Hundreds of questions bounced in his head but only one came out. “Why?”
“Why what?” She moved to the end of the bed, sat on the edge and looked up at him. “Why did I leave you and your sister? Why did I leave your father? Why did I come here and set up such a house?”
There was only one more important question. “Does Father know?”
A delicate shudder visibly rolled through her body. “Yes,” she whispered.
Anthony clung tighter to the bedpost. It was one thing for one parent to lie and deceive her child, but quite another when both parents were in collusion to betray their children. But his father would never do such an underhanded thing. He must have only recently discovered the truth of her deception.
“How long has he known?”
“Almost from the day I left.”
Anger broke through his drunken haze. “He’s known you were alive and did nothing to save you from this life?”
His mother laughed softly. “I know you may find this difficult to believe, but my life has been far better away from your father than with him.”
“How can you say that?” He finally released the bedpost, stood in front of her and hoped the world would stop spinning soon. “You make your living by . . . by . . .”
“By what, An
thony?”
“Lying with any man who would pay you.”
She reached out to clasp his hand but he pulled it away. Her dainty shoulders drooped. “I only lie with the men I wish to be with.”
“And that is supposed to make me feel better?”
She shrugged. “I suppose not.” Slowly she stood before him, barely reaching his shoulders. He had not realized just how small she was . . . petite, with dark blue eyes that flashed in anger at him. “You have no idea what I’ve been through with your father. When the time is right, I shall be happy to tell you.”
“Then tell me now,” he growled.
“No. This is not the time. You’re intoxicated, and you’ve had far too much of a shock. You need to go home and think about what you discovered tonight. And when you are ready, I shall explain everything to you.”
“I’m supposed to just leave here and accept the fact that my dead mother is actually alive and well, living as a prostitute?”
Her face whitened. “I am not a—”
“Oh? You run this house. You already said that you lay with whomever you please. You are a strumpet.”
Before she could try to deny her profession again, he strode to the door and down the stairs. He passed a footman on his way up the steps with a bottle of fine brandy on a silver salver. Anthony grabbed the bottle and ran from the house of horrors.
He raced down Maddox Street until he nearly collapsed at the side entrance to St. George’s Church. After sitting down on the brick step, he opened the bottle of brandy and gulped a large amount down.
How?
How had his mother kept herself from them all these years? Hadn’t she cared about her children, if not her husband? She was alive. The past eight years had been a complete farce, which made him nothing but a fool for believing everything Father had ever told him.
A prostitute.
A common strumpet.
His mother was no better than a lightskirt. And even worse, his father had known all along. His father had lied to him . . . and his sister. Genna didn’t even remember her mother. His sister had been only two when the whore had left. If it ever came out that their mother was a prostitute, his sister would be ruined.
Genna must never discover the truth.
