AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His head bobbed slowly up and down, taking in her words. “And just what is it that ye think my grandson deserves?”
“Happiness. A wife he can be proud of.” Her shoulders lifted. “I just wanted you to know when Evan moves forth with a divorce or an annulment, it is for a just cause.”
His weathered eyes centered on her. “Why are ye telling me of this now?”
“So he doesn’t have to.”
He paused, setting the pipe to his lips but not drawing from it. “He knows about your past?”
“He does.”
“For how long?”
“Since we met.”
The earl harrumphed and shook his head. “Then your past doesn’t matter to him.”
“That’s because Evan is a fine man. But even if it doesn’t matter to him, it will matter to everyone else and that is the devil in it.”
“Nonsense. It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to him.” He lifted his gnarled hand to her cheek and patted it. “Everyone will follow his lead—no matter what they think they know or don’t know. If Ev loves ye, everyone he deals with will love ye as well.”
She watched the sincerity in his face and a hard lump formed in her throat. “How do you not care? Everything Evan told me was that you wanted a proper English lady for him and I am so far-removed from that it is laughable.”
“Lass, ye are the first woman to make my Ev see even a glimmer of hope past that imbecilic oath he swore to his brother. Not marry—ballocks!” His hand flew up in the air. “So I dinnae give a damn about your past. All I care about is the future.”
Her head snapped back. “You know about the promise he made Gilroy?”
“Of course I ken.” He stopped, his gaze going up to the stars above. His voice dipped into a whisper. “I ken, Lettie, I ken. Don’t get after me, woman.”
Juliet’s eyebrows lifted as he talked to his dead wife.
His look dropped to her. “Ye need to know how I failed Ev.”
“You failed him?” Her lips pursed. “I think not—you are the one person he adores above all others.”
The earl chuckled and he patted her leg. “It seems as if I’ve recently made some room up here on that pedestal for ye.”
“I don’t think—”
“I do.” He leaned toward her, his voice dropping a timbre. “No, I failed Ev long ago. I failed as a father so I failed as a grandfather.”
“How?”
“His father, my son, Ranell, would tell Evan every day that he was the reason his mother died. He killed her. The words hissed. Vicious.” He held his hand up before Juliet could say a word. “Hear me out. I was torn—the love of my child for the love of my grandchild. Ranell was destroyed when his wife died giving birth to the boys. Destroyed—distraught—he was never well, never again right in the head after she died and he spewed all of that upon Ev. Blaming him for her death—he was too big of a babe. That he tore her apart from the inside out. A demon babe. That he should have been the one that was buried. Ranell would repeat those vile words to Ev every day until he died when the boys were eight. Eight. I thought Ev was still young enough that he wouldn’t remember all of it, but by then the damage was done.”
Juliet gasped, her hand over her mouth. “He doesn’t believe he has any right to this world?”
“Aye. He’s lived with that guilt his entire life. Killing his mother. Nearly killing his brother. Gilroy was supposed to have been the firstborn, but got stuck coming out with Evan pushing from behind. It went on for hours. Ranell finally had to decide—tell the surgeon to cut his wife open to get the babes out. So, Evan breathed the air of this world first. Gilroy was pulled out after him.”
With a heavy sigh, the earl curled into himself, his shoulders rounding, shrinking his entire form. “First born. Second born. Not as nature intended, but how man determined.”
“But if the surgeon hadn’t cut her…”
“All three would have died.” His weathered hand reached out to pat hers. “But truth does not ease the burden of guilt. Ranell made a decision to kill his wife to save his boys. I could never fault him for the drunken stupor he was in for the next eight years. Nor could I ever stop him from berating Evan, for calling him a monster.”
Her heart shattering for the boy Evan once was, her head shook, tears brimming in her eyes. “Why not? He was your son, you could have stopped him.”
His shoulders lifted and he exhaled a long breath. “Ranell was my only child.”
