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"Don't you dare judge my actions, Tommen," Prudence warned. "You know nothing about life. Being married does not make you wise.”
"You are right, Mother," he said. "I know nothing about life. But that is because you helped me waste the nine-and-ten years of mine seeing nothing but the worst in people. You made me hate Edwina when she had truly done nothing to me.”
"This is not my blood talking," Prudence cried, looking as though she could not believe what was happening. "Goodness! Is this the consequence of carelessly mixing with lowly bloodlines?" She threw her hands up in exasperation.
Edwina bristled. She would not just sit and have her father disrespected so. "Thatlowly bloodlineyou speak of adored you," Edwina defended. "It is not blood that defines how low a person is, it is their actions and intentions."
"I agree,” she said. "Your father's blood is anything but low. EvenIhave to admit that it flows powerfully and proudly in what he left behind." Her gaze traveled grudgingly over Edwina. "It ishisfather's blood I am not so certain of.” Her eyes went to Tommen.
"What do you mean byhisfather?" Edwina asked before an equally befuddled Tommen could put in a word.
"I suppose you are old enough to know the truth now," Prudence said to her son. "It was not long after I married Richard Pierce that he came along. I let my desires overrule my better judgment, and had I not been left with the living consequence of that mistake, I would have thought it all just a dream. Your real father was Viscount Mercer's solicitor, you see."
Tommen blanched, and Edwina’s stomach turned. She could not believe what she had just heard. She could not claim to love Tommen but learning that he was not even her half-brother saddened her. She both pitied him and hated Prudence for what she had done.
Betrayal also boiled in her blood because she thought she had cared for her father. "I thought you loved Papa.”
"I did," Prudence said, sighing. "God help me, I still do, more than life. Strange things happened, and I got carried away. I made mistakes. You would never understand."
"A living consequence of a mistake—" Tommen said, his voice broken. He was staring at his mother but not quite seeing her. If betrayal had a face, it would be Tommen’s. "I suppose I deserve that, do I not?" He let out a self-deprecating laugh.
Edwina went to him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. His gaze fleetingly left his mother’s and there was appreciation in his eyes when he looked at her.
"Do you know something, Mother? As Edwina said, it is not about the blood, but about what is in the heart. You corrupted me because you could not live alone with the darkness in your heart. I know better now.”
"One more disparaging statement from you, Boy, and we shall see if that little bride of yours will stay for long after finding out about your true parentage. Not to mention your pathetic fortune." After making that threat, she turned on her heels and left the room.
Edwina was surprised to find that this threat did not bother him in the least. "Honestly, she would be doing me a favor," Tommen said to her. "Roxanne is quite like her, and I would be more than happy to be free of this marriage."
Edwina felt very sorry for him. She had never thought such a day would come. "You might have been painful to live with, Tommen, but you are still a Pierce," she found herself saying. "Since it is true that she had you while married to my father, that makes you his son by law. The title is yours by law."
"I do not want your pity, Edwina," Tommen said, quietly, his shoulders slumping. "But thank you for not making it hurt more than it already does."
"Why did you marry Roxanne?" Edwina asked.
"I thought I was in love with her and wished to make her my wife.” When he raised his eyes, she gasped at the pain and regret she saw in there.
“What did she do to you?” she whispered.
“The day we married, she told me that she would keep all of her lovers, and she had many of them. She broke my heart. I should never have married her. I suspected her dishonesty before the wedding but I went through with it because I did not wish to miss an opportunity. I did not wish to have any regrets later in life. I have learned from this.”
Something about his words called out to Edwina at that moment. They were like a compass, directing her toward something. Toward someone.
"I have wasted so much time playing subordinate to my bitter mother, and it took Roxanne’s desire to turn me into the same to make me realize it. I feel ashamed to ask for your forgiveness, Edwina, but I ask it anyway," Tommen finished.
"You are still very young, Tommen. There is plenty of time for you to make amends for the nine-and-ten years you think you have wasted.” She patted his shoulder. “You still have many decades ahead of you before you would need a cane to help you walk," she jested. Finding some levity in such a situation might be good for them.
"Take the first three years out. I could not even talk then," he gave a wan smile.
"Fair enough," she said.
At the door, he paused and turned to her. "I suppose I walk away with the record of wanting out of a marriage after just four days. That deserves to go down in history. Perhaps with my name on it."
“Now, is that not romantic?”
He shrugged. “If I cannot be freed from this marriage, the title might have to revert to the crown.”
“Do you think you have a chance?” She hoped, for his sake, that he would be able to free himself.
