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Fuck. Mate.
“Please. Sit,” I whisper, gesturing feebly toward the sofa.
She takes a deep breath. “No. You sit. You’ll need to.”
Like an automaton, I do exactly as she asks and perch on the sofa, waiting for whatever devastating news she has to give Maryanne and me.
Because something’s wrong.
Seriously wrong.
She gathers herself, in that way she does—as editor, former countess, former It-girl—and raises her chin, just like my wife. “I felt your last text message regarding Kit and his condition needed a personal reply.” She starts to pace while clutching her monogrammed handkerchief—and Maryanne and I watch wide-eyed, not chancing a glance at each other as our mother continues to act entirely out of character. “In answer to your message, you have nothing to worry about, Maxim. Neither of you have anything to worry about. Nothing.”
Maryanne nods as if she’s confirming a diagnosis.
What the hell does she know that I don’t?
“Mama, please. I just got married. We want children.”
Her lips thin. “You figure it out. I repeat. It’s nothing to do with you or Maryanne.”
I frown as I fail to make any connection with what she’s saying and what could possibly have been wrong with Kit, and why that has nothing to do with me or my sister.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you’re so obtuse, Maxie!” Maryanne explodes.
What?
“Daddy was not Kit’s father.” Each word is a staccato expletive from Maryanne’s mouth.
There are times when the world tips on its axis and starts to spin at a different and untried trajectory. When the world that you knew stops being and begins anew.
Like when my mother left my father.
Like when my father died.
Like when Kit died.
And, more hopefully, when I met Alessia.
And now, all that I knew and took for granted from my childhood has disappeared in five devastating words.
“So, you see. You have nothing to worry about,” Rowena says, her quiet tone tinged with the grief of a mother who’s lost her favorite child.
Not a child of the family.
Her own boy.
Her own blue-eyed boy.
Alessia appears in the doorway, bearing a tray with delicate espresso cups and saucers and an elegant cafetiere that I didn’t know we had. She places it on the coffee table in front of the sofa and looks warily at me before sitting at my side.
No one moves.
“Did Daddy know?” Maryanne’s question echoes with righteous indignation through the oppressive atmosphere within the drawing room.
“Yes.” My mother fists her hands.
“And he took your shame to his grave,” Maryanne continues in the same vein.
Rowena closes her eyes. “Yes.”
She turns to me, a tear sliding down her cheek.
Fuck. I have never seen my mother cry, and my emotions crowd into my throat and stay there. Expanding and smothering me.
“Say something,” she hisses.
But I’m hollow. Lost for words at her treachery and betrayal—a mere casual observer to a family tragedy.
My poor father.
My champion.
It all makes sense now.
“So, to be clear,” Maryanne says as she stands, “it was Kit’s biological father who had an issue.”
“Yes. He died last year from his condition.”
Fuck.
What I should feel… is relief. But there’s nothing.
Except perhaps a bottomless rage on behalf of my father.
On behalf of Kit.
“Did Kit know?” The words are out of my mouth.
Rowena makes a strange, strangled noise.
“Did he find out over New Year?” Maryanne’s voice is quiet with recrimination as tears pool in her eyes. My faithless mother closes her eyes once more, grasps her handkerchief, and emits an unearthly, spine-tingling cry as if she’s being disemboweled.
Fuck. He knew.
That’s why he was out on his motorcycle, haring through Trevethick’s wintry lanes.
Maryanne lets out a similar sounding sob, her green eyes blazing with the ugliness of this tragic news; she stands and storms out of the room, down the hallway, and leaves, slamming the front door.
“Does Caroline know?” I ask.
My mother shakes her head.
“Good. We should leave it that way. Thank you for clearing that up. I think perhaps you should leave now.” I’m back—the detached persona I’ve cultivated over the years to deal with my mother restored.
She nods, unable to speak.
“May I get you anything?” Alessia asks.
Rowena seems to recover and peers down her nose at my beautiful, compassionate wife. “No. I don’t need anything from the likes of you.”
My detachment evaporates, and behind it is a seething cauldron of rage. “Rowena, don’t you dare speak to my wife like that,” I warn between gritted teeth.
“Maxim. Now you know. You are your father’s son. A knight in shining armor—a sucker for a damsel in distress. Well, this damsel”—she points an elegant scarlet fingernail at herself—“was up to the task of the Trevethick legacy. I doubt your… daily will be. You need someone of your own class, someone English who understands the pressures of the title and your position in society. Someone who can help you fulfill the role you were born to and help protect our legacy. Besides, it’s not as if your marriage was legal. Heath has done some research.”
