“I’ll leave you two alone,” Brian offered. “But not for long.”
“Damon, come sit with me.” Sarah patted the sofa. “I am still shocked, but this joy is beyond containing. You’re here, alive, and good God, look at you! You’re even more handsome than your—”
“Don’t say ‘father,’ because I’ll need to ask which one you are referring to.”
“Don’t be bitter, please.”
“How can I not be when everything I know to be true isn’t?” Then in anguish: “Why did you leave me?!”
She shot to her feet and threw her arms around him. “I never would have left that island without you if Cyril hadn’t convinced me you were dead. He even said you were buried on the property. I was too destroyed to ask to see the grave. He must have realized that having divorced me, I could have taken you from him legally. The courts usually favor the father, unless the mother comes from nobility and the father doesn’t. Even if I didn’t have a marquis with me, he knew my family could sway the courts. He’d already lost me. He was obviously desperate not to lose you as well. He did love you, Damon, as if you were his own.”
“When did you come back for me? When did he tell you I died?”
She squeezed Damon harder. “Four months after I left. I will tell you all of it, just let me hold you for a few minutes and convince myself that you’re real, that I’m not dreaming. I come here to bury my mother and find you, my son, alive—and I almost didn’t come.” She leaned back with wide eyes. “Good God, I wouldn’t have found you if Mother didn’t die. What a sharp, sad twist of fate.”
“Why did you come to the funeral when Grandmother obviously never forgave you—for having me?” he guessed.
“My mother wasn’t always so harsh. She was loving and kind when my father was alive, though even then she was excessively proper. I think she would have rather gone to hell than have scandal touch her name. Her father was an earl, so she was a lady in her own right, while my father wasn’t a lord because his father was a second son. But we did have a living earl on my father’s side of the family, my great-uncle Giles, and besides, the Reeves family was much richer than hers, so the marriage was quite acceptable to both sides. And they were in love. They probably would have eloped if they’d been denied. Mother loved him so fiercely. Father died when I was still a child. She was never the same after that.”
“I found her too late to know her.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t know her memory was failing?” Damon tapped his head. “She was living in a world of her own up here.”
“No, I didn’t know. But perhaps it was a blessing for her, relief from the ill will she harbored. I’m surprised Uncle Giles never told me. He and I were close and kept in touch. Maybe he didn’t know about Mother’s condition either.”
“How did you come to marry Cyril instead of my real father?”
“He was a bought husband, a tenant farmer on our estate, who was paid handsomely by my mother to marry me—enough to buy his own farm in the islands. Mother was furious that I’d fallen from grace, and that I’d done so with a married man who couldn’t make it right. But Brian and I were deeply in love. You can’t fight love, darling.”
“You can when you must.”
“But I didn’t have the will to. And I’ve never regretted the results. You. And Cyril was a good father to you. He was even a good husband to me for a few years. He loved us both, even knowing that you weren’t his. But his realization that he couldn’t really make me happy began to fester, which caused him to drink—and that led to his gambling. The profits he made from his crops just went to pay off his gambling debts. And he kept demanding more money from me.”
“Agatha gave you money before kicking you out of her life?”
“No, she was going to send me off penniless, but my grandfather, even as angry as he was at me, gave me money before I left. But what I’d done caused a rift between him and his brother, Giles, because Giles introduced me to Brian, his neighbor in Essex. My mother and grandfather both blamed Giles for not chaperoning me properly.”
“Then why would your grandfather leave me this property?”
“It’s been in the Reeves family for centuries, but it’s not the entitled estate. Giles has that—and I know he will be delighted to reinstate you as his heir when he learns the astounding news that you are alive. Soon after you were born, I wrote to Uncle Giles, told him of you, and he informed his brother, my grandfather. Sadly, my grandfather died without reconciling with his brother. But a male heir is still a male heir, illegitimate or not, and I was married before you were born, which took the edge off that.”
“I know where Hawke took you, but I still don’t understand why you left me that day, why you didn’t return for months. Did you leave so you could be with Brian?”
“Damon! Of course not. I’d had no contact with him since I left England because I thought he was still married. I didn’t know he’d been widowed. I left because Cyril thought I had an endless supply of money when I didn’t. It was just a matter of time before he found it and squandered it. I felt I had no choice but to take us away before that happened. I was afraid for your future. I wanted you to attend university.”
“You could have hidden your money where he couldn’t find it. You could have told me we were leaving the island, instead—”
“You were so young! I was afraid you’d tell Cyril.”
He realized he was blaming her now. First Hawke, now her, when it was ultimately his own fault that he hadn’t gone with her that day. “I’m sorry. I just feel robbed of all the years I could have been with you, too.”
“Yet I did come back for you that year. I waited a month for Captain Hawke to return to help me retrieve you. When he didn’t, I hired three men to escort me back to collect you, but they robbed me of all but a little of my money, and I had to get a job in Port Antonio to earn passage. That’s when I wrote to Giles to tell him how dire my situation had become. I thought he would just send me money. He sent Brian instead.”
“I can’t believe Cyril would tell you that ridiculous tale of my death. Did he know you were back and sent me away so I wouldn’t be there?”
Sarah frowned. “Possibly. He had many friends in that town, and it took Brian hours to find a carriage to drive us to the plantation. But we weren’t coming to steal you away. As Brian, your real father, is the Marquis of Marlowe and he was with me, there was no doubt that Cyril would have had to give you to us. I know you loved him, might even have fought to stay with him, but, Damon, he is not your real father. You belonged with me, should have been with me all these years. You might forgive Cyril for that dastardly lie, but I can’t. I didn’t get to see you grow up!”
She started crying again. Damon was torn between wanting to comfort her and still being angry over what she had revealed. He was a bastard. And, oh, God, how ironic that Jack had named him that. His chances with her had just dropped a hundredfold.
All he could say was “A marquis? I bloody well won’t call him lord.”
“Dearest, he didn’t know about you until he came to rescue me. I had begged my uncle not to tell Brian. He was still married then. Finding you today is as much of a shock to him as it is to me.”
“I can’t believe Cyril would tell you what he did. I’m not saying he didn’t, just that I can’t believe he would.” Damon paused, thinking about his conversation with Cyril on the way to Jamaica. “Actually, I think he was going to confess it recently, when he asked if I’d learned the truth, but he must have changed his mind and spoke of his gambling instead.”
“I don’t blame Cyril for divorcing me. I do blame him for lying and costing me all these years without you. I feel that loss as poignantly as you do, Damon. When I think that you could have grown up with your real father—”
“You and he . . . ?”
“We’re married now and have been since we returned to England that year.”
Damon nodded and finally sat down on the sofa wi
th her. “I think Cyril stopped gambling after you left, applied himself to work, even made enough to buy a ship to double his profits. Life was good for a while, and all we lacked was you. But after he sent me to school in England, he was alone and started gambling again. When he couldn’t pay his debts, he was imprisoned. I only found out this year and gave him a new start in Jamaica.”
“You’re too kind.”
“He’s the only father I’ve ever known and I love him. He’ll always be my father.”
“And now you have another. But tell me about you. Are you married? Do you hope to be?”
After he gave his mother a modified account of his adventures over the last year and stunned her with the revelation that Captain Hawke was really James Malory, Viscount Ryding, she said, “A Malory girl? That family is well known, and a bit notorious. Now I understand why. Are you sure that’s who you want?”
“More than anything.”
“Well, your father’s credentials should pave the way for you.”
“No,” Damon said curtly.
She raised her brows. “You sound like you resent Brian. Please say you don’t, when he was blameless in all this.”
“He’s not blameless for seducing an innocent girl while he was married,” Damon said a bit harshly.
“Ah, well, that was actually my fault, not his.” She blushed. “He tried to resist me, but I wouldn’t be denied.”
Oh, good God, that sounded far too much like his own situation and was exactly how Jack had behaved toward him. He laughed and hugged her close. “You’re absolutely right, Mother, he’s utterly blameless.”
The door opened and Brian Chandler poked his head around it. “That sounds like my cue to return.”
“You were eavesdropping?” Sarah accused with a chuckle.
“Of course.”
Damon stared at the man, really looked at him this time. He’d never wondered why he didn’t resemble Cyril. Brian was as tall as Damon was and built much the same. Brian, too, had black hair, and some of their facial features might even be the same. If they stood side by side, people might see the resemblance immediately and guess they were related. And so they were. The annoyance, the resentment Damon had felt earlier, it all slid away.
He stood up and held out his hand. “Perhaps we should meet again, Father?”
Chapter Fifty-One
BACK IN LONDON THREE weeks now, Jacqueline was leaving her home for the first time tonight. But they weren’t going far. While Georgina had planned this ball and had attended to every minute detail, they didn’t have a ballroom at their house in Berkeley Square, but Brandon Malory certainly did at his grand mansion in Grosvenor Square, yet another inheritance from the previous Duke of Wrighton.
Jack was hopeful now that Judy had confessed that while the ball might have been Georgina’s idea, making it a masque had been hers. It would give Damon an opportunity to sneak in, like the last time—if he was in London, if he heard of it. One too many ifs, but Jack could still hope.
“Your mother gave me a pile of invitations to take to Regina, who would know who else to invite, since your mother was mostly just inviting family. But I kept half of them and have invited some of your previous beaus.”
Judy had told her this earlier in the week and Jack had complained, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
But Judy had pointed out, “How else were we to hide him in the mix?”
“So you invited Damon?”
Judith had grinned. “After everything you said the other day confirmed what I already knew you were feeling, of course I did. You’d already told me he owns the old Reeves estate in East Sussex, so I sent it there.”
“How could you know what I’m feeling? I don’t even know!”
“Yes, you do.”
Yes, she did, and while he might not even be in England to have received his invitation, she was hopeful that he would be, which led to this bubbling excitement she could barely contain. Which is why she wasn’t listening to what her parents were saying as they sat across from her in the coach, until she heard, “She says she’s not in love, but I think the arrow struck her true.”
“Good God, George, don’t you dare mention Cupid to me,” James complained.
Jacqueline raised her brow. “Trying to get my attention, are you?”
“It worked.” Georgina smiled. “But I wasn’t serious. We know you refuse to fall in love this year.”
“About that—”
James interrupted, “It’s rude to correct your mother, so don’t.”
Jack squinted her eyes and scrunched her mouth at her father, but wasn’t about to argue with that tone of his. She’d never imagined she would have to elope one day, but obviously that was the only way she was going to get herself married to Damon. If he asked. If he showed up to ask. He bloody well better show up.
Brandon, along with his parents, was waiting by the door to greet them, but the street was already crowded with vehicles, and the music was playing, so the ball had already begun. Judith had followed directly behind them with her husband and parents, so Jack waited for Judy and hooked her arm to her cousin’s before entering. Georgina did the same thing, entering with Roslynn. Which left the three men. But Nathan, seeing James’s expression, left him with his brother.
Standing alone with James, Anthony guessed, “You’re expecting something unpleasant. What?”
“Reeves is going to be here.”
“He wouldn’t dare.”
“There’s never been any doubt about his temerity. And while George assured me she invited no pirates, your minx sent off some invitations, too, and Judy is privy to all of Jack’s secrets, so she might have invited him. But you’re going to help me spot him before he gets anywhere near Jack.”
“If I must,” Anthony said drily, but after entering the ballroom with James and seeing how many couples were already on the dance floor, including Jacqueline, he added, “Did George really invite this many? Or has every gate-crasher in London come out for this?”
“The latter. How often does a Malory host an extravaganza? The ton will be rabid with curiosity to find out why we did.”
“Point taken. But in this crush, we’re not likely to—” Anthony began, but amended, “Well, that didn’t take long a’tall. Take a gander at the terrace. Reeves might have an invitation, but he wouldn’t want his name announced in a room full of Malorys. He appears to be sneaking in the back way to avoid that, but just this moment he put on his mask. Shall I toss him out?”
“Bite your tongue, that pleasure is mine.”
“Well, now’s your chance to catch him off guard, while he’s got his eyes clapped on Jack.”
A few moments later, James told Damon, “You were warned.”
The punch had already been delivered. Doubled over—bloody déjà vu—Damon gasped, “God, not again. Must you always lead with your fists, Malory?”
“You were warned.”
Damon didn’t straighten yet, but he risked a black eye and porcelain being smashed into his cheek to peer up at James to gauge just how angry he was—and wished he hadn’t. “What is the bloody point of a masque if you guess who’s who? I could say you have mistaken me—”
“You’re not that stupid.”
“I love her.”
“So you are that stupid,” James said. “The anguish you’ve twice caused my family won’t ever be forgiven. And you really were warned.”
James gripped a handful of Damon’s hair on the top of his head in preparation for the next blow, which would likely knock him out. The half mask fell off. The thought did cross Damon’s mind that he could fight back, but that brought an image of Jack crying over her parent being hurt, so that was out of the question.
He did have one second to get out, “What if Jack loves me? Would you really deny her happiness?”
“With you, yes. This country is overflowing with eligible men, and I’ll find her one m’self in a decade or two—” The pause was unexpected before he added, “Does she?”
“I don’t know,” Damon was forced to admit.
“Good.” James drew his fist back.
“But I’m going to find out.” Damon tore himself away.
He left a damn lot of hair behind in Malory’s fist, but quickly weaved his way onto the dance floor. He’d spotted Jack immediately, her domino short this time, barely covering her eyes—as if she wanted him to recognize her. He whisked her away from the fellow she was dancing with, hopefully not another Malory who might object.
Her eyes widened slightly, but then she laughed. “No mask? I’m disappointed we aren’t going to play that guessing game again.”
His smile was brilliant. “No, you aren’t.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve missed you!”
“I thought I might be coming to my execution here. I couldn’t think of any other reason your mother would send me the invitation.”
“And yet you came anyway?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t send it, Judy did.”
“No, I actually got two invitations; one was from your mother.”
Jack’s brows went up. “Really? Then maybe you were right about an execution. Shall we find out? Quickly, before my father joins her!”
“Dragging me to my death wasn’t what I had in mind for tonight,” he said as Jack pulled him to the two women standing with Anthony Malory.
“Don’t be silly,” Jack said. “Mother wouldn’t carry her pistols to a ball.”
When they walked up to the trio, Anthony immediately started to reach for Damon, but Georgina actually put out an arm to stay him, which gave Jack time to say, “Mother, I would like you to meet Damon—”
Georgina cut in, “No, I don’t think so,” and gave Damon a resounding slap.
There was actually some applause in the room. Well, a lot of Malorys were present, and they were well aware of Jacqueline’s second trip to the Caribbean.
But Jacqueline stared at her mother and asked, “Just once, yes?”
“For tonight.”
“Is it my turn now, George?” Anthony asked.