Page 58 of The Scandalous Deal of the Scarred Lady
“Confound it, James, I am not in the mood to play games. Tell me!”
“Why?” James threw up his hands. “Tell me why. Make me understand!”
“Because Phoebe Barlowe has been blackmailing me for years with the expectation that someday she would be able to put you under her thumb. Do you not realize that the loss of your funds was in equal parts at the hands of your business partner — and myself? I have been robbing this household for years, giving her more coin than you can imagine.”
“Blackmailing.” James stared at her, feeling himself withdrawing, backing until he felt the chair against his legs and sat heavily. His business partner had all but ruined him, borrowing against the holdings James had inherited against his father. It had taken every coin he’d had to pay against those notes and keep from having to sell off parts of his estate.
But Lucy had been giving away more than trinkets and baubles. Suddenly the loss of many pounds he had been unable to account for was explained. What little cash they’d had to pay the staff and handle the day to day operations of the estate had been disappearing much faster than he had supposed.
“Why…? Why would you steal…from me?” He could not breathe. His heart felt crushed within his chest, the betrayal so sore, so deep that it hurt beyond any pain he had known until that moment. Even the loss of her would have been better than this.
“Because you…because the world could not know,” Lucy said, stepping toward him and stopping, one hand outstretched in his direction then falling away to her side.
“Know what? Lucy. Tell me.” The words felt thick in his mouth, hard to force out. “What have you hidden that is so important that you would ruin me to keep it silent?”
Lucy’s face was streaked with tears, her eyes red-rimmed and terrible to see. “You have to understand. I did itforyou….”
“What have you DONE?” he shouted, leaping to his feet, and grabbing her by the arms. “TELL ME!”
“She knew…” Lucy gasped, going limp in his grasp. “She knew…that you are myson!”
Chapter 40
“Your…son.” James sank back down into his chair and stared at her.
Lucy looked from him to the door, clearly impatient to be off. “I shall need to explain, I suppose.”
“That would help,” James said faintly, rising and guiding her to a chair. Her expression was likely as shocked as his own, for his face felt so still and stiff, it might have been carved from wood. And hers held such a look of shock, it’s a wonder she didn’t fall over where she stood.
She sank into the seat, not seeming to notice the blanket he dragged from the bed and tucked around her. “I should not have said that,” she said, as she lifted her head to gaze at him.
When had she gone so grey and become so old? Her blue eyes glistened in the firelight, her hands in her lap, knobby and deeply veined. She aged before his eyes — even her hair seemed paler, silver strands falling about her face in a soft halo.
“Tell me this is an untruth, brought about by the injury to your head. I know you were unconscious for a long time.” He sank into his own chair, drawn close enough to hers that he might take her hand in his.
She shook her head once, still staring at him in that terrible silence, a single tear trailing down her cheek.
“No. No.” James buried his face in his hands, too many things coming together at once. He thought of the times he had fought for the attention of his mother — a woman who had little affection for the boy, who would, more often than not, turn her back on him. She’d left one day, leaving him behind. He had not understood why.
“I have thought a hundred…nay, a thousand…times how to tell you,” Lucy said softly, her hand coming up to touch his cheek, coming to rest upon the top of his head, holding him the way she had as a child when she’d found him sorrowing over some small thing or another.
“It cannot be true. Father…”
“…was a good man, do not mistake that.” Lucy’s voice was so fierce that James looked at her sharply.
“But if he…and you…” He could not speak the words.
Her hand fell away. “You do not understand the situation.”
“Thenmakeme understand,” James cried. “You knew! Youknewhow it made me feel when she…left. I suffered…for years. I suffered from the knowledge that my mother would care so little for us that she cared nothing for the scandal of running away. Becoming the lover of…that man.”
“Your mother and her lover paid for their mistakes,” Lucy said softly. “They died not long after. She was a lovely woman, and it was a great tragedy that she should fall ill, so far from home…”
“I will NOT pity them,” James snarled, jumping to his feet, unable to sit still.
“No, you never have given your mother pity. You have been consumed by fury for so long. She was foolish and very young. I have told you before—”
“How could you? How could you defend her then? And still defend her now? Explain. Explain to me how it came to be that she was raising a child not her own? And Father…! To do such a thing…!”
