Page 76 of Duke of Iron
Logan pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “How old was she?”
“Seventeen. They said she was beautiful, but it was not enough to save her,” he said this with the air of a man who had already spoken these words many times, and found them wanting each time.
Logan stood there, watching the slow spiral of dust motes in the parlor air, and realized he had no words for this kind of disaster.
Mr. Beamond cleared his throat. “We received a letter, not three days ago, from the lawyers in Florence. They included documents—certificates. The child is legitimate, by their law, though I do not know if?—”
“That is all I require,” Logan said.
He did not remember leaving the house. One moment, he was standing in the drawing room, and the next, he was out in the cold, the holly leaves scratching at his coat as though trying to keep him from ever returning.
The city spun around him. The horse waited, impassive. He mounted it and rode, with no idea where he was going, until the cold became a living thing in his chest.
He did not return to Irondale House until the lamps were lit and every window glowed with the warmth of a home he was no longer sure he recognized.
“Rydal just ate an entire serving of mashed peas without a single protest…” May pushed the study door open as she spoke, proclaiming the baby’s accomplishment as if it were a war trophy, and then stopped so sharply she nearly dropped the note she’d meant to share.
Logan sat at his desk, elbows braced on the dark wood, hands locked around his skull as if trying to contain a storm inside it. He did not look up when she entered. The lamp on the desk painted sharp lines under his eyes, hollowing his cheeks and turning his hair almost black against the pallor of his skin.
May’s heart skidded sideways. She crossed the room without thinking and set her hand lightly on his shoulder. He did not move.
She kneeled so that her face was level with his. “Logan?”
The silence was heavy and close. His hands did not uncurl from his head. For a second, May wondered if he had even heard her, or if his mind had finally snapped and left him a shell, like so many she’d read about in the medical pamphlets.
She tried again, softer. “Logan. It’s me.”
He let his hands fall, slowly, as if gravity worked differently in his vicinity. The gray eyes that met hers were rimmed with red and rimmed again with something darker—horror, maybe, or grief.
May felt her pulse stutter. She wanted to reach out, to touch his cheek, to do anything except sit there and watch a man come undone so quietly. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap, as her mother had taught, and waited.
Logan’s voice was hoarse. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”
“I was going to,” May said, “but Rydal demanded a second supper. He is developing a will.” She tried to smile, but the joke shriveled and died in the air.
Logan stared at the far wall, beyond her, beyond everything. “Sit,” he said, gesturing toward the fire.
May obeyed, taking the armchair nearest the grate. The heat stung her shins. She tucked her feet under her and waited, trying not to fidget.
Logan stood and moved to the mantel. For a moment, he braced himself against it, head bowed. Then he straightened, and when he spoke, his voice was clear and stripped of every defense.
“The baby,” he said, “is not my son.”
May blinked. “He’s not—” She stopped, reconsidered. “I do not understand.”
Logan managed a sound that might have been a laugh, but it had too much bone in it to be healthy. “He is my brother. My father’s son.”
The words hung in the air, refusing to settle.
May’s mind rifled through everything she knew about inheritance and marriage law, about ducal lines and the desperation of men to keep their blood alive. “Is he?—”
“He is legitimate by every law that matters,” Logan said. “And the moment thetonknows, he will be the most famous bastard in London.”
She pressed her hands together to keep them from shaking. “How did you?—”
“I went to the Beamonds. This morning.” His mouth twisted. “They are not subtle people. They told me everything. Their daughter died in Italy, and left her baby to be sent back to his ‘family.’ Which is, apparently, me.”
May wrapped her arms around herself, shivering despite the fire. She thought of Mrs. Paxton’s calm hands, of Miss Abbot’s devotion, of all the people in the house who would be swept away by this news, as if by a wave they never saw coming.
