Page 84 of The Moonstone Major
“All right, let’s get to it before they find me here and all hell breaks loose.”
They managed to work side by side without constantly distracting each other, each of them silent and concentrating, until Chloe suddenly gasped and leaped out of her chair. “Fionn, look at this!”
They had been working on opposite sides of the table, each of them taking a stack and going through it while making methodical notes. He set his papers aside and rose as she approached. “What is it, love?”
How easily he fell into these endearments when it came to Chloe. She truly was his love.
“Fiona Arundel’s marriage certificate,” she said breathlessly. “And look who is named as the husband!” She was hopping about, too excited to wait for him to read it, so she blurted, “Joseph Brennan!Brennan. There’s your connection. Fiona was married to a Brennan. You lived with the viscount for several years, do you know who this Joseph is? Was it the viscount himself? I cannot credit it. Surely he would have claimed you as his son and never abandoned you to an orphanage. Oh, I wish we had aDebrett’shere. He would be listed if he were a peer.”
“Chloe, stop.” He put his hands on her shoulders to keep her from bouncing up and down. “I don’t know who he is. Perhaps some wastrel relation of the viscount’s, or no relation at all. It is not unusual for a common laborer to take on the name of his liege lord.”
“Fiona Arundel would not have married a wastrel.”
“How do you know? Why else would she have abandoned me? Of course, it requires a leap to assume she is my mother. Same for this Joseph. How could he possibly be my father? Perhaps they were the rogues who tossed me into that orphanage and went on their merry way.”
Chloe caressed his cheek. “No mother would ever abandon you. She would not have let go of you while there was breath left in her. Sadly, I think we must look for her death certification. I would not be surprised if we found she had died when…”
“When I was born? Which would mean I killed my own mother, assuming she is mine. As I said, it is a stretch to believe we are any relation to each other.”
“You must be. This is why you were led here and why you were the one to find the secret compartment filled with these boxes. And don’t you dare blame yourself for Fiona’s fate. We don’t know what happened to her. But even if she did die in childbirth, it is not your fault. Children are born innocent. They are not killers, nor can they ever be held responsible for the difficulties a woman faces in delivering a babe into the world. So don’t you dare cast blame upon yourself.”
“What of Joseph Brennan, my supposedly loving father? Again, assuming I am in any way related to him.”
“You must be. This is too much of a coincidence and sheds new light on Viscount Brennan taking you off the streets and providing you shelter and an education. Did he ever give you any hint of being something more to him than an urchin he happened to encounter?”
“No. Don’t you think I would have grabbed at any possible connection, no matter how slim?”
“Yes, I suppose you would have.” She shook her head. “But the viscount must have known there was a family connection between the two of you. How could he not? Viscounts don’t simply decide to take in a child off the streets. And why you, of all the children running through the alleyways of London? Well, it is mere conjecture at this point. Let’s dig through the rest of these documents and see what else we find. But we now have some solid leads to discuss with Cain and for his Bow Street Runner to investigate.”
Fionn’s mind was awhirl and his stomach was now tied in a painful Gordian knot. He could no longer concentrate.
Nor could he credit that Ducky had been right to sense something “squidgy” going on within the Brennan family.
It was not possible that Fionn Brennan had been his real name all along.
If it was, then what connection did he have to that family and this unknown Joseph? And why had Viscount Brennan never told him? The more he thought about it, the more questions were raised.
His heart ached for the mother he had never known. Could she have been Fiona Arundel, sister to their ghost captain?
He wanted it to be her, and yet it meant she had given him away, or died in childbirth—which would have been his fault—and then some dastardly fiend stole him away to dump him in that squalid London orphanage.
He rose and began to pace, for he felt his heart was going to explode if he sat and stared at those documents any longer.
Chloe watched him for a while but said nothing.
Finally, she sighed and returned to sorting through her stack of documents. He was still pacing, feeling like a caged tiger, and wishing the storm would pass.
He needed to get out of this house, which now felt oppressive, an airless tomb with its walls closing in around him.
He wanted to walk along the beach and think, or ride back to the fort and bury himself in work—anything but remain in Moonstone Cottage, where all the secrets of his miserable upbringing were potentially hidden.
Chloe had fixed her attention on the Brennans, but had Brioc Taran Arundel, the heroic ghost captain, known of his existence and done nothing to protect him? Had he been the one to deliver Fiona’s babe to the orphanage?
Fionn raked a hand through his hair. How many people had known of his birth and done nothing to remove him from the nightmare of his surroundings?
He wanted to rage. He wanted to pound his fist through a wall. He wanted to howl and howl, and keep howling until his anger was spent, for he was so very angry at this moment.
Chloe was staring at him, her eyes wide and thoughts obvious. She was worried about what he might do.
