Page 33 of Beware A Wallflower's Wrath
“No, it isn’t. It’s his.”
Anthony blinked. Robert swallowed. This was not how he’d planned to tell Anthony of his parentage. The boy had goaded him.
“What are you saying? You would choose him over me?”
Robert scrubbed his face with his hands and shook his head. “I just want us to be a family.”
“What would we possibly have in common other than your blood?”
“More than you know.”
“I believe we should end this conversation,” Anthony ground out. “You’re talking mad as a March hare.”
“Your mother was pregnant when we married. It is why we married.”
He had stunned the boy. Robert wished he could start the entire conversation over. But when had Anthony become so arrogant, so entitled?
“But you were married before I was born.” The boy’s voice cracked. “According to English law, I am legitimate as long as the father marries the mother before the child’s birth.”
“Yes, it is true that a child born within wedlock is legitimate.”
Anthony was wavering, losing his confidence. Then he lashed out, “You’re a whoreson. An affair with two women at the same time? My poor mother. No wonder she didn’t want to marry you.”
Robert wanted to pull him to his chest, hug him as he had a child. But he had to finish what he had so badly started. “No, I never met your mother until after our fathers arranged the betrothal.”
Anthony’s eyes widened as he realized what his father was saying. His bottom lip began to tremble. Robert’s heart ached at the pain he had caused and his own eyes stung with unshed tears.
“Son—”
“NO!” Anthony yelled. “Do not call me that.” He put his hands over his ears and stood, pacing the room. “No, no, no. Bloody hell! No, no, no.”
Tears streamed down the boy’s face as Robert stood in his path, hands on the trembling shoulders. “You are my son. It doesn’t matter who gave you life. I love you, raised you to be the young man you are.”
“I’m a bastard?!” He shook his head, took a swing at Robert, who easily caught it. “How could you keep this from me?”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell. It was your mother’s, and I respected that.”
“What other secrets have you kept from me? Who is my father? A murderer hanged at Newgate? Some thief transported to Australia?” Anthony backed away from Robert, then turned and ran from the room. “I hate you.”
CHAPTER 15
Glasgow, Scotland
Annis hummed an old lullaby while she readied for bed. As she went to turn back the counterpane, she found a sheet of paper with a chocolate drop on her pillow. She popped the chocolate into her mouth and read the lines:
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Robert Burns, “A Red, Red Rose”
When had he become so romantic? She blinked, happy tears burning the back of her eyes at his ingenuity to give her gifts while he was away. Fin was his obvious accomplice. The two most important men in her life. And Rabbie had become that again, though she wouldn’t let him know yet. Perhaps his time away would not be so terrible, knowing an unexpected treat could come from nowhere. She had something to look forward to.
She found another note and chocolate on her pillow the next night.
