Page 58 of The Notorious Lord Knightly
“Because you’re not of my blood.”
It took everything within Knight not to bark outhis laughter and leave the room, but bloody hell. His father looked to be deadly serious. “My mother might disagree.”
“When you were born with your dark hair and blue eyes, she told me dark hair existed in her family. But I never met any of her relations who were not blond. And your eyes, I thought, like Francis’s, would eventually turn brown. But they never did. I finally confronted her, and she confessed to taking another to her bed. You are the result.”
Knight felt as though fists had been pounded into him until he was black and blue, inside and out. How was it possible this information could be kept from him all these years? “You’re mistaken, surely.”
“I am not. You look nothing at all like me.”
That much was true, and Knight had always found a bit of a relief in it. But at the moment his world was spinning out of control. Then his father—not his father—continued, his voice dripping with icy disdain.
“At the time, a divorce required an act of Parliament, and I had too much pride to announce I was a cuckold. I was listed as your father on the birth records. That made you legally mine. But I had my heir. Francis, healthy and strong. What need had I of you? You would be the spare in name only. I would tolerate you, but not her.” He poured himself more scotch and downed it.
Knight decided the day of his wedding was not the best one on which to commit murder, but at that moment he loathed a man he had merely disliked before. “Did you kill my mother?”
A corner of the duke’s mouth lifted into a sneer.“That would have been a kindness. I needed her to suffer for what she did. I had her committed to a madhouse.”
Balling his hands into fists, he took a step toward a bloke who deserved a good pummeling. “You bastard.”
“You’re the bastard, in actuality if not legally.”
These revelations explained the smacks from his youth as well as his father’s indifference to him. “But legally is what matters,” Knight said with a bit of smugness. “I’m your heir apparent, and you can’t do a damned thing to prevent me from inheriting your titles and entailed properties.” Primogeniture, the law of the land, protected the heir from a wrathful father.
“I could take your life, but I decided to offer a bargain instead.”
Knight didn’t like the cold calculation reflected in those brown eyes. Or the hatred, the fury. “You have nothing I want.”
“Not even your mother’s freedom?”
“I’ll find and set her free.” Although he’d long ago hired investigators to uncover what had happened to her, they’d yet to meet with success, but now at least he knew they needed to concentrate on madhouses.
“You’ll never learn where I secreted her away. Even if you do, she is my wife, and the law allows me to determine her fate. Until I say otherwise, she is insane.”
He didn’t know how much longer he could restrain himself before beating the loathsome creature before him to a bloody pulp. “You mentioned a bargain.”
“Swear on your mother’s life that you will never marry and thus have no legitimate firstborn son so that when you die someone with true Pennington blood will once again hold my titles and properties—do that, and I’ll place my conniving wife in your care.”
Chapter 18
As his mouth trailed along my throat, I wanted to leave this place, this garden, to be lying with him in a bed, where intimacy could be fully explored and know no bounds.
—Anonymous,My Secret Desires, A Memoir
June 22, 1875
Sometime during the telling of his tale, Knight and Regina had made their way to the settee near the fireplace, sitting in opposite corners, but the smallness of the furniture placed them within easy reach of each other. Not that they were touching. They both seemed to be tightly wound, like a mummy in a sarcophagus. He felt much as he had that beastly morning, shocked by what he’d learned, furious at what was being demanded of him, devastated with the knowledge of how he would ruin her life if he defied the duke, how he would ruin her life if he didn’t. No matter which path he took, she would suffer because of it. He wouldsuffer as well—continued to suffer because of the loss of her and the guilt.
Any semblance of control he maintained at the moment would shatter if she placed so much as the tip of her finger on him. He wanted to throw a vase against a wall, tear the room asunder as their lives had been. She’d deserved none of it.
Once he’d begun talking, she’d uttered not a sound, but he’d watched the horror flick over her features as his words were unveiled. He hated the truth of them, but more he hated what he’d not told her.
She studied him now as though he’d transformed into a creature she didn’t recognize, but he also saw the sorrow and confusion. Finally with a long, slow breath, she settled back against the plush cushion no doubt striving to absorb the ramifications of all he’d shared. After a few minutes of silent reflection, she leaned forward, her brow deeply furrowed, and he wanted to reach out and press his fingers to the lines in order to erase them, and then have his mouth soothe where they had existed.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this at the church?” she asked hesitantly.
“He’d sworn me to secrecy, laid out all the rules, creating an intricate web that allowed me no room to maneuver. I grappled to understand precisely who and what I was. I was burning with contempt for the man.” He forced himself to hold her gaze. “And I was ashamed, Reggie.”
“Of the circumstances of your birth?” Reaching out, she placed her hand over his where it rested on his thigh. It should have brought him comfort and agreat deal of relief. Instead, it served only to make him feel all the worse. “You must have known that I, of all people, would have understood the turmoil battering about like a tempest within you. I’d been there for most of my life.”
