The Fairy Tale Bride (30 page)

"The truth is a regrettable thing in this
case. And it would hurt Simon more if I were to tell it to
him."

"The truth can never be regretted, only dealt
with," Miranda said with a practicality born of dealing with her
own odd differences that had caused so much dissension for her with
her parents. "Simon seems to be able to face truth. Why don't you
try to patch up whatever rift has split you?"

"If only circumstances had not been
different. For a moment, I had hoped…but no, I cannot tell
him."

Angrily, Miranda turned to leave. "Of course
you won't. Instead, you will poke and prod until his control hangs
by a threat. Sometimes it seems you mean to provoke him to
murder."

The dowager's mouth tightened so that her
lips turned white at the edges. But then, to Miranda's
astonishment, she merely nodded. "Perhaps. I can see what you say.
Although I can't appreciate how horrible you make me sound."

"What I think of you is of no import. It is
your son's desire to understand, to heal the hurt between you that
you must concern yourself with."

"And if it is not in my power to heal him? If
I hold the power to hurt him immeasurably more?"

"It seems impossible to me that either of you
could hurt the other more. Especially if you tell the truth."
Miranda felt the tears rising in her eyes, and added, "You might
regret not having tried when he is gone." As she would. She knew
she would.

"And he will be going soon, will he not?"

The dowager paled at the reminder of her
son's pending death. "I suppose there is only one way left to break
through to him. I shall tell him what he demands to know."

Miranda felt as if a burden had been taken
from her. "You will not regret it." She hoped this would be the
beginning of peace between them. And then she looked into the
dowager's face.

"I will tell him." She looked grim. "But it
will not make him happy."

Miranda felt a chill of fear shiver through
her, but she had no time to ask why.

Simon's voice cut through the conversation as
cleanly as a knife. "What will not make me happy?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Miranda noted that the dowager jumped as
perceptibly as she herself did at the sound of his voice. He had
come as if called — by angel or devil she could not say.

The dowager craned her neck to look up at the
towering figure of her son. Each determined gaze met and clashed
together — and neither gave quarter as she answered him. "I have
decided to answer the question you have been demanding answered
since the day your father died."

So she had meant what she said. Miranda grew
numb, knowing what was coming and yet not knowing at the same time.
Would the dowager's confidences heal the rift, or split them apart
forever?

"Your tongue could not shape the truth,
Mother." Simon lashed out at her as he reached a hand toward
Miranda. "Come, Miranda, we have guests to see to."

She did not move.

Simon's jaw flexed in anger. "Miranda?" He
had not raised his voice, but that did not mean he was not angry.
He was. Very angry. She did not move.

The dowager picked up her sewing and resumed
stitching, the needle flashing in the sunlight "Are you so
foolishly spiteful that you would walk away from me now, when you
are only moments away from the truth you hold so dear?"

Simon glared at her, but did not move toward
the house. Miranda could see his desire to have the truth from his
mother etched upon his face. There was fear etched there, too. She
could not help but wonder what awful secret lay between them to be
exposed.

A dreadful thought made her catch her
breath.

Was his mother somehow the cause of his fatal
illness? She pressed her hand together. Oh, please, let that not be
the case.

Simon's mother sighed and indicated the bench
next to her. "Sit please, Simon. I have a tale to tell you, and I
do not like to crook my neck to look up at you."

He did not move. "It cannot take you long to
say one name."

One name. Miranda tried to puzzle out his
statement. Whose name? How could one name cause such a rift between
mother and son? What infamy could one name hold?

The dowager's needle paused for a moment and
then resumed. "I will tell the story in my own way, and you shall
be patient. After all, you will have your answer — not, I expect,
that it will make you any happier."

Her glance caught Miranda, held her, pulling
her into the whirlpool of emotions. "But your wife seems to feel
that I shall never overcome this rift between us if I am not honest
with you."

His breath caught and his voice was harsh as
he asked, "Have you told her? You have no right — "

"I have told her nothing." She pursed her
lips thoughtfully. "Although she has guessed some things, she does
not know what ails you, of that I am certain. Should we send her
away before we have this conversation?"

Miranda could see that he was considering it,
and she was torn between wanting to know what had hurt them so very
much and running away from the painful purging she sensed would
soon take place.

"No." His voice was crisp, decisive. "She
might as well know."

"You trust her, do you?"

"With my life." His answer made Miranda's
heart ache with a tightly controlled joy. She wondered if he would
still feel the same way once his mother had spit out her awful
truth.

He sat on the ground, heedless of the grass
stains that might mar his clothing and, after a brief glance at
Miranda, stared in challenge at his mother. "Tell me your story,
Mother. But do not expect me to be swayed by touching pleas or sad
tales."

"Never, Simon. You are much too much like
me."

The dowager composed herself, suddenly
seeming to be at a loss for words. And then she began, softly.
"Your father ... "

"The duke," Simon interrupted.

"Sinclair Watterly took me to wife for one
reason and one reason only — his older son, your brother Peter,
desired a commission in the Navy. At first, Sinclair forbade it and
refused to pay for a commission."

The sharpness in her face erased for a
moment, as if she had been drawn back in time. "I heard from the
servants that it was quite a battle."

Simon interrupted impatiently. "I knew his
temper well, Mother. But that happened long before I was born and
is not of importance to me and what I want from you."

Her eyes focused on Simon. "Sinclair won the
battle, of course. He was the father, and he held the purse strings
tight to himself. Still, he knew it was only a matter of time
before Peter attained his majority and received an income that
could not be controlled.

"Since he did not want the dukedom to revert
to another branch of the family if anything were to happen to his
son, the duke decided that the solution would be to marry again and
have another son of his own."

Simon stirred restlessly. "I know all this,
Mother. The duke was fond of telling me the story, as you well
know. He felt he was lucky to have taken the precaution, since my
brother died. I'm sure he was horrified the day he learned I was a
bastard."

Miranda gasped. A bastard? Simon? How could
that be? He did not look at her, but she could see that her
reaction had increased the tension that surged through him. She
pressed her hands against her mouth so that she could make no more
sounds, no matter what else was said.

"You are no bastard." His mother's eyebrow
rose in an eloquent rebuke. "Sinclair knew that he was incapable of
siring a child before he married me. He arranged for your
conception as carefully as he arranged our marriage."

"You mean, don't you, that he condoned your
taking a lover?"

"Condoned? That is not the term I would use,
but the truth is the truth. Sinclair was your father in all but
deed, and there is no one to dispute that fact but you."

"What about Mr. Watson? He knew you when you
were young. Perhaps I should ask him if he knew my father – or if
he is my father. Or have you sent him away so that I cannot ask him
for the truth? Is that why you are now willing to tell me. To keep
him from it?"

"Do you think Sinclair would share such a
secret with a stranger? An American?" Her laughter was harsh, and
yet there was a glint of fear in her eye. "No one would father his
son but a man of his choice."

Simon's anger burned at that. Miranda could
see his jaw tighten and his fists clench, pulling up clumps of
grass without even knowing he was doing so. "Are you implying that
he put you out for stud service Mother? I know how proud he was of
the direct descent of our family line. I will not believe he would
deliberately allow the Watterly blood to be drained from the
line."

"No. You are right. He would not. That is why
he…" There was actually a tinge of color in her cheeks, Miranda
saw, wondering whether it boded well or ill. "…he commanded his son
to sire a child upon me before he would provide the commission
fee."

Silence lay like a blanket of heavy wool over
the three. He had not expected this. A lover. An affair. But not
this twisted … no. His mother was many things, but he had never
known her to create elaborate fictions to hide her own crimes.

He could not bear to look at Miranda. He had
expected her to be shocked. But she had done nothing but give as
small gasp. He had not believed that she would turn against him.
But he did not want to see her eyes. Not yet.

"And you agreed to this?" His accusation came
sharply, cutting through the silent pall. He had no use for
expedient truths. His mother had lain with his father's son to
conceive him. Could it be true? "How much were you paid for your
compliance?"

His mother's smile infuriated him. Of course,
she was the duchess. What other payment could she expect? The
thought made him ill.

"The duke thought it best if I were to remain
unaware of his plans." Even now, her voice was cool and mocking.
Even now, when the truth was no longer their secret, but Miranda's
as well. "Your father came to me in the dark and left before
daybreak."

He watched Miranda, not his mother. Her eyes
were wide with shock. What did she think of him now that she knew?
Would she repudiate him?

He asked mockingly, "And you didn't know the
difference between a man of fifty and an eighteen-year-old boy?"
Had she not always known when he was into some mischief as a boy,
even when he thought himself safe from her eyes at school? How
could she have been so blind?

"I'm certain you cannot credit it, Simon, but
at the time I was young and innocent." His mother's answer was so
dry, the voice he hated when she'd used it to argue with the old
duke when she knew she could not win. Not against Sinclair
Watterly, Duke of Kerstone. "I had no reason to suspect that my
husband was not the one exercising a husband's right. But now that
I have told you what you wanted to know, I hope you see that you
are the true-blooded duke and no bastard."

Simon stared at her in bitterness for a
moment and then suddenly stood. "Thank you for telling me the name
of my father. I believe you are not lying about that. But this
absurd fabrication about the duke condoning – ordering – it, that I
cannot accept. Our indisputably direct descent was a source of
pride for him. I cannot believe that he would sully it with a
bastard."

"He never considered you a bastard, Simon.
You were of his blood and his making — his son would never have
bedded me without your father's command."

"Perhaps it is well that my true father died,
then, for he could not have been a man of great character. The duke
always hinted that he was not cut out for running the estates."

"I did not realize that Sinclair ever spoke
of Peter to you." She seemed surprised, even somewhat alarmed.

For the first time, he wondered why the duke
might have been so insistent that Simon was a better man than the
duke's older son. "He said little, only that Peter was cut out to
be a warrior and didn't understand duty and loyalty."

A spark of anger lit in her eye, surprising
him. "Your father had a different dream, Simon. That does not make
him lacking in character. You have no idea what the sacrifice cost
him. He left before he knew that we had conceived you."

Simon remembered her cryptic comment that he
might not have been born if ... it was too painful to consider.

"He confronted Sinclair, refused to continue
the charade, forced him to pay the commission fee, and left that
very night. We never heard from him again."

"What if you had?" The horror struck through
him. "What if you had to live here with him? All of you knowing —
"

"Do you not recall Sinclair clearly enough?
Do you think that would have perturbed him? If Peter had come home,
to become duke and leave you as second son, Sinclair would have
been overjoyed."

"And my father?"

"Who can say?" The dowager looked away, her
eyes closed, her face shut in tight lines of pain. "The duke did
not realize what harm he had caused, of course."

She sighed. "Not even to his dying day. He
sent news of your birth to Peter." She put down the stitching she
had been gripping in her hands. "It was shortly after that when we
received the news of his death. He never even knew he had a
son."

His gaze sought Miranda, sitting silently
through the news of his disgrace and humiliation. Her glance was
one of sympathy, as she rose in one graceful move and came toward
him, her arms held out. He remembered the time long ago, the night
of her scandal, that he had known even then she would not hold his
birth against him.

"Thank you for this information, Mother."
Simon's eyes did not focus when he glanced toward his mother. He
had to get away. Away from Miranda, away from his mother, away from
this ill-fated life. His bow was brief, and then he was gone. Gone
as far away as he was able, to ride away from this house of guests
who all thought him the Duke of Kerstone. To ride away from his
pain, his shame.