Page 55 of Daredevil Lady and the Mysterious Millionaire (The Hidden Hearts Collection #3)

He barely tasted the excellent roast beef dinner; he was too unaccustomed to entertaining so many emotions to feel quite comfortable.

One couldn’t do away with all the hurts and the barriers of years, not in the space of one evening.

Although Tessa no longer sniped at him, she still refused to meet his eyes or say much to him.

After supper, she retired with the children as though eager to escape his company. Although disappointed, Zeke tried to understand. When Arthur also retreated, up to his artist’s studio, Zeke was left alone with Caddie.

As with Sadie, there was something about his eldest sister that induced one to open up to her. Zeke found himself telling her all about Rory, the entire mess he had made of their relationship.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Caddie asked.

Zeke heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. You’re going to go find that lovely girl, tell her how sorry you are and tell her how much you love her.”

Zeke tensed at the suggestion. Observing him, Caddie smiled. “You said as much to Tessa and discovered it didn’t kill you.”

Zeke gave a reluctant grin. But it had been easier with Tessa. The reconciliation had been important to him, but not as it would be with Rory, putting his entire heart and soul on the line.

But there was no arguing with Caddie. As she saw him to the door and handed him his hat, she said, “When you’ve made it up with her, bring Aurora Rose round to see me. I want to welcome her to the family.”

Zeke only nodded, the vision Caddie’s words conjured far too agreeable to dwell upon. As he turned to go out the door, Caddie rested her hand upon his arm. Her parting smile was a little wistful.

“Whatever happens, John, don’t be such a stranger, all right?”

For answer he deposited a brusque kiss on her cheek before he strode down the steps. He heard her delighted gasp of surprise, then she slowly closed the door, leaving him alone on the darkened street.

Alone? No. It was strange. There wasn’t another soul out on the pavement, but he didn’t feel alone.

A soft smile played about his lips as he glanced back at his sister’s townhouse, the welcoming light shining past the lace curtains and making him feel as if he had brought some of that warmth away with him.

Whistling a tuneless song, he leaned up against one of the gas street lamps and wondered if he should return to Rory’s flat, if he had enough courage left to do any more soul-baring tonight. He was thinking of summoning a cab when the door to Caddie’s townhouse suddenly swung back open.

To his astonishment, Tessa burst outside. She was trying to arrange her shawl as she went, but she was in such great haste she let the black wool trail over her shoulder. She glanced anxiously up and down the street and appeared relieved when she spotted Zeke by the lamppost.

“Johnnie. Wait!” she called.

He hadn’t moved a muscle, but she came tearing down the front steps as though she expected him to disappear.

As she drew up breathlessly beside him, Zeke said, “What’s all this, Tess? You couldn’t bear to part with me or you decided you wanted to punch me in the nose after all?”

“N-no,” she panted. “This isn’t the time to be funny, John.”

The lamplight haloed her pale features, and Zeke could see she was not smiling. Nor was the familiar glare present either. Rather her eyes were filled with an uncertainty, that same troubled look that had rendered him uncomfortable at the dinner table.

“I have something important to tell you, something I should have told you a long time ago.”

She seemed so deadly solemn she was starting to scare the hell out of him. He waited, but she was unable to go on, to meet his questioning gaze. She hung her head.

He took hold of her hand to give it an encouraging squeeze and discovered her fingers were trembling.

“What is it, Tessa?” He joked to cover his own growing unease. “Did you pay some gypsy woman in the Village to put a curse on me?”

“Johnnie, please don’t,” she said hoarsely. “It’s about the night Mama died.”

That was one night Zeke could hardly bear to remember, let alone talk about. He let go of his sister’s hand.

“Tessa, if you are going to heap old recriminations on my head, I wish for once you would spare me. I did try to get there sooner that night. I honestly did.”

“I know that,” she said in a small voice. “I guess I always realized that, but I was so upset for Mama. She needed so badly to talk to you before she died. She said if she didn’t last until you came, she trusted me to tell you?—”

“It’s all right, Tessa,” Zeke broke in, dreading that his sister might begin sobbing all over again, out in the middle of the sidewalk.

And damn it all. He could feel his own eyes starting to smart.

“Even though I didn’t deserve it, I knew how loving, how forgiving Sadie could be.

I can guess what she wanted to tell me.”

“No, I don’t think you can. You see she knew who your real family was.”

Tessa’s halting confession was so far from what he’d expected, her words slammed into his gut with the weight of a powerful fist.

“What?”

Tessa bit down upon her quivering lip. “I think Mama must have always known. She said the people at the orphanage told her when she adopted you.”

Zeke was stunned to silence. Sadie had known all along who his real parents were and never told him? Sadie, the one person in all the world he had trusted ever to be honest, straightforward, had kept such a thing secret from him? Feelings of betrayal cut through him.

Tessa stole a nervous glance up at him. “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything? Aren’t you going to ask who?—”

“I’d rather know why. Damn it, Tessa. Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Mama was afraid of losing you. Your real family was wealthy and powerful. All the things you ever wanted. If you had known, you would have gone running off to them.”

“To seek out people that let me be dumped in a trash can?” Zeke raked his hand back through his hair, in a gesture fraught with anger and bitterness.

He thought that nothing could hurt more than the realization Sadie had lied to him, but something did—that she had apparently believed him capable of turning his back on all her loving kindness, seeking to belong to some cold-hearted bastards simply because they were rich.

His pain was the more acute because of his fear that at some point in the shallowness of his youth, Sadie might have been right.

“And after Mama died,” Tessa concluded in a voice half-guilty, half-defiant, “I never told you any of this—just out of spite.”

“So tell me now. What’s the name of these marvelous beings Sadie thought I would be so eager to desert you all for? The Astors? The Vanderbilts?”

“No, a family named Markham. They had this son named Stephen.” Tessa faltered when Zeke stared at her.

“Have you ever heard of them? I believe it was the maiden name of that friend of yours, Mrs. Van something.”

“I know who the Markhams are,” Zeke said. His ears had been filled with enough gossip about the family, even from Mrs. Van H. herself. But Zeke could not credit that it had anything to do with him.

“Do you mean to stand there and tell me that Stephen Markham was my father?”

Tessa nodded unhappily.

“That’s crazy. From what Mrs. Van H. has told me about her brother, half the unwanted brats in New York could lay claim to being sired by him. What makes you so sure he was my father?”

“Because Mama said so. She even tried to find out more, who your mother was. She went to visit that Mrs. Van Hallsburg.”

Zeke flinched. Another leveler. He hadn’t been floored so many times since the last time he had put on gloves and stepped into the ring. “Sadie did? When?”

“A long time ago. I’m not sure. Mrs. Van Hallsburg admitted the part about her brother. She said your mother was some sort of an actress, but she wouldn’t tell Mama more than that.”

Zeke seized Tessa by the shoulders in a hard grasp. “You mean that Mrs. Van H. knew that I was her brother’s son?”

“I guess so.”

This was worse than madness. This was a nightmare. Images of Cynthia Van Hallsburg seared his mind, how she had behaved in his study that day, the blaze of unsettling passion in her eyes, her kiss. He could still imagine the brassy taste of it on his lips. He felt like he was going to be sick.

“None of this makes any sense.” He gave Tessa a brusque shake. “Go on. Tell me the rest of it.”

She squirmed to be free. “There isn’t any more. Mama was dying the night she told me. It wasn’t all clear. Please, Johnnie. You’re hurting me.”

It took a moment for her cry to penetrate his haze of confusion and anger.

Abruptly he released her, his mind trying to cope with a barrage of information he had never sought.

He had always told himself that he didn’t give a damn about knowing who his mother or father were.

They had left him to die, hadn’t they? Then the hell with them.

But these half-answers, half-truths were worse than knowing nothing at all.

Tessa rubbed her arms where he had gripped her. “You are making me sorry I told you. You’ve got a crazy look on your face, Johnnie.”

How did she expect him to look when she had just turned his world upside down? He said curtly, “Go back into the house, Tessa. You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.”

“By myself? Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer her, pacing off several impatient steps and scanning the street ahead for the approach of a hack. Of course there was never one around when needed. But it didn’t matter a damn. He would walk all the way to Fifth Avenue if he had to.

Tessa trailed after him, tugging at his sleeve. “Come back to the house, John. You’re scaring me.”

He pulled away from her, his lips set in a taut, angry smile. “You’ve no need to worry about me, Tess. I’ll be in no danger. I’m merely going to pay a late-night call upon my dear Aunt Cynthia.”