Page 15 of Marie’s Merry Gentleman (The Bookshop Belles #2)

CHAPTER 14

Revelations

M r Charles remained unwell until New Year’s Day, and Marie obligingly looked after the twins until the tutor was able to resume his duties. At least she was able to walk about more now, and rather enjoyed exploring more of the castle with them. George and Richard proudly showed off more rooms in their home, explaining that their great-grandfather had begun the renovations some eighty years earlier and each generation since had completed another section of the castle.

“I’m going to do the North Tower, when it’s my turn,” George said proudly. “I like it up there, it’s the tallest tower, but there aren’t any windows right now and the steps are a bit wobbly. I don’t think it would be safe for you to go up there, Miss Baxter. Maybe you can come and visit in the summer and I’ll show you!”

She smiled, thinking that unlikely. It would indeed be lovely to come for the summer. It was sweet of George to suggest it. “I don’t think anyone should be going up a tower without any windows in this icy weather,” she cautioned gently. “Even if they had two good ankles. It would be very slippery.”

They both looked a little sheepish, before admitting they had tried a few days earlier but Richard slipped on the third step and had dragged George down with him as he fell.

“Only a few bruises!” Richard reassured Marie as she looked aghast. “But you’re right, and we promise we won’t try again. Please don’t tell Father, we weren’t hurt at all!”

Marie was sure their father would be furious. They could have been seriously hurt. “Promise me no more climbing,” Marie said.

“Not until summertime,” George put in quickly.

“And not without an adult,” Marie said firmly. “Your tutor or your father, or even one of the grooms. Just in case you fall again. Promise me.”

They promised, and she hoped they’d remember when summer came.

“You can accompany us in summer,” Geroge said cheekily. “You will be married to Pa by then!”

Marie’s cheeks burned red at the suggestion.

“Why are you blushing?” Richard said. “Pa really likes you, we can tell.”

“Please boys, you’re very sweet, but it’s not like that.”

She didn’t want to get their hopes up. Who was she kidding, she didn’t want to get her own hopes up.

“Oh yes, I know, this is an adult thing, isn’t it?” George added. “Whenever we tell someone something obvious, they blush like mad and say it’s an adult thing and we wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah, like when we told Mr Charles that Morag really liked him,” Richard said.

“He went so red and said we must be mistaken, but we could tell.”

“Well, Mr Charles has nothing to fear,” Marie gently corrected them, “Morag has switched her affections to someone else.”

“Oooh!” their eyes went round and they wanted to hear more.

Heavens! Marie wanted to blush again. “I should not gossip.”

“Is that why he’s sick?” Richard said, “He doesn’t have a cold, he has a broken heart.”

Goodness, could that be the case? Mr Charles had been with herself, Morag and Mrs Ellwood for the whole day delivering boxes to the tenants, yet only Mr Charles had come down with a cold and not the rest of them. No, surely it must be a coincidence. Mr Charles had been relieved that Morag was so keen on his brother!

Marie was tired enough after spending all day with the boys to want her bed straight after seeing them to theirs, so had little time for a private conversation with Renwick. As tired as she was each night, she still managed a little more knitting, smiling as the second scarf grew nearly as long as the first one. They would both be finished well in time for Twelfth Night.

Once Mr Charles returned to his duties, with profuse thanks to Marie for stepping in, she was quite glad to return to the routine she had become pleasantly used to, joining Renwick in the library after dinner.

“You have had little time to read that book,” Renwick said, observing she had not progressed many pages through the volume in recent days. “Thank you, for taking so much time with the twins.”

“It has been a pleasure,” Marie replied, “but honestly, quite tiring. I’m not sure how mothers manage, day in and day out!”

“And they are less tiring at this age than when very young,” Renwick pointed out.

“Yes.” Marie made a little face. “I do not have a lot of liking for small babies,” she admitted. “One cannot hold a proper conversation with them.”

Renwick seemed to be holding in laughter, but he agreed with her quite solemnly.

“They have been showing me about the castle,” Marie said then, “and George mentioned his plans to renovate the North Tower, once he becomes its custodian.”

“Did he now!” Renwick did not look displeased by the thought.

Marie wanted to keep the boys’ trust, but at the same time was deeply concerned for their welfare. “I thought I should warn you that apparently they have been going up there, and have admitted it’s somewhat hazardous at the moment.”

He looked at her, his face filled with concern. “Go on.”

“They have promised me not to try again until summer, and never to go alone, but…”

“Ah, yes. I thank you for the caution.” He looked thoughtful. “I might install a gate, at the foot of the tower, with a key. I’ll let them know they may go up whenever they ask, but they will have to ask for the key, which should preclude any dangerous solo adventuring.”

“An excellent thought, my lord!” A clever solution, and not difficult to implement before the boys came home again. Marie thought of something else then, which she had been meaning to ask him. “My lord, the boys mentioned to me that they stopped overnight in Hatfield on their way from Eton to Cambridge. You must have known they would be passing through, or close by - why ever did you not have your coachman stop by the bookshop to collect your order?”

Renwick’s reaction was oddly defensive. “It never occurred to me to entrust them with such valuable cargo,” he said, a slight snap to his voice. “Richard and Renwick Junior are still just children.”

“And you’re still struggling to call him George,” Marie pointed out. “Whatever is the matter with the name? Cannot you simply call him by his middle name, if the name George bothers you so?”

He snapped, “Because Francis is worse!”

It was an outburst, one that quite shocked Marie. She sat staring at Renwick, who had placed his hand over his eyes.

She had touched a nerve, and didn’t know what to do with herself. Should she leave him or remain?

“It’s not the boy’s fault,” Renwick said finally. “I know that, and I’m trying, but I hardly know him, hardly know either of them.”

“And whose fault is that?” Marie asked dryly. It had been made clear, from her conversations with the boys, that while they had lived their whole lives at Alston with their mother until being sent to Eton aged six - which she thought an appallingly young age, but they had seemed to think quite normal - they had not known their father at all until after their mother passed away four years earlier. He had lived in London, estranged from his wife.

“You’re blaming me ?” He lowered his hand, stared at her with outrage clear on his face. “If you had the slightest idea…”

He might try sharing the slightest idea , and then she might be able to understand him better. But the man was a closed book.

Anger, disappointment, hurt all warred in Sebastian’s breast. That Miss Baxter could think he had callously cut the boys from his life without good reason! He hadn’t thought of the boys collecting his books because … he wouldn’t have trusted them. He still didn’t know them very well, and that was partly his fault, not not entirely.

He hardly knew what he was saying as the words began to spill out of him, words he had never said aloud to another living soul.

“I don’t even know if they are mine.”

Far from looking sympathetic, Miss Baxter snorted inelegantly. “My lord, if you cannot see that they are yours, you are blinder than I am without my glasses! Richard is the living image of you, and though George is lighter in colouring, he is very like too!”

She really had no idea what she was talking about. In some ways, it was good that she couldn’t tell. Nobody could tell, and nobody would ever know. The likeness to him was convenient in many ways, but galling at the same time.

He was going to have to tell her all of it, the very worst, or she would continue thinking badly of him. That he could not bear.

“They might be my brothers.”

She blinked, a little puzzled. “I was not aware you had a brother, my lord. Oh,” and now she began to look compassionate, “did he pass away? Was he perhaps betrothed to the countess and you felt obliged…”

She still had it wrong. Every word felt like a knife into his soul as he explained, “I never had a brother, Miss Baxter. They might be my brothers ,” he said again, but this time elaborated to remove any shred of doubt, “my brothers, as in, my father’s sons.”

“Oh,” she fell silent, blinked a few times. “I… see.”

She very clearly did not, and from the many expressions crossing her face at this time, she was struggling to work out if he was still the villain in this scenario.

Sebastian sighed and began to explain. “Francesca was fifteen when she came to live here. Her parents had passed, and her father left her wardship to my father, who was an old school friend of her father’s. At the time, I thought she was quite the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was the granddaughter of a duke, though lacking a title herself, and had a substantial dowry. My father thought it appropriate to betroth us. I was only eighteen, but very amenable to the idea. Of course, I spent the next few years studying at Cambridge, but when I finished my studies and returned home, Francesca and I were married.” His mouth twisted bitterly as the painful memories resurfaced. “I was besotted with her. It was only a few months later that she told me I was to be a father; we were all delighted. And then a week after that, I returned home early from a day out hunting, my horse having come up lame …”

The memories burned acid in his gut and he spluttered, “I found my wife … and my father…”

He couldn’t make himself say it. Thinking back on that awful day stuck in his throat. He wanted to break and smash things. In a moment he might.

Marie stared at him for a long moment, uncomprehending, and then her mouth slowly opened and her eyes went very wide and round. “ No ,” she breathed in horror.

“And in case you are thinking that my father was guilty of some villainy in forcing her, that was very clearly not the case,” he added. “Francesca was…” he rethought the salacious details he’d been about to reveal. It would be so much easier simply to cut himself open and spill his innards than say the words. They were not fit for Miss Baxter’s ears. He softened the blow with a euphemism, “Evidently she was an enthusiastically willing partner.”

“Oh, Renwick.” Marie’s hand covered her mouth, her eyes welling with empathetic tears. “How very dreadful that must have been for you!”

Sebastian nodded tightly. He still couldn’t believe he was bearing his soul to Miss Baxter in this way. “I try not to relive that time, as you no doubt understand. I confronted them, demanded to know how long it had been going on for. Neither would answer me, but I eventually came to understand that the affaire predated the wedding. I refused to spend another night under Alston’s roof while either of them remained here; left that very day. My father provided an allowance for me to live on and I went to London and made myself useful there. Did some work for the War Office. They sent me news when the twins were born, but George’s names were a slap in the face. George, you see, was my father’s name, and Francis, after Francesca.”

“Oh,” she said, full understanding finally dawning on her face. “Oh, I see .”

His entire body prickled as he relived the memories. “I refused to come back, even when my father passed away. That was when the boys were about three. If I had thrown Francesca out it would have been a scandal I had no wish to have made public. The boys would have suffered terribly for it. When she died four years ago, however, I realised that I was the only family they have, so I came home. Looking at George, however…” it was still a struggle to say his name. Marie had been far too observant there. “He has her eyes. They might be mine, but I have no way to know. Either way, he is legally my heir.”

“And you are still punishing him for his mother’s and your father’s sins,” Marie said, not unkindly, but the accuracy of the statement hit him to the heart. “Whatever the facts of the twins’ parentage, they are innocent children, my lord, and you are not being fair to them.”

Suddenly, irrationally angry, Sebastian threw down the book he had not looked at in several minutes and jumped to his feet. “I know !” he cried. “Do you think I don’t know? Do you think I’m not trying? How dare you come here and make these accusations, you who know nothing of what I’ve been through? Do not look at me with pity, madam, I do not want or need your pity!”

Eyes blurring and hot, he was almost on the verge of tears. His heart pounded with fear and anger mixed together. He had to get out before he broke down and cried in front of her. Turning on his heel, he fled the library, running out into the hall and past a startled Mr Martin. He dragged open the front door and ran out into the dark, snowy night, his breath coming in great agonised gasps.