Page 20 of Marie’s Merry Gentleman (The Bookshop Belles #2)

CHAPTER 19

The Sword Falls

T he carriage ride to Eton should have been filled with happiness and chatter, but the boys were mopey and sombre. Sebastian was finding it hard to hold on to any happiness himself, despite the snowy landscape that usually dusted everything in quiet magic.

He knew the reason for all their misery, of course. Marie. She’d brought music and laughter into their cold castle, and had softened his stony heart. The glimmer of hope was that he’d visit the bookshop once more on his way home. Firstly to fetch the kitten that was almost a grown cat, and get more books if they’d arrived. He’d started counting down the hours until he could see Marie again.

About an hour out from Eton, George and Richard nudged each other back and forth a few times. Then George asked, “Father, is it true about our mother and grandfather?”

His body froze with horror and shock. Questions raced through his mind and tumbled over themselves, but none could get out.

“That they… that grandfather might be our father, really?” Richard added when Sebastian couldn’t speak. As if he hadn’t understood the question.

Breathing became difficult the longer the boys looked at him. How could they possibly know? Who could have told them? A croaky, “Yes,” fell out of his mouth, and he wished with all his might he could have thought of a clever lie to protect them from that awful truth.

The boys’ eyes grew round as he confirmed their question.

“I am so sorry,” he said, not really knowing why he was apologising. “You are both my darling boys and I will always love you.”

Richard’s chin wobbled, as he asked in a quivering little voice, “Does that mean you’re not really our father?”

Nausea roiling in his stomach, Sebastian wanted to cast up his accounts. “Who told you?”

They both clamped their mouths shut.

“You’re not in trouble,” he said, “I promise you’re not. And neither is the person who told you.”

“Nobody told us,” George said. “We overheard. We… we don’t know who was doing the talking, we didn’t see them.”

It could be the truth, but they were most likely protecting the staff member who’d spoken too freely. He knew the sound of everyone’s voices who lived at Alston, and they would as well.

“Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s?” he asked. They remained mute and refused even to look at him. “Nobody’s in trouble,” he said again, but as he said that, he started to wonder if it had been Marie who’d misspoken. She’d come close to the truth when she’d questioned why he treated George differently to Richard. She had a hard time keeping secrets, blurting out the details of the Christmas Concert, which he wasn’t supposed to know about. That was hardly a hanging offence, he’d been eavesdropping as well.

The more he thought of it, the more he concluded it could only be Marie. Everyone else in his employ who knew, had said nothing. Yet now the boys knew, and the only difference was that Marie had been in the castle with them.

Richard said something else, and Sebastian caught the tail end of it as his thumping pulse calmed a little. “They would hold hands at the breakfast table and not keep a respectable distance in the library.”

Then George delivered the cutting blow, “And they shared a bedroom.”

Pain lanced his soul.

“We didn’t mean to overhear,” they chorused, tears filling their eyes.

“George, Richard,” he said his eldest son’s name without hesitation. Normally he’d be happy that he’d been able to do so, but there was no time to congratulate himself. “You’re both my darling boys. You’ll always be my darling boys, no matter what.”

The boys leapt into his arms for an embrace full of tears and confessions.

“We didn’t want to say anything,” George said. “We knew you’d be upset.”

“But we had to know,” Richard said.

A child in each arm, he hugged and reassured them that everything would be all right, but he had to be honest, now that they had asked. “The truth is, I really don’t know who sired you, and there’s no way we can ever know for sure.”

“My name makes it obvious,” George said. “Mother didn’t name me after you, she named me after herself and Grandfather. That’s why you made up so many alternatives.”

Dear God, the boy had noticed. “I haven't been fair to you, and that stops now, George Francis. It doesn’t matter. I promise, it doesn’t matter. You are my heir, you are both my sons because I choose you, do you understand me? I choose you .”

Both boys were crying and clinging to him, telling him that they loved him and calling him Father. And perhaps for the first time, he realised that it really didn’t matter who had sired them, or what sort of a woman their mother had been. Because he was their father.

George and Richard were his , and woe betide anyone who ever dared to think of hurting them.

They reached Eton and parted with loving embraces and promises to write to each other. It was hard to see them go, but the moment he was alone in the carriage he gave full vent to his steaming anger at Marie. The beautiful woman who’d bewitched him, but could not keep her mouth shut. Whether she was aware of it or not, her loose tongue had harmed his boys.

He could never forgive her for it.

His foul mood lasted all the way to London, where he steamed and fumed his way through several days of business transactions. For a time he wondered whether he could by-pass Hatfield entirely, but they might have more books. He could never have enough books.

And they had a cat that would solve the rodent situation at Alston.

So, while he was there, he’d deliver a piece of his mind to Miss Marie Baxter!

It had been seven days since Sebastian had left to take the boys to Eton, and Marie could not bring herself to care in the least about the bookshop any more. She sat listlessly behind the counter now, because someone had to mind the shop and really, it was her turn. Her sisters had held the fort for weeks while Marie was gone. Bernadette was off delivering herbs to someone now, Brutus gone with her to carry a heavy basket. Louise had gone for a walk with her Mr Jackson, and Mrs Poole had gone to visit with a friend. The only person in the shop apart from Marie was Ruth, and Ruth was quieter than a mouse, slipping about like a pale little ghost dusting shelves and petting Crafty and Pie.

Marie dully turned a page in the ledger. Ostensibly she was checking the figures, but she hadn’t found an error in twenty pages - Mr Jackson was very good at mathematics, it seemed. Her thoughts drifted as she watched Pie stalk across the bookshop floor.

Would Renwick even come back for Pie? She was beginning to think he might not. Hatfield was out of his way, really, to go back to Carlisle, and he’d taken all the books he’d wanted with him.

And even if he does come back to collect Pie, what difference does it make? He’s not coming back to collect me.

He might have kissed her - twice! - but he had made it clear that nothing could possibly happen between them. Indeed, he’d paid more attention to the pretty blonde Miss Stamford in a single night than he’d paid to Marie in almost six weeks.

He’s not in love with me, and I have to accept that. Oh, but how the truth hurt! Her heart ached with it.

The bell tinkled, and Marie sighed and looked up, preparing to paste on a smile and try to be polite to customers. The smile which dawned on her face was very real, though, because it was Sebastian who strode into the shop.

“You’re back!” She jumped to her feet, fighting the impulse to run around the counter and throw herself into his arms. Her smile slipped a little though as she took in his expression; his eyes were dark, his mouth set in a hard line. “Why, Lord Renwick, you look like a thundercloud,” she said, trying to keep her tone light even as her stomach sank. “Did your carriage crack an axle on the way here?”

“Can we talk?” Sebastian flicked a glance at Ruth, who had frozen mid-pet of Crafty just beyond the counter. “Privately?”

Marie gulped, fearing what had happened. The boys must have said something. There was no other possible reason why Renwick would be looking at her as though he wanted to wring her neck. “Ruth, would you mind the counter until Louise gets back, please?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Yes, Miss Marie,” Ruth whispered, slipping past her to take her place on the stool.

“Come upstairs.” Though she would rather do almost anything else, it was time to accept the consequences of her own actions. “Everyone else is out.”

Renwick followed her up the stairs without speaking, though the heavy thud of his boots was a drumbeat hammering home the death of all Marie’s hopes. Perhaps she’d been harbouring a tiny wish that he might come back and tell her how much he missed her, that he couldn’t live without her; she recognised now how fanciful that was; how foolish she’d been.

He’s going to rage at me - quite deservedly - and then he’s going to leave and I’ll never see him again.

“Please, take a seat,” she said, gesturing to the table. “Can I offer you some tea?”

“No, thank you.” He looked at the table, pulled out a chair, but then shook his head and paced over to the window.

Marie sat down. She had the feeling her knees were likely to give way at some point during this interrogation, and she had best be sitting when it happened.

“I couldn’t believe it at first,” Sebastian said, stopping his pacing and turning to face her. “And I still don’t understand why you would do such a thing.”

She hesitated, because he still hadn’t specified exactly what he was talking about. Mrs Ellwood was still at risk if Marie said the wrong thing. “To what exactly are you referring, my lord?” she asked, trying to appear composed.

“Telling the boys about their mother!” he barked, a flush of fury rising up his cheeks. “I told you about Francesca in confidence; I never believed you would betray me so!”

She couldn’t say that she had never told the boys anything. Thinking quickly, she said “I am so sorry, my lord, I know you never meant for them to know. I hope they are all right…”

“Of course they’re not all right!” he shouted, and Marie gulped. Sebastian slammed his fists down on the table, leaning over her. “Just tell me why?” he asked, seeming almost despairing. “Why would you do that to them?”

I didn’t! she wanted to scream. Instead she bit down hard on her lower lip and stared at him, shaking her head slowly, willing the tears burning hot at the back of her eyes not to fall.

Staring into tear-filled hazel eyes, waiting for Marie to explain herself, Sebastian had a sudden moment of clarity. It was the picture on the wall that brought him around. A picture of Alston Castle that she had probably drawn from memory, like the one she’d given to George and Richard. What if he was wrong? What if she had not told the boys about their mother? She adored them, she’d made them scarves and drawn them a similar image of their home that they could look at when they were homesick at Eton.

Marie betraying the boys was so out of character for her as to be entirely impossible. And suddenly, he recalled what the boys had really said.

“ They would hold hands at the breakfast table and not keep a respectable distance in the library. They shared a bedroom. ”

He had never told Marie that. He hadn’t even known that himself; he had never wanted to know any of the details of what his father and Francesca had been doing.

“You didn’t tell them, did you?” he said slowly, and it wasn’t really a question. “I’m so dreadfully sorry I accused you - I jumped to conclusions.”

She shook her head again, something coming into her expression that looked very much like fear. “No, my lord, they did hear me. I didn’t intend it, but…”

“You didn’t realise they could hear you, was that it? You were talking with someone… with… Mrs Ellwood?” It was the only logical conclusion.

Marie turned quite pale, and Sebastian realised with a sudden surge of affection for her that she had been trying to protect his housekeeper.

Taking the seat he had declined before, Sebastian reached for her hands, finding them to be cold and trembling. Gently, he chafed her fingers between his own, trying to warm them.

“It’s all right,” he said softly. “You don’t need to protect Mrs Ellwood, I promise, she is in no danger at all. I owe her far too much for that.”

“You do?” Marie gulped, obviously trying not to cry.

His heart clenched at the pain he’d subjected her to; he was a bullying brute to have barked at her in such a way. “Indeed. She and Mr Martin were the only two people who tried to dissuade me from marrying Francesca - of course, they worked for my father and did not dare tell me the whole truth, but they both hinted as strongly as they dared that perhaps I was marrying too young. That I should meet other young ladies, live my life a little before I settled down. After… everything, Mrs Ellwood came to me and told me she deeply regretted not telling me more.” He shrugged. “I might not have believed her if she had. It would have sounded utterly preposterous - and at the time I assured her she’d done all she could. I would probably have become angry with Mrs Ellwood instead of Francesca and my father, I would have accused her of being jealous that Francesca would be pushing her out of her position, maybe had her dismissed. If she had told me and if I’d then gone to my father, for certain she would have been turned off without a reference.”

Marie nodded in understanding. So many awful mistakes made so long ago, yet the ripples were still being felt today. Her breathing had steadied, and the colour was slowly returning to her cheeks.

“I would forgive Mrs Ellwood anything except perhaps murder.” Sebastian grinned, trying to inject some lightness into the conversation. “And even then, I’d back her if she convinced me the victim deserved it. She is family to me.”

“I shouldn’t have pressed her,” Marie said, her voice still thin and strained. “But I… I just wanted to understand you better. It was so shocking, what you’d told me, I could barely believe it was real, but Mrs Ellwood had dropped some hints that the previous countess wasn’t well liked, so I pressed her to tell me more. I had no idea the boys were anywhere near my room and… they overheard us.”

He nodded, understanding now exactly what had happened.

“I’m so very sorry, my lord,” Marie said, her head drooping. “I would never have hurt George and Richard intentionally, please believe me. I tried to talk to them about it but they wouldn’t talk to me, nor to Mrs Ellwood. I’ve hurt them so badly.”

“We had a difficult conversation before we reached Eton,” he said honestly, “but they are resilient. Perhaps Francesca did them one favour in sending them to school so young; they had to learn to rely on themselves, and they do at least have each other. I reassured them in the strongest possible terms that no matter what anyone might suspect about their parentage, in the eyes of the law they are my sons.”

“And that is what you told them?” Her hazel eyes opened wide.

“It’s certainly not all I said,” he hastened to add. “I also assured them that they are my sons in my eyes and my heart, and nothing will ever change that. We parted on good terms, I promise you… perhaps in a better understanding of each other than we have ever previously had, and for that I have you to thank.”

“Me!”

“Not for letting them find out the truth, because I will always regret not telling them earlier, and finding a way to deliver the news kindly. But you have helped open my eyes. I hadn’t been fair to either of them, but especially George, and until you called me out on it, I had not noticed. Or was being willfully blind, I know not which.”

“Thank you for understanding,” Marie said, using her sleeve to dry her face. “I did rather make a mess of things. You were right to be upset, but Mrs Ellwood was so kind to me, I should never have put her in that situation.”

“I’m the one who should be begging your forgiveness.” His heart sank at the misery he’d cast her into, all because he hadn’t thought the situation through properly. “I apologise most sincerely for barking at you like that. I wasted a perfectly good journey from London to Hatfield fuming all the way. Completely missed the pretty countryside.”

“In that case,” Marie said with a hiccup. “Sounds like you’ve already suffered a terrible punishment. I do forgive you. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Absolutely.” He reached for her hands and clasped both in his. “Goodness, look at us. Don’t we make a fine pair of fools?”

“We do,” she said.

Mrs Poole arrived back in the kitchen and they slowly broke apart. The woman had the grace to say nothing at all about their tearstained appearances.

Best they get back downstairs to the bookshop, where the dim light would provide more cover for their emotions.