What the Duke Desires (20 page)

But Lillian sensed a continued tension between brother and sister. Occasionally Naomi and Simon locked eyes and an unspoken battle raged between them. And though Lillian realized there was nothing she could do beyond the brief talk she’d had earlier with Naomi, she still wondered what the outcome of their war would be.

As if Naomi had read her thoughts, she suddenly leaned over, and Lillian heard her murmur, “After supper tonight, I’d like a moment with you.”

Simon arched a brow. “Would you?”

She nodded, and there was a pain on her face that made Lillian ache for her. She recognized Naomi’s look as one of staunch resignation. As if Simon’s sister knew nothing would be the same once she spoke to him and yet she was willing to face that future.

“We began a conversation earlier,” Naomi said with a shuddering sigh, “which I was too tired to finish. But I’m ready to do so now.”

Simon was quiet for a long moment before he nodded. “Very well. Might I ask what changed your mind on this score?”

Without speaking, Naomi turned her gaze firmly on Lillian. Simon followed her stare and suddenly the world faded away. All that was left was him. No lies, no decisions, no pains.

Just him.

And it was utterly terrifying. Lillian was about to turn away from it when the dowager duchess rose suddenly from her place and snapped out, “We shall retire to the west drawing room.”

As the others at the table rose and made their way from the room, Simon stood and carefully helped Lillian from her chair. As he offered her an arm, she shivered. It had been only a day since the last time they were together, but at that moment it felt like an eternity. She was starved for him, for his touch, for his breath on her skin.

It seemed he felt the same, for he leaned in and subtly breathed in her scent before he whispered, “I don’t know what you said to my sister, but I thank you for it.”

Lillian squeezed her eyes shut. “Wait until you have spoken to her before you thank me. Perhaps you won’t like the outcome of the conversation.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. I’m beginning to appreciate the truth more than I appreciate the protection of lies.”

Lillian jerked her gaze to his face. He almost looked peaceful, even though he had to know his sister might tell him something he would hate. Something that would hurt and change him forever. Yet he
wanted
it.

He sighed. “Tonight I’ll tell her what I know and perhaps I will hear something new from her, as well. And we shall move on from there. It is all we can do in the end.”

Lillian nodded, ignoring the sting of tears behind her eyes. The realization that she had to tell him the truth and tell him before they married hit her so hard she almost felt it physically. He deserved that.
She
deserved it.

“I would like to move on to you,” he murmured, a bit lower as they walked down the hallway. “I
need
to be with you.”

She shivered at the hint of desire laced through his tone and present in every word he spoke. That feeling was mirrored in her heart, in her body.

“I want that, too,” she admitted, glancing up into his face and marveling at the perfect beauty of his every feature.

He smiled, and the expression softened some of the hard angles of his face. “Then meet me in my chamber at midnight.”

She swallowed hard. That would be the perfect time and place to confess everything to him. Tonight, when they were alone, with no interruptions, she could finally give him the truth he deserved. The consequences would come, she was certain of it, but as he had said, they would move on from there. It was all they could do.

“Lillian?” he said softly. “Will you meet me?”

She jerked out a nod before they entered the room and couldn’t speak of such indelicate topics any longer. But as she parted from him and crossed the room to speak to Gabby, Lillian couldn’t help but shiver as she thought of what would happen once they were alone again.

It was foolish, just his tired and disillusioned mind playing tricks on him, looking for shadows where there was none to find.

He heard his sister approaching in the hallway and straightened up as she entered the room. Her cheeks were pale as she looked around at the disarray. Finally she shook her head.

“Oh, Papa,” she murmured, more to herself, it seemed, than to him. Then she looked at him with a sad smile. “You’ve been forced to go through these things all alone?”

“Not alone,” Simon admitted as he motioned to two chairs he had cleared for them. As they sat, he continued, “Rhys was in attendance at the party earlier.”

Naomi’s smile fell a fraction. She had never been close to his friend.

“Yes, Rhys. It has been a long time since I saw him. How is he?”

“About to be married. Even if my own sudden engagement hadn’t sent the party running back to London, he never intended to stay the entire fortnight.” He shook his head. “He’s back in Town, making final arrangements for the wedding to Anne. When I return, Lillian and I will have our own quick service and then I intend to stand up for him a few days later.”

His sister nodded. “I certainly wish him much happiness. And you say he helped you file through Father’s papers?”

Her worried tone made Simon frown. “He may be many things, but he
is
trustworthy, Naomi.”

“I’m sure.” She nodded slowly.

“And—and Lillian helped me somewhat, as well,” he admitted after a moment’s hesitation.

At that, both his sister’s eyebrows rose. “You must have stronger feelings than you let on, to have trusted her with such a delicate task.”

He stared at his sister for a long moment, all his suspicions rushing back as he watched her pale face and listened to her cryptic words. Leaning forward, he held her stare evenly.

“What do you know, Naomi?” he whispered, his voice rough.

She flinched, and his stomach turned.

“Oh, Simon. Why don’t you start with what you know and I shall fill in the gaps,” she finally said, her voice filled with pity and pain that twisted the knife already in his heart.

Quietly he told her of the evidence he had found about their father’s duplicity in politics. His back-alley dealings and secret money exchanges didn’t seem to surprise his sister in the least.

And then he reached the part about the abandoned son.

“Henry Ives,” his sister said quietly.

He tensed. “You know his name?”

She shut her eyes. “Like my own.” When they came back open, they were filled with tears. “And do you know about the others?”

Simon flopped back against his chair as his breath left his lungs in a great gasping whoosh. This was his greatest suspicion, his deepest fear, come true. “There were others?”

She nodded slowly.

“How long have you known?” he asked, his tone sharp.

At that, she got to her feet and paced away through the mass of paperwork. She hardly seemed to see where she was going, but somehow managed to avoid dumping the piles over as she stepped around them.

“You don’t understand what it was like,” she murmured. “You thought your relationship with Mama was strained, but there were disadvantages to being her favorite, too.”

When she looked at him, his heart swelled in pain for her.

“She told you her secrets,
his
secrets,” he finished for her when it seemed she was unable to do so herself.

A nod was her only reply for a long while, then she sighed.

“I was her confidante, her partner in poison, sometimes I felt like a prisoner to her hate. How I despised hearing her go on and on about our father’s sins. But if I turned away, she would have no one to share her pain with. I feared it would drive her mad, and then who knew what she might do.”

“What she did was unfair to you,” he cried, lurching to his feet.

She held up her hands in entreaty. “You don’t know the life she has led, Simon. What she has endured!”

“Then tell me,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Tell me how much more I have left to find. Tell me the secrets that are still out there. How many children did our father abandon? How many lies have I been told?”

His sister looked up at the ceiling with a groan. “I have kept their secrets for so long. I know you deserve the truth, I’ve known that all my life, and yet the idea of being the one to tell you…to hurt you…”

She trailed off as she lifted her hands to her face and began to cry softly. Simon watched her, awash in a combination of anger and pity. Finally he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around his sister. She wept into his shoulder for a few moments more, and he brushed her hair as comfort.

“She put you in the middle,” he soothed. “And now I’m doing the same. It isn’t fair, I know.”

She looked up at him, hiccupping back a final sob. “Nothing about this is fair.”

“Can you at least point me in the right direction?” he whispered, wiping away one of her tears with the back of his hand. “If it pains you too much to tell me yourself, could you at least give me that?”

She nodded. “I can give you two clues which will surely end your search,” she whispered. “First, look to where Mother vanishes. That is one place you’ll find the truth.”

“That is a riddle more than a clue,” Simon said, just biting back a curse of frustration.

“And this is a direct fact,” his sister said softly. “Father had a secret stash of papers he thought no one knew about. They are hidden beneath the floorboard under his desk. Once you’ve read them, you’ll understand the riddle.”

Simon spun to face the desk and then back to his sister. “How do you know that?”

She frowned, and a ghost of pain moved over her face. “Because I was hiding in this room one day when he placed papers there. Years later, as I understood more, longed to know more, I came and read them all.” She reached out and touched his arm. “They contain the answers you seek. I only hope you’ll be able to stand them once they are yours to bear.”

She gave him one last touch on his cheek and then silently left the room. Left him alone with the knowledge that everything he wanted to know had literally been beneath his feet all along.

Simon turned and paced the floor to the desk. Pushing the chair aside, he got to his knees and began to slide his hands over the gleaming wood. Back and forth he moved, searching for a loose board or something to indicate that this was the place his father had put all his secrets.

And then, he found it.

A rough piece of panel clearly different from all the others, with a notch in the corner to allow a person to slip a finger beneath its edge. With a firm tug, the plank pulled away. In the dim light, he saw a box tucked into the cubbyhole. His hands shook as he withdrew it and got to his feet.

He took the box to the lamplight beside the fire and sank into a chair there. There was nothing ornate or interesting about the container, just a plain pine box, rather like a tiny coffin. He shivered as he considered that. His father had all but buried his secrets.

And now Simon was about to raise them from the dead. All he had to do was lift the lid and see what was waiting for him there.

Getting to her feet, she moved across the room restlessly, fiddling with a book on his end table, absently touching an arrangement of spring flowers on the mantel.

The longer she waited, the more she believed his talk with Naomi hadn’t gone well. Lillian suspected his sister might have new information about their father. If that was true, she shuddered to think of what it was, for nothing that had been uncovered so far was good.

She pictured how tormented Simon had been when he found out he had a brother who had been abandoned. If Naomi’s information was worse than that…

Pivoting, Lillian made for the door. She had to find him and verify that he was well. She had almost reached the chamber entrance when the door opened of its own accord. She stepped back with a gasp, expecting Simon to come inside.

Instead, Naomi was revealed when the door swung away.

Lillian froze in her spot. Although she had already been ruined, it was still a humiliation to be caught waiting for Simon in his bedchamber.

But if Naomi thought ill of her, it did not show on her pale, worry-lined face.

“Good, I have found you,” she said, breathless as if she had been running.

Lillian stepped forward, her embarrassment forgotten in the face of Naomi’s obvious distress. “What is it?”

“My brother—” She cut herself off and clenched her fists at her sides as she drew a few long breaths.

“What about Simon?” Lillian cried, grabbing for the other woman’s arms and squeezing. “Is he hurt?”

“No,” Naomi burst out. “Not in the sense you mean. But—but he
will
need you tonight. He’ll need
someone
and I’m not the one who can help him now.”

Lillian stepped away, confused and unwilling to go without more information, though her heart ached to simply run to Simon’s side. “What do you mean? What has happened?”

Naomi shook her head. “I know you have been privy to some of Simon’s investigation into our father’s less savory dealings. He told me you assisted him.”

“Y-yes,” Lillian stammered, shame flooding her at the true reason behind her “helpfulness.”

“Well, there is far more to discover and I’ve set him on the path of it. What he learns tonight will—” She broke off again and let out a heaving breath that bordered on a sob. “He will need you, that’s all. Please, go to him. He’s in the office our father used.”

Lillian didn’t need further encouragement, without a word or a look behind her, she hurried from the room and rushed down the stairs. For the first time, she didn’t care who saw her streaking through the halls in the middle of the night. She didn’t care about judgments.

She only cared about finding the man she was to marry. She only cared about helping him in whatever lame, useless way she could.

Within moments, she had reached the office. Her hand trembled as she reached for the door. Whatever happened, she was about to face a man who needed her. And she wouldn’t let him down.

The chamber was cold and dark except for a few eerie shadows cast by the faint light from the low lanterns and the nearly extinguished fire. She scanned around, but didn’t see Simon.

“Simon?” she said softly.

There was such a sense of sadness to the room that she dared not call out too loudly. It seemed irreverent to do so.

There was no answer and she stepped deeper into the room. “Simon?”

Still nothing. Had Naomi been wrong? Had her brother left this chamber? And if so, where had he gone, for Lillian hadn’t passed him in the hallways when she rushed downstairs.

She clenched her fists at her sides and finally forced herself to speak louder. “Simon!”

“That isn’t my name.”

The slurred, pained voice came from a darkened corner of the chamber, and Lillian didn’t hesitate to rush toward it and him. As her eyes fully adjusted she finally saw him, sitting on the floor almost beneath his father’s desk. All around him were letters, ledgers, paperwork.

He looked up at her, and his beautiful jade eyes glittered in the low light. His expression was the most heartbreaking she had ever seen. It put her to mind of her father the day her mother died.

“Oh, dearest,” she breathed as she reached for him, then pulled her hand away. He seemed so stiff she feared he would shatter if she touched him. “Let me raise the light.”

After a few moments of fumbling with the lantern on his desk, the light in the room lifted, and it took everything in Lillian not to stagger back at Simon’s face. He was…broken.

And all she wanted to do was fix it. Fix him.

Setting the lantern aside, she got to her knees and moved toward him slowly.

“What is it, Simon?” she whispered, using the same tone she would have with a skittish colt.

“I told you, that isn’t my name,” he said as he pushed to his feet and turned away.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, watching his stiff posture with tears stinging her eyes.

“You do not wish to marry me, Lillian.”

She struggled to get up and moved on him. “What are you talking about, Simon. What do you mean?”

Turning, he speared her with a sharp, clear stare. He wasn’t drunk, that was something. Regardless, he seemed to be impaired, if only by a pain so deep that it radiated from him.

“I’m not the man you think I am. I don’t even know what or who I am.”

She reached for him then, determined not to be lost in his riddles. Clutching his forearm, she whispered, “Tell me what has happened. Explain why you are in this state.”

“Yes,” he mused absently as he stared at her gripping fingers like they were a foreign object he didn’t recognize. “You deserve to know. After everything, you shouldn’t be lied to like I was.”

She forced herself to remain silent as he extracted himself from her grip and gathered up a few of the items at his feet.

“My sister came to me tonight and told me about hidden papers in this office. Something that would explain more about my past, my father’s past.”

He clutched the items to his chest as he stared at her evenly. “I never thought they would tell me this.”

“What?” she asked, covering his clenched fingers with her hand. “What is it, Simon?”

He flinched. “That is exactly it, my dear. I’m not Simon Crathorne. I am not the Duke of Billingham at all. My real name is Henry Ives, and I am the eldest bastard son of the biggest liar in all of England.”