At noon the following morning Hawk found himself seated alone at an otherwise empty table, in an otherwise empty dining room, in a completely silent house.

This, in itself, was not new.

His mother would not wake for at least another hour. They were down to only two servants. A maid of all work and a footman who was also their butler and their driver.

Insipid tendrils of steam rose from the thin soup before him, but Hawk barely succeeded in choking down the first bite. Everything tasted like sawdust. The soup, the bread, the air.

What might his Parliamentary sessions in London have been like if there had been a child in the house?

He stared at the bowl of soup. He would never know what it would’ve been like. There was no sense trying to imagine the sound of little feet pounding too quickly down the stairs, a peal of laughter or the cry of Papa, come play with me.

It hadn’t happened. And now it wouldn’t.

Unless he did something about it.

Hawk couldn’t get back the last ten years, but he could take control of the next ten. He just needed to come up with a plan capable of reuniting him with his daughter without causing her undue harm.

He idly stirred the stew before him then let go of his spoon with an anguished groan. Through no intention of his own, he was exactly like his father.

Making love to a woman he did not intend to marry, getting her with child, not raising his offspring as his own. The only point in Hawk’s favor was that he hadn’t known about the child’s existence. But Faith was right. He had perpetrated the rest. He was no more righteous than his father had been.

Just because Hawk accepted his share of the guilt in the blame did not mean there was no fault to find Faith’s actions. Or lack thereof.

She should have told him. Even if she believed he would not have married her, even if she was absolutely right, she still should have told him. But because she had not, he was a stranger to Christina and she to him.

Did that matter? Did not knowing until now make her any less his daughter? Any less his responsibility?

He pushed away his untouched bowl of soup and buried his face in his hands.

It didn’t feel like there was enough room in his body for this much emotion. Anger. Hurt. Guilt. Would he help anything at all by telling her he was her father? But now that he knew he had a daughter, how could he possibly just walk away?

There were so few choices. If only there was some way to legally make Christina his child! If there were a special license to purchase, a certificate to sign, a Justice of the Peace to bribe, anything at all that could make Christina his legal daughter, Hawk would do it in a heartbeat.

But there were no such paths. No way to add an child to one’s family. No way to give Christina the protection of his name.

The only available options were guardianship and fostering. Hawk rubbed his face. Because he had failed to marry Faith back when he’d ruined her, Christina could never become his legal daughter. The best he could do was to make her his ward.

And then what? If he welcomed Christina into his home and never mentioned he was her father, would his guardianship be suspicious enough to do the same damage?

He slammed his fist onto the table with enough force to slosh broth from his bowl of stew.

The pregnancy had not been Faith’s fault, but the current predicament absolutely was. There was suddenly a child he never knew about. The woman he loved, the woman he thought he knew, had lied to him. Hid the one aspect of his life he’d always believed he could do right.

It was unforgivable.

He no longer even wanted Faith in his life, and now he would be forced to do so to have a relationship with his daughter. He had been robbed of choice, then and now.

Nor was she the only one who had hid the truth.

Faith was not shuttered away in the country. Her reputation had not been ruined. How could an unconnected girl like Faith have managed to keep a secret as large as an unplanned pregnancy? Not without help. That much was certain.

Hawk pushed up from the table. He stalked out the door to head straight to his carriage.

He had a reasonably fair idea just who might’ve conspired to keep such a monumental secret. Faith’s bosom friend Dahlia was the younger sister of London’s premier secret-keeper and problem solver: Heath Grenville.

Who, until this moment, Hawk had counted as a friend.

When he reached the Grenville’s front door, Hawk was ready to break it down by force necessary.

It was not.

The familiar butler showed him into the front parlor as if today were like any other day and Hawk’s world wasn’t falling apart at the seams.

The parlor contained three out of four Grenville siblings, hunched over a low table and playing some sort of rowdy card game involving flying playing cards and a shameless disregard of proper language.

Any other day, Hawk would’ve taken the empty spot between Dahlia and Bryony and launched himself into the fray as if he were part of the family. But it wasn’t any other day. It was today, and if his suspicions were correct, Heath Grenville might not live to see tomorrow.

“You knew,” Hawk accused him in a low, dangerous voice.

Grenville lay down his playing cards and turned to face him. To his credit, he neither denied the charge nor disingenuously inquired to what Hawk referred.

“You knew,” he repeated in disbelief. “You knew and you didn’t tell me.”

“Somebody tell me,” Bryony said with wide eyes. “I want to be indignant, too.”

“Go away,” Dahlia whispered under her breath. “This is about Faith.”

Disgruntled, Bryony stalked from the room as slow as humanly possible, but not another word was spoken until the door clicked shut behind her.

“I always knew you were privy to secrets other people didn’t even realize existed,” Hawk told Grenville. “But I never thought you would keep the existence of my own flesh and blood secret even from me.”

Dahlia paled. “You do know.”

Hawk crossed his arms as he forced himself to contain his anger.

“I won’t apologize,” Grenville said evenly. “Faith asked if I could keep a secret and I said yes. If you know anything about me at all, it is that I do not go back on my word.”

“I thought about it, though,” Dahlia mentioned hesitantly.

Grenville slanted his sister a scathing glance and strode from the parlor, leaving Hawk and Dahlia alone to argue amongst themselves.

Very well.

Hawk turned back to Dahlia.

“Make no mistake. I had no sympathy for you at first,” she said bluntly. “You were a blackguard unworthy even to be trod upon. But when I heard you mention Faith earlier this year and then you started coming around the school… I saw how much you were truly suffering. One couldn’t help but suspect that you still loved her. And that if you loved her now, you have loved her all this time.”

Hawk gave her a brittle smile. “Then why did you do nothing?”

“Too much time had gone by,” she answered simply. “Think of it from Faith’s perspective. Whether or not you agree with the choice she made, once she made it, every day, every week, every month, every year that you didn’t know, made it all the more impossible to tell you. Not that you were anywhere to be found. If you had come by at any point while she was still panicking about being with child, I have no doubt she would have done everything differently. But you didn’t. You didn’t come then, and you didn’t come after. So why should she have come to you?”

“I made a mistake. Several of them. I do not deny this.” Hawk’s fingers clenched. “But if I had known the truth sooner, I would’ve tried to fix my mistakes.”

“Meaning what?” Dahlia asked. “You would have married Faith? No, you wouldn’t have. You didn’t marry her after taking her innocence. A child would have been just as easy to sweep under the rug.”

“I wanted to marry her,” Hawk ground out. “My mother, my guardian, and my advisors—”

“Would have ‘advised’ you to walk away. To send her to the countryside. To ‘take care of the problem.’ Perhaps send her a small sum to make up for any hard feelings.”

Hawk snarled, “I would never have done such a thing.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Dahlia waved a hand dismissively. “If they could talk you out of marrying the woman you loved, you were in no position to insist upon being a father to a child you couldn’t afford.”

That was then. This was now.

“We’ll never know,” Hawk said bitterly. “Maybe you’re right about me. Maybe I was too desperate for approval from my mother. Too terrified of causing even more harm to an estate I had just learned was built on nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Or maybe family meant more to me than you give me credit for.”

“But would it have been better for Christina?” Dahlia asked, her eyes pleading.

Hawk’s chest tightened. “You sound exactly like Faith.”

“She’s had ten years to think about it,” Dahlia pointed out. “In the beginning there was nothing she wanted more than for you to come back on your own. Not because you had despoiled her, not because you had accidentally sired a child, but because you loved her and wanted to share your lives together. It never happened.”

“She specifically requested me never to—”

“She was angry. Your presence in her life should never have been in question.”

He had no response. Dahlia was right.

“Once she gave birth and held Christina in her arms,” Dahlia continued, “Faith stopped caring about what she wanted. All that mattered was Christina. She hadn’t been born into a title, but she had been born into a house of love. And month by month, as Christina’s grandparents became wealthier, she quickly had far more advantages without you than she would have ever had with you.”

Each word was a knife, a curved blade shaving away slices of his soul.

“Even if every word you say is true,” he ground out in torment, “does my unsuitability back then mean that I shouldn’t be allowed to do right by my daughter today? That it is too late for us to become the family we always should have been?”

Dahlia’s eyes shone with empathy. “Only you and Faith can answer that.”

Hawk stared at her for a long hopeless second before turning his back and exiting the parlor and their home.

Coming here had not been a waste of time, nor had it been the panacea he’d hoped for. The Grenvilles were not at fault for his current situation. That designation fell squarely on him and Faith.

Dahlia was right that they were the only ones who could reach some sort of conclusion. A compromise that complemented the needs of all parties, if such a feat could exist.

He was not yet ready to speak with Faith, but he was more than ready to get to know his daughter. Every minute without Christina in his life was another moment he could never get back. He gave his driver instructions and leaned back against the hard wall of his coach.

Hawk had not yet worked out all the details, but of one thing he was certain. There could be no future without his daughter in it. He could not live with himself otherwise. He would not abandon his own flesh and blood.

When the Season ended, if he couldn’t afford to stay in London and was forced to return with his mother to their entailed monstrosity in the countryside, then by God he was bringing his daughter with him.

No matter what it took to do so.