“Your…son.” James sank back down into his chair and stared at her.

Lucy looked from him to the door, clearly impatient to be off. “I shall need to explain, I suppose.”

“That would help,” James said faintly, rising and guiding her to a chair. Her expression was likely as shocked as his own, for his face felt so still and stiff, it might have been carved from wood. And hers held such a look of shock, it’s a wonder she didn’t fall over where she stood.

She sank into the seat, not seeming to notice the blanket he dragged from the bed and tucked around her. “I should not have said that,” she said, as she lifted her head to gaze at him.

When had she gone so grey and become so old? Her blue eyes glistened in the firelight, her hands in her lap, knobby and deeply veined. She aged before his eyes — even her hair seemed paler, silver strands falling about her face in a soft halo.

“Tell me this is an untruth, brought about by the injury to your head. I know you were unconscious for a long time.” He sank into his own chair, drawn close enough to hers that he might take her hand in his.

She shook her head once, still staring at him in that terrible silence, a single tear trailing down her cheek.

“No. No.” James buried his face in his hands, too many things coming together at once. He thought of the times he had fought for the attention of his mother — a woman who had little affection for the boy, who would, more often than not, turn her back on him. She’d left one day, leaving him behind. He had not understood why.

“I have thought a hundred…nay, a thousand…times how to tell you,” Lucy said softly, her hand coming up to touch his cheek, coming to rest upon the top of his head, holding him the way she had as a child when she’d found him sorrowing over some small thing or another.

“It cannot be true. Father…”

“…was a good man, do not mistake that.” Lucy’s voice was so fierce that James looked at her sharply.

“But if he…and you…” He could not speak the words.

Her hand fell away. “You do not understand the situation.”

“Then make me understand,” James cried. “You knew! You knew how it made me feel when she…left. I suffered…for years. I suffered from the knowledge that my mother would care so little for us that she cared nothing for the scandal of running away. Becoming the lover of…that man.”

“Your mother and her lover paid for their mistakes,” Lucy said softly. “They died not long after. She was a lovely woman, and it was a great tragedy that she should fall ill, so far from home…”

“I will NOT pity them,” James snarled, jumping to his feet, unable to sit still.

“No, you never have given your mother pity. You have been consumed by fury for so long. She was foolish and very young. I have told you before—”

“How could you? How could you defend her then? And still defend her now? Explain. Explain to me how it came to be that she was raising a child not her own? And Father…! To do such a thing…!”

Lucy stared at him, pale and solemn from her nest of blankets.

“I will tell you nothing until you sit down and promise to listen to me without interrupting me. Perhaps it was wrong to keep this secret for so long, but there are things you do not understand,” she said, gazing at him so steadily he wondered how it was that he’d never recognized her eyes as his own before this moment.

James swallowed hard and sat gingerly in the chair, ready to bolt again at a moment’s notice. He choked back a laugh when he realized it was because he was afraid — afraid of what she might say, as though words could rend him further apart when he already felt as though he lay in pieces at her feet.

“Proceed,” he said, his chin coming up, as he forced himself to sit normally, drawing his shoulders up, and bringing his gaze to meet her own.

Lucy tilted her head to the side to regard him with a certain amusement. “Sometimes when I look at you, I see your father.”

“Do not tell me about my father. I want…I want to understand what you are saying. Why are you telling me these things?”

“Because you cannot be hurt by what you already know. She can do no damage to you if you know. Or at least not more than what the scandal of your mother leaving brought upon you. Pray, let me speak, and you will perhaps see why the matter is so urgent.” Lucy took a breath, and added almost in a whisper, “And hopefully then you will find it in your heart to be forgiving.”

Lucy sank into the blankets and began.

“When your father married Amelia Allen, theirs was not a love match but one arranged by their families for the sake of combining two rather large properties. They were amiable enough, but Amelia proved to be unable to give your father an heir. After the loss of several infants who never so much as took a breath on this side of heaven, Amelia sank into a deep depression. It was obvious to all that to bear a child again would send the poor thing into madness.”

Lucy raised her head a little, to look at James somberly. “Many solutions were bandied about. But it was Amelia herself who had the idea of it first. In the Bible there was the story of Rachel, who could bear no sons to her husband, and so, in desperation to provide an heir, she gave her maid to him, that a child might be born through that union.”

Lucy hesitated here, swallowing hard before continuing. “I was her maid.”

James shook his head, feeling sick to his stomach. “No…No…Father would not have…”

Lucy smiled a little, her face somber and sad. “Do not think it was a terrible solution. For Amelia knew well my feelings for your father. I had never been able to school my expression, and it was plain to see, perhaps to all of us, how much I cared for him. I went eagerly to him but reckoned little on how much I would come to love him.”

She reached to touch James’s hand, her fingers cold and shaking from the effort. “And the baby that grew within my womb.”

James choked back a sob. “No. Tell me they did not…” But he knew the answer, for had he not been raised as their son? He had clung to Lucy as his governess when she had in fact been his mother.

Lucy’s hand tightened on his own. “I was sent away until after my lying in. Then after the birth, a solicitor was brought in, and you were adopted legally as their son. Your title is secure if that’s what you are worried about.”

He wrenched his hand away, staggering to his feet. “None of this can be true. You have been injured, a bump to your head. All of this is a flight of fancy, nothing more.”

“There is proof,” she said quietly, “In the chest that lays at the foot of my bed. Have them bring the blue bag to me, and I will show you the documents, and you will know.”

Numb and still very much in shock, James stumbled to the door and gave the order to those who hovered outside to find the bag and bring it to him. He stayed for a moment there, long after he closed the door, unable to face her, not wanting to believe a word of what she had just confessed.

But deep down hadn’t he always known? Had he not already noted many times over the sameness of Lucy’s eyes and his own? Had he not witnessed the affection his father had held for the governess, the extra kindnesses he’d shown her?

Had he not seen the bitterness and resentment in Amelia’s eyes when she gazed upon them. The desperation and bitterness of her fights with his father? Did it not all make a wicked, terrible sense now when put into this context? It was no wonder then that Amelia would leave, running away with the young man who had eyes only for her.

Had her own husband not betrayed her, by loving this woman here, who crouched by the fire, looking at him with such terrible, anguished eyes? And was Lucy really to blame for any of this? Perhaps the true villain of this particular piece was James’s own father, long dead now.

“How does Miss Barlowe fit in any of this?” he asked as he thought through all these things, feeling that his mind was in such a terrible muddle, that it would be a miracle if he could ever sort any of this out.

“Your father and Harcourt Barrington were very close friends. Your father went to him with this decision for he agonized greatly overtaking such a step, though it was not unheard of for a man who was childless to adopt an heir. You are not the only adopted heir born on the wrong side of the sheets but legitimized later. I can only surmise that Phoebe found out about it somehow.”

“She came to you then?” James demanded, not liking the turn this conversation was taking.

“You were but a child, and her little more than one herself, still a girl of one and twenty when she appeared. She had found some proof, a letter, which she showed to me. Your mother had only just left, and your family was still reeling from the scandal. To have such a thing bandied about by the ton at such a time…your father would not have recovered from it.”

Lucy stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. “Nor would I. I would have been forced to leave your side. Your father could not have kept me in his household if it were to come to light that I was your true mother. And to leave you…and him…it was impossible.”

She smiled tenderly at him. “Oh, do not think it was easy. I wish I could have married him, but by the time your mother left, it was too well known that I was but a servant in this household. He asked me, but I would not allow the scandal. But even then, I could not leave. It was then I discovered how selfish I was, and how far I would go to keep that secret.”

Lucy sighed a little. “It was easy to comply. Phoebe wanted only some small trinket from the house, and I acquiesced thinking none would miss such a tiny item, for it was only a snuffbox, never used. ‘Twas only a gift given to your father, but pretty enough. I think she only asked for it to test me. And when she discovered I would give her that…”

“She knew she could ask for more. That is why you were out in that storm then,” he said, wondering how many such trips he had not known about, likely made on days when she had asked to be free for a personal errand.

“I went out in the storm to tell her I could give no more to her, neither trinkets nor pounds. With the actions of your partner followed by what happened with the fleet…” Lucy’s voice trailed away, and when she looked up at him, he saw that she was crying silently. “She offered me a solution. She had seen you many times at several social functions and had come to be infatuated with you. She wanted an introduction. I told her that it was impossible.”

“Yet you took a bargain that put me within that household and within her reach.” It was not a question. James spoke with a barely suppressed fury.

Lucy’s protest was quick to come. “It was not like that!”

James paced around the room, thinking this through. None of this put him in a flattering light — he had been too kind, too trusting. He had allowed his household to run roughshod over him for too long. That so many different individuals would steal from him, would take advantage of him only made him look weak.

But my father ruled the manor with an iron hand, and I had no wish to be him. If I erred, it was in trying too hard to show loving concern for those around me. By not questioning and simply trusting, I have only put myself in the position of the fool.

“It is part of what makes you beautiful, inside and out, Your Grace,” Lucy said softly as though reading his mind, “And not something to be ashamed of. I have always loved the way you approached the world with such kindness and a willingness to think the best of those around you.”

“Yes, it has certainly gotten me far,” he muttered, glancing up to meet her gaze, though he was loathed to look at her at this moment. The betrayal still stung greatly. “And Miss Barlowe…did she truly think that an introduction would put me within her sphere.”

“She is quite beautiful,” Lucy pointed out.

He looked at her in surprise, for he had not noticed this to be true at all. He’d had eyes only for Helena since he had met her. But now…even that had to be an impossibility. The Duke of York knew the truth of his birth. Why then had he not already opposed a match between a bastard duke and his own precious child?

James groaned and passed a hand over his eyes, as the depth of this realization dawned. “You may as well tell me the rest. Why then did you think that Miss Barlowe would harm Lady Barrington?” he asked, careful to use Helena’s title, now that he’d come to see just how out of reach she needed to be. Even if Barrington hadn’t said anything to that effect, how could James not?

Lucy bit her lip as she thought how to answer. “I do not trust her. There is something about Lady Barrington’s condition that reminds me of a thing I saw years ago, that makes me wonder whether Phoebe is perhaps behind it. She has proven herself to be skilled in getting what she desires. And when you said that you had turned Phoebe down, all I could think—”

“…was that in her mind Helena was the one thing standing between her and myself,” James finished for her, feeling the blood drain from his face. “Surely you do not mean that. She would not be so bold!”

Lucy eyed him gravely. “You have no idea what she has taken from you already,” she said and named a sum that would have made him blanch had there been any color left in his cheeks.

“And this thing you think she is doing…?” he asked, looking for his coat which he had flung aside upon entering the room.

“Strawberries,” Lucy said, sitting up in earnest. “When I was young, there was a neighbor’s child who had just such a reaction upon their skin when they came in contact with strawberries.”

“As simple as that?” James asked, remembering the words Miss Barlowe spoke only that afternoon. We grow them ourselves in our own conservatory. Lady Barrington loves them so.

“No…”

Lady Barrington loves them so.

“Am I correct then?” Lucy asked, for she had been watching his reaction.

James came and grasped her hands, his voice urgent. “Tell me what happened to that child. Did the reaction go away when he no longer touched the strawberries?”

“I do not know,” Lucy whispered. Her hands shook in his. “The child died not long after.”