Giselle shrugged and faced the two women. “Ever since he kissed me the first time, when I was nineteen.”
“What?” the two ladies said in unison.
Briefly, she explained some of their history, leaving out the huge parts about their bargain that had resulted in a faux engagement and how he had sired a son without knowing of it.
“Ah,” Tory said. “Now the engagement makes more sense.”
Chloe turned serious. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I honestly do not know,” Giselle said.
“He’ll come to his senses,” Tory proclaimed with a hug. “He’d be a fool to let you go.”
“I told you—heisa fool,” Chloe said bitterly. “Men are all fools.”
“Not all of them,” Tory said, exchanging a glance with Giselle.
No, not all of them. But Giselle began to fear that this one just might be, if not a fool, then at the very least a man who did not know his own heart.
She could only hope he got to know it very soon.
Chapter 21
Heathbrook sat in his carriage outside Yates’s town house as his footman inquired whether Yates would see him. What was he doing here? What did he hope to accomplish by challenging Mother’s cousin?
An end to this struggle, hopefully. Or at least an end to his fears that Zack might pay for it one day.
The footman came back to the carriage. “The servant says the master will see you, my lord.”
Moments later, Heathbrook was being ushered into Yates’s study to beard the lion in his den. If he was even a lion.
Yates rose from the chair behind his desk, concern clearly written on his face. “How are the boys? No one’s hurt or—”
“They’re all fine,” Heathbrook said. “They’re actually thriving.”
Except for Zack. He couldn’t think about that right now or he’d fall apart.
Yates eyed him cautiously. “Then why are you here?”
“Lily came to see me.”
The older man got shaky all of a sudden and dropped into his seat. He glanced at the footman still standing by the door, waiting for Yates to either dismiss him or command him. “Please call for tea for us, John. And perhaps some brown bread with butter.”
Heathbrook resisted the urge to ask if they had any apple cake. He didn’t want to further alarm Yates. The same reason kept him from asking for something stronger than tea.
“You were saying?” Yates said. “Mrs. Pritchard came to see you?”
“Yes. She informed me of something I did not happen to know—that Zachary is my son. Imagine my surprise when I heard that you have known it all along but didn’t bother to informmeof it.”
Yates paled. “That is what your parents preferred.”
“Then someone should have told Lily. She was shocked to hear that I didn’t know. She thought my mother had already informed me of it.”
“Of course she did,” Yates said wearily. “Mrs. Pritchard has a tendency to hear only what she wants to hear.”
“I’ve noticed that about her,” Heathbrook grumbled. “During our elopement, when I told her we should stop for dinner in York, she took that to mean we should take a room and go about the business of consummating the marriage we hadn’t yet had. And having seen what she looked like back then, you can probably imagine how eager I was to comply.”
Yates’s expression hardened. “So, you blame her and not yourself for what happened between you.”