Then he felt a soft hand on his back. “Leave him be for now,” Giselle said gently. “It is a lot for a boy to understand at once.”
“He won’t talk to me. I need to make him understand.”
“I know.” She pulled Heathbrook into her arms. “It will be all right,mon chéri.Just give him a chance to take in the truth. I know what it is like to find out that your father is actually someone other than you thought. It is hard to adjust at first, but you adapt to it eventually.”
He stared at her. “Oh, God, sweeting, I didn’t even think about the fact that you’ve been through it yourself. Forgive me for being an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot—you are just not used to being on Monsieur Morris’s side of things. It is rather odd, actually, that both of you found out so suddenly.”
“That’s an understatement.” He clung to her for a minute, then pulled back. “Where’s Lily?”
“Gone. I promised her we would keep her secret, and she decided it might be best if she left.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You mean, youinformedher it would be best.”
She stared at him uncertainly. “Would you mind if I had?”
“Not in the least. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t march out of the house and go back to London once you heard what she had to say.”
“I am not so foolish as all that. Or so heartless. It was painfully obvious that you were taken by surprise every bit as much as Monsieur Morris was.”
The weight lifted from his chest. She understood, and that meant more than she could possibly know.
He nodded toward the locked door. “Zack was taken by surprise, too. Honestly, I don’t know what to do about him. I wish I could claim him, but that might be worse for him than letting things lie. At least this way the world thinks he’s legitimate.”
“Yes, but if something ever happened and he ended up in line to become the heir, would not the people in authority examine the circumstances of his birth? Could they not uncover the truth fairly easily?”
“You have a point, although let’s hope I sire an heir long before it comes to that.” He glanced at the closed door. “Perhaps I should fetch the keys and unlock the door.”
“You could. But that might shatter his trust in you entirely.”
“True,” he said with a sigh. “Very well. I’ll give him a chance to take it all in.”
“A few hours at most,” she promised him. “He will surely come out when he gets hungry. That boy gets hungry all the time.”
“He does indeed.” He glanced down the hall, torn between camping outside of Zack’s door for those hours and doing what he knew he must. The latter won out. “But in the meantime, I must talk to you about something privately. Let’s go to my study.”
She looked perplexed by that, but she nodded.
He led her there, somehow managing to avoid any of the servants or his two brothers. Once they were inside, he closed the door and began to pace. “I need to find out the truth about Yates.”
Clearly, that wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “What do you mean?”
He gestured to the well-worn marquise chair where he’d spent many an hour being lectured by Father in his youth, but she ignored him, choosing instead to glide about the study.
So, he walked over to sit on it himself. “If Yates knew everything about Zack, then obviously he realized I had behaved badly toward Lily. I have to wonder what Mother told him. Did she paintme the feckless, thoughtless son that I was? Or did she excuse my behavior?”
“Does it matter? Obviously, he decided to fight for custody for reasons of his own, perhaps those financial reasons you mentioned.”
A sigh escaped him. “Actually, none of my investigators or Pitney’s men have found one scintilla of evidence that he is stealing from the boys’ properties. Not in all this time. And neither have I.”
“Perhaps he hid it well.”
“Perhaps.” He grimaced. “Or perhaps I’ve misjudgedhimas badly as he misjudgedme. Mother entrusted him with the knowledge of Zack’s true parentage. So, even though she called him Frigid Freddy, she also involved him in Zack’s and Lily’s care. That speaks to her having a great deal of trust in him indeed.”
“I suppose it does.” She was watching him with her arms wrapped about her waist, clearly waiting for him to explain further.
“And when you so skillfully questioned the boys about how he treated them, you uncovered no evidence of dishonesty or neglect, either. Just the image of a bachelor of some years who had tried to do his best by them.”