Chapter Nineteen

Joanna could not remember how she had returned to the boarding house. The walk was a blur, obscured by the glassy sheen in her eyes and the rage in her heart.

Evie wasn’t there when she stormed into their room. All the better, for Joanna preferred to fall apart in private.

And fall apart, she did.

Little pieces fractured off first. The first time she’d met Kincaid. The first small pulse of heat. The first kiss. Remembering them was like ripping a bandage off a fresh wound and watching blood spill out with no way to stop it.

The shape of his mouth when he smiled.

The sound of his laughter, so husky and rare.

The way his eyes crinkled when he was annoyed with her.

And the warmth that flooded them when he was pleased.

The sight, the sound, the scent of him wrapped around her like a cloak as she paced the room, then stood by the window, then collapsed onto the bed in a ball of torment and tears.

How could he do this to her? How could he be this insensitive?

The bastard had made her fall in love with him! No one else had ever done that before. No one else had ever taken a piece of her heart.

And no one else had ever given it back to her broken and bloody.

Did she mean so little to him after everything they’d shared? Did he hate her this much? For surely, hate was the only emotion that could drive a person to treat someone with such callousness and cruelty.

She’d always known he was cold…and after he told her about Lavinia, she finally knew why.

But this…

There was no explanation for this.

No reason.

Nothing Kincaid could possibly say to make it better.

Because the only thing worse than giving someone hope was snatching it away.

And he had done both.

A pillow muffled her sobs as she buried her face in the scratchy feathers. Joanna did not know how long she had purged herself of all the hurt and the heartache, but when her tears finally subsided and she could draw a breath without knives slicing at her throat, she felt…empty. And empty was a good thing, as it meant she didn’t feel wounded, or sad, or angry.

Well, maybe a little angry.

“Thomas Kincaid is a pigeon-livered ratbag and I despise the very air he breathes,” she announced when Evie entered the room.

Cautiously closing the door behind her, Evie set down a collection of parcels on the floor and then regarded her sibling with an arched brow. “The same Thomas Kincaid who you were alone with in here yesterday when your hair mysteriously came undone and I found your petticoat behind the dressing table?”

“You couldn’t have found my petticoat. I made sure to put it back on after…oh,” Joanna muttered when Evie pursed her lips. “That was quite clever.”

“Jo, you didn’t–”

“No. No,” Joanna repeated firmly when her sister appeared unconvinced. “We did kiss. But we didn’t…that is to say, I am not a ruined woman.”

“Just a devastated one, then. Jo…” Crossing to the bed, Evie sat down and draped her arm around Joanna’s back. “What happened?”

Like a ribbon unraveling, Joanna came undone at the sympathy in her sister’s tone. Laying her head on Evie’s lap, something she hadn’t done since they were children, she recited what Kincaid had told her when he’d ended their agreement, pausing here and there to use Evie’s skirt as a handkerchief to blot at her eyes and nose.

Her sister listened in silence, and when Joanna had finally purged herself of every horrible detail, she stroked her hair and said, “You’re right. He is a pigeon-livered ratbag. The nerve!”

Evie’s indignation felt good. Like cold water trickled over a fresh burn. It didn’t take the pain away–nothing could do that–but it did serve to lessen the sting, and Joanna was grateful for whatever reprieve she could get.

“I don’t w–want him to be pigeon-livered,” she sniffled.

“I know, sweeting. I know.”

“Pigeons are h–horrid creatures. Do you remember when that white one pecked my sandwich out of my hand?”

“Horrid,” Evie agreed. “Absolutely horrid.”

“I thought he was going to tell me that he loved me.” Grabbing a fistful of Evie’s dress, she blew loudly into the fabric. “Instead, he told me to go home!”

“Jo, I am heartbroken for you. Truly.” As she spoke, Evie gently but firmly tugged her skirt out of Joanna’s hand. “But this is silk, and stains are impossible to get out. Particularly of the nasal discharge variety.”

Joanna wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sat up. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite all right.” Going to the wash basin, Evie wet the edge of a towel and began to dab at the damp circle of tears in the middle of her dress. When she was finished, she rinsed the towel clean, sprayed it with one of her many perfume bottles, and then brought it over to Joanna. “Here. Let me wipe your face. I made this chamomile tonic myself, and it should help with your blotchiness.”

Joanna rubbed her swollen eyes. “My face is blotchy?”

“Do you recall what Claire looked like after she climbed the apple tree and was stung by hornets?”

Just the memory made Joanna wince. “Yes. She was nearly unrecognizable.”

“This is much worse.” With all the tender care of a mother bathing her child, Evie ran the damp towel across Joanna’s forehead, cheeks, and chin. “There.” She tapped the end of Joanna’s nose. “That’s much better, sweeting.”

“You’re being so kind to me.”

“We’re sisters,” Evie said, as if that was an answer.

And in many ways, Joanna supposed, it was.

She and Evie may have fought, but they were always there for each other when it mattered. Without hesitation. Without reservation. They were sisters first, and their bond was unbreakable.

Foolishly, she thought she had found that same bond with Kincaid.

She should have known better.

There was something between them.

But it wasn’t enough.

Shewasn’t enough.

Or perhaps, his demons were simply too great.

Either way, maybe it was time to finally admit they were not meant to be together…and love wasn’t meant to be this hard.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.” Letting herself fall back onto the mattress, Joanna stared at the ceiling where a leak in the roof had turned the plaster a dull yellow. Mold was beginning to grow along the edges. But then, that was what happened with problems when they were not addressed. They didn’t disappear. They didn’t vanish. Instead, they grew larger and larger, until they couldn’t be ignored.

Like a family secret left to fester.

Or a detective who refused to acknowledge what was right in front of him.

“What is it?” Evie asked, sitting on the corner of the bed.

Joanna pushed herself up onto her elbows. “I don’t know how you’re going to react.”

“Let me decide that,” said Evie. Then she gave a small gasp. “Is it the ring? Kincaid mentioned he had a lead. Has he found it?”

Joanna bit her lip. “Not exactly…but he knows who has it.”

“Who?” Evie demanded.

“Perhaps I should start at the beginning.”

“You’d best start somewhere, or else I’m likely to die of anticipation.”

“I don’t think people can die of anticipation.”

“Jo.”

“All right, all right. Give me a moment,” she grumbled. “I’m still figuring it out myself. It seems Mother’s affair wasn’t just with anyone. According to our great-aunt–”

“We have an aunt?” Evie interrupted. “When did we get one of those?”

“A great-aunt,” Joanna clarified. “Lady Ellinwood. She is our grandmother’s sister on Mother’s side. We’ve never met her because she has never left England. She married a viscount, who has since passed, and is the guardian of Miss Rosemary Stanhope, our cousin. Or second cousin. Third, maybe? I am not sure how that works, to be honest. At some point, we’re going to need to write this all down.”

“What happened to Rosemary’s parents?”

“They died, I assume.”

Evie frowned. “People tend to expire quite frequently in our family, don’t they?”

“So it would appear.”

“At least we had a viscount for a while,” Evie said optimistically. “That’s exciting!”

Just wait, Joanna thought silently.

“During Mother’s stay in London, it seems Lady Ellinwood was privy to many of the intimate details about her life, including her affair with my birth father.” Joanna paused. She was not trying to be deliberately climactic. She merely needed a chance to gather her thoughts. To center herself around the enormity of what she was about to reveal. Because once she spoke the truth out loud, there would be no taking it back. No undoing what was about to be done. And even though answers were what she’d sought when she’d come to London, these were not the ones she’d been expecting.

How could she?

How could she possibly have anticipated that this was where her searching would lead? To a great-aunt and a cousin, to a father and a grandfather, to a half-brother. She had a half-brother! A half-brother who was as much a part of her blood as Evie or Claire.

A half-brother who had set this all in motion when he took what wasn’t his to take.

It was ironic, really.

If he hadn’t stolen the ring, none of this would have happened. Coming to England. Falling in love with Kincaid. Discovering the identity of her birth father. In an obscure way, the Earl of Hawkridge had found her.

She was simply following the trail he’d left behind.

“Jo?” Evie scooted across the bed until they were side by side. Reaching for Joanna’s hand, she linked their fingers together. “If you don’t want to reveal his name, I will not ask you for it. We can get the ring and go home. Pretend all of this was a bad dream.”

There was a part of Joanna that wanted to do precisely that. To take what they’d come for and return to where they’d come from. To forget the last nine weeks had ever existed.

If she did that, she’d be leaving behind all of the bad.

The hurt.

The misery.

The heartache.

But she’d also be leaving behind all of the good.

The butterflies in her belly.

The thrill of Kincaid’s touch.

The feel of his mouth on hers.

Was it better to have been in love and had your heart shattered, or to have never known love at all? A question for the ages, for she certainly didn’t have the answer. Neither had Shakespeare, or Austen, or Alcott.

But she did know, deep in her soul, that having come this far, she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t pretend it had never happened. She couldn’t ignore the love that still beat within her, even now. Even after all the pain. All the disappointment. All the anguish.

Because then, she’d be no better than Kincaid.

She took a long breath.

Counted to three.

Let it out slowly.

“My father is the Marquess of Dorchester. I am the illegitimate daughter of a marquess, the granddaughter of a duke, the sister of an earl.” Without warning, tears flooded her eyes and thickened her voice. “I–I am in love with a detective. And I have never felt more unwanted in my entire life.”

“Oh, Jo. I want you,” Evie said fiercely. “Claire and Grandmother want you. Mother wanted you. And Father…I think Father wanted you most of all. Enough to raise another man’s daughter as his own. Your family has always wanted you, Joanna. Always. You must know that.”

It was exactly what Joanna needed to hear…and it gave her the strength to push aside her self-pity before it overwhelmed her. Squeezing Evie’s hand, she forced herself to sit up. Then she dried her eyes (using her own dress this time), and squared her shoulders. “I do. I do know that. I just…I didn’t realize a person could hurt like this, Evie. My heart.” She laid a hand flat over her breasts. “My heart hurts.”

“After all that you’ve endured, I would be surprised if it didn’t. But you are strong. You are resilient. You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met. You’ll get through this. The same as you’ve gotten through everything else. And in the end, you shall be the better for it.” Evie was quiet for a moment. Then she nibbled her bottom lip and scratched her ear. “A duke, did you say?”

* * * *

Lord Weston, Earl of Hawkridge, was in a foul mood.

And he didn’t care who knew it.

Stoic by nature, it took quite a bit to rile him up to the point of showing emotion in public.

When he was a boy of seven and fell off his pony, he hadn’t shed a tear. Not even when it turned out his arm was broken in two places.

When he was a young lad of eighteen and the woman he fancied himself in love with married his best mate, he’d offered his congratulations and bought them a sterling silver tea set.

When he was a man of twenty-two and watched the thoroughbred he’d raised from a colt break down in the middle of The Ascot, he had calmly wielded the pistol that put the stallion out of its misery.

As a result, Weston was renowned throughout the ton for his control.

Cold, his friends called him.

Heartless, women said.

Yet when he stalked into his townhouse and slammed the door with enough force to rattle the windows, he wasn’t cold or icy. In fact, steam was all but pouring out his ears. Yanking off his hat and coat, he tossed them at the poor, bewildered footman before going off in search of his sister, Lady Brynne. After a brief search of the first floor and its many rooms, he found her outside in the rose garden.

Painting.

“You’re standing in my light,” she said mildly when he stopped beside her, arms crossed and chest heaving from the exertion of his fast-paced walk from Hyde Park to the south end of Grosvenor Square.

“Put the brush down for a bloody second,” he growled. “It’s important.”

A delicate blonde with hazel eyes that widened imperceptibly at her brother’s tone, Brynne obediently stopped painting and swiveled in her chair to face him. “My goodness,” she gasped. “Weston, you’re…you’re sweating.”

He yanked his handkerchief out of his waistcoat pocket and mopped his temple. “Your point?”

“You never sweat. Are you…are you feeling ill?” she asked hesitantly.

No one ever questioned how Weston was feeling.

Especially his own family.

They all knew better.

“She’s here,” he bit out, flicking a glance at his sister’s canvas. A shy woman, Brynne had always preferred painting to people, even as a small child. She never traveled anywhere without her extensive array of art supplies, and when the siblings had traveled to London together to attend the Countess of Beresford’s ball, her brushes and paints and canvases had filled half the trunks.

“Who is here?” Brynne said, visibly confused. “Lady Martha? I was under the impression you invited her. Or have you changed your mind about proposing?”

“This isn’t about Martha.” At that moment, Weston couldn’t have cared less about his bride-to-be. Not when there were more pressing matters to attend to. “This is about her.”

“And by her, you mean…”

Birds hiding in the shrubbery took flight when he threw his hands towards the heavens. “Our sister!”

Brynne blinked. “We don’t have a sister.”

“The American.”

“Oh, you mean that sister.” Brynne turned back to her painting and picked up her brush. “How nice. Do you think we should invite her over for tea?”

Weston raked both hands through his hair. As dark as Brynne’s was light, it fell to his shoulders in a wave of black. “No, I don’t think we should invite her over for tea.”

If he allowed it, Brynne would have had every injured animal and orphan in London living under their roof.

But Joanna Thorncroft wasn’t injured.

And she damned sure wasn’t an orphan.

He had spoken to her father–their father–just this morning. They’d discussed the weather. Weston’s new string of thoroughbreds. The gambling hell opening on Third and Chesterfield. One topic noticeably absent from their conversation?

The Marquess of Dorchester’s bastard daughter.

It was eighteen months to the day that Weston had discovered The Letter in his father’s study. Cursed with insomnia and unable to sleep, he’d gone searching for a book to read to pass the hours until sunrise. A slim volume of poetry had caught his eye; Leaves of Grass by the American poet Walt Whitman.

The letter fell out as soon as he pulled the book off the shelf. Folded thrice over and yellowed with age, it had crackled when he picked it up and carefully laid it flat on his father’s desk to read the delicate handwriting.

My Dear Jasonit had begun, and Weston had almost stopped there. Some days, he wished that he had, as the letter had brought him nothing but trouble. But then, he had seen the date in the upper hand corner, and realized it had been written the year his mother passed, and he naively thought that it was from her. A voice from the past he still secretly yearned to hear, even all these years later. So he brought his candle closer, and as light from the orange flame licked across the old parchment, he started reading and didn’t stop until he reached the end.

My Dear Jason,

First I should like to apologize for leaving as I did. I should have told you, but if I had done that I fear I never would have had the courage to return to Boston. And this is where I belong. Where I have always belonged. I shall treasure our time together, and hope you are able to do the same. I ask that you not follow me, or try to bring me back to you. I am happy and content where I am, and my greatest hope is that you can find the same happiness and contentment where you are. There may be an ocean between us, but you will forever be in my heart and a piece of you will always be with me.

I was not certain when I left, but I am now. I am going to be a mother. Our love for each other has gifted us with a child. Again, I should have told you of my suspicions, but I know if I did, you’d have asked me to stay and I would have said yes. But in my heart, I’ve no wish to be a countess. That life is not for me, and I wouldn’t have it for this child.

Jacob has agreed to marry me and raise the babe as our own. He is a good man. He will provide us with a good life. When the child comes of age, perhaps they can visit England as I did. And please know your invitation here is forever open. I wouldn’t keep you from your own child, if that is your wish. But neither would I have them raised in an environment that I found so intolerable. I pray you can understand my decision and, some day, find it in yourself to forgive me.

All of my care,

Anne

Once, twice, a dozen times, Weston read the letter.

He kept waiting for it to change. For the words to magically rearrange themselves into something that made sense. But they never did.

What he’d hoped was a hidden letter from his mother had actually been a love note from his father’s mistress. A mistress the Marquess of Dorchester had taken almost immediately after his wife died giving birth to Weston and Brynne. A mistress that had born him a child!

For five months, Weston kept what he’d learned to himself.

He hadn’t even told Brynne the truth.

There was no reason to dig up old skeletons. No reason to burden his ailing grandfather, the Duke of Caldwell, with a decades-old scandal. No reason to drag the family name through the gossip pages.

But then he had met Lady Martha Smethwick and, finding her a suitable prospect for a wife (if a bit dull), had made the decision to propose. But when he went to ask his father for the family ring, a ring that had been passed down via the eldest son through five generations of carefully planned (if generally unhappy) Weston marriages, he was informed, in no uncertain terms, that it was…

“Gone,” said Jason Weston, Marquess of Dorchester, without glancing up from his accounting ledger.

“What the hell do you mean, it’s gone?” Weston had said in disbelief.

Jason tapped his pen on the edge of his desk. “I gave it away.”

“To whom?” Weston had demanded, although the sinking pit in his stomach told him he already knew the answer. “You gave it to her, didn’t you? Your mistress. Anne.”

His father’s head snapped up. “How do you know that name?”

“Does it matter?”

Jason was quiet for a long while. Then he slumped in his chair, and shook his head. “I suppose not. Except Anne was never my mistress. She was…she was the love of my life.”

Weston snorted. “You’ve never loved anyone.”

“That’s not true. I love you, and your sister.”

“Then you’ve a damned interesting way of showing it,” said Weston, thinking of all the years he’d spent at boarding school. All the times he’d reached out for affection, or acknowledgement, or anything, really, other than indifference. Only to be shoved aside, time and time again. Until, at long last, he stopped reaching out.

There was a reason Weston was cold. A reason he was described as heartless.

And that reason was sitting right in front of him.

The marquess stood up. “If I’ve been demanding of you over the years, it’s because–”

“This isn’t about me,” Weston said curtly. “It’s about the ring. And what you did with it.”

A muscle tensed in Jason’s jaw. A tall man, like his son, he still cut an intimidating figure at seven and fifty. “Purchase another. As I said, the ring is gone.”

Weston met his father’s gaze without flinching. “It wasn’t yours to give away.”

“Are you questioning my decision?”

“You mean your decision to give a two-hundred-year-old family heirloom away to your American mistress? Yes, I bloody well am.” Unable to look his father in the eyes for all of the disgust bubbling up inside of him, Weston turned and strode to the window. Dorchester Park was a magnificent estate of over three thousand acres with the study overlooking a large, manmade pond. Focusing on a pair of swans swimming in lazy circles, he said tersely, “Did you ever bother to meet your bastard child?”

“Don’t call her that,” Jason said.

Her.

His father’s mistress had born a girl.

“You’ve another daughter, then,” he said dispassionately. “Congratulations.”

“Her name is Joanna. And it was better that I never went to see her. She was raised to believe that another man was her father. I never wanted to dissuade her of that notion.”

Of course not.

Why would the marquess care for a third child when he couldn’t be bothered with his first two?

“Does Anne still have the ring?” Weston asked.

A long pause, and then…“I don’t know.”

Incredulous, he whirled to face his father. “You don’t know?”

“Anne…Anne passed away when Joanna was still a young girl. Scarlet fever,” Jason said heavily. “I don’t know what became of the ring after that.”

“And you never thought to find out?”

The marquess glared at his son. “Should I have arrived on their doorstep while they were still in mourning and order them to return it to me?”

“No, you never should have given it away to begin with.” As a quiet rage took hold of him, the likes of which he was always exceedingly careful to control, Weston forced himself to take a step back. “Mama would have wanted my wife, the future mother of my children, to have the ring. Not some American harlot.”

His father’s face turned a deep, mottled red. “If you want it, then go find it.”

And that was what Weston did. With no leads to go on other than a name and a location, he hired the best personal investigator that his vast wealth could buy to find the ring. In a twist of incredible fate, Weston’s search coincided with the ring appearing at a jeweler’s shop in Boston. The investigator, Harrison, had already paid off every jeweler within thirty miles of the city to immediately notify him should a priceless heart-shaped ruby be brought to them, and when it did, he had one of his so-called “pocket boys” nab the ring and steal onto the first ship bound for London.

As soon as the ring was in Weston’s possession, he had paid the investigator twice his asking fee, then another hundred pounds for his discretion. He still hadn’t bothered to tell his father. As far as he was concerned, the marquess didn’t deserve to know. But he had shared all that he knew with Brynne, if only because the weight of it all was better shared between two people, and if she were to ever discover he’d kept a secret of this magnitude from her, she’d never speak another word to him again.

And that was it.

The matter was resolved.

Or at least it had been until this morning when he rode through Hyde Park…and saw his damned half-sister.

Weston wouldn’t have known who she was if not for the picture the investigator had his pocket boy draw at Weston’s request. Sheer curiosity had driven him to want to know what Joanna looked like, even though he had absolutely no intention of ever meeting his father’s bastard.

The sketch had been childish and lacking in detail, but it was accurate enough that when Weston saw the tall, red-haired, blue-eyed woman marching through the park, he knew at once who she was.

What he didn’t know was what the hell she was doing here.

“Do you think she’s come for the ring?” he asked Brynne.

His sister tapped her paintbrush against her chin. “One would assume. You did steal it from her.”

“You cannot steal what is rightfully yours,” he growled.

“But if it was left to her by her mother–”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It matters a great deal to her, I believe, if she’s traveled all the way to London.” Brynne crossed her legs at the knee. “What are you going to do, West? If our sister asks for the ring back.”

“I’ll tell her that I’ll give it to her.” He smiled grimly. “Over my cold, dead body.”