Page 75 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

Helena’s brows shot up. “Sir Oswald Bannister was your father?”

“I believe so, yes.” Justin ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Mine and, possibly, Alex Archer’s. Probably both. I don’t know.”

She drew away from him. “Who was your mother? Was she…” Her voice sank to a scandalized whisper. “Was she his mistress?”

“Nothing so refined as that.” Justin couldn’t keep the bite of anger out of his words. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was confess his disreputable origins to the daughter of an earl. Not when that lady was his wife. Not when he was coming to care for her so very, very much.

He knew she would never look at him the same way again.

“My mother was his fifteen-year-old scullery maid,” he said. “Sir Oswald regularly debauched his female servants. So much so that the orphanage in Abbot’s Holcombe was under his patronage. It made a convenient place to dispose of his bastards.”

Helena’s countenance went pale as parchment. No doubt it was the most vile, despicable thing she’d heard in her whole life.

“Forgive me,” he said gruffly. “This isn’t the sort of thing one speaks of in front of a lady, is it? Yet another failing you may mark down to my lack of breeding.”

She didn’t appear to register his apology. “What of your mother?”

He shrugged. “A child herself and happy to be rid of an unpleasant burden. She likely went on to find employment somewhere more respectable. Either that or was sent to the workhouse. I never discovered what became of her. I couldn’t even manage to find out her full name. The orphanage didn’t keep very good records, you see. The proprietor was one of Sir Oswald’s cronies. He counted us little better than vermin.”

Helena said nothing. She merely looked at him, her mahogany brows knit in an elegant line. He hadn’t the slightest idea what she was thinking or feeling.

He stroked Hiran’s neck. Every instinct told him to cease talking. To keep the rest of the sordid history to himself. No good could come from sharing it. But something deep within him urged him to continue. He wanted her—needed her—to know him for who he really was.

“The first time we encountered Sir Oswald, he was riding through the gates of the orphanage, mounted atop the finest piece of horseflesh we’d ever seen. His clothes were equally fine. I can still recall the gloss on his boots. A blacking made with champagne, we surmised. Something mixed up special by his valet.” Justin managed a wry smile. “He rode past us like he was royalty. You can imagine the effect such a dashing figure would have on the imaginations of four young boys. Neville thought he was the king. But I—pathetic fool that I was—hoped he might be my father.”

“Because you resembled him?”

“I did, in a general way. He had black hair and blue-gray eyes. And he was tall—though I suppose every man seems tall to a lad. But I’d be lying if I said that was the reason. The truth is, I’d always dreamed I was destined for better things. A lost heir or some such nonsense. I could never accept my circumstances. It had to be a mistake, I reasoned. A mix-up by a local midwife or some cruel revenge plot which resulted in my being stolen from my well-to-do parents and hidden in an orphanage.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “I read a great many penny dreadfuls as a boy.”

Helena didn’t seem to find this fact amusing. “How did you discover who he was?”

“We followed him. We eavesdropped on his conversation with Mr. Cheevers, the fellow who ran the orphanage. Later, Finchley went through the files in the orphanage office. There wasn’t much to be found there, but there was enough to confirm our suspicions. The following week, we climbed down the cliffs at Abbot’s Holcombe. A fisherman kept an old boat tied in a cove nearby. We used it to row to the Abbey.”

Hiran chose that moment to nudge him in the shoulder with his muzzle.

“He’s growing impatient for his oats,” Justin said. “We’d better start back.”

He offered her his arm and she took it. Hiran walked along beside them on a loose rein.

“Why did you go to the Abbey?” Helena asked. “Was it because you wished to see him?”

“I wanted to meet him. To explain to him who I was. I thought, if he properly met me, if he could see how intelligent I was, how capable, he’d realize I didn’t belong in the orphanage.”

Her hand tightened on his arm. “What happened?”

“Suffice to say, it wasn’t the homecoming I’d envisioned. Sir Oswald was in the garden, tending his rosebushes. He wouldn’t admit to having sired me, or any of us. He wouldn’t even allow us into the house. When we pressed him on the subject of our mothers, he became vulgar and abusive. He ended by cursing the lot of us and chasing us off the property.”

Sir Oswald’s scathing response to the mere suggestion that Justin, or any of the orphans, might come and stay at the Abbey echoed in Justin’s mind.

“Are you mad? Do you think I’d let the bastard brat of some slut of a scullery maid live in this house? You aren’t fit for my stables, lad.”

“But you kept going back,” Helena said.

“So we did.”

“To what purpose?”

“In the beginning? We thought we could bring him round to us. It didn’t quite work out that way.”