Page 72 of The Cornish Widow

Jack nodded. “I do.”

“And you have read it?” His voice was weakening. Had he been holding on just so he could speak to Jack?

“I have.”

“So you know.”

“I do.”

“And do you have any questions?” The sick man’s chest heaved as he fought for breath. How sunken his cheeks were, how waxy pale, his eyes like dark holes in his skull.

“What do you want me to do with the information in the letter?” Let his father be the one to say whether Lavinia would love or hate her newfound brother.

“As you wish. But you are the rightful heir.”

Lavinia’s eyes widened. “How can that be, Papa? We thought it would be our cousin Henry? Surely he is heir to the baronetcy?”

Of course. The title and land must be entailed and could only go to the heir. The sudden realization that by taking the title he would not be depriving Lady Trengrouse and Lavinia of their home swept over Jack. They were to lose it anyway, to some cousin he’d never heard of.

“He is not.” Sir Austin closed his eyes and his breathing shallowed. “Jack will inform you of what is in my letter. I do not have the strength. But he is the next baronet. He will see you are well cared for…” His voice faded.

For a moment, Jack feared he’d died, but then his chest rose in a shuddering breath. No. He’d just exhausted himself.

Lavinia fixed Jack with enquiring, intelligent eyes. “Are you going to tell me, then, or keep it to yourself? I fear it is something important that I need to hear. Mama as well.” She spoke with intelligence and understanding, perhaps already guessing what he knew for fact. She was a sharp-witted girl, it seemed, not given to the vapors.

Jack rubbed his nose in an effort to give himself time to think. “Today, when I returned from my ship, my mother handed me a letter.” He licked his lips, searching for a way to say this that wasn’t too abrupt. “In it, my father told me that before he married your mother, he had already in secret married mine. In short, out of fear of his own father, he had committed bigamy. And after his father died, he was too afraid to admit he’d done so. He could have gone to jail, or been transported to the colonies.”

Her eyes widened again. “Go on.” She seemed a girl of quiet calm, perhaps not given to hysteria. Not so her mother, Jack feared. She was going to be beside herself with anger and shock.

“He told me that my name is not Jack Trevelyan, but Jack Trengrouse, and that I will be baronet after him and inherit all of the Trengrouse lands. He asked me to be kind to your mother and to you.”

She pressed her lips together. “So, I am the bastard and not you? All this time while my mother has been sneering about you living so close with your mother, all this time it was your mother who was Lady Trengrouse, and my mother the mistress?”

That was one way of putting it. Not quite the way he’d have worded it himself. He nodded.

Sir Austin’s eyes flickered. “You will take care of my daughter?”

Jack nodded. “I will.”

Lavinia’s eyes flashed. “I don’t need looking after. As it would have been had my cousin Henry inherited, my mother will have the unentailed fortune she brought to the marriage and we will not be paupers, let me assure you.”

So she had her pride.

Sir Austin nodded. “She is correct.” He closed his eyes again and sucked in another breath. His eyes flickered open. “But I would like Jack to be as a brother to you, little Lavinia. You will need him.”

She would indeed if she wanted to continue into society. She would need the approbation of her legitimate half-brother to get herself a husband, and even then, it would not be easy.

Sir Austin’s gaze flicked to Jack’s face. “Promise me you will take care of them.”

A mountain of conflicting emotions surged through Jack. His father, whose lack of courage had brought about this mess, wanted him to forgive and forget everything that had gone before. Wanted him to be a better man than he’d ever been. He wanted him to put out of his head how Lady Trengrouse had made the gardeners throw him out of the grounds as a boy, to put out of his head the taunting he’d suffered at school for being a bastard. He wanted him to accept Lavinia, and presumably her absent sisters, as his family, when they’d never been forced to accept him.

What would his mother say to this? She didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. She would forgive and forget for certain, or she wouldn’t now be waiting at Rosudgeon, afraid to come to her beloved husband on his death bed. Afraid to intrude on the family she’d stood aside for. Afraid to cause them upset.

He had to do what his mother would have done. What his father wanted him to do. “I promise,” he said.

His father’s head lolled on the pillow and Lavinia bent her forehead to rest it on his hand. “Oh, Papa. Don’t leave me.”

But he had gone.