The Wedding Escape (28 page)

“She barely survived.” The earl's expression was grim. “But the ordeal was excruciating. Unfortunately, her labor was brought on early, by an argument we had over her discovery of my infidelities. And when it was all over, I had a wife who despised me beyond measure, and would never be able to carry a bairn again.”

Jack didn't care about the child who was born. Didn't care if it was alive or dead. And yet his mouth was strangely dry as he asked, “And the bairn?”

“A girl. Who grew to be as beautiful as her mother, and to hate me with equal passion.”

So that was it. Lord Hutton lay dying, with but one child—a daughter who hated him. This woman was his half sister, but given how much he loathed Hutton, that was hardly a laudable connection. And now the earl was seeking out the progeny of his past affairs, in the hopes of—what, exactly? Jack was well enough versed on the laws governing the aristocracy to know that a bastard son could not inherit a title or an estate. Even so, he wanted to make it clear that he needed nothing from the earl.

“I don't want anything from you.”

Lord Hutton permitted himself a resigned smile. “Of course you don't. You despise me, just as you have grown to despise every member of the aristocracy—except for Lord and Lady Redmond, of course. They are the only ones who have never judged you for your unfortunate past. What they have done is commendable. However much you may be angry with Dempsey for his prying, his reports these past few months have made it clear that you are quite a remarkable young man.”

Jack gave him a scathing look. He was utterly uninterested in Lord Hutton's opinion of him.

“I don't really give a damn what you think about me or how I have lived my life,” Lord Hutton added, inadvertently mirroring Jack's sentiments. “I don't need your friendship at this late stage, and I'm not so much of a fool as to believe that I could ever have your respect. Obviously I failed both you and your mother horribly, and that is something for which I can never make amends. I know that.”

Jack said nothing.

“I also don't give a damn about the fact that my wife did not provide me with a male heir,” he continued, “in case you're thinking that is why I went to such lengths to find out about your existence. My title and this estate and its lands will all be passed to my brother's eldest son—your cousin, if you choose to think of him so. He is a sniveling little cur who has spent most of his life fearing that my late wife might suddenly become pregnant, or worse, that after her death I might actually marry again. I don't doubt that he will be barely adequate in his role as earl. So be it. None of this,” he said, waving a shrunken hand at the lavish chamber surrounding him, “matters to me anymore.”

Spoken like a true aristocrat, Jack reflected contemptuously. Only someone who had never known what it was like to be filthy and cold and starving could be so cavalier about the obvious benefits of wealth and privilege.

“Then what do you want from me?”

Edward regarded the hostile young man before him with deliberate calm. “At first, all I wanted was to find out if you had survived, and if so, what had become of you. I had thought about your mother and her unborn child for years, and had assured myself that whatever happened, she had likely survived well enough. But after I became ill, I suppose I grew more reflective about how little I actually accomplished in the course of my life. There is nothing to show for my time here.”

“You have this estate,” Jack noted scornfully.

“I cannot take credit for something that existed long before I was born,” Lord Hutton told him. “I added a few things to the art collection and maintained the estate, but that is hardly noteworthy. Our assets are actually worth less today than they were when I was born, given the depreciated value of farmland and my constant battle against falling revenues. My nephew will have a hard time keeping the estate going, and the fight is one I do not envy. All I have been, really, is the keeper of a title and lands that I neither created nor earned. I had a wife who might have loved me, had I not crushed her tender feelings before I understood how precious they were. And I fathered two children. A daughter who absorbed all of her mother's vitriol, and now refuses to visit me even though I am in the final grotesque stage of my life. And a son who was forced to endure the most appalling of childhoods, and who up until a moment ago was wholly unaware of my existence, because I was too ignorant to take proper responsibility for my actions.” His expression was bitter as he finished, “It is hardly an estimable list of accomplishments.”

Jack regarded him evenly. If the old bastard expected him to argue, he was wrong.

“All I wanted was to find out what happened to you,” Edward continued. “Just to learn if you had survived, and if you had, to know who you had become. It wasn't easy tracking you down. One of my investigators finally found old Dodds, the scum your mother paid to look after you. He was a nasty piece of work, who had nothing good to say about you—”

“You're mistaken.” Jack's voice was cold. “Dodds is dead.”

“No, he isn't,” Lord Hutton countered, “but if there were any justice in the world, he would be. He lives in a filthy shack just outside of Inveraray, and my investigator said he was a drunken, foul-mouthed pig, who spoke of you as if…”

A deafening roar filled Jack's ears, making it impossible to hear what Lord Hutton was saying. Dodds was alive. After years of believing that he had killed him on the day he ran away, the knowledge that he had survived was overwhelming. He took a deep breath, releasing the sick, childhood terror that had gripped his chest at the mention of his name.

After twenty-seven years, he had finally learned he was not a murderer.

“…so I hired Dempsey to watch you when you returned, not certain if you truly were the son of Sally Moffat or not,” Lord Hutton finished. “I took great interest in everything you did, including all of your business affairs. I believe the North Star Shipping Company has the potential to be a great enterprise one day, if you can rise above the disasters that have been plaguing your ships and get your finances in order.” He paused a moment. “That is an area in which I believe I can be of some assistance, if you will permit me,” he offered hesitantly. “Although I cannot grant you a title or any part of this estate, I can give you some financial assistance, which I would very much like to do.”

“No.”

“Pride and anger are keeping you from being reasonable,” observed Lord Hutton. “You need help with your business, which I am in a position to provide. Moreover, it is my duty as your father to help you, and beyond that, I want to help you. Surely those factors must bear some weight in your decision.”

“They don't,” Jack informed him brusquely. “If you are trying to ease your guilt over what you did to my mother and to me, don't bother. She came to you desperate for assistance, and you gave her exactly what you thought she was due for whatever pleasure you got from her—sixty-five pounds. You felt with that she should be able to survive, and she did. She survived long enough to give birth to me and find a place to put me. Long enough to look for some kind of decent work that might support a young unmarried woman and her child, and quickly discover that there wasn't any. Long enough to turn to whoring, out of what I can only assume was the most hideous desperation, because if she couldn't come up with the funds to pay Dodds and his wife, they would have thrown me out. Long enough for me to watch her become defeated and drunk and old, even though she couldn't have been more than in her early twenties. Long enough for her to have all that you found so pretty and charming when you first met her beaten out of her, by the ugliness of her life and the violent, disease-ridden bastards who paid to use her. So keep your goddamn money, Hutton. I don't need it and I don't need you.”

“I'm your father,” Lord Hutton objected, torn between anger and an agonizing need to make amends.

“No,” Jack informed him flatly, “you're not. You're the man who impregnated my mother and abandoned her. My father is Haydon Kent, Marquess of Redmond, who was nearly beaten to death one day as he tried to save me from being lashed in jail. And my mother is Genevieve MacPhail Kent, who pulled me from my miserable existence on the streets and gave me my family.”

“I have no wish to come between you and any member of your new family,” Lord Hutton quickly assured him. “I just want to—”

“They are not my
new
family, Lord Hutton,” Jack interrupted. “They are my
only
family.”

Edward glowered at his son, hiding his pain beneath a mask of fury. The angry young man before him may have shared the same handsome features he had enjoyed in his own youth, but beyond that, it seemed, the similarities ended. Had Edward been in the same position, he would have readily accepted his offer of money. He might have despised his sire, but money was money, and he would have felt that whatever he received was his rightful due. But Jack Kent had been molded by forces unlike anything Edward had ever known. His son had suffered the most appalling abuse and deprivation as a lad, never knowing when he would eat, or what he would have to risk in order to find a place to sleep. Edward could not imagine how horrific those early years had been. But it seemed that having known what it was to have absolutely nothing, Jack had gained incredible strength and determination.

Which would keep Edward out of his life, without any hope of forgiveness.

“I'm sorry,” he managed tautly, knowing that Jack would never understand how much that simple admission cost him. Suddenly fearing that the stinging in his eyes might actually turn to tears, he coughed and looked away.

Jack shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

It was too much to absorb at once. Everything had changed in the split second in which he had seen his features so clearly rendered in the portrait of Lord Hutton. Suddenly he had an identity he didn't want, and information about a past he had fought his entire life to bury. None of this had anything to do with the life Genevieve had given him—the life he had fought so hard to make worthy and successful. Lord Hutton wanted forgiveness, he realized helplessly.

Only Sally Moffat could have granted him that, and she was dead.

“I don't want your money, Hutton.” Jack paused, unsure how to make him understand. “Not because I want to punish you, but because I don't take money I haven't earned. Do you understand?”

Edward turned to look at him. “Not completely,” he admitted. “But I'm not so much of a fool that I don't realize that there is a great deal about the world that I still don't know. Unfortunately, I no longer have the luxury of time that I once had.” He studied Jack a long moment, considering. “If you won't accept my offer of money, perhaps you will permit me to give you something else. A gift.”

“That depends on what it is.”

“Information regarding the attempts to sabotage your shipping business.”

Jack's expression hardened. “How would you know about that?”

“I have spent the last six months trying to learn everything about you,” Edward explained. “When mysterious accidents suddenly started happening to your ships, I took great interest.”

“Not even the police have been able to determine who is responsible for the attacks on my ships.”

“The police suffer from the delusion of being more righteous than most of the population, which leaves them indifferent to helping someone with your criminal background,” Edward summarized with a dismissive flutter of his hand. “And the men you hired to guard your ships were hopeless. They watched your ships less than half the time they were supposed to, and when they did deign to actually work, they countered their boredom and discomfort with vast amounts of alcohol, rendering them virtually oblivious to everything around them.”

“I thought you were only having me followed.”

“The investigators I hired were paid to report on everything that concerned you. It was my desire to learn as much as I could.”

Which included Amelia, Jack reflected uneasily. Although Lord Hutton had not yet mentioned her, it was obvious he had to be aware of her presence in Jack's house.

What remained to be seen was whether or not he knew who she really was.

“Will you accept this one thing from me, then?” Lord Hutton's expression was guardedly hopeful. “Will you let me at least help you to save your business from destruction?”

Jack hesitated.

Pride and anger kept him from wanting to accept anything from the dying old man before him. But he was acutely aware that his company was swiftly bleeding to death. If he couldn't stanch the flow soon, he would be forced to declare bankruptcy. His failure would effectively destroy any hope of his ever creating his own wealth. He would be labeled a business pariah, and the associates whom Haydon had so enthusiastically convinced to invest in North Star Shipping would refuse to ever touch anything with Jack's name on it again. He would be failing everyone, from the sailors who depended upon him for their livelihoods, to the clients whose contracts he could no longer honor, to his investors and his family.

Finally, he would be failing Amelia, who depended upon him for a safe place to live as she worked to build a new life for herself and Alex.

“Very well,” he relented finally. “I am interested in any information you have regarding the attacks on my ships.”

Edward nodded, immensely pleased to be able to offer him something. “No doubt you have heard of the Great Atlantic Steamship Company?”

Jack regarded him incredulously. “You're not suggesting that they are responsible?”

“Why do you find the possibility so remote?”

“Great Atlantic is one of the most highly regarded shipping companies in England,” Jack told him. “They have been in business for over a hundred years, and they have contracts for shipping all over the world. They can't possibly be so threatened by my company that they would actually try to destroy my ships. The amount of business I do relative to theirs is inconsequential.”