“Tell Jemima what? That you sired a child out of wedlock?” Disdain for all men who failed their illegitimate offspring clung to every word. “You had better hope I find nothing unto
ward at that house. And you will double whatever you’re paying your mistress for the upkeep of your son.”
“Double?” The lord gulped. “I’m not even sure it is mine.”
“It?” Damian clenched his fists. He was ready to pound Joshua Steele’s face. One punch for this pathetic lord. A second punch meant for the damn Marquis of Blackbeck. That said, not once had the marquis denied Damian was his son. “I’ve a mind to thrash you, yet I fear you might enjoy taking a beating.”
Scarlett came to stand beside him. A gentle hand on Damian’s arm helped to relax the tense muscles, helped rid him of the need to punish the world for one man’s mistake.
“Jemima deserves to know she has a nephew.” Pity, not anger or disgust, flashed in Scarlett’s eyes when she looked upon the sorry creature cowering on the bed. “It is about time you acted like a responsible gentleman and not a henpecked nincompoop.”
Steele stared at Scarlett with round, red-rimmed eyes.
“What is this about?” Scarlett gestured to the marks on Steele’s chest and frowned. “And do not say it is about pleasure, not to me.”
How could anyone understand the need to experience pain, least of all a woman who had suffered greatly at the hands of a monster?
“Tell me,” she urged when he failed to reply. “Your father is dead. None of us need fear him anymore.”
Joshua rubbed his eyes. “Neither of us stood and faced him. Neither of us held him to account for the terrible things he did.”
Had the dead lord taken his temper out on his son, too?
“Trust me it would have served no purpose other than to bring more misery down upon us all.” She raised her chin. “And so I ask again, when did you develop a need to punish yourself?”
“Can I at least put on my shirt?”
“No,” Damian interjected. “You’ll tell us what we want to know, and you will tell us now.”
He could not lose sight of the fact that this man might be responsible for the shooting at Vauxhall. This man might have orchestrated the accidents in the park, hired someone to break into Scarlett’s home to get rid of her for good.
“Tell me when, Joshua.” Scarlett took a step closer to the bed. While she might have shown disgust, her countenance spoke of compassion. “Does it have something to do with your father? Something to do with me?”
A tense silence filled the room.
The heaviness in the air proved suffocating under the weight of the lord’s burden.
“Do you know how many nights I lay awake listening to what he did to you?” Joshua practically gasped with relief upon speaking the words. “Do you know how many times I heard you crying and did nothing?”
“How could you not have heard?” Scarlett said softly.
Images bombarded Damian’s mind. Horrific images of an angel dragged to the depths of hell, of her pale, weak body finding the strength to crawl out of the fiery pit. He felt her pain—the wrenching ache akin to someone slicing his gut and spilling his innards.
“This—” The lord prodded his chest. “This is retribution.”
“No, Joshua, this is guilt.”
Silence descended once again until Scarlett’s voice broke the stillness. “Are you responsible for the attempts on my life?”
“No!” The lord shook his head. Desperate to reinforce his point, he added, “I want to save you, not kill you. I want to take back every dreadful thing my father did.”
Was that the reason for his foolish attempt to seduce his own stepmother? Did his need to avenge her mean more than a fear of ridicule and prosecution?
“You cannot change what is done,” she replied in the terse tone of the Scarlet Widow.
It occurred to Damian that in seeking to protect her from all scandalous rogues, Joshua Steele had a motive for wanting him dead, too.
Damian stepped up to the bed frame. “Did you sneak up on us at Vauxhall and fire a pocket pistol?”