Chapter Nine
‘When I was eight years old and my eldest brother was seventeen and about to go off to university, my...father called all of us, all five boys, into his study and said there was something he had to tell us because Henry was probably going to hear rumours.
‘I was, he informed us, the son of our mother and another man, now dead. He had chosen to acknowledge me in order to spare the family scandal, especially as he had four legitimate sons between me and the title. He told us that the reason I looked so unlike my brothers was that I resembled my true father closely and was coming to do so more with every passing year. For all the emotion he showed he might have been discussing the sale of land or an unsatisfactory servant.’
Cleo had gone completely silent, but she drew a deep shuddering breath as though she had been holding it in tightly.
‘He would not neglect my education, he said, and he would settle land on me so that I would not bring further shame on the family by ignorance, bad manners or a display of poverty, but he did not expect my brothers to associate with me. He certainly hardly spoke to me again.’
She did speak then, still facing the river. ‘Oh, poor little boy! What did your mother say to you?’
‘Nothing. She was dead by then and even before, we hardly saw her. I realise now that they were living separate lives. It was...a shock.’ That was a simple word for the mixture of shame, anger and the strange relief of knowing that the man he had thought was his father ignored him for what he was, not who he was. ‘I knew my father did not like me, let alone love me, but I had no suspicion why. I had nightmares from then on.’ He leant a little against Cleo’s warmth. ‘I grew out of them, of course, but they still come back when I am very tired, or anxious about something.’
‘And you have been sick. No wonder you are dreaming.’
At least he had not been ranting about the rest of the dream, the obsession to make good on his own terms, to follow his own path, become a leading diplomat or a high-ranking government minister in the Foreign Office. I will be the best. He would repeat that over and over, when his head ached from studying, or his tutor whipped him or the marquess swept past without a flicker of acknowledgement. He would succeed. He would earn his own wealth, his own title, his own reputation as a man of honour, a man who did his duty, come what may.
He was here because of that duty and he was here because he would demonstrate his skills with languages, show initiative, pull chestnuts out of the fire and lay them before one of the most powerful men in government. What he had been doing would have to be secret, of course, but the fact that he had accomplished a tricky mission well would be known to Lady Caroline Brooke’s father. When he got back to London he would ask for leave of absence and embark on some serious courtship.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Cleo asked. She sounded as though she was dozing and her head was tipped back against the point of his shoulder. A curiously silent and restful female when she chose to be...
‘Marriage,’ Quin said, half-asleep himself. He jerked awake and cursed silently. Great tact. What diplomacy. Tell her you are thinking about another woman, why don’t you?
‘What is her name?’ Cleo asked.
Oh, well, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb and tell her, he thought. At least she would have no expectations of him, which had always been a faint nagging worry, given that they were going to be travelling together unchaperoned for weeks.
‘Caroline. Her father is a...a very influential man. It would be an excellent marriage.’
‘Would be?’ she asked. Was it his imagination or had her voice cooled and become closer to that of the woman he had first met. ‘You have not yet told her you wish to marry her? Is she in love with you?’
‘I haven’t done anything yet to fix my interest with her, if that’s what you mean. And, no, she doesn’t know me well enough to have those kind of feelings.’
Cleo swung her legs down and stood up. ‘And you don’t love her?’ she enquired, her gaze steady, and sardonically amused. ‘What a chilly arrangement. Practical, though.’
‘That is how society functions, on the basis of marriages of convenience and advantage between suitably matched partners,’ Quin said, wondering why he could explain something so self-evident and manage to sound like a stuffed shirt at the same time. It was the right thing to do and the right way to go about it for a man of his upbringing, class and ambitions.
‘I thought it was different in America,’ Cleo said. She ran down to the water side and took hold of Delilah’s rope.
‘Society works the same all over the world.’