Dangerous Masquerade (Regency Masquerade)

As he sat there, stunned by what she was saying, Beatrice gave a broken laugh and answered her own question. “Of course not. You will continue to live your life just as it is, which is not so very different from mine. Not surprising when you, my darling son, are a male version of me.”

At the look on his face, she exclaimed, “Had you not realized that? How delightful. Surely, you didn’t think you took after your dull, boorish sire, did you? Heaven forbid.”

He had heard enough. Resting his hands on his desk, he pushed back his chair and stood. Focusing on an earlier statement of hers, he roughly told her, “Father must have deeply cared for you. He was jealous enough of your lovers to embarrass himself in public.”

Beatrice shook her head in rebuttal. “Oh, my darling, deluded son. He was not jealous. I was his possession. He owned me, just like he owned his horses and his dogs. But unlike them, I was not obedient. He couldn’t tolerate that. I was the one possession in his life he could not control.”

He stared sightlessly out the window. A heavy blanket of silence descended on the room. Finally, without responding to her comments, he turned, rubbed his brow, and said quietly, “I will cover your debt.”

After a long pause, Beatrice said, equally quietly, “Thank you.” For once she seemed genuine.

His mother walked to the door, but then hesitated. She turned and looked at him. “I called you Lucifer to annoy your father. He was away when I gave birth, so I convinced our solicitor to complete the birth certificate. He had to bribe a few people

to get it accepted.” Softly she added, “I never really considered how it might affect you. I am sorry.”

“Did it work?”

Beatrice tilted her head to one side in query.

“Did you annoy him?”

Her face lit up with a wide smile. “Immensely.”

He laughed. “I’m glad.”

For the first time in his life, Luc and his mother exchanged genuine smiles.

After she’d left, he strode to the mahogany table on the other side of the window. He picked up a brandy bottle, poured himself a glass, then tossed back the spirits in the hopes that a little hair of the dog would help dull his almighty headache and clear his thoughts.

Staring at the brandy bottle, he realized, amazingly, his mother was right about a great many things.

All this time, he had been afraid of becoming like his father. Someone who, he thought, had been insanely jealous if his wife so much as looked at another man. From a child’s perspective, that was what it had looked like. But now he saw it had not been obsession that drove his father but possession. An altogether different emotion.

Sinking back into his chair, he stared at the portrait of his father hanging on the opposite wall. Perhaps he had assumed he was like his father because they shared the same eyes, hair color, and build.

He saw the signs had been there all along. His father had tried to control every facet of his wife’s and son’s lives. He just had never realized because his father died when he was very young.

He stared again at the portrait. He remembered when it had been painted. It must have taken three times as long as it should because his father kept checking on the painter’s work, directing every little detail. It was all there in the painting if one had the courage to look. One of his father’s hands was on his wife’s shoulder, the other on his son’s. His father was the central figure, much larger than both his wife and son because the proportions were wrong.

He had never really thought about his parents’ marriage from his mother’s point of view. His father and mother had been sadly mismatched. Would she have been different if she had married someone else?

Did he want her life? He had the estates and worked damned hard managing them, but other than that, he and his mother weren’t so very different. Did he want to flit from one Cyprian to another, gamble, and have nothing to fill the void but trivial frivolities? Did he want to be that selfish?

If he didn’t, how could he prevent it?

Rising from his desk, he sought out his butler and gave him instructions. The first of which was to instruct his valet to pack, the second to get rid of that damn painting.

As his carriage neared St. James Manor, Luc tried not to remember the look on Ria’s face when he confronted her about the masquerade. She had truly appeared heartbroken.

He shifted restlessly on the seat. Despite what he’d said when he found out she was Persephone, he’d wanted her to deny everything. To say it was all a mistake. That she hadn’t been at the masked ball.

But most of all, he had wanted her to say she wouldn’t have been intimate with anyone else. That she had been swept away by their passion.

Luc rubbed his hand over his face. He knew he was being an irrational ass, but that was what he’d wanted.

He deeply regretted his behavior in Devon’s study—his stomach knotted just thinking about it. He’d been cruel. He should have let her explain. As Devon had said, there must be an explanation.

Ever since he’d returned the papers she’d left him, he’d wondered what was in them. Obviously, she’d thought they would vindicate her actions, but how could they? It must have something to do with Geoffrey and his attempts to kill her.