“Yes,” he answered gently, “though… they’re both dead now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shrugged.
“Were you close?” she asked too fast, her words running together. “Did you have a happy childhood with a father who worked and brought home money and a mother who mended your socks?”
“Not… precisely,” he replied. “My childhood was happy… enough, but my mother… was often sickly and… my father…” He took a deep breath and let it out in a gusty sigh. “My father was… mad.”
She stopped short—or tried to.
He tugged her hand to keep her strolling beside him. “It’s not… as terrible as it… sounds. He wasn’t violent… or awful to my sister… and me, or… even our mother. He was excitable. Sometimes… he would stay awake… for days on end, frantically planning… various schemes—though they all came… to naught. He’d hie away… from the house for a week… or more and we… were never sure where… he went. Just that when… he came home his pockets… would be empty and he’d… be exhausted. Then he would sleep… for a full day and perhaps spend… a fortnight abed… taking his meals there. And… then he’d… arise one day and… be off again.”
He shrugged. “I thought… when I was very small… that all boys had fathers like… mine.”
She was silent then, because there didn’t seem much to say. They walked in companionable silence as the sun began to paint the sky in shades of scarlet and bright yellow and orange.
“Is she alive still, your sister?” she at last asked, almost lazily.
“Oh, yes.”
“And you see her?” She darted a sideways glance, but he merely shook his head and smiled.
Damn. “Do you have other family, then? Aunts and uncles and, oh, cousins, I suppose? Is it a big family you’re from?”
“Not big… but I have some… relations,” he replied. “Though… I know none of them well. My… father’s madness drove… him apart from his own… father and the rest of the… family followed… suit, I suppose.” He shrugged. “I really… don’t know. I certainly… never saw them as a child.”
She nodded. “And now that you’re a man? Have you tried to talk to them?”
He squeezed her hand and then relaxed, so swiftly she couldn’t tell if the motion was in reaction to her question or not. “No.”
She heaved a great sigh and tried another tack. “How did you come to know Mr. Harte?”
He laughed at that. “I met May—Harte… in a tavern… when we were both barely… of age.”
She did stop then, and made him turn to face her. “What was that word you almost said? May? Is that his first name?”
He actually looked guilty at that. “He’ll… kill me.”
“What?”
“It’s a… great secret,” he warned.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
She thought he wouldn’t answer her. But he pulled her close and folded her hands on her breast, over her heart. “Do you promise… never, ever to tell?”
“Yes.”
He bent, putting his mouth to her ear, so close she could feel the brush of his lips. “Harte… isn’t his name. It’s… Asa Makepeace.”
She jerked back, mouth agape in shock. “What?”
He shrugged, looking amused. “It’s true.”
“But whyever did he change his name?”
“For the same… reason, I expect, that you”—he tapped a finger on her nose—“changed yours.”