Sins

Emerald felt as though the ground was rocking beneath her feet. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Her mother should have protested that Emerald knew exactly who her father was; she should have denied and denied again that there was any truth in Alessandro’s mother’s allegations.

Blind fury and panic filled her. She stepped up to her mother and raised her hand, slapping her so hard across the face that tears of pain filled Amber’s shocked eyes.

‘It can’t be true. It mustn’t be true. I will not have a painter, a filthy peasant, as my father. My father was the Duke of Lenchester. Say it,’ she demanded savagely. ‘Say that my father was the Duke of Lenchester.’

Amber looked away from her. She had always known that Emerald had to be protected from the truth and she had promised Robert that she would be. Robert, who had loved the little girl he had claimed as his own every bit as much as he had loved the son she and Jean-Philippe had previously given him.

Amber had been only seventeen when she had first met Jean-Philippe and been seduced by him, believing that he loved her.

It had been Robert who had helped her to face the awful truth that Jean-Philippe had no intention of marrying her, as she had believed he would. Dear kind Robert, who had rescued her, saved her from the consequences of her folly that magical hot summer in the South of France when she had succumbed to Jean-Philippe and her own love for him, offering her marriage to protect her reputation. Robert, whose own desires lay not with her sex but with his own.

Amber had never thought that she and Jean-Philippe would even meet again, never mind become lovers once more, but they had, and Emerald had been the result of that second coming-together. On that occasion Jean-Philippe had repaid any debt he might have owed her when he had helped her to protect Robert from his own folly.

‘Robert loved you as his daughter, Emerald; he loved you very much. He was proud of you and proud to call you his, but…’

‘Go on,’ Emerald demanded when her mother fell silent.

‘It was all such a long time ago, a different life. Robert was your father in all the ways that matter. It was his choice to treat you in every single way as his child. Please let that be your measure of his fatherhood.’

‘Is it true that he was a queer and that he let you fuck with a French painter?’

The ugly words burned Amber’s face as painful a red as though Emerald had physically struck her again.

‘That’s enough! You will not speak to your mother like that.’ Neither of them had heard Jay come back into the kitchen.

‘What is it about you?’ Emerald screamed at her mother. ‘Why is everyone so determined to protect you? Don’t you realise what you’ve done? You’ve ruined my life. Thanks to you, Alessandro’s mother is going to have our marriage annulled, and if I don’t agree then she’s going to tell the world that I’m a bastard with a father—’

‘Oh, Emerald…’Amber raised her hand to her mouth in shock. ‘But if Alessandro loves you then it won’t matter to him, darling.’ She reached for her daughter’s hand but Emerald snatched it away.

‘Don’t be such a fool. Of course it will matter to him, and it matters to me. Do you think I want people knowing…laughing at me behind my back…?’ Emerald gave a shudder. ‘My father, a common painter.’

‘Emerald, Jean-Philippe was respected as a painter. He was very gifted; I have some of his work.’ Amber looked towards Jay, pleading silently for his help.

‘It’s stored up in the attic. I’ll show it to you,’ Jay offered.

‘No!’

‘He was very brave, Emerald. He saved Robert’s life at one time, and through that he saved yours as well,’ Amber continued.

‘Did…did he…was it really an accident that they died, my father and Luc, or was it because he found out about you and couldn’t bear the thought of someone else’s bastard inheriting from him?’

‘No!’ Amber’s voice was raw with pain. ‘No. Robert adored Luc; everyone said how alike they were, how very much father and son. Luc worshipped Robert. They were so close.’

So very close in life and in death. In her head Amber could still see them as she had done that dreadful morning when she had arrived at the small cottage hospital where they had been taken. The wonderful matron had ensured that they had been made to look as ‘natural’ as possible. Luc’s unmarked face turned towards his father, Robert…Amber caught back her own protest as she remembered how she had reached out to touch Robert and then discovered what they had tried to protect her from knowing–that Robert had virtually been scalped when he had tried to protect the son he had loved so much, his last action, his last thought, his last love for Luc. No child could have had a better father; no woman could have wanted a better father for her children.

‘Perhaps the duke was hoping he might get to take him to bed. They like that sort of thing, don’t they, men like him?’ Emerald taunted her mother.

Amber’s face had gone white, the skin stretched tightly over her bones. Jay stepped forward, reaching for her protectively but Amber waved him away.

‘That is a vile thing to suggest, but I will forgive you. Yo u are hurt and angry, frightened, so I will tell you again. Robert loved you both as his children–Luc as his son and heir and you as his daughter. He was the one who read you your bedtime stories, who listened to your first words, who held you and loved you. Robert was your father.’

‘But not the man who fathered me on you. Not the man who stuck his prick into you and—’

‘That’s enough!’ Jay stopped Emerald, moving towards her.

‘Enough? Why, because I’m upsetting her? Oh dear. Don’t you think that I’m upset? Don’t you think that I’m affected by the filth of knowing that my father was some common seducer–worse than a gigolo, according to Alessandro’s mother? I hate you. I h

ate you for what you are and for what you’ve done. You’ve ruined my life. It’s because of you and your whoring that the princess can do what she is doing. I should never have allowed her to send Alessandro away without me.’