A Rake's Midnight Kiss (Sons of Sin 2)

“You went to enormous lengths to lay your hands on it.”

He struggled to recall his reasons for actions that in hindsight seemed lunatic. “Must we talk about this?”

She stroked his cheek. The brush of her fingertips shivered through him. “I love you, but I don’t know you.”

“You know me better than anyone else.” Even Cam, a realization that jolted him.

“I know Christopher Evans.”

His arm tightened. “Christopher Evans is more real than Richard Harmsworth ever was.”

His cryptic response didn’t placate her. She’d honed native curiosity into a weapon. She shifted to study him and her vulnerability scored his heart. “You’re always saying things like that. Things I don’t understand. I want to understand.”

A lifetime of pretending that he didn’t care about his birth warned him to stay silent, but he owed Genevieve honesty. Not because he’d lied. But because he loved her.

Still he hesitated. The hellish truth was that he suspected that his real self wasn’t worth knowing. Certainly not worth loving. He’d long ago recognized that much of his anger at the world’s derision stemmed from a deep-seated belief that the world might just be right.

With one finger, she traced a line up his temple where the pulse pounded with fear. “Trust me, Richard.”

She made it sound easy, yet telling her what it meant to grow up in scandal’s shadow was the most difficult thing he’d ever done. It sliced too close to the man he’d hidden from even his closest friends.

All his life, a sardonic air and an immaculately presented façade had deflected contempt. He couldn’t bear to reveal his soul to Genevieve, only to confirm that his pretense at being a shallow popinjay was no pretense at all.

She was right. If he loved her, he had to trust her. Damn it. He stole a jagged breath, gave the terror torturing his gut the cut direct, and flung himself into the void.

Chapter Thirty-Four

It sounds insane to admit that this quest started because I lost my temper.” Reluctant to reveal his flimsy motives, Richard shifted uncomfortably on the stone tomb. “At a raw moment, some puling cub sneered at my bastardy and I swore I’d show them all. The Harmsworth Jewel confirms the Harmsworth heir. So I’d find the gewgaw and brandish it under every disapproving nose in society. Childish, really.”

“I remember those stories in the papers.” Genevieve’s expression was troubled. “Don’t be too hard on yo

urself. A lifetime of prurient speculation would sting anybody’s pride.”

“I learned young that a bastard can’t afford the luxury of pride.” He laughed without amusement. “It’s a lesson that needs repeating.”

She looked puzzled. “Why is your illegitimacy such widespread knowledge? After all, you inherited the baronetcy.”

“Every dunderhead can count. Sir Lester was in St. Petersburg for sixteen months before his wife delivered a healthy boy. Odds were that another man had shared Lady Harmsworth’s bed.” His gut knotted. He loathed admitting that the world’s spite was justified. “Great Aunt Amelia was perfectly right to deny me the jewel.”

“What does your mother say?” Genevieve sounded so calm, whereas he was barely capable of reason on this subject. Talking of his bastardy turned him into a mass of howling pain, like a wounded animal.

Richard shrugged as if all this didn’t matter, although the devil of it was that it had always mattered too much. “Nothing significant.”

“Mrs. Meacham said nobody knows who your real father is.”

“My mother has remained remarkably close-lipped.” Rancor tinged his answer. “I assume the answer is as appalling as everyone suspects—she swived some groom or traveling gypsy.”

To his surprise, Genevieve struggled out of his embrace to regard him accusingly. “You sound like you hate your mother.”

Without Genevieve, his arms felt empty. “I do.”

“Really?” She sounded skeptical. Wise Genevieve. She knew him too well.

He sighed. “If she’d been a faithful wife, my life would have been easier.”

“Perhaps she loved your father.” Genevieve was angry, although he couldn’t think why. So far in this tale, he’d played innocent bystander.

“I doubt it.”