But he couldn’t marry her. She was like a child. It had to be a sin. And even if it wasn’t, he could never stomach it. How could she possibly understand what was meant to transpire between them as man and wife?
He could never bed her. Never.
Gareth just stared at his father, words failing him. For the first time in his life, he had no easy reply, no flip retort.
There were no words. Simply no words for such a moment.
“I see we understand each other,” the baron said, smiling at his son’s silence.
“No!” Gareth burst out, the single syllable ripping itself from his throat. “No! I can’t!”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll be there if I have to tie you up.”
“No!” He felt like he was choking, but somehow he got the words out. “Father, Mary is…Well, she’s a child. She’ll never be more than a child. You know that. I can’t marry her. It would be a sin.”
The baron chuckled, breaking the tension as he turned swiftly away. “Are you trying to convince me that you, of all people, have suddenly found religion?”
“No, but—”
“There is nothing to discuss,” his father cut in. “Wrotham has been extremely generous with the dowry. God knows he has to be, trying to unload an idiot.”
“Don’t speak of her that way,” Gareth whispered. He might not want to marry Mary Winthrop, but he’d known her all his life, and she did not deserve such talk.
“It is the best you will ever do,” Lord St. Clair said. “The best you will ever have. Wrotham’s settlement is extraordinarily generous, and I will arrange for an allowance that will keep you comfortable for life.”
“An allowance,” Gareth echoed dully.
His father let out one short chuckle. “Don’t think I would trust you with a lump sum,” he said. “You?”
Gareth swallowed uncomfortably. “What about school?” he whispered.
“You can still attend,” his father said. “In fact, you have your new bride to thank for that. Wouldn’t have had the blunt to send you without the marriage settlement.”
Gareth stood there, trying to force his breathing into something that felt remotely even and normal. His father knew how much it meant to him to attend Cambridge. It was the one thing upon which the two of them agreed: A gentleman needed a gentleman’s education. It didn’t matter that Gareth craved the entire experience, both social and academic, whereas Lord St. Clair saw it merely as something a man had to do to keep up appearances. It had been decided upon for years—Gareth would attend and receive his degree.
But now it seemed that Lord St. Clair had known that he could not pay for his younger son’s education. When had he planned to tell him? As Gareth was packing his bags?
“It’s done, Gareth,” his father said sharply. “And it has to be you. George is the heir, and I can’t have him sullying the bloodlines. Besides,” he added with pursed lips, “I wouldn’t subject him to this, anyway.”
“But you would me?” Gareth whispered. Was this how much his father hated him? How little he thought of him? He looked up at his father, at the face that had brought him so much unhappiness. There had never been a smile, never an encouraging word. Never a—
“Why?” Gareth heard himself saying, the word sounding like a wounded animal, pathetic and plaintive. “Why?” he said again.
His father said nothing, just stood there, gripping the edge of his desk until his knuckles grew white. And Gareth could do nothing but stare, somehow transfixed by the ordinary sight of his father’s hands. “I’m your son,” he whispered, still unable to move his gaze from his father’s hands to his face. “Your son. How could you do this to your own son?”
And then his father, who was the master of the cutting retort, whose anger always came dressed in ice rather than fire, exploded. His hands flew from the table, and his voice roared through the room like a demon.
“By God, how could you not have figured it out by now? You are not my son! You have never been my son! You are nothing but a by-blow, some mangy whelp your mother got off another man while I was away.”
Rage poured forth like some hot, desperate thing, too long held captive and repressed. It hit Gareth like a wave, swirling around him, squeezing and choking until he could barely breathe. “No,” he said, desperately shaking his head. It was nothing he hadn’t considered, nothing he hadn’t even hoped for, but it couldn’t be true. He looked like his father. They had the same nose, didn’t they? And—
“I have fed you,” the baron said, his voice low and hard. “I have clothed you and presented you to the world as my son. I have supported you when another man would have tossed you into the street, and it is well past time that you returned the favor.”
“No,” Gareth said again. “It can’t be. I look like you. I—”
For a moment Lord St. Clair remained silent. Then he said, bitterly, “An unhappy coincidence, I assure you.”
“But—”
“I could have turned you out at your birth,” Lord St. Clair cut in, “sent your mother packing, tossed you both into the street. But I did not.” He closed the distance between them and put his face very close to Gareth’s. “You have been acknowledged, and you are legitimate.” And then, in a voice furious and low: “You owe me.”
“No,” Gareth said, his voice finally finding the conviction he was going to need to last him through the rest of his days. “No. I won’t do it.”