Everything I Ever Wanted (49 page)

South expected the dowager countess to return to her chair. Instead, she remained at his side while he bound her son's wrists and ankles, then gave her approval in a regal nod when he was through. Lightly massaging the swelling at the back of his head, South came to his feet. Puzzled by her actions, he regarded Lady Margrave with a slight frown. "No doubt it is that I am lacking in the upper works that makes this a poser, my lady, but if you sanction my actions now, then why did you clobber me earlier?"

"He is my son," she said simply."It is not easy to always know the best way to protect him. It has occurred to me that he is safer secured than he is facing you again."

That was true, South thought. It would not take much provocation on Margrave's part for South to kill him. India's blow had struck him down, but it may have also saved his life. Nodding, South cupped the dowager's elbow and led her back to the chair. She seemed grateful for the support. She took his hand, squeezing it once as she sank into the deep cushion of the wing chair. South allowed her to hold on to him a moment longer before he gently removed his hand and returned to India's side. He did not sit with her but held out an arm. His fingers curled, beckoned.

India stared at South's extended hand, knowing that he meant her to take it, yet finding herself reluctant to do so. She shook her head slowly, her eyes asking him for understanding. "Not yet," she said quietly. Her gaze slid sideways to where the dowager countess sat The older woman's hands were folded tightly in her lap, the knuckles wax-like in their bloodless state. "I believe there are some things in want of being said." Her voice dropped to a mere whisper. The tenor of it was hoarse. "Is that not the truth Mother?"

The countess did not so much startle at this form of address as appear undone by it. Her shoulders slumped. She seemed to withdraw into herself, becoming somehow smaller than she had been only moments earlier. Pained eyes downcast, her head drooped forward as though it had become too heavy for the slender stem of her neck.

Out of the corner of her eye, India saw that South had no reaction at all. She glanced up at him. "You knew."

"Yes." She had not accused him, but neither was it a question. There was no purpose in withholding the truth from her any longer, nor any kind way of revealing it."Yes, I know."

"Have you always?"

"Always?" South shook his head. His voice was gentle. "No. Not so long as that. It is only something that occurred to me recently, and I had no proof of the truth of it until today. Even if Margrave had not hinted as much, you have your mother's eyes."

India looked in Lady Margrave's direction. The dowager countess's head remained bowed, and India could not reacquaint herself with the eyes that South said were so like her own. India's gaze slipped slowly from the countess, past South, and finally rested on Margrave's trussed and unconscious figure. She watched a droplet of blood gather at one corner of his mouth, then fall. It pooled with another spattering of blood on the floor.

It was not the sight of the blood that made India shudder, but the inescapable realization that she was connected to it. Bile rose in her throat, and she choked it back. The taste of it made her want to gag, and for a moment she thought she would disgrace herself by being sick.

"India?" South took a step toward the bed and was stopped by the stricken eyes she raised to him. He saw that the full knowledge of what it meant to be Lady Margrave's daughter had been borne home.

"He is my brother." She forced the words past the acid at the back of her throat. This had to be said, too, and the effort of it made her moan softly. Closing her eyes, India pressed her balled fists against her middle as she hunched forward.

South was immediately beside her. He slipped an arm around her back and drew her against him. He rocked her gently on the edge of the bed. Over the top of her head, he saw Margrave stir. Had South's arms not been full of India, he would have planted the earl a second facer.

"Oh, God." India's words were muffled against South's woolen coat "My brother."

"Your half-brother." It was not South who made this distinction, but Lady Margrave. "Allen is your half-brother."

This minor difference did nothing to settle India's roiling stomach. She could not warm herself, even in South's close embrace. The chill she felt went to the marrow of her bones, then her soul. She pressed her face into the curve of South's neck and would have clamped her hands over her ears if such a thing were possible. The manner in which he held her kept her from doing so. She made a halfhearted straggle against him, but he didn't release her, and in truth, she wasn't certain she wanted him to. If there were things that must be said, then it followed there were things that must be listened to. Hadn't she been the one who wanted to know what everyone else did? South would have protected her from the truth. She knew that now. It had been Margrave's intention to punish her with it. He'd meant for it to cripple her. It was his last, best revenge, a consequence of his hatred that reached beyond her to his mother. He had caught them both with a single blow.

India felt her breathing calm and tension slowly seep away. She knew that South felt it, too. His embrace loosened. He raised his head, and his cheek no longer rubbed against the corn-silk softness of her hair. "It's all right," she said, as much to herself as to him. "I'm all right."

"I know." He said it because he wanted it to be true, not because he was sure it was.

India pressed a shaky smile into his neck. "No. Really. I am."

"It takes your breath away, doesn't it?" It was Margrave who spoke. He rolled onto his back, then struggled into a sitting position. Hands tied behind him, he used his bound heels to push himself across the floor until he rested against the far wall. His mouth was swollen, and a thin line of blood marked his face from the corner of his lips to his jaw. "Doesn't it?" he repeated.

India turned her head and stared at him. She said nothing.

"That's precisely what happened to me when I learned you were my sister. My half-sister . The distinction seems noteworthy to our mother, even if it does little to lessen the impact. Of course, I was very young when I learned the truth. Nine, I think." He glanced at the countess. "Is that right, Mother? Was I nine?"

A breath shuddered through Lady Margrave. "Yes."

"You must speak up," Margrave said."There is a ringing in my ears. A result of the blow, I suspect Did you say yes?"

"Yes."

Margrave nodded and returned his attention to India. "I was nine. Just as I thought. And you were four. You were living with the Hawthornes. Thomas and Marianne. Just as you always had. You didn't know me then. There was no reason that you should. You knew no life outside Devon, and I imagine you were content with the prospect of growing up there in the shadow of Merrimont. You might have passed your entire life without knowing of your connection to that place. Mother would have had it so. I was the one who did not think it was fair."

India sensed that South meant to interrupt Margrave. She made a small negative shake of her head, stopping him. "I want to hear," she said. "I want to know all of it."

Lady Margrave came to her feet. She lifted her chin and made to compose herself."Then you shall hear it from me."

"By all means," Margrave said sardonically. "Your version of the truth is no less entertaining than my own."

Ignoring him, India regarded the dowager countess."Tell me."

Lady Margrave's hands unfolded and fell to her sides. "Allen overheard my husband and me arguing about you. There was a question of whether you should continue to live with the Hawthornes. The earl did not approve of the arrangement and wanted you to come to Merrimont and eventually to Marlhaven. As I was the one who made the arrangement with Mrs. Hawthorne, I was of the opposite opinion."

India slipped her fingers through South's. "My mother was the midwife present when you gave birth to me." That she chose to name Marianne Hawthorne her mother was quite deliberate. Lady Margrave's response was to press her lips together briefly and shield the pain in her eyes by staring for a moment at the floor. "You gave me to her," India said. "You gave me away."

The countess looked at India again and nodded this time. "Yes. That is exactly what I did. I hated him, you see. And I wanted to punish him. I could think of no more complete way to do that than to make certain he never saw his child."

India frowned. "I don't understand. If Margrave is my half-brother and you are mother to both of us" Her voice trailed off as she thought this through. "You are mother to both of us, aren't you?"

Margrave gave an abrupt laugh. "Oh, she is that, my dear sister. There is no denying that we can claim this whore for our mother."

India's fingers tightened against South's. It was the only indication that she had heard what Margrave said or had given it any heed."If your husband was Margrave's father," she said, "then who is mine?"

The countess shook her head. "It is not what you think. You are not my bastard child." She took a steadying breath. "My son is."

India's glance shot to Margrave. "Did you know?"

He shrugged and made a show of a modest smile that was chilling for all its pleasantness."Not immediately upon discovering you were my sister. That understanding came later. In the beginning I believed as the earl did. I was his heir. You were his unfaithful wife's bastard. I learned the truth long before he did. Mother's letters from her lover laid the story out for me. You will be happy to know, India, that I told him the truth before he died. I would not be surprised to learn that's what killed him in the end. It seemed to me that he quite gave up when I informed him of the turn in the tale."

Lady Margrave spun on her heel and stared down at her son's twisted smile. The madness was there in his eyes. She had seen it before. It was not the fevered brightness of someone who no longer shared the reality of others; it was the cool, penetrating darkness of someone who lived for shifting the reality. She had always thought he looked a great deal like her, but when she studied his features now, she could see only that he was in every way his father's son.

"You killed the earl," she said. "And it was not your last words that put him in his grave. What did you use? Arsenic? Foxglove?"

South heard India suck in a breath, but he saw that Margrave was unmoved by the accusation. "Do you know it for a fact?" he asked Lady Margrave.

Not turning away from her son, she answered South's question. "I know he did it. Can I prove it?" She shook her head. "He was afraid my husband would discover the truth on his own and disinherit him. He never believed me that I would not tell. Why would I? I had deceived my lord husband for all the years of our marriage. I had everything to lose and nothing to gain by revealing what I had done. I had made him believe the child of my lover was his own, and denied him the child he had fathered. Do you think he would have forgiven me for that?"

This last question hung in the air, not meant to be answered by anyone. India traded glances with South. Margrave simply stared at his mother.

Lady Margrave used the toe of her shoe to nudge aside the board that both she and India had wielded earlier. She took a step closer to her son. "Why were you so afraid of her?" she asked him. "There was no reason she had to be any part of your life. It was your father I loved. It was you I looked after, coddled, gave every advantage. It was never enough. There was no filling that part of you that was soulless." She turned around and faced India. "He would have killed us, both," she said. "I think he would have let you linger, but you would not have thanked him for it. He meant a quicker end for me, and it would have been a kindness, though I do not believe he has thought ahead to what he would have done without us. In our own way we've kept him alive. Do you see, India? He lived for usmost especially youjust as his father did for me. When my husband forced an end to my affair, Allen's father killed himself. Can you understand that I thought my son might do the same? They share so many of the same qualities." Her voice began to trail away, and her eyes lost their focus. "So many of the same desires."

India felt a chill creeping along the length of her spine. South's fingers squeezed hers gently, then released her hand. He came to his feet. Aware that the dowager countess might perceive this small change as a threat, he stayed at the bedside, well away from her, and counted the steps it would take to reach her if such were necessary. "There is no one here who doubts how much you have loved your son or your son's father. Though he may deny it, even Margrave knows the truth. It cannot have been easy for you to have accepted a loveless marriage. Was it your idea? Or your lover's?"

Lady Margrave said nothing. She looked uncertainly at South, as though she did not comprehend the question.

"The necessity of it must have occurred to you both," South said."It would have been difficult to continue as you had without an acceptable match for one of you. You both must have feared that eventually there would be talk. So it was agreed that you would be the one to marry. Perhaps your lover helped arrange the match. As he planned to share you with another man, he certainly had an interest in your attachment Somehow, you settled on the Earl of Margrave. You may even have felt some affection for him in the beginning, though one can only imagine the strain that would have placed on you."

South stood with his feet slightly apart, his hands clasped behind his back. He gestured with his fingers for India to move toward the door. "For a time, it seems the marriage worked splendidly. You gave birth to your first child, and your husband never suspected he was not the father. Even after he learned of your affair, he did not question his son's legitimacy. I suppose it was too terrible a consequence to consider. He must have decided there are some stones better left unturned."