How to Seduce a Scoundrel (39 page)

When they were seated, Smith brought in bread and sliced roast beef, oranges, and a jug of milk. Hawk watched the boy wolf down the food and drink two glasses of milk. He swallowed back the lump in his throat, thinking of the twelve years he’d missed. But then he’d never thought to ever see his son.

His son.

He had so many questions. Did Westcott treat him well? That was the part that kept him awake at night, wondering if his son was mistreated. But he couldn’t ask directly—in truth, he had no right, for he’d given up all rights to his own flesh and blood more than a dozen years ago, before the boy was even born. And the day the letter
had arrived, he’d wept as he read the news that Cynthia had delivered a healthy boy.

His father had snatched the letter away and thrown it on the fire. Burned the only news he’d thought to ever have of his son.

He’d known it was necessary to destroy the evidence, but at the time, he’d hated his father for his brutal words.
Stop sniveling. You’re damned lucky to be alive.

He’d been two months shy of his nineteenth birthday.

He forced the past from his head, because he didn’t want the boy to see the torment on his face. “Do you want to talk here or in the parlor?”

“Makes no difference to me,” Brandon said.

Hawk folded his hands on the table. “Let’s start with a few practical matters. I take it your father doesn’t know you left school.”

“He went up to Bath to take the waters for his health.”

That news alarmed Hawk. Brandon stood to inherit a substantial property. To the best of Hawk’s knowledge, the elderly Westcott had no living relatives. There was nothing he could do about it. He had no legal rights, and worse, if he claimed Brandon as his son, the boy would lose his inheritance because he would be officially a bastard—scorned and mocked.

For now, Hawk needed to concentrate on the immediate problems. “You’ll be reported missing,” he said. “If you wish to write your father, I’ll make sure the letter is delivered.”

“I’ll go back to Eton tonight.”

He wasn’t about to let the boy travel by himself again. “I’ll take you in my carriage tomorrow.”

“I don’t need your charity,” he said.

“You can have a clean seat all to yourself or you can be squashed between some smelly travelers who haven’t bathed in a fortnight. You’ll have a lot more stops along the way. I can make sure you get there faster.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“What do you want to know?” Hawk asked.

His mouth worked. “How did you meet her?”

He had no intention of telling the boy that his mother had lied to Westcott about her whereabouts to attend that raucous party. “Mutual friends introduced us.”

“You knew she was married.”

Hawk heard the accusation in the boy’s voice, but he did not deny it. “Yes. It was wrong.”

Of course, he couldn’t tell the boy the truth, any more than he could tell Julianne. He could never tell her about the sordid events that still haunted him and about the woman who had made his life hell.

Cynthia hadn’t been just a willing participant. She had been determined and had fawned all over him. Ramsey and his friends had thought it funny. Hawk had resisted her, because he’d known she was married.

The next night, Ramsey and his friends decided Cynthia needed a young lover to make up for her middle-aged husband. They’d supposedly put every man’s name on slips of paper and drawn the
lucky
winner to warm Cynthia’s bed. He’d been so green he’d never suspected that his name had been on every single slip of paper. They had heckled him and made sport of him. He’d let them bully him into going to her bed. She’d welcomed him with open arms. The next day, he’d overheard Ramsey and his friends laughing in the billiard’s room over the great trick they’d played on him. But it was Cynthia’s laughter
that had infuriated him. She’d known about the trick and thought it a great joke.

Brandon glared at him. “She wrote you letters, and you never answered. You abandoned her after getting her with child.”

The boy had clearly read that in her journal. Hawk chose his words with care. “She was married. I’d made a bad mistake and didn’t want to sin again.”

He’d burned Cynthia’s letters. She’d wanted him to send letters to her friend, who would pass them on. The middle-aged Westcott grew suspicious when his supposedly barren wife of eight years was suddenly, inexplicably with child. After he’d intercepted one of Cynthia’s letters, he’d sent word to Hawk’s father demanding satisfaction.

“You were too cowardly to stand up in a duel of honor,” Brandon said. “I was just your by-blow, rubbish.”

He took a moment to compose his words. “I was eighteen years old and had a very strict father who made me do the right thing. The right thing was to pay your father for your support. I’d done a bad thing, but as my father told me, it would have been far worse to acknowledge you in any way. Because that would have put an ugly label on you, and that would have been unfair.”

“Don’t act like you care. I know you don’t.”

“I can see why you think that,” he said. “But I suspect you have a good relationship with your father.” He hoped to hell he was right.

“He’s the best,” Brandon said. “He’s my real father.”

Relief poured through him. “Yes, he is your father in every sense of the word.”

The boy traced his finger over the condensation on the table left behind by the glass. “How would you like
it if some man meddled with your mother and abandoned her?”

“I wouldn’t like it at all.”

“I read about you in the scandal sheets,” the boy said. “You’re an infamous rake.”

Hawk ignored that statement, determined to keep the focus on the boy. “Do you play cricket at school?”

“Yes, I’m the team captain.”

“I thought you looked athletic,” he said. He’d been shooting in the dark, but he remembered how much he’d liked sports as a boy.

“I ought to be going. I need to get a room at the Claridge’s.”

He’d no intention of letting the boy travel alone in London. “You’re welcome to stay here if you don’t mind the sofa. It might be difficult to get a room. London is a popular place.”

“I suppose so,” he said grudgingly.

He realized that after tomorrow he would never see his son again. There was so little time, but he’d make the most of what he had. “Do you play backgammon?”

“Sometimes,” Brandon said.

“Since you’re stuck here for the night, we could play for a while. If you like.”

“Might as well,” he said.

Hawk smiled a little, wondering if the boy always spoke sparingly or if it was just the situation. He set up the game and asked innocent questions as they played. By the end of the night, he’d learned a great deal about the boy. He had two spotted springers at home and liked archery and fishing. He had two best mates at Eton who had visited him the previous summer. They toasted cheese over
the fire at school. Hawk had confessed he used to do the same.

After several rounds of backgammon, three of which he’d let Brandon win, he persuaded his son to sit on the carpet with him, while they toasted cheese and drank chocolate. He remembered one Christmas when he and Tristan had toasted cheese at Gatewick Park. Julianne had wanted to join them. Tristan had balked, but Hawk had let her sit with him and help toast cheese. The bittersweet memory tugged at him. He feared he’d lost her.

When Brandon yawned for the third time, Hawk brought him a pillow and a blanket. He’d wanted to tuck him in, but a twelve-year-old boy wouldn’t appreciate it, and in this case, the boy had plenty of reason to resent him.

Hawk put the game away, and when he came back into the parlor, the boy was sound asleep. He padded over to him and dared to brush the unruly lock of hair from his forehead. It was the first time he had ever touched his son.

At dawn, Hawk got the grumbling boy to awaken and persuaded him to eat a bit of gruel. He left a missive to be delivered to his aunt informing her he had to leave the city unexpectedly and that he would call when he returned.

Along the journey to Eton, they stopped twice at inns for tea and a meal and to change the horses. Brandon drank a good deal of milk each time. He was curious about the odd assortment of travelers and confessed his father didn’t travel much, except to Bath for the waters. Again, Hawk worried about Westcott’s health and the possible consequences for Brandon. Hawk’s lack of power frustrated him. He thought of making discreet inquiries with an attorney, but he knew the consequences
of exposing the circumstances of the boy’s birth meant Brandon would lose his inheritance.

At one inn, Brandon had watched a couple of lads kicking a ball. When they invited him to join in, Hawk had encouraged him to play. His chest had tightened while watching his athletic son running about. Afterward in the carriage, Brandon had told him the two boys were brothers. Hawk told him stories of how he’d taught his younger brother to climb a tree. He didn’t mention that he’d taught Julianne, but his chest had ached at the memory.

The boy slept curled up on the opposite seat for the rest of the journey. He was undoubtedly exhausted from his adventure. A few miles from Eton, Hawk woke him.

“We’re almost there,” he said.

When the boy rubbed his eyes and sat up, Hawk took a deep breath. “You might want to write your father and tell him you met me. If you do, ask him to write me. You probably shouldn’t let on to your mates about me, just in case. It would wound your father if others found out.” He didn’t tell the boy that he would be the one to suffer the label of
bastard
.

Hawk thought a moment about the journal and decided the best course. “You might want to put the journal in safekeeping until you return home. I suspect your father will worry when he finds out you read it.”

“I don’t know if I’ll tell him,” Brandon said. “He’s not in the best of health, and I don’t want to make it worse.”

“Perhaps you should put it back where you found it.”

He glanced out the window. The round tower of Windsor came into view, signaling his time with Brandon was nearly over. Hawk drew in a deep breath. “I won’t pretend to know how you feel. In your shoes, I’d probably be
angry and shocked. But the circumstances of your birth aren’t the most important thing. Focus on your father and your mates.”

The boy frowned. “You’re not what I expected. I thought you’d cut up nasty about me invading your life.”

“I’ve no right to do so. You have every reason to be angry.”

“Well, you’re not so bad. You play a mean game of backgammon, and you sat on the floor to toast cheese. I’ve never met a grown-up before who was willing to do that.”

His throat clogged, and he had to clear it before speaking. “Guess I missed being a boy last night.”

“I bet you don’t miss school,” he said. “Latin is the worst.”

“I hated it, too,” he said.

When the carriage rolled to a halt, Hawk took another deep breath. “I won’t get out because it would be hard to explain how I came to deliver you back at school.”

The boy nodded.

Hawk’s jaw worked. “You probably won’t believe me, and I can’t say as I blame you, but not a day has gone by that I didn’t think about you.”

Brandon frowned. “You feel really bad about what you did.”

He swallowed. “Yes, but I’m glad I met you.”

The boy held out his hand. Hawk grasped it.

The driver opened the door and started to let down the steps, but Brandon jumped. Hawk watched his son run to the steps until he disappeared.

When the carriage rolled into motion, he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. His chest heaved. A hoarse sound came out of his throat. He wept for the first time since he was eighteen years old.

A Scoundrel’s Advice: There’s no place like home.

H
awk spent the next week making arrangements.

He sent his aunt a letter, inquiring about Julianne and promised to call after he’d settled at Ashdown House. Then he gave up the lease on the love nest, found a new position for Smith, and packed his spartan belongings at the Albany. While sorting through his books, he found the notorious pamphlet and tossed it inside one of the trunks. As the servants carried away the last trunk, Hawk walked over to the hearth where he and Brandon had toasted cheese. He smiled a little, walked out of the refuge, and moved back home.

The first two days at Ashdown House, he’d felt a little at sea. He had a difficult time as he sat at his father’s desk and sorted through the letters. He got rid of most of the papers, but he kept a magnifying glass his father used to let him look through when he was little.

After a great deal of trouble, he managed to locate William in Venice and informed him that he should return to England immediately so that he could attend the house party at Gatewick Park. Once Will was back on British soil, Hawk planned to have a discussion with his brother about career choices.

While dining with friends at the club, he ran into Montague. He managed to shock his brother-in-law when he said he’d taken his advice about Will and that he’d also moved into Ashdown House. Montague told him he’d gotten rid of the mistress. Hawk had been relieved.