Forever a Lord (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

I could have done a great deal better, Sir,
but I was afraid I might hit you
too hard and you should be affronted.

—P. Egan,
Boxiana
(1823)

N
ATHANIEL
GLANCED
TOWARD
the sky that was lightening at the edges of the darkness that had once been. He could hear the chirping of birds against the pulsing silence.

It was like the dawning of a new life.

He felt so oddly empowered after having kissed Imogene. Like he could face anything and do anything.

He set his jaw. Waiting be damned.

Now that he had had a chance to kiss heaven, it was as good a time as any to finally kiss hell. He was done waiting. Like Matthew kept telling him, he wouldn’t be able to move forward in his head or in his life until he did this.

Jogging down the wide stairs, he made his way down the gravel carriage path and out past the gates. He walked and walked and walked in jaw-tightening silence until—

Recognizing the square up ahead enclosed by wide, pristine roads and tall, stone houses, he slowed. It was exactly where Weston said it would be when he had asked if he knew where the Sumners held their residence.

Nathaniel crossed the cobblestone, splashing up water that reflected the morning sky brightening to yellow-pink against the rising sun.

The Sumner House.

His pulse roared. The brass lion knocker on the door was still there. The same brass lion he used to jump up and tap before walking through the door. The iron fence that quartered off the cobblestone road was still there, with the Sumner crest that he used to drag his father’s cane across. Thirty years had changed nothing, except for the size of the trees.

He lingered on the path, still staring at the door. Memories flooded his soul as the ghostly figure of his sister in a silk pleated bonnet and a pale pink gown bent toward the ghostly figure of himself as a boy. Trunks were being carried out of the Sumner house by footmen and strapped onto the large coach set to take them to Liverpool, where they would board a ship to New York. His father planned to invest in land for the purpose of leasing and making a profit, given funds were short. His mother insisted that they go as a family. Auggie had promised him that the trip would bring their family together.

How wrong she had been.

He slowly made his way up the set of stairs leading to the vast terrace home. Though he hesitated, he reached out and forced himself to twist the iron bell on the side of the entrance.

It was done. There was no going back.

Moments edged past, and with it the occasional clattering of coach wheels and clumping of horses’ hooves from the cobblestone street behind. Leaning back, he eyed the vast windows, noting all of the curtains were open. His gut turned and he wondered if he should leave. Before he did something stupid. Before he—

A click vibrated the large entrance door and it swung open. A thin, grey-haired man in blue livery peered out.

Nathaniel’s throat tightened. By God. It was Wilkinson. He’d gotten old.

Wilkinson squinted. “What business have you to be calling this early?”

The man was as crusty as ever. It was surreal seeing him again. “Wilkinson. Is that you?”

“Do I know you, sir?”

Maybe he ought to ease into this. “Uh…we met. A long time ago.”

Wilkinson narrowed his gaze. “We did?”

Nathaniel tried to remain calm, even though he felt overwhelmed. It was like
seeing
all thirty years flit in a blink. “I’m…I’m actually here to speak to Lord Sumner.” He could do this. He could face his father, couldn’t he?

“At this hour, sir? Clearly the time means nothing to you. His lordship still sleeps.”

How was his father capable of ever closing his eyes? “His sleep just ended. I ask that you bid the man to rise. Tell him he has a visitor.”

The butler pulled in his wobbling chin. “I highly doubt, sir, that you have any business of such great import that would require—”

“Inform his lordship that his son is here to see him. I’m certain that will get him up.”

“His—” Wilkinson’s eyes widened. “Dearest God. I thought you looked eerily familiar but I— Master Atwood? Is it truly you? Have your own two feet finally brought you home?”

Sensing the man had, indeed, recognized him, a shaky breath escaped him. “Yes. Though I’m not much to look at anymore, am I?”

The butler stared, his thin shoulders deflating. His gaze traveled from Nathaniel’s hair to his boots and settled on his face. He stepped back. “I will admit your eyes are very much his. But how is it possible? After so many countless years of nothing surfacing how have you come to be?”

Knowing the man needed more assurance, Nathaniel eventually offered, “From what I remember, you’d take a rose from my mother’s garden every Friday afternoon during the summer and deliver it to a young woman at the market. Miss…Folding? No. Miss…Golding I believe was her name. Wasn’t it? Whatever became of that?”

Wilkinson’s eyes dewed. “She married someone else.” He sounded haunted. “’Tis truly you, then. ’Tis truly you.” A trembling hand clamped over his mouth.

Nathaniel leaned in and said in a low tone, “It is. And sadly, I have nothing but memories to prove who I am. Now that we have been reacquainted, I am asking you give me an audience with my father. I have waited thirty years for it.”

The old man blinked rapidly, lowering his hand. Glancing toward the street, he pulled the door wider. “Yes. Of course. Please. Do. Come in. I… Come in, come in.”

“Thank you.” Nathaniel stepped into the large foyer.

The door closed, darkening the hallway. Several lit candles illuminated the honey-colored silk-brocaded walls that clothed the expanse of the dim foyer. He remembered this entrance. Not even the paper on the wall had changed.

To his astonishment, Wilkinson grabbed him and yanked him close. “This house hasn’t been the same without you, my lord,” Wilkinson choked out. “Perpetual sadness has haunted us all.”

Nathaniel stiffened against that unexpected hold but gave way to patting the old man. The man who used to sneak him strawberry-covered crumpets out of the kitchen. “I appreciate the warm welcome, Wilkinson. I honestly didn’t expect you to even recognize me.”

“You were the boy I never had, my lord. How does a man forget the son he always wanted?” Wilkinson drew away with a hard sniff and gestured toward a room whose curtains had yet to be drawn. “I will ensure his lordship sees you at once. I cannot even imagine what he will… I am beside myself. Absolutely beside myself.” Wilkinson eyed him one last time and hurried up the stairs as best his aged body would allow.

Slowly walking into the dimly lit receiving room, filled with furnishings and large portraits and mirrors, Nathaniel wandered toward a French writing desk. The same desk his mother used to sit at and accept or decline invitations and write letters. Back in the day, he clung to the edges of that desk, asking her countless questions about everything she did before the governess tugged him out of the room. Eerily, even the inkwell was still sitting in the same place. His mother had always been one for perfected routine. He remembered that much about her.

A single invitation that had been set out atop a pile of parchment paper made him lean toward it. Recognizing the name of the host, he plucked it up.

Imagine that. His brother-in-law, the Duke of Wentworth, was hosting an event. He set the invitation back on the desk, positioning it exactly where it had lain.

Finding nothing else of interest, Nathaniel strode toward the middle of the room and, easing out a shaky breath, faced the open doorway. Setting both hands behind his back, he dug his fingers into the skin of his wrist below the cuff of his coat and locked it hard against his back.

He could hear the clock on the mantelpiece behind him click another hand into place. It had been thirty years since he took his father’s pistol, loaded it and used the panel in the wall to sneak outside the house under the moonlight and face the man with the cigar who had been intimidating his family—the man whose ties to his father he couldn’t have imagined. Unbeknownst to him, the pistol’s hammer was broken and unable to fire when he needed it to.

He had spent thirty years regretting it, and took up boxing to ensure he’d never be without weapons again.

Steady footsteps echoed down the corridor, making him fist both hands. His jaw tightened.

A stout, white-haired man in a Turkish robe and slippers appeared and stood motionless in the doorway. Grey, inquisitive eyes settled upon him, that sagging, round face no longer resembling the dashing, rugged face of the Earl of Sumner.

This
was his father?

Jesus fucking Christ.

It was anticlimactic.

This was but an old man he could easily snap between two knuckles and flick away like dust. And he wanted to do just that. “You’ve aged, Father. And not very well, at that.”

Those lips parted. The earl entered the room, his movements staggered and uneven, as if age had made his limbs brittle. “Who are you?” he rasped.

How Nathaniel had managed to even breathe knowing he was standing within a swing of his father was beyond his own understanding. “I think you know who I am.”

“Who are you?”
the earl demanded, his voice now returning with more strength.

Nathaniel tried to keep his voice calm lest he give in to riling himself too much. “Your son. Your heir. Your blood. Your kin. Do you need a full name and a birthplace to go with it?”

His father’s grey eyes widened as he scanned his appearance. “You look nothing like him.”

Nathaniel set his jaw. “What did you expect given I spent most of my life on the streets of New York where you abandoned me?”

The earl grew quiet.

“Do you require proof?” Nathaniel pressed. “I can answer any question you want. About you. About Mother. About poor Auggie, who is no longer with us. We can even take out portraits of me as a child and hold them to my face. Eyes don’t change.”

“There aren’t any…any portraits of him left. I removed them when he— I couldn’t bear to look at him.”

“I bet you couldn’t.” Nathaniel chanted for the strength not to send a fist through his father’s skull. If he gave in to raising his voice, his control would be lost. That much he knew. “How is your reputation these days? The same as it was back in New York?”

A trembling, vein-ridden hand pointed to the doorway. “Leave. Leave, before I—”

“
Before you what?
I would think twice before issuing threats, old man. All it takes is these two hands—” Nathaniel held them up “—and the snap of your neck and it’s done. You wouldn’t even have time to scream.”

The earl stared, his aged face paling to paste.

More than ready to deliver the message from the boy whose life had been murdered between four dank walls and a bolted wooden door, Nathaniel dropped his hands and his voice to lethal. “I could have easily forgiven what Casacalenda did to me. After all, I was the one who stupidly left the house and put a pistol to the man’s face demanding he never intimidate us again. How was I to know there was a much bigger story? I was astounded to no end he treated me as well as he did given what you did to him and his life. He never touched me. He never beat me. He gave me everything I wanted, except my freedom, for years. He even dined with me every night in the cellar when he wasn’t traveling and taught me how to paint and sketch. He was a good man. A very broken man, but a good man. I’ve long since forgiven him. I had to, given his misery and his own loss. But how am I to forgive
you?
How do I forgive what you did to not only him but me?”

The earl shook his head ever so slowly from side to side and whispered, “You speak of things I know nothing of.”

Nathaniel narrowed his gaze. “Lie to the world and to God who is watching and waiting to judge you when your time has come, but not to me. Casacalenda told me everything. And I do mean everything. Every one of your secrets and every one of your lies. There isn’t a thing I don’t know and the only reason I never came back was to protect mother’s and Auggie’s name from rotting before all of society.”

The earl blinked rapidly, his lips tightening. “I refuse to stand here and submit to this vile form of intimidation.” The earl swiveled toward the doorway. “
Carter! Dixon!
Come at once. At once!”

“It’s going to take more than two men to get me out of the house.” Nathaniel widened his stance and set his shoulders, trying to exude a level of calm he didn’t feel. “I want to see my mother.
Now.
”

The earl’s face had bloomed red to the roots of his white hair, his body trembling as if he were about to burst. “What do you mean to do? The doctors say any undue stress might end whatever is left of her life. Is that what you want? To kill her? The poor woman has suffered enough. Leave her in peace. Leave us both in peace. Whoever the devil you really are.”

Nathaniel stared, sensing that the man was in earnest. Was his mother truly that ill? “What is wrong with her?”

Two well-built footmen rushed into the room. “My lord?”

The earl snapped a hand toward him. “Get this bastard out.
Get him out!
And don’t
ever
allow him entrance into this house again lest Lady Sumner’s very heart stops. Is that understood?”

“Yes, my lord!”

The two footmen darted toward Nathaniel and grabbed an arm each, shoving and muscling him hard in the direction of the foyer.

Nathaniel couldn’t breathe, knowing his father had betrayed him.
Again.
In a whipping blur, Nathaniel viciously snapped out a fist at the face closest to him and crunched into a set of teeth with the bridge of his knuckles. A choked cry filled the room as blood sprayed and he shoved the man hard. Jumping forward again, he delivered the same rigid blow to the other, snapping that head to the side.

Both footmen fell away like stone pillars, one collapsing onto a walnut table that smashed a vase into powdery shards, the other tumbling down into a dazed heap against a chair that flipped right along with him.