A Duke by Default (Reluctant Royals #2)(48)
She always had reason to forgive, and she always asked the same of Tav. One day, tired of her beatific nature he’d had the cheek to ask, “So you forgive Pinochet then?” His mother had slapped him, reflexively, then cried for days afterward every time she’d looked at him because she’d been so racked with guilt.
Tav didn’t want to see her cry again, and he tried to leave his anger to cool on the sill.
“I have never cared who my father was,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “My biological father. Because Dad is my real father, and I love him. But I need to know. If what Portia has dug up is true . . .”
“Portia? Is this the woman your brother told me about? The apprentice?” Her eyes went wide and speculative, as if possible matchmaking might be more important than the truth around his background.
“Mum. Please.”
She sighed. “Look. I was young. I was scared. I found asylum in this strange country, where I no longer had to worry that I might be tortured or killed, like so many of my family and friends.” She looked around her slowly, and not for the first time he wondered if going back to Santiago meant constantly walking through the ghosts of her past. She remembered herself and looked back at him through the screen. “I’d lost everything. Then, after going through hell, I showed up in Scotland expecting the worst, and everyone was so kind! A parade met our bus as we pulled into town, and people began giving us clothing and gifts as soon as we stepped onto the ground.”
She had told him this part before, in different variations throughout his life, but she had never cried before. Now the tears slipped silently down her cheeks.
“Mum,” he said. This was why he hated this video shite. His teeth pressed together as he watched his mother weep on a cold, flat screen, unable to do anything about it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not crying because I’m upset,” she said. “I’m crying because I was so happy and proud to be in Scotland, with these kind people, if I could no longer be in Chile. First, we had to stay with strangers in their homes, until things were sorted. And because I could speak English very well, I began to translate for the other refugees and helping the organization that was handling our care.” She laughed a bit. “We didn’t think of ourselves as refugees, of course. That’s what everyone else called us. We just thought of ourselves as lucky.”
“Is that where you met him? Translating? I saw he ran a program that worked with refugees,” Tav said. “I guess he used it to troll for innocent young women, too? What a hero.”
His mother wiped at the tears in her eyes. “I thought not telling you was best, but before anything, I have to say this—your father was a good man. He cared so much about helping people, and we thought we could help people together.”
“Then he ran off on us,” Tav said.
“No. Then, his father died. And his responsibilities fell onto him like a thunderclap from the sky.” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “His father had lost most of the family’s money on bad investments, and he was expected to fix their finances, join the peerage, produce an heir . . . but not with a Chilean refugee by his side.”
She shrugged.
Tav was furious on her behalf. “If he really loved you, he would have fought for you.”
His mother laughed. “You think that’s what love is? I told you that all those books about knights and chivalry as a boy would warp your expectations.”
His mother sighed and shook her head.
“He did. Fight for me, as you say. It was me who ended things. I told him it was over because I didn’t know him anymore. He’d already begun to change. To grow harder. To drink more. To get angry at me when he was really angry at the world for forcing him to fill this role. It broke him, I think.”
“You expect me to feel bad for him? That he was given power and property and, eventually, wealth?”
“Yes, I do, Tavish. Because I raised you better than to hate someone because it’s the easy thing to do. And if you want to hate someone, hate me. He didn’t know about you until years later.”
“Wha?” Tavish was so stunned he couldn’t even hit the last consonant. He hadn’t thought much about his biological father as a child—his real dad had been enough. In fact, it wasn’t until he’d inherited the property that he’d first felt the sting of resentment. That was when what he’d supposed had happened to his mother had solidified into the truth in his mind—but he’d had it all wrong.
She let out a stream of Spanish he couldn’t understand, then continued. “I didn’t tell him because I saw what that life did to him, and I didn’t want that forced onto you. And . . . I was scared. He was a powerful man who had become even more powerful, and I was a refugee. I had already learned once what the powerful were capable of. He could have done anything he wanted if he decided to keep you for himself. I couldn’t take the chance of losing my child, after everything else I had lost.”
Her tears had stopped and her chin was up. This was by no means an apology. It was an explanation. He felt like he deserved more, but it was simple if he thought about it. It was a lie of omission that had snowballed out of control and nearly squashed its teller. She’d thought she was doing the right thing. Tav couldn’t say that she hadn’t. He couldn’t say she had. He was too busy being squashed by the out-of-control snowball on its return trip.