Prince of Dreams (Stokehurst #2)(45)

The young woman spoke first, revealing a mouthful of uneven yellow teeth. “This is Jacob. ‘Is ma died a week ago, of ague. ‘Er last words were for someone to bring ‘im to you. No one in the village wants ‘im, anyway. I was the only one who took the trouble of looking after ‘im.” She held her hand out expectantly, wanting recompense for her pains.

Nikolas's face was blank. Deftly he motioned to the butler, who gave the girl a few coins. She pocketed her reward and started down the road without a word to the boy, without even a backward glance.

“What's going on?” Emma asked in astonishment. “Who is he, Nikolas?”

“It's not your concern. Go back inside.” Nikolas turned to Stanislaus. “Find someone to take care of him,” he muttered. “Just for a few days, until I can make arrangements.”

Emma stared at the boy, who waited with unnatural patience, his eyes fixed on the ground. She approached him as she might venture near a timid animal. Crouching down, she sat on her heels to be at eye level with him. “Hello, Jacob,” she said gently. The boy looked at her without replying. “Is that your name?” she continued. “Or do you like to be called Jake?”

The child had the coloring of a Russian icon, darkness and antique gold, and melancholy amber eyes shaded by bristly dark lashes. She had never seen eyes like that before, except…except…

Somehow Emma stood upright and stared at Nikolas in disbelief. Her knees shook beneath her. She moistened her lips and spoke hoarsely. “He's your son.”

Six

H IS SON, HIS son…Nikolas didn't move as Stanislaus bustled the boy to the kitchen to be fed. He was dimly aware of Emma's questions, but he ignored her as he would a pestering fly. After the child was out of sight, Nikolas made his way back into the manor like a sleepwalker. He went to the library and braced his hands on the mahogany cabinet where liquor was kept. Dully he stared at his own distorted reflection in the silver tray on the cabinet.

He had thought he would never have to see the child. From time to time he had actually managed to forget the boy's existence. To be confronted with him now, without warning, was a tremendous shock. But on top of that, to see resemblance between the child and his dead brother…Oh, God, Mikhail had looked exactly the same at that age: the rumpled black hair, the face of sullen and beguiling beauty, the luminous golden eyes. Nikolas fumbled for a glass and a decanter of brandy.

He remembered the countless times in his childhood when he had found Mikhail huddled in a corner or a closet, crying and bleeding after their father had molested him. Nikolas tossed the drink down and poured another. The guilt and rage of those boyhood years were still with him, although he rarely allowed himself to think about that time.

Why had their father made Mikhail an object of such obscene violence? “I'll find a way to stop you!” Nikolas had shouted, leaping to attack his father with a small knife after one of those episodes. “I'll kill you!” But his father had laughed and twisted his arm until his wrist fractured and the knife dropped away, and then he had beaten Nikolas unmercifully. And the abuse of Mikhail had continued.

It had ruined Misha forever, made him a bitter, empty adult who had eventually met with an untimely death. It had also ruined Nikolas. No matter that his parents and brother were both dead now; the memories were alive, and they had corrupted Nikolas's soul beyond repair. No love, fear, repentance, grief, would ever touch him. He would never be weak. No one would ever have the power to hurt him.

“Nikolas,” came Emma's exasperated voice behind him.

Startled from his reverie, he answered without facing her. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“I just want to know who Jacob's mother was, and why you never mentioned that you had a son. I don't think that's too much to ask!”

Nikolas turned and looked at his wife. Emma was bristling with outrage and confusion. A few locks of wild red hair escaped her ribbon, and she pushed them back impatiently.

He sighed and answered curtly. “Six years ago I had an affair with a woman who worked at a dairy house on one of my estates. A month after the relationship ended, she came to me with the news that she was pregnant. Since then, I've given her money at regular intervals to care for herself and the child. I never mentioned it because it has nothing to do with you or our marriage.”

Emma frowned bitterly. “Hand out some money—that's your solution for everything, isn't it?”

“What would you have had me do? Marry her? Sally was a pretty dairymaid with a healthy appetite for men. I wasn't the first to bed her, nor was I the last.”

“And so you decided to let your son become a tenant farmer? Never knowing who he was or about the people he came from? No proper name, no decent education—a life in a thatched-roof hovel? Don't you feel any responsibility for him?”

“I've paid for his upkeep since he was born. Naturally I'll continue to do so. And spare me the speeches about morality and responsibility. Most of the titled landowners in England have illegitimate children. I wouldn't doubt that your own father had a few bastard offspring here and there—”

“Never! My father takes care of his own—and he certainly never went around taking advantage of milkmaids!” Emma's lip curled scornfully. “Is Jacob your only illegitimate child, or are there more?”