After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(6)

“I always said the time would come,” his uncle said, patting Adrian’s hand. “I always said I would acknowledge you one day, and never mind the consequences. You know I love you, do you not?”

Adrian’s nose twitched on that word: consequences. They hadn’t really argued about consequences last time.

When he’d been his uncle’s amanuensis-slash-nephew–in–hiding, he had needed to construct arguments in letters on his uncle’s behalf. Denmore had taught him to hide his passion behind rational argument. Adrian always tried to meet people on the ground they knew best. Last time Adrian had met his uncle, they had debated the matter as if it were a question set before Parliament and they were indifferent observers hashing out the benefits and detriments.

“So.” Adrian folded his arms. He imagined the rationality his uncle preferred settling over his shoulders like a cloak, hiding the furious joy that threatened to break through his calm. “How have you planned the announcement? Have you consulted with your brother the duke yet?”

“Ah…” Denmore blinked.

“Will you tell them that your sister did not perish, as your father claimed so many years ago?” Adrian had thought about this for so long; he had so many ideas as to how to proceed. “Or would you rather start by introducing my father and brother? I know you worry about the connection with trade, but the trade my family engages in is of a particularly honorable sort. My father is a respectable gentleman who has devoted his life to a just cause—”

“Adrian.”

Ah. He hadn’t sufficiently hidden his enthusiasm. Adrian bit back his excitement.

“There is no way to soften the blow our family’s reputation will suffer when the news is out,” his uncle said. “A duke’s daughter ran off with a black abolitionist thirty-five years ago. My father told everyone she was dead rather than admit the truth. It will be a scandal no matter how it’s announced.”

Adrian took a deep breath. No point getting angry at the truth, even if his own uncle was the one saying it in that way. Except…it was not entirely the truth.

“My mother did not run off,” Adrian said mildly. “My mother was a widow. It took my parents three years working together on the matter of abolition before they decided to marry, which they did—legally, properly.” Rational; that was the way to convince his uncle. “You of all people know it matters how an issue is presented. My mother married a man who cared about a cause. How does that pose a problem?”

“It won’t matter that they were married.”

“As for my father, he—”

“Nor that your father was a man of property.”

“That’s not the point.” Adrian lived in his own skin, damn it. His father could have been supreme emperor of the entire world for all that British society cared. The fact that his father was black would be a scandal, no matter how it was laid out. He knew that, but still—“I know it won’t matter to some people, but it should, and if we are to have any chance of changing the way things are, we must talk of my parents as people first.”

His uncle just looked at him briefly, then turned away.

From his uncle’s point of view, this must seem a frightening step. It hurt a little, that this man who had been so kind still saw Adrian as an object of fear and not just a nephew—but Adrian had been lucky in his life. He could handle a little more personal hurt, if it led to the right result. His uncle had agreed to acknowledge him, and that was a good step forward. Adrian could acknowledge the hurt once the joy had come.

“Very well, then. If you’ve decided to do it, then it’s a matter of accepting the consequences as inevitable. I suppose Lassiter is no longer a problem?”

Bishop Lassiter was his uncle’s rival in the church. He had been Denmore’s excuse for the last two years. There was no rivalry so bitter as one between two men equal in rank and seniority, who opposed each other on every principle.

Adrian’s uncle brightened. “I’m so glad you mentioned him. That’s the very thing I need to discuss with you. He won’t be a problem…soon.”

Adrian looked over. There was a light in his uncle’s eyes.

His uncle leaned in excitedly. “Do you by any chance recall that favor you did for me on accident several years ago?”

“No,” Adrian said swiftly. No, he wouldn’t do it, he meant, but his uncle took it as simple denial.

“When those men took you for a servant and divulged those very embarrassing details in your presence. Well.” His uncle slipped a piece of paper across the table with a self-satisfied smile. “Here,” he said. “Lassiter is advertising for a valet.”

It took Adrian a moment to process those words. To understand what his uncle was asking him to do.

He shook his head. “Impossible.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of obtaining references on your behalf,” the man said, as if Adrian had spoken of a practical impossibility instead of the fact that his soul rebelled against the thought of entering service to spy on another man. “Lassiter won’t connect the letters to me at all. And there’s a fashion for black servants in London at the moment. Lassiter is vain enough to indulge.”

Adrian turned his head away as much as he could without being rude. “I could not possibly pose as a valet.”