Page 99 of A Relentless Rake

He glanced down at his empty glass. Sweet Lucifer, he needed another drink. He pushed himself away from the table to refill his glass.

“But it’s time now,” she countered with resolve. “It’s time for all of us to come to terms with the past.” She paused and pulled in a deep, trembling breath. “And we will recognize the captain.”

He stopped, surprised. “Are you certain you want to do that?”

To recognize Nate Reed as a son of St James… The repercussions would be immense for the entire family.

It was one thing to have an illegitimate half brother, yet something completely different for that brother to be recognized. Alec would become an even greater object of gossip, potentially lose power in Parliament and Whitehall. Beth’s standing among the unmarried ladies of thetonwould be threatened, along with Aunt Agnes’s already fragile hold on respectability. The consequences could be even worse for his mother; no matter that half the men in thetonhad fathered bastards, Isabel Sinclair could very well become a social pariah if society blamed her for her husband’s infidelity.

She knew that, too, yet she nodded resolutely. “We owe it to Captain Reed and to his mother.”

Alec exhaled a rough breath. Reparations for his father’s evils would be made. Even from the grave, Rupert Sinclair was still hurting people, still finding a way to destroy lives. And his family was still forced to suffer the repercussions.

Although now, this step toward absolution came as a welcomed relief.

“Why did you keep this secret for so long?” he pressed gently. “Why didn’t you tell me when he first arrived in London?”

“So many years had passed by then. What good could have come from revealing it?” Her voice grew softer. “No one else deserved to be hurt because of the past.”

He murmured, half to himself, “Olivia said almost the exact same thing.”

A faint smile teased at his mother’s lips. “She’s a smart girl.”

“Downright brilliant.” Especially about what mattered most. What mattered was love and trust, forgiveness and charity, and nothing was as simple as it appeared on the surface. Illusion, all of it. What was important was the heart beneath. Olivia had taught him that.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you like this over a woman, Alexander.” She tilted her head to study him. “I’d wager you were in love.”

He paused with a denial poised on his tongue from rakish habit. Then he lowered his shoulders. “Yes.” He slumped against the reading table and pressed his eyes closed. There was no point in denying the obvious. “I am.”

“Well, then,” she asked softly and with motherly happiness coloring her voice, “what do you plan on doing about it?”

He shook his head. What choice did he have? “Marriage is out of the question.” Since he was a boy, he’d been raised to put the title and the earldom above all else, including his own happiness. Now, for the first time in his life, what he wanted as a man conflicted with what was best for the title. He wanted nothing more than to say to hell with it and choose whathewanted for once. Yet he was still obligated to his family, to their happiness and future, and so still obligated to the earldom. “I owe it to the title to find the daughter of a peer to—”

“You owe nothing more to this title.”

His eyes flew open at her answer and at the harsh resolve with which she’d uttered it.

“Everything this family has now is because of you. I haven’t always agreed with the activities you’ve been involved in or the people you’ve spent time with—”

He rolled his eyes. Some things never changed.

“But my dear boy,” she said softly, her voice trembling, “you deserve to be happy.”

He shoved away from the table and began to pace. He simply couldn’t remain still, not with the way the world was tilting beneath his feet and everything he thought to be true was turning upside down.

“I’m an earl, and she’s a schoolmistress. We’re as opposite as can be.” He stopped in front of the window and watched the raindrops drizzle down the glass. Not daring to look at his mother, he quietly confessed his fear— “She might not want to marry me.”

His mother rose and went to his side. Her soft hand on his shoulder brought his attention away from the rain and to her. “She loves you. I see it on her face every time she looks at you. She follows her heart, and it’s led her to you.” She added meaningfully, “Where is your heart leadingyou, Alexander?”

Marriage to Olivia…could he truly have that? His pulse spiked with hope at a future with the only woman who made him happy. The only woman he wanted to spend every morning and night with, every day for the rest of his life.

But reality crashed back over him. “It’s not only about me. It might make life harder for you and Beth. Already she’s the subject of gossip for having a bastard half brother. If her legitimate brother marries outside theton, she might be cut completely, and you and Agnes right along with her.”

“Do not worry about us. Elizabeth is going to marry Mr. Mullins, so there’s no need to worry that she won’t find a proper husband. Agnes and her eccentricities have become endeared to society, in their own way, and the gossips won’t be bothered by me, an old dowager.” When he began to contradict her, she cut him off. “Besides, the lot of us could dance down Pall Mall in our unmentionables and society still wouldn’t dare snub the most powerful and wealthiest earl in England or his family.”

Alec wasn’t convinced. He shook his head. “If we marry, there will be gossip and scandal.”

His mother cupped his face in her hands just as she used to do when he was a boy. “When have you ever cared about gossip and scandal? You’ve always lived your life the way you wanted. This is no different.”