Lord Harry's Folly, Catherine Coulter [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

the aristocracy. Only their destruction would elevate the common man to political equality with his betters. His subsequent words were even more fanatical and traitorous, and I refuse to sully your ears with his raving insults, his vile accusations. He accused me of fanaticism. Me! I couldn’t believe that I’d spawned such a vile creature. I finally became convinced that my blood my son was one of that lot bent upon destroying the very fabric of England. I couldn’t allow it.

“So you see, my child, I had no honorable choice left to me but to use my influence with Lord Melberry in the ministry to have your brother removed immediately from England. I wanted only distance between him and that damnable fool Lord Grayson.”

Hetty said in a peculiarly quiet voice, “You’re telling me, Father, that because Damien held radical political views, you had him ordered from England? You arranged that he be engaged in dangerous missions in Spain and Portugal? You arranged that his orders be changed so at the last moment he led a suicidal cavalry charge at Waterloo?”

“Yes, but not Waterloo until I learned that Lord Grayson was in contact with your brother even then. They were planning together what they would accomplish when your brother returned to England. They were going to join the Luddites, Henrietta. The Luddites! They planned to have men infiltrate the factories and destroy them from within. They would have men march on the House of Lords itself and demand reform. It was then that we all knew we had to act, to remove the stain on my family, to remove the stain on all of England.”

“You killed your son because he didn’t want to be what you were? You killed him because he disagreed with you politically?”

Sir Archibald gazed at his daughter with some surprise. “You make it sound as if I dismissed your brother out of some fanciful whimsy. You question my actions in this affair?”

The marquess said quietly, “What then was your role, sir, in Damien’s activities?”

Sir Archibald’s voice suddenly became stern, a strange glint of inflexibility in his blue eyes. “As I’ve told you, Damien was a traitor to every honorable belief that I had instilled in him from his youth. He had shown himself a radical bent upon the destruction of all that any decent Englishman holds dear. You can quite imagine that Lord Melberry and indeed many of the gentlemen in the ministry were appalled when I told them of my own son’s subversive activities. It was my request that Damien be forced to serve his country, to shed his blood, if need be, so that he would in some measure lift the dishonor from our house. I gave no direct order for him to lead that cavalry charge. I later learned that an overzealous general under whose command Damien had been placed dispatched him to the battleground. You must know that I grieved at your brother’s death. But he died as a hero of his country. The world will never know that without my actions, your brother would have heaped shame and dishonor upon all those who cared for him, upon all those who loved him, who trusted him.”

By God, the marquess thought, gazing at Sir Archibald, he is quite mad in his saneness. He suspected that his uncle, Lord Melberry, was as deeply involved in arranging Damien’s missions as was Sir Archibald. He gazed past Sir Archibald to Hetty. Her face was pale and drawn with shock, her eyes unseeing. He shook himself into action.

“Sir,” he said to his future father-in-law, “you will understand, of course, that your words have caused Henrietta great surprise and distress. Needless to say, that since I am to become her husband, you can rely implicitly upon my discretion in this matter. If you wouldn’t mind, I think it best that you leave her with me alone for a time, so that she may recover from her shock.”

“I suppose since I chose you for her that it wouldn’t be improper. See to her, my boy, don’t let her despise her poor brother. Don’t let her hold his memory in abhorrence.” Satisfied, Sir Archibald rose with surprising grace for a man of his years, smiled down at his daughter in his gentle way, then turned and stretched out his hand to the marquess. “I accept you into my family, my boy. I told Henrietta all along that you would make her the perfect husband. Such a dear child she is always obeys her father’s wishes, always wants to please her family.” He patted Hetty’s stiff shoulder and let himself out of the drawing room.

The marquess gazed at Hetty, wondering just what the devil he could say to her. He strode over to her and sat down beside her, clasping her limp hands in his. “Hetty, my love, I wish to be here for you forever. And I will be. We will talk about this. It’s incredible. I suspect that my uncle Melberry is in just as deep as is your father. That he believes he saved your family from dishonor leaves my brain waving in the wind, but, Hetty, he believes himself to have behaved appropriately, to have behaved in the only way open to him.”

She looked at him, straight in the face. “I would rather you leave, Jason. This is a home of tragedy, of murder, and it’s the murder of a son by his father. It’s not a nice family, Jason. No, I want you to leave. I can’t marry you. I carry my father’s blood. Jesus, there’s nothing I can salvage from this. My father’s blind honor, it doesn’t surprise me all that much, but to kill his own son. His own son! You don’t want a wife who’s so tainted.”

His black brows met over his eyes and his hands tightened over her fingers.

“Poor Jason,” she said in a soft, singsong voice. “I’ve done naught but unearth old wounds and create new ones for you. How strange it