Page 17 of An Earl's Bet
Earnest’s heart broke for the young boy Hugo had been.He had meant it when Hugo should have spent his childhood happy and free, playing pranks like dressing up in the display armour and riding silver platters down the stairs.He should’ve been escaping his governess by climbing out the window or making the servants squeal by putting frogs in their aprons or sitting in trees.Hugo shouldn’t have spent his childhood scared.
“And did following his rules ever prevent one of his punishments?"
Hugo gasped.“No, but that only meant I had to try harder.”
“Or it means your father was a miserable old man who liked hitting you.”
“But he said it was my fault.”
Earnest blinked.“He was wrong.It is not your fault.There is absolutely no logic to that statement.He abused you and made you feel like you deserved it.It’s wrong.Wrong.Wrong.Wrong.”He wanted to thump Hugo on the chest every time he said that to emphasis his point, but he had enough instinct to know that hitting someone who’d been hit his whole childhood wasn’t the greatest choice.Instead, he kissed him.“It was never your fault.”If he repeated it often enough, hopefully Hugo would believe it.
“Do you think so?”
“I know so.It wasn’t your fault.”
Hugo’s breath rattled in his chest as Earnest held him tight.“I wish I could believe you.”
“If you saw a grown man hitting a child, who would you blame?”
“The man.But it was different in my case.”
Earnest didn’t say anything, just pressed kisses to Hugo’s knuckles as he waited.
“Why is it so hard to believe that my father was wrong?”
“Fathers are supposed to protect their families, not beat them.We are all taught to respect and believe our fathers, so of course, you believed him.You were the child; it is natural for you to believe him.And he lied to you.”
Hugo made a strangled noise.“I still check for him in every room in this house.I can’t enter a room without pausing and making sure he’s not there.Sometimes I wish I could just burn the whole house down so that I’d be able to stop worrying about him being there.”
“I bet you could.Society would call it a tragic accident.”He could just imagine it.It would be extraordinary to see flames flickering through the roof and watching a symbol of power burn to the ground.
Hugo sagged.“It would an extraordinary waste of money.”
“Can you afford to rebuild?”
Hugo made a snuffling noise with his face buried against Earnest’s shoulder.He couldn’t tell if Hugo was laughing or crying, or maybe both, but he felt honoured to be the one here holding him as he worked it out.
“Or let’s put it in language you’ve already used,” Earnest figured out what might help Hugo.“If you break the rules by burning down your own house, what bad things do you imagine happening?”
“Aside from not having a house?”
“Will you be without somewhere to live if you burn down this house?”Earnest knew Hugo had other places; he’d camped on the lawn in front of his London townhouse.
Hugo gulped.“No.I have a townhouse in London, and several smaller estates.”
“What else might go wrong?”
“If people discovered I’d done it on purpose, they might think poorly of me?”
Earnest rolled his eyes.“God forbid.”
“How am I supposed to get bad laws changed if my peers think I’m the type of person who would burn down his own estate?”
Earnest had to concede that one.“Excellent point.I’ll allow that one.”
“You’ll allow it?”
“Yes.I can’t guarantee that bad things won’t happen.Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but I bet if you burned down this house, you could rebuild a home where you wouldn’t be forever checking for your father’s ghost.”