Page 114 of Miss Vincent’s Vow

“I’m sorry, Jethro. I loved your mother, but my father threatened to disown me if I married the chambermaid. He forced me to wed the bride of his choice instead.”

“Wait—my mother was a chambermaid?”

“Yes. In my father’s house. She had rebuffed my advances before, but one night, I caught her alone in my room and I kissed her.”

Jethro leaned back in his chair, staring into space, as pieces of his past slotted into place.

No wonder his mother had got so cross with him for stealing a single kiss from a chambermaid. Why she had always urged him to respect those dependent on him.

It made so much sense that Jethro was forced to believe that Mr Wade was telling the truth. He had ruined his mother. But that didn’t mean Jethro had to accept he was the man’s son.

Mr Wade fetched a box from a side-table and rested it on Jethro’s lap. “I hoped you would take my word for it, but I brought this in case you needed convincing. It contains the letters your mother wrote to me, to keep me appraised of your progress.”

Jethro opened the lid and picked up the top letter, recognising his mother’s simple handwriting at a glance. It began “Dear Granville” and was written just six months before her death.

He could hear his mother speaking as he read her words on the page, telling this man about him. Jethro’s expression hardened as he realised she never once referred to him as your son—always Jethro or my son.

He looked at the next letter and the wording was the same.

“So, my mother knew you, and by your own confession, you took advantage of her. By my reckoning, you owed her something. You acted out of guilt. That doesn’t make you my father. There’s nothing in here that so much as hints of a closer relationship between us.”

Mr Wade grimaced. “After my marriage, your mother made me return all her letters. The only ones I still have are those that she agreed to send me each year, advising me of your progress. After her death, I hired Legg to keep an eye on you. I’m sorry that didn’t work out too well, but I was desperate for information about you. I couldn’t ask the solicitor too many questions without raising suspicion.”

“How did you know she’d died?”

“She failed to come to London to see me as planned. It was part of our agreement. One letter and one visit a year.”

“On the supposed anniversary of my father’s death,” Jethro said through gritted teeth. “It all makes sense now. Why she always discouraged me from going with her. Why she was so downcast when she returned. I thought she mourned for a dead man, but she didn’t. She was grieving over your betrayal.”

“You can stop looking as if you’d like to kill me, son.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I swear your mother never treated me as anything but a friend after my marriage.”

“A friend? The man who seduced her and left her for another?”

“I have nothing to say in my defence, except that I loved her, and I provided for you both, as well as I could. Do you believe me now?”

Emotion choked Jethro like never before. Every fibre of his being revolted at the notion that he could be Mr Wade’s natural son.

The man was lying. He must be. There had to be another answer.

Mr Wade seemed to take his silence as acquiescence.

“Excellent. I have no other children—probably God’s judgement on me for the way I treated your mother—and plan to make you my heir. I’d like you to come to town with me, you and your lovely wife, so I can introduce you to my associates as my son—”

“No!”

Mr Wade’s words filled Jethro with revulsion. All the shame and hurt this man had caused welled up inside him. Cassandra didn’t deserve this disgrace, and he would do whatever he had to in order to protect her. Even if he lost his business.

He would refute Mr Wade’s claims, and no one need ever know. Cut all ties with the man and bury his past so deep that it would be impossible for anyone to find it.

“You may claim to be my father, but I refuse to accept that I am your son, however much it might benefit me. You have no right to blast into my life and make demands of me. I’m grateful you didn’t leave us to starve, and provided for my education. For investing in my business when I was starting out.

“But you abandoned my mother, and I can’t forget that. Keep your money. I want nothing more to do with you.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Jethro. I’m not the first man to have a bye-blow. If I acknowledge you as my son and put my wealth behind you, no one will care if you’re legitimate or not.”