be all bad.”
Charles gave him a look.
“Very well. At all bad,” the marquess allowed. Landon glanced about the room. “And then there was one.”
Charles waggled his eyebrows. “Perhaps not for long?”
Landon burst out laughing.
KnockKnockKnock.
They looked to the entrance of the room, and Landon pointed. “Perhaps that is my future knocking, even now?”
The door burst open; Charles and Landon stood.
Seamus came sprinting forward, with Camille following along at a more sedate pace behind him.
“As I said,” Landon called. “Fate was knocking.”
Glaring at his friend, Charles moved out from behind his desk. “Don’t even think about it,” he warned before turning his attention to the little figure hurtling his way.
Landon winked.
“Scarsdale!” Seamus cried happily, rushing into Charles’s arms, and he caught the boy to him, pretending to stagger back under his slight weight.
“Grown a stone in the week since I’ve seen you, you have!”
“I know what I am,” Seamus said, as if remembering himself, and with the need to be a mature figure in the presence of older gentlemen, he stepped stiffly out of Charles’s arms.
Camille rested a hand upon her son’s shoulder. “You are a strong, mighty boy.”
“The fiercest!” Landon exclaimed, and made a show of squeezing Seamus’s biceps.
The little boy giggled.
His friend shifted all his focus to Charles’s sister. “Lady Camille! The only sunny spot in—”
“England,” she said drolly. “You must find some new material, Landon.”
He staggered back. “Never tell me—”
“You’ve used that before? Indeed. Several times, in fact.” Going up on tiptoe, she kissed her brother on the cheek. “Charles.”
“He’s becoming rusty in his doddering years, isn’t he, sister?” Charles asked, vastly preferring having fun at his roguish friend’s expense to the earlier flirting he’d been doing with Camille.
“No. No!” The other man clucked his tongue like an angry rooster. “Not doddering. I’m like a fine bottle of brandy, richer and better with age.”
“Hardly richer.” Charles couldn’t resist, and his boyhood friend threw up his fists and boxed at the air.
Landon let his arms fall to his sides. “I always enjoy having my reputation as a rogue and gentleman challenged. Alas, I will leave you to your family business.” Lifting a hand in salute, he waved to Charles’s assembled family and left.
The moment he’d gone, Charles started for the bellpull. “I’ll ring for refreshments.”
“No. No!” Camille called quickly. “That will not be necessary.”
“For Seamus, then.”
“I am fine,” his nephew insisted.
Even so, Charles continued, and rang the bell. A young maid appeared almost instantly. “Have a tray brought of the Bakewell tart that Master Seamus prefers, please.”
Seamus’s face lit.
“I said no, Charles,” his sister admonished, settling into the mahogany two-seat settee in the middle of the room, Seamus taking the place beside her.
Charles opened his mouth to make a quip, but something stopped him—the serious set to her features. The tension at the corners of her mouth and eyes. All earlier levity faded as he pushed the door shut and joined the pair. “What is it?” he asked quietly after he’d sat on the Gainsborough chair closest to his nephew.
“I told Mother and Father I was coming. That I wished to speak with you”—Camille glanced over at the child next to her—“about . . . Seamus.”
He immediately tensed. “Is everything—”
“Please,” she interrupted.
“She’s planned out her speech,” Seamus said on a loud whisper, and that teasing camaraderie in his nephew’s playful voice drove back some of the tension.
“We should let her continue, then,” Charles said with a wink.
“Ahem. As I was saying.” His sister favored each of them with a frown. “Seamus is a clever boy.”
“The cleverest,” Charles said automatically, the words born of truth.
“There’s never been any matter he couldn’t solve,” Camille went on. “He sees everything, and knows even more.”
All earlier lightness aside, his nephew stared down at his lap, and a sense of dread returned and grew within Charles. “What is it?” he asked for a second time.
Camille looked at the boy. “Tell him,” she urged in gentling tones, maternal ones.
At last, Seamus looked up. “I know you’re not my father,” he said with a bluntness that knocked Charles back on his leather upholstered chair.
It had always been . . . understood. But neither had it been anything the family spoke of.
Charles found his voice. “I love you as if I were.” He spoke in solemn tones.
The little boy nodded. “I know that. I also know she is my mother.” As if there were another woman in the room and the statement needed clarification, Seamus pointed to Camille.
There it was. At last, they’d spoken the truth aloud. It