When the Earl Met His Match (Wedded by Scandal #4) - Stacy Reid Page 0,12

wealthy beyond their imagination.”

His father had taken Hugh and his two younger siblings from England when he was only a boy of ten years, claiming he’d found the air too foul to raise his beloved children. Society had been cruel in their speculations, and even as a child Hugh had understood the sly murmurs of “not the earl’s son” or “bastard children foisted on the earl.” He did not resemble anyone in the Winthrop extended family or anyone in the paintings which hung in the gallery. Even then, he had heard the whispers from the servants of his beautiful mother and her lovers. Was his father the Italian count? Or the Egyptian Emissary who had been in England around the time she got with child? Who amongst her many lovers had hair as black as midnight and eyes as dark blue and unfathomable as the terrifying depths of the ocean?

He glanced back at the man who still retained traces of his ash blond hair and his vibrant green eyes, traits common to the Winthrops. A dark curiosity shifted through Hugh. “Father…do you truly believe me to be your son?” His hands and fingers signed the words before he had fully processed them.

Shock flared in his father’s eyes before his expression shuttered into a civil mask. Hugh’s heart throbbed, and he stared at the old earl, careful to only display the mildest of curiosity. His father had always shown him love and acceptance. Hugh returned the sentiments, and it affected him somewhere deep down that this man truly was not his sire. Worse…he had hurt the old earl with his query. Hugh wanted to apologize for opening old wounds, but he remained guarded.

“In all the years we’ve been together, you have never asked me this,” his father said gruffly.

“You thought me ignorant of the rumors.”

“Yes,” he replied with an evident touch of reluctance. “You were young when we left that vile place.”

A spurt of amusement darted through Hugh. “Did you also believe me to be ignorant of my features?”

His father gripped the head of his silver walking cane with gnarled fingers and with labored steps walked to the edge of the cliff. Hugh ensured he remained close but gave him enough space to breathe, to still know that he retained the power to stand on his own.

“Marianne.”

Hugh flinched at that low, aching whisper, grateful the wind had snatched it away and flung it down to the sea before it lingered in the air. A side glance at his father showed his weathered face creased with remembered pain and longing.

He touched his shoulder, and when his father glanced at him, he signed. “I did not mean to stir painful memories, Father.”

The only reply was a deep grunt that sounded like a choked chuckle. His father had married Lady Marianne Bartley, a beautiful social butterfly and the most sought-after diamond in the ton, when he was two and fifty and she was only nineteen. His father said the first time he had seen her had been like a lightning strike to his heart, and for the first time in his life, he knew love. Rumors of her many affairs had been vaunted even before Hugh’s birth, and when he arrived into the world and that world peered upon him, the wagging tongues had moved from murmurs and supposition to a roar—the countess had foisted a bastard onto her lord.

All society had known, all society had spoken, and all had judged. Then, when it had been revealed that he was a mute, it had been said the countess was being punished for her sinful ways. Hugh knew it all…his father perhaps thought he was ignorant because they had been living near the coast of Scotland for almost fifteen years, but the old earl had also taught him how to be calculating…how to plan steps ahead, and how to use his money and resources to unearth answers to any question that needed an answer.

“Father—”

“The only thing that matters is that you are my son.”

“And Caroline and Matthew?”

His father observed him under slightly knit brows. “You are aware of the full truth?”

He lifted his fingers. “We are not blind, Father. Did you not find it odd that only recently Caroline has learned my language? Before that, we barely spoke.”

His father’s eyes went dark with unnamed emotions, ones Hugh could not identify.

“You are all my children, and not a damn soul in society will say otherwise to your faces.” The earl’s voice sounded rough, choked, foreign to