Mildred glanced up at Sebastian beseechingly and drew him toward her with surprisingly strong hands. She gasped and coughed with the effort the simple action took, but refused to give in to death’s icy grasp. The fierce glint of determination in her watery grey eyes immediately began to dull, but she kept her gaze locked steadily on his and tried desperately to find the best way to tell him. This was her final chance to put things right and she simply would not relinquish her hold on life until the secrets of the past were revealed. It was far too late for her to make sure that the Cavendish brothers actually did something useful with the information she was about to impart. However, she knew that they were a determined group of men who would not stop until they had unearthed the truth and welcomed the past into the present. She just had to find a way to break the news to them.
“Come closer boy, I do not have the energy to shout,” she grumbled, and frowned at Sebastian in disapproval when he rolled his eyes and leaned toward her. If she had been fit and agile she would have reached up and clipped him behind the ears. Even as tall and grown up as he was he wasn’t too big for clout at the back of the neck. Now that she lay on her death bed though, she had to settle for a dark look that did little to appease the growing concern of everyone present that she was running out of time.
Sebastian patted the back of her bony hand absently as he smiled gently down at her. His eyes held a hint of challenge, as though he dared her to step away from the grasping hands of death and scold him, but she couldn’t.
“What is it, aunt? What do you want to tell me?” He flicked a look at his brothers who stood on the opposite end of the bed.
Half an hour ago, they had all been summoned by the butler to gather around their aunt’s deathbed because she had some grave news she wanted to tell them. Now that they were there, nobody knew what to say. Aunt Mildred was clearly struggling to stay alive long enough to tell them what she felt she needed to, and they could do nothing but stand patiently, wait and hope that she didn’t succumb to death before she had eased her burden.
She glanced at each man in turn. Her eyes turned faintly challenging, as though she knew they wouldn’t like what she was going to say but she was going to say it anyway. She released Sebastian’s hand and waved him to stand beside his brothers so she could see them all together without too much effort.
“Your mother was immensely proud of all of you, you know that.” Grief heightened the emotional atmosphere within the room at the mention of their mother, and Mildred’s sister, Alice, who had died several years earlier in a carriage accident with her husband. The grief was still strong in all of them, but Mildred had no hesitation in speaking ill of the dead now. In fact, she had the strangest feeling that her dearest sister was up in heaven, urging her to tell Dominic, Sebastian and Edward everything. At least she hoped so, because the shock she was about to lay upon them was going to change all of their lives.
“Your mother was a wonderful woman. So kind, strong, gentle, with such a deep adoration of all three of you. You were her pride and joy, you should know that. However, she spent her life plagued with regrets. You have mentioned the sadness she seemed to carry with her on occasions, and wondered many times where it came from.” Mildred swallowed and wet her lips. “She had a secret, you see? A secret that was very close to her heart which caused her a lot of pain.”
“What secret?” Dominic demanded with a frown when Mildred lapsed into silence and stared off into the distance.
They all knew what Mildred was referring to. Although their mother had outwardly appeared happy and content with her life and the love of her husband, there had been many occasions when she had been so indescribably sad that it was almost as though she was miles away. She carried the pain around with her like a cloak around her shoulders and although she laughed and sounded gay, her smiles never really reached her eyes. She never spoke about what brought tears to her eyes so frequently. Whenever someone had the temerity to ask, she had merely smiled a watery smile, wiped her tears away, and denied that anything was amiss.
The men looked at each other. They knew they were on the cusp of finding out what their mother’s distress had all been about. Had it been an old paramour perhaps or a mistake in the past that she bitterly regretted? The silence within the room was broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantle as they watched Mildred struggle to fight for life. They all fervently hoped that she would hang on long enough to tell them, but none of them were prepared for her next words.
“You have a half-brother,” she gasped.
She fervently hoped that she hadn’t left it too late to ask them to gather around her. It was suddenly so very difficult to breathe. If only she hadn’t caught that blasted cough last spring, she would have had at least a couple of years in her. Now that she was at death’s door, the ghosts of the past seemed to have resurrected, as though they were determined to be released out into the open while there was still a chance. She fought the heavy weight on her chest and stubbornly refused to acknowledge the uneven beating of her heart as she studied each man in turn.
“She was a lovely young woman, your mother. Very pretty and much sought after. She had already married your father and had you, Dominic but at first their marriage was not a happy one. He spent most of his time in London, and had a mistress. Your mother preferred the country and stopped here to look after you. At some point, while they were living their separate lives, she met and took a lover of her own, and I am afraid that a child came from that union.”
“Did father know?” Dominic slumped down onto the bed, stunned to say the very least. He studied Mildred’s eyes and wondered if she was off with the fairies again, but the calm certainty in her gaze told him that she was completely lucid and determined to impart the truth.
The wheezing in her chest suddenly increased and she coughed so hard that she was left limp and gasping on the bed. Her face paled and he knew with absolute certainty that she didn’t have long to discuss matters before the ability to breathe failed her completely.
“Yes, he found out,” she gasped. “At first he was livid and I understand that there were many arguments, but he had been bedding a mistress in London, and was hardly in a position to judge Alice too harshly for doing exactly the same as him. She went away to stay at a cousin’s in Yorkshire for her confinement. Nobody knew about the baby, except for the baby’s father.” She sighed and glanced ruefully at him. “I don’t know the specific details, but I do know that the child’s father found her in her confinement and took the child when it had been born. She came back here a heartbroken woman, and never spoke of the man or boy ever again.” She dabbed at the tears in her own eyes with a trembling hand. Those years seemed such a long time ago, yet the memories were as vivid as though they had only happened yesterday.
“Your mother’s tears will haunt me forever. They never dried and I don’t think that a day went past when she didn’t think about him at least a hundred times. Your father seemed to realise that he was going to lose his wife if he didn’t do something to save his marriage, so he gave up his mistress and moved here to run the estates. Of course, then you and Edward came along, Sebastian, and your parents seemed to sort themselves out and settle into marriage, but your mother was never the same after that. She never forgot.”
“Did she try to find him?”
Mildred nodded. “She knew where he was, she just couldn’t go to him because your father wouldn’t permit it. She had you three and her life here to lose if she did go to Yorkshire, and she had handed the baby’s care over to his father. There was little she could do. She couldn’t go back.”
“Who was the father?” Edward gasped. He was stunned, awed, horrified, and glanced at Dominic who looked equally as shocked by the revelation.
“There are rumours, but she refused to say.”
“Do you have any details? I mean names or anything?”
Determination glinted in Dominic’s beautiful green eyes as he studied his aunt. She smiled faintly; inwardly relieved that he would pick up the mantle, and would not stop searching for the lost half-brother until he knew what had happened to him. “I know that if your half-brother has grown up to be anything like you three then he will be a very fine man indeed.”
A further coughing fit wracked her from head to toe, and the room began to dim around the edges. She felt the pressure of time, and gasped several times in an attempt to draw in enough air to tell them the last bit.
“His name is Harper. Harper Lawton.” She began to wince in discomfort, but desperately clawed at Sebastian, who stood at the side of the bed closest to her. They had to know. They just had to know, before death claimed her. “When you find him, you must tell him that he is Lord Cavendish, the Earl of Hopswich.”
With that, Mildred knew that she had done her best to release the family ghosts from the chains of the past. What the men chose to do about the news was purely down to them. She could do no more.
They all watched as Mildred gasped several times and then stopped breathing altogether. Her eye lids drifted slowly closed and silence settled over the room.
“Good Lord,” Edward whispered, stunned beyond words. He had seen people die before, many times, and was sad to have lost an elderly aunt, but nothing had ever shocked him more than her deathbed revelations. “Do you think she is right?”
“She seemed determined to fight to stay alive long enough to tell us,” Dominic replied with a sigh.
Edward covered Mildred’s body over with a sheet and stood back to pay his respects for a moment. Eventually, when their prayers were completed, they solemnly made their way out of the room.
“At least we have a name,” Sebastian sighed when they were in the hallway. He wondered how on earth anyone went about trying to find a person just by name alone.
“We know the baby was born in Yorkshire,” Edward added hopefully and shook his head when Dominic gave him a hard stare.
“Yes, he was born in Yorkshire; along with hundreds of babies in hundreds of parishes. It should be so easy to find one,” he retorted sarcastically.
“We could live to be a hundred years old and never get to the end of searching all the registers in Yorkshire, even if we could find the time,” Sebastian frowned. “Did mother have any personal letters or diaries, at all? Something we can look at to see if she made reference to where she gave birth?”
“We know she had the child in Yorkshire. The only relative we had in Yorkshire at the time was Uncle Malcolm. He passed away several years back but the estate was passed to his son, Terrence. I have a few letters of mama’s tucked away in the safe, but I have already read them. There is no mention of any baby, or a lover for that matter,” Dominic replied thoughtfully.
“One of us needs to go to Yorkshire to speak to Terrence,” Sebastian sighed. He had hoped to spend several weeks with his brothers and their children and didn’t relish any one of them being away for several days while they undertook the journey, but there were so many unanswered questions that he knew none of them would settle until they had the answers.
“Terrence isn’t likely to have mama’s letters,” Edward countered.
Sebastian rolled his eyes and shook his head as he moved to the stairs. “I know that, but he could have his mother’s diaries, which may mention whether our mother and her baby were in residence.”
“I think that we need to keep this matter private for the time being.” Dominic followed his brothers to the top of the stairs and studied the hallway below. “We don’t know whether it is a scandal that we need to keep hidden.”
He nodded sadly to the maids waiting at the end of the hallway, and sent one of them off to fetch the footmen to move the body down to the cold rooms at the bottom of the house.
They made their way to the study and helped themselves to liberal doses of brandy before they each took a seat before the fire. They sat in quiet contemplation for a long time; each lost to their own memories of Mildred’s presence in their lives and her stunning surprise.
In the end, it was Sebastian who asked the question his brothers were thinking.
“Do we even bother to try to find him?” Sebastian sighed. “I mean, it is so long ago now that the man has to be in his thirties. If he was brought up as a tradesman, how is he going to adjust to life as an Earl? He won’t have been raised to cope with the responsibilities of running an estate, or a house like this, let alone handle the benefits that having a title will bring.”
“I quite agree. He could be a wastrel or, even worse, in prison. What do we do then? I mean, he is a relation and has entailments. We have a duty to ensure that he is at least made aware of what he is entitled to. But -,” Edward held a hand up when Sebastian took a breath to speak, “but, we cannot risk the reputation of the rest of the family by just walking up to anyone and inviting them to become one of us,” he added with a frown.
“We have to find him and see what he is like. Then we will have to decide whether we tell him or just walk away.”
“Did Mildred ever mention the Earl of Hopswich before?”
Dominic shook his head. “It rings a faint bell but I cannot remember much. I think it is from mother’s side of the family. We have to speak to Johnson, and see what he says.”
“One thing I want to know,” Edward sighed as he refilled his brandy glass and lifted the decanter toward Dominic and Sebastian, who both nodded. “Why hasn’t Harry Johnson told us about this missing half-brother before now? I mean, with mama and papa in their graves, why keep it a secret still? It just doesn’t make sense.”
Dominic had a strange feeling that trouble was brewing and almost groaned in disbelief. He had thought that the days of the family having to deal with mystery and strife were long gone. Unfortunately, it appeared that Fate had other ideas.
One month later
Dominic sat with Edward and Sebastian in the study of the house that seemed to be as decrepit and aged as its owner, and watched Harry Johnson senior settle his trembling frame into a high backed chair before the fire. Although the man was in his early seventies, he had not aged well and carried himself with an air of someone who was more like a hundred years old.
Silence settled over them as Harry Johnson gazed absently into the fire.
Sebastian studied the man carefully and wondered if they would get anything useful out of him. He seemed off in another world somewhere and, although he hadn’t been rude to them, he didn’t seem inclined toward friendliness either.
However, they hadn’t called for a social chat. They had travelled to London specifically to find out what Harry Johnson knew about their half-brother. So far the only thing they had been able to discover about their half-brother was that he had been born in Yorkshire, and their cousin Terrence didn’t have any of his mother’s old letters anymore because they had been lost in a house fire several years earlier. There had been no mention of a baby, an affair or anything untoward in either Mildred’s diaries, or their mother’s personal papers. They knew because while the family had been together, the men and their wives had spent hours trawling through the copious amounts of personal papers, documents, diaries and letters that had been carefully stored in the attics. It appeared that any record of the birth had been carefully destroyed or hidden in some secret place that they had yet to find.
Hungry for information, Dominic had made arrangements to visit Harry Johnson senior, who had served their family at the time of the scandal.
“Thank you for seeing us today, Harry,” Dominic sighed when he couldn’t stand the silence a moment longer. “As I said in my letter, our Aunt Mildred passed away recently. Unfortunately, she told us something on her deathbed that has shaken us and left us asking questions that only you can answer given that you were the family’s solicitor at the time.”
“I know what you are here to ask,” Harry said quietly. “Mildred would know because she was Alice’s sister.” He suddenly turned his calm gaze back to the men and looked each one in the eye. “The child is mine.”
Stunned silence settled over them.
“Yours?”
Harry Johnson sighed and nodded. “I was engaged by your father to work on several legal matters pertaining to the estate. Unfortunately, your father preferred to carouse around London, and remained in Mayfair while I visited the estate on business. Your mother loved the country, as I did, but felt incredibly lonely there by herself. Things were not well with her marriage and, although she had you, Dominic, she had no husband to guide and support her. It was a difficult period in her life. At the time, because of your father’s absence, I spent many hours in the study at Havistock Hall acting as, well, a sort of man of business. Your mother and I grew very close and spent many hours together.” He drew in a deep breath and threw his shoulders back almost defiantly. “I make no apology for falling in love with your mother. Alice was a delightful woman; very pretty, with a rapier wit and a love of life that made me smile. I adored her. She was very gentle and deserved to have a man in her life who would appreciate her. I was considerably older than she was, but that didn’t seem to matter to either of us. We never planned to fall in love, and certainly never expected matters to take the course they did. It was a shock to us both when she found herself with child.”
“You were married at the time,” Dominic said carefully. He watched Harry Johnson study his fingers for a moment before he nodded.
“I was. Harry, my son by my wife, was about seventeen at the time and was working at the London office, which left me able to remain at your estate with your mother for several months. We fell in love. It was a happy time for both of us.”
“You didn’t support her when she found herself with child though.” Dominic’s voice hardened. He tried to warn himself that he wasn’t there at the time and should not judge, but he could not relate to any man who would not stand by any woman he had a child with.
“I wasn’t given the choice. Your father knew the child wasn’t his because he had been in London with his mistress. By the time he got back to the estate, your mother and I had discussed the options available to us. Unfortunately, even if we could have persuaded our spouses to agree to divorces, we would have struggled to relocate and start again. I would not have been able to work in London because my reputation would have been in tatters. My son Harry; his life would have been destroyed because he would have not been able to take work in the legal field either, and your mother would have faced censure and been shunned by the social circles she had grown up in. She belonged in the country, in the house she had moved in to when married your father. She had grown accustomed to Havistock Hall and loved it here. Although she was happy to leave it so we could be together, your father wouldn’t discuss a divorce and refused to even think about a separation. As soon as he found out about the baby, he closed everything up in London, got rid of his mistress and moved back to Havistock Hall. Although he wasn’t too scornful of your mother, they did have many rows and she was deeply troubled, but there was little I could do to help her. I think that your father would have ceased to employ my services if I hadn’t been deeply involved in several difficult legal matters on behalf of the estate. As it was, he refused to accept the child because it wasn’t his and insisted that I make arrangements to deal with the boy myself.”
“So mama went away to Yorkshire to have the baby,” Edward shook his head and studied the carpet for a moment. It was a desperately sad situation and something that still haunted the man seated opposite, if the tears in his eyes were anything to go by.
“I was forced to come back to London and carry on as though nothing had happened. My letters to your mother went unanswered and, although I continued to work for the family, the stress and heartache of losing Alice and our boy affected my health. I have never really been the same since; emotionally or physically. To this day, gentleman, I bitterly regret having to walk away from your mother. My marriage to my wife was never the same after I came back to London. Although she didn’t know about the baby, she knew that I was in love with someone else and I was just not able to be the same around her. I still adore your mother, even though dear Alice is no longer with us.”
“Were you the one who made arrangements for the child to be looked after?” Sebastian growled. He could only hope to God that the child hadn’t been handed over to an orphanage or they would have no chance of finding out where he ended up.
“I did. He has had a good, middle-class life, and has been raised to be a fine man of good standing. I have supported the boy financially all of my life and have made sure that he has been raised by a family who consider him one of them. He has brothers; Angus, Joseph and Robert. The man who raised him, Bartholomew Lawton, was a good friend of mine who returned from the war a broken man. He struggled to find work because of his injuries, and had three boys to support. When I asked if they would take the baby if I provided them with a house and a steady income, they jumped at the chance. He and his wife Agnes adored the boy, and looked after him with so much love and affection. I have called in often over the years, and spent many hours with Harper, although he never knew that I am his father. Agnes and Bartholomew didn’t want me to tell him and I could see no reason not to respect their wishes. It would only have upset the boy and unsettled him.”
A sigh of relief swept through the Cavendish brothers for a moment before another wave of questions surfaced.
“Where is he now?”
“At the moment? I don’t know,” Harry replied sadly.
Sebastian groaned and shook his head at Dominic. “Is he still alive?”
“As far as I know. I certainly hope so. I have used my contacts to keep track of him as much as possible over the years, but he moved recently. He went into the army as soon as he was old enough, and has served abroad for some time. He came back a few years ago and has been working for a secret government organisation called the Star Elite ever since, but his work takes him everywhere. He has never married or settled down. The last I heard, he was undercover somewhere but I cannot find out where.”
Dominic smiled. For the first time since Mildred had told them the news, Dominic felt confident that they would get the information they needed about Harper, and would soon be in a position to welcome him into the family. He briefly wondered whether Sir Hugo was in London, and shared a grin with his brothers.
“We know about the Star Elite,” Edward murmured quietly. “We had a cause to work with them a few years back.”
Harry Johnson stood up and shuffled over to a bureau in the far corner of the room. He dropped the lid and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “The baby caused your parents many problems and nearly destroyed their marriage altogether. It broke your mother’s heart to hand him over to someone else to look after, but your father insisted that he couldn’t be a part of her life. I have ensured that he has been financially supported, and your mother ensured that a proportion of her fortune was put aside for him. It was a hidden part of her will which I was ordered to keep separate from all of you. A title belonging to her part of the family was held by your uncle. Now, what’s his name?” Harry stared thoughtfully into the fire for several moments.
“Lord Cavendish?” Edward suggested hopefully.
“Earl of Hopswich. George Bromley, that’s it.”
“George was mother’s uncle. He had the title of the Earl of Hopswich?”
“He did, but he was a reprobate who hated society so never used it. Your mother insisted that Harper have something of hers in addition to her fortune, so your father agreed that the title of Earl of Hopswich would be bestowed upon Harper, and Harper would inherit Hopswich Hall as well as your mother’s fortune. The rest of the Cavendish estate was split between you three.”
“Hopswich Hall?” Dominic frowned. It was a beautiful Jacobean mansion on the edges of the Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire border. He was shocked that a house belonging to the family was so close and nobody had ever told him. “Who lives there at the moment?”
“Nobody,” Harry sighed. “I agreed to ensure that it was maintained, repaired if needed and the grounds kept in order. The farms and grounds are all rented out to local farmers, but the house has been closed down.”
“Does Harper know about any of this?”
Harry sighed and shook his head. “I tried to contact him several times since he grew into maturity but he hasn’t answered any of my letters. My son, well, my other son, Harry, travelled to Yorkshire to ask him to come to the London office, only to be told that Harper had joined the army and was away fighting somewhere only nobody knew where.”
“Does Harry know about Harper?” Sebastian asked with a frown.
“Not yet but now that you know about him, I can see no reason not to tell Harry that he has a half-brother. It will become common knowledge once Harper takes the title and I would prefer Harry not to find out from gossips.” Harry resumed his seat and shook his head. “Trying to find Harper is like trying to harness a ghost, I don’t mind admitting to you. I have left direction for him to contact me several times but he has not done so. Whenever I do find out from Sir Hugo where Harper is, I am told that he is undercover and cannot be contacted. I have asked Sir Hugo to pass Harper several letters but Harper doesn’t reply to them. It is hardly news I care to impart via quill and ink, especially given the entailments, but it is darned near impossible to get near him.” Frustration rang clearly in his voice.
Dominic blew his cheeks out and stared down at the cold tea and cake in front of him. He had little appetite for either now. The urge to rush down to Cornwall and visit his old friend Hugo was strong, but he knew that it would be futile if he didn’t at least write first. Sir Hugo still worked with the Star Elite and travelled the length and breadth of the country frequently. It was going to be difficult to get in touch with him. He knew that if Harper was working undercover somewhere then none of them would know where he was until it was safe for Harper to leave his mission in the shadows and return to London. They just had to speak to Sir Hugo and be patient.
He sighed as he settled back in his seat. They exchanged small talk for an appropriate length of time before he nodded to his brothers and they took their leave. They were at the door when Harry’s voice rang out.
“Would you do something for me when you find him?”
“Of course, what?” Dominic replied warily.
“Tell him that I wish to meet him. I have seen him grow up, but I have not met him since he has become an adult and I do so wish to see him again.”
Dominic heard the longing in the old man’s voice. All of the disquiet he had previously felt over the situation that had arisen all those years ago suddenly drained away and he nodded briskly “Of course. I will tell him.”
Moments later, the men stood on the side of the street and studied the steady stream of passing traffic.
“Good Lord, he is working with Sir Hugo,” Edward whispered. They had most probably already met him and not realised who he was.
“I cannot remember being introduced to a Harper before,” Sebastian muttered and studied Dominic’s thoughtful expression. “What are you thinking?”
“What?” Dominic jerked and turned to look at him. “I think that I need to make contact with Sir Hugo and find out where Harper is. I do seriously consider that we have to think very carefully about how we approach our new half-brother with the news that he is not only wealthy, but entitled, and has a second family to boot. He has been working with the Star Elite, and you know how dangerous they are. We need to be careful.”
Sebastian’s thoughts immediately turned to the house back in Leicestershire that was full to the rafters with children. He couldn’t help but wonder how a bachelor; a fighter who worked with an organisation like the Star Elite, would adjust to life under the same roof as three couples, sixteen children, five dogs and at least eight cats.
“God, poor bastard,” Sebastian muttered, and hurried after his brothers.