"I brought my birth on myself? Is that what you are saying?" I let Rebecca go, for I needed both hands to throttle Anthony. The betrayer.
"I chose to be born to a commoner, not a titled man like yourself? I wanted all of this? I wanted my father to die before my birth? I wanted my mother to have to raise me, a boy, herself?" As I said these words, I pushed his chest and forced him back until he hit the wall of the study with such force that books toppled to the floor. Neither of us looked. "Do you truly believe that I wanted the life I have now? That I wanted the birth I had? Because if you believe that then you are even more simple than I first thought." I grabbed his jacket with both hands and slammed him back against the bookshelf. "How dare you do this to me? How dare you betray me? You were my friend!"
"I still am your friend," he had the nerve to say. I would have laughed if it wasn't so sad.
"My friend? You're still my friend after everything you've done to me tonight?"
"I've done nothing but protect my cousin."
"You betrayed me!" I yelled, hurting my own ears. Someone would most assuredly hear us and come in the door at any moment and I most certainly did not care. I wasn't thinking of anyone but myself and I needed to know why.
"I didn't betray you. I simply told Rebecca the truth. She deserved to know the truth, did she not?"
"The truth you could not wait for me to give?" I sneered, feeling my fingers itch to encircle Anthony's neck just as they had Simon's
"The truth you do not know." Anthony said, taking me aback.
"I know the truth about myself, thank you. My father was a good man. A wealthy man, but he wasn't titled. When he died before my birth, a benefactor of my father's choosing took care of my mother and me. What more is there to know? How is that something Rebecca should walk away from?"
Anthony straightened and forced me to let him go, though I did not want to. I felt my strength wane as I tried to figure out the complicated puzzle everyone else in the room seemed to know, except me, which vexed me since it was my life they knew about. "The man you believe is your father, isn't your real father," he said simply.
I scoffed and stepped back. "And how would you know that? Were you there?"
"It is a well-known fact, Frederick. To everyone, it seems, but you. I learned of it. I told Simon…."
"And Rebecca."
"Because she needed to know." He had a new determination in his eyes as if he truly thought he'd done the right thing. There aren't bad enough words invented in this world to describe his treachery.
"Then who is my real father? And why would my mother not tell me?" I did not believe him, no, I take that back. Some part of me believed him because, even as a young child, I had questions about my father that my mother never answered. Why did she have no letters? Why did I have no grandparents on my father's side? Why did we have to move from Everdale before I was born? So many things did not add up, but I chose to believe my mother's word above all else. After all, why would she lie to me?
"This isn't the time or the place for this conversation." Anthony whispered and I laughed.
"Not the time? Obviously you found time to tell Simon and Rebecca. Why not tell me? The person who needs to know the truth above all else, or at the very least, your version of the truth." My voice shook and I was powerless to stop it. I hated that feeling.
"Very well. Sit." Anthony motioned at a chair behind me, but I refused to budge. "Very well," he said again with an exasperated sigh. "Your true father is Joseph Crothwaite, Duke of Monroe."
I laughed even harder and staggered back. "A duke? I'm the son of a duke? Have you gone mad?"
"It is true."
"And how do you know?"
"You do not have to believe me, but ask your mother when you get home. I'm sure she will tell you the tale," Anthony replied.
"According to you, she hasn't told me the truth in all these years. Why would she start now?"
Anthony shrugged as if he was bored with our conversation. As if I meant nothing to him. "I suppose that is up to you to figure out."
"If I am who you say I am and the duke I'm assuming is the benefactor who has paid for everything my entire life, why keep me hidden? I am titled, just as you are, if what you are saying is the truth. So, Rebecca has no reason not to want to marry me." I felt the slightest tension in my shoulders decrease. You might think I'd be ill at my mother for lying to me, but I was not. If what Anthony said was true — and I found out later it was — then I was gentry. I could give Rebecca everything she wanted. We had no issues between us, or so I thought.
I have mentioned how naive I was in my younger days. I should have put it all together, but I still reeled from the excitement of the night to fully understand what was going on.
"You are the bastard son of a duke, Frederick. The bastard son of a married duke who already has two sons ahead of you in birth order. His wife would not allow him to claim you, and your mother blackmailed him into paying everything for you — or she would tell."