At some point Ewan must have known it was futile to try. No matter how many pictures he drew or how clean his fingernails or how straight the part in his hair, his father always found some fault with him. Ewan forgot he was a dolt and opened his mouth, saying the wrong thing; or he didn’t say enough; or he knocked over a vase, breaking yet another of his mother’s expensive Sevres porcelain pieces. His father would call him a “clumsy oaf” and banish him to a corner where Ewan could see but not be part of the family gathering.
Silent tears would run down Ewan’s cheeks as he had to face, once again, the reality that his father would never love him. The earl would never sit him on his knee as he did Henrietta. His father would never put his arm around his shoulders as he did William and Michael and Francis.
Francis, who was not even his son, but who everyone knew the earl wished had been his son. What Pembroke wouldn’t have given to trade Ewan for Francis.
Ewan didn’t have any more tears left, didn’t have any more hope. All he had was pain and fury, and that he tamped down before he rapped the knocker forcefully. The past was over. Ewan was no longer that boy. He was a man now, and he did not need his father or the man’s love.
A man Ewan didn’t recognize opened the door. He was dressed as a butler and in his late forties or early fifties with thinning brown hair and small brown eyes. He looked up at Ewan with some concern. “May I help you?”
“The earl. Now.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Ewan shoved the paper with his father’s summons at the man. The butler looked at it, then back at Ewan. His brows rose. “Oh, I see. Oh.” He looked from the paper to Ewan and back again.
Ewan wanted this meeting over, wanted the memory of the cowed little boy banished once again to the far recesses of his mind. “Move aside or I’ll move you.”
The butler’s small eyes widened. “If you will wait here”—he opened the door to admit Ewan into the house—“I will tell his lordship you are here.”
Ewan stepped into the house. “Where is he?”
“No, no!” The butler actually pointed a finger at Ewan. “Wait here.”
Ewan waited the five seconds it took to perceive where the butler was headed, and then he overtook him and barged into the library without knocking. He no longer stood on the outside, waiting to be allowed in.
His father looked up from his desk. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Good day, my lord,” Ewan said with mock courtesy. The room was much the same as Ewan remembered it. The earl’s desk was French in style and overly ornate. His father kept it polished and free of clutter. Books lined the shelves on one wall. There were not as many in the earl’s collection as that of the Duke of Ridlington, but it was a fortune in books nonetheless. Soft Turkey rugs in shades of blue and green covered the floor and matching curtains had been swathed back from the narrow windows that afforded a view of the barren garden. Wherever the flowers in the boxes out front had come from, it had not been the earl’s garden, which appeared to be suffering the effects of the cold spring.
“My lord!” The butler raced into the library. “I do apologize. This man refused to wait.”
The earl raised a hand. “Never mind, Simms. Ewan never did have any manners. Leave us.”
“Yes, my lord.” The butler gave Ewan a disgusted look and closed the door behind him.
Only then did Ewan notice Francis seated in the chair near the fire. Francis rose and smoothed his perfectly fitted coat. He wore the latest fashion, his burgundy waistcoat making a stark contrast to his gray trousers and coat. His riding boots were highly polished and his cravat stiffly starched. Ewan had no difficulty understanding why Lady Lorraine was in love with the man. Beside him, Ewan felt like an uncouth oaf. His hand itched to touch his bare neck, but he forced it to remain at his side.
“Cousin,” he said, his tone barely civil.
“Don’t remind me,” Francis drawled. Ewan clenched a fist. He wanted nothing more than to break that perfect nose of Francis’s and ruin his white cravat with the flow of blood. Francis stepped back, and the earl rose.
“Ewan, Francis and I called you here for a reason,” the earl said, rising from his pretty desk.
Francis and I? Ewan cut a look at his cousin, who was still keeping his distance. Ewan should have suspected his cousin had something to do with this. Like his father, Francis had more failings than one could count. Chief among these was the propensity to look for the easiest path to make his fortune. That was undoubtedly why his cousin courted Lady Lorraine—or rather her dowry—at present. But what other mischief had his prodigal cousin found?
Ewan folded his arms across his chest and waited for the explanation. He supposed his father would have liked to speak of the weather or the price of corn before coming to his true purpose, but Ewan had little patience for such niceties.
“I suppose there is no way to cushion this news,” the earl began, “so I will put it bluntly. We are ruined.”
Ewan merely raised a brow.
The earl sank back into his chair, looking older than Ewan could remember him. His once-blond hair was now mostly white, and he had deep lines furrowed in his brow and at his mouth. “A bad investment,” the earl continued. “Diamonds in Brazil, you see.”
Ewan didn’t see. He had a few investments of his own—he had always been good with numbers. His investments were generally on a smaller scale—a share in Langley’s, another in Gentleman Jackson’s, a few others.
Francis joined his father behind the desk, standing at his right hand. Ewan gritted his teeth at the picture they made. It should have been him at his father’s right hand, but his father had struck him with that hand far more than he had ever welcomed him.
“He doesn’t understand, my lord,” Francis said with a sneer. “We shall have to explain it in very simple terms. Are you listening, Ewan? You must use your brain box for a moment, little as it is.”
Ewan liked to imagine the arc the blood would make when his fist plowed into Francis’s face.
“Just tell him,” the earl said, his voice impatient.
“I suppose I must take full responsibility,” Francis began. The earl laid a hand on Francis’s arm. Ewan’s jaw ached from the tension.
“It is not your fault. You mustn’t blame yourself.”
Francis nodded, as though these words had been repeated time and again. “A man came to me several years ago looking for investors to finance a mine in South America. They’d found diamonds nearby and had good reason to believe they would find more if they only excavated in the right place.”
“Francis brought the man to me,” the earl said. “And we went over everything very carefully—the surveyors’ reports, the schemes for the building of the mine. I even had the diamonds the man brought with him as proof examined. All seemed quite legitimate.”
“But it wasn’t,” Ewan said.
“At first the delays seemed reasonable.” The earl rubbed the back of his neck. “Illness, a contagious disease, warfare among the natives. But finally I grew suspicious and sent a man to investigate.” The earl’s voice faltered.
“The findings were what you might expect,” Francis said. “There was no mine. No diamonds had ever been found in that area. It was, in fact, rather boggy and unsuited to the deposit of such gems. Your father had been swindled.”