“Damon, come sit with me.” Sarah patted the sofa. “I am still shocked, but this joy is beyond containing. You’re here, alive, and good God, look at you! You’re even more handsome than your—”

“Don’t say ‘father,’ because I’ll need to ask which one you are referring to.”

“Don’t be bitter, please.”

“How can I not be when everything I know to be true isn’t?” Then in anguish: “Why did you leave me?!”

She shot to her feet and threw her arms around him. “I never would have left that island without you if Cyril hadn’t convinced me you were dead. He even said you were buried on the property. I was too destroyed to ask to see the grave. He must have realized that having divorced me, I could have taken you from him legally. The courts usually favor the father, unless the mother comes from nobility and the father doesn’t. Even if I didn’t have a marquis with me, he knew my family could sway the courts. He’d already lost me. He was obviously desperate not to lose you as well. He did love you, Damon, as if you were his own.”

“When did you come back for me? When did he tell you I died?”

She squeezed Damon harder. “Four months after I left. I will tell you all of it, just let me hold you for a few minutes and convince myself that you’re real, that I’m not dreaming. I come here to bury my mother and find you, my son, alive—and I almost didn’t come.” She leaned back with wide eyes. “Good God, I wouldn’t have found you if Mother didn’t die. What a sharp, sad twist of fate.”

“Why did you come to the funeral when Grandmother obviously never forgave you—for having me?” he guessed.

“My mother wasn’t always so harsh. She was loving and kind when my father was alive, though even then she was excessively proper. I think she would have rather gone to hell than have scandal touch her name. Her father was an earl, so she was a lady in her own right, while my father wasn’t a lord because his father was a second son. But we did have a living earl on my father’s side of the family, my great-uncle Giles, and besides, the Reeves family was much richer than hers, so the marriage was quite acceptable to both sides. And they were in love. They probably would have eloped if they’d been denied. Mother loved him so fiercely. Father died when I was still a child. She was never the same after that.”

“I found her too late to know her.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t know her memory was failing?” Damon tapped his head. “She was living in a world of her own up here.”

“No, I didn’t know. But perhaps it was a blessing for her, relief from the ill will she harbored. I’m surprised Uncle Giles never told me. He and I were close and kept in touch. Maybe he didn’t know about Mother’s condition either.”

“How did you come to marry Cyril instead of my real father?”

“He was a bought husband, a tenant farmer on our estate, who was paid handsomely by my mother to marry me—enough to buy his own farm in the islands. Mother was furious that I’d fallen from grace, and that I’d done so with a married man who couldn’t make it right. But Brian and I were deeply in love. You can’t fight love, darling.”

“You can when you must.”

“But I didn’t have the will to. And I’ve never regretted the results. You. And Cyril was a good father to you. He was even a good husband to me for a few years. He loved us both, even knowing that you weren’t his. But his realization that he couldn’t really make me happy began to fester, which caused him to drink—and that led to his gambling. The profits he made from his crops just went to pay off his gambling debts. And he kept demanding more money from me.”

“Agatha gave you money before kicking you out of her life?”

“No, she was going to send me off penniless, but my grandfather, even as angry as he was at me, gave me money before I left. But what I’d done caused a rift between him and his brother, Giles, because Giles introduced me to Brian, his neighbor in Essex. My mother and grandfather both blamed Giles for not chaperoning me properly.”

“Then why would your grandfather leave me this property?”

“It’s been in the Reeves family for centuries, but it’s not the entitled estate. Giles has that—and I know he will be delighted to reinstate you as his heir when he learns the astounding news that you are alive. Soon after you were born, I wrote to Uncle Giles, told him of you, and he informed his brother, my grandfather. Sadly, my grandfather died without reconciling with his brother. But a male heir is still a male heir, illegitimate or not, and I was married before you were born, which took the edge off that.”

“I know where Hawke took you, but I still don’t understand why you left me that day, why you didn’t return for months. Did you leave so you could be with Brian?”

“Damon! Of course not. I’d had no contact with him since I left England because I thought he was still married. I didn’t know he’d been widowed. I left because Cyril thought I had an endless supply of money when I didn’t. It was just a matter of time before he found it and squandered it. I felt I had no choice but to take us away before that happened. I was afraid for your future. I wanted you to attend university.”

“You could have hidden your money where he couldn’t find it. You could have told me we were leaving the island, instead—”

“You were so young! I was afraid you’d tell Cyril.”

He realized he was blaming her now. First Hawke, now her, when it was ultimately his own fault that he hadn’t gone with her that day. “I’m sorry. I just feel robbed of all the years I could have been with you, too.”

“Yet I did come back for you that year. I waited a month for Captain Hawke to return to help me retrieve you. When he didn’t, I hired three men to escort me back to collect you, but they robbed me of all but a little of my money, and I had to get a job in Port Antonio to earn passage. That’s when I wrote to Giles to tell him how dire my situation had become. I thought he would just send me money. He sent Brian instead.”

“I can’t believe Cyril would tell you that ridiculous tale of my death. Did he know you were back and sent me away so I wouldn’t be there?”

Sarah frowned. “Possibly. He had many friends in that town, and it took Brian hours to find a carriage to drive us to the plantation. But we weren’t coming to steal you away. As Brian, your real father, is the Marquis of Marlowe and he was with me, there was no doubt that Cyril would have had to give you to us. I know you loved him, might even have fought to stay with him, but, Damon, he is not your real father. You belonged with me, should have been with me all these years. You might forgive Cyril for that dastardly lie, but I can’t. I didn’t get to see you grow up!”