She held her tongue until she finished her descent, stopped, and faced him. “Oh no, Mr. Trewlove. I knew he had bastards. I gave birth to three of them, but he took them from me within minutes of their birth. He considered children born on the wrong side of the blanket to be an inconvenience. Your arrival gave me hope that he had kept his promise to see them loved and well cared for. This way.”

He tried to study her more closely to determine if he could see any of himself in her, but she turned on her heel, once more leaving him to catch up. Could she possibly be his mother? Or maybe Finn’s?

“You were his mistress before you were his wife.” Again, a statement not a question.

“How clever you are, Mr. Trewlove.”

“Did you have boys?”

“I did.” Opening a door, she crossed the threshold into the library. “As I recall from your last visit, the earl neglected to offer you anything to drink so I don’t know your preference.” She glanced at him over her shoulder, a bit of teasing mirrored in her brown eyes. “I listened at the door. What may I pour you?”

“Scotch.”

Watching the efficiency with which she opened the decanter and poured the amber liquid into a tumbler, he imagined she’d done so for his sire a hundred times. She held the glass out to him, and he wondered if that hand had ever stroked his brow, if her arms had ever cradled him. Would she even know if he was her son? Shouldn’t some connection exist between them, so when he looked at her, he’d feel deep in his bones this is the woman who birthed me?

Taking her offering, he swallowed a good bit before asking, “Do you know what became of your boys?”

“Well, one is presently a viscount. I suppose in some manner he is your brother as well. I wonder if you would go to such lengths to save him as you did Finn.”

She truly had eavesdropped, not that he’d doubted her. Not that she’d have had to be at the door to hear what passed between Aiden and his sire. Much of what they’d had to say to each other had been shouted.

“He visited a few months back,” she continued as she walked over to the desk and leaned against it. “Broke your father’s arm—”

“He’s not my father.”

Her eyes widened at that; no doubt she was taken by surprise by his vehemence.

“I’m his bastard, I won’t deny that. But he is not my father. A father does not abandon”—but if he got Selena with child he’d be doing exactly that—“his child. He’s my vile sire, the blackguard who planted the seed, but he is no more to me than that.”