She started crying again. Damon was torn between wanting to comfort her and still being angry over what she had revealed. He was a bastard. And, oh, God, how ironic that Jack had named him that. His chances with her had just dropped a hundredfold.

All he could say was “A marquis? I bloody well won’t call him lord.”

“Dearest, he didn’t know about you until he came to rescue me. I had begged my uncle not to tell Brian. He was still married then. Finding you today is as much of a shock to him as it is to me.”

“I can’t believe Cyril would tell you what he did. I’m not saying he didn’t, just that I can’t believe he would.” Damon paused, thinking about his conversation with Cyril on the way to Jamaica. “Actually, I think he was going to confess it recently, when he asked if I’d learned the truth, but he must have changed his mind and spoke of his gambling instead.”

“I don’t blame Cyril for divorcing me. I do blame him for lying and costing me all these years without you. I feel that loss as poignantly as you do, Damon. When I think that you could have grown up with your real father—”

“You and he . . . ?”

“We’re married now and have been since we returned to England that year.”

Damon nodded and finally sat down on the sofa with her. “I think Cyril stopped gambling after you left, applied himself to work, even made enough to buy a ship to double his profits. Life was good for a while, and all we lacked was you. But after he sent me to school in England, he was alone and started gambling again. When he couldn’t pay his debts, he was imprisoned. I only found out this year and gave him a new start in Jamaica.”

“You’re too kind.”

“He’s the only father I’ve ever known and I love him. He’ll always be my father.”

“And now you have another. But tell me about you. Are you married? Do you hope to be?”

After he gave his mother a modified account of his adventures over the last year and stunned her with the revelation that Captain Hawke was really James Malory, Viscount Ryding, she said, “A Malory girl? That family is well known, and a bit notorious. Now I understand why. Are you sure that’s who you want?”

“More than anything.”

“Well, your father’s credentials should pave the way for you.”

“No,” Damon said curtly.

She raised her brows. “You sound like you resent Brian. Please say you don’t, when he was blameless in all this.”

“He’s not blameless for seducing an innocent girl while he was married,” Damon said a bit harshly.

“Ah, well, that was actually my fault, not his.” She blushed. “He tried to resist me, but I wouldn’t be denied.”

Oh, good God, that sounded far too much like his own situation and was exactly how Jack had behaved toward him. He laughed and hugged her close. “You’re absolutely right, Mother, he’s utterly blameless.”

The door opened and Brian Chandler poked his head around it. “That sounds like my cue to return.”

“You were eavesdropping?” Sarah accused with a chuckle.

“Of course.”

Damon stared at the man, really looked at him this time. He’d never wondered why he didn’t resemble Cyril. Brian was as tall as Damon was and built much the same. Brian, too, had black hair, and some of their facial features might even be the same. If they stood side by side, people might see the resemblance immediately and guess they were related. And so they were. The annoyance, the resentment Damon had felt earlier, it all slid away.

He stood up and held out his hand. “Perhaps we should meet again, Father?”

Chapter Fifty-One

BACK IN LONDON THREE weeks now, Jacqueline was leaving her home for the first time tonight. But they weren’t going far. While Georgina had planned this ball and had attended to every minute detail, they didn’t have a ballroom at their house in Berkeley Square, but Brandon Malory certainly did at his grand mansion in Grosvenor Square, yet another inheritance from the previous Duke of Wrighton.

Jack was hopeful now that Judy had confessed that while the ball might have been Georgina’s idea, making it a masque had been hers. It would give Damon an opportunity to sneak in, like the last time—if he was in London, if he heard of it. One too many ifs, but Jack could still hope.

“Your mother gave me a pile of invitations to take to Regina, who would know who else to invite, since your mother was mostly just inviting family. But I kept half of them and have invited some of your previous beaus.”

Judy had told her this earlier in the week and Jack had complained, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

But Judy had pointed out, “How else were we to hide him in the mix?”

“So you invited Damon?”

Judith had grinned. “After everything you said the other day confirmed what I already knew you were feeling, of course I did. You’d already told me he owns the old Reeves estate in East Sussex, so I sent it there.”

“How could you know what I’m feeling? I don’t even know!”

“Yes, you do.”

Yes, she did, and while he might not even be in England to have received his invitation, she was hopeful that he would be, which led to this bubbling excitement she could barely contain. Which is why she wasn’t listening to what her parents were saying as they sat across from her in the coach, until she heard, “She says she’s not in love, but I think the arrow struck her true.”

“Good God, George, don’t you dare mention Cupid to me,” James complained.

Jacqueline raised her brow. “Trying to get my attention, are you?”

“It worked.” Georgina smiled. “But I wasn’t serious. We know you refuse to fall in love this year.”

“About that—”

James interrupted, “It’s rude to correct your mother, so don’t.”

Jack squinted her eyes and scrunched her mouth at her father, but wasn’t about to argue with that tone of his. She’d never imagined she would have to elope one day, but obviously that was the only way she was going to get herself married to Damon. If he asked. If he showed up to ask. He bloody well better show up.

Brandon, along with his parents, was waiting by the door to greet them, but the street was already crowded with vehicles, and the music was playing, so the ball had already begun. Judith had followed directly behind them with her husband and parents, so Jack waited for Judy and hooked her arm to her cousin’s before entering. Georgina did the same thing, entering with Roslynn. Which left the three men. But Nathan, seeing James’s expression, left him with his brother.