Chapter 2077: Heart Wrenching Truths

A boy of fourteen stood in the doorway with his father’s hazel eyes, and it was the first time Jocelynn had ever seen Owain’s anger in Ashton’s gaze. Worse, that fury was directed at her.

Four years. He’d been a little boy when she sent him away, and now he was taller than she was. His wrists stuck out of his sleeves like he’d recently outgrown his tunic. And there, at the edge of his left eyebrow, was a thin white scar, providing a constant reminder of the injury that gave her the determination to put him on the road to Blackwell.

"Ashton," Jocelynn said, rising from her seat next to her father. "Darling, I..."

"Don’t call me that." Ashton’s voice cracked. "You don’t get to call me that. You sent me away."

"I sent you here to keep you safe," Jocelynn said, frowning at her son. He should understand this. She hadn’t hidden her reasons from her father, and Ashton was old enough to know the truth by now. "Ashton, I..."

"You sent me away because you don’t want me!" the boy shouted. "You never did! It was always Caleb, Caleb, Caleb, and I was just... extra." His thin chest heaved. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, the knuckles white, and his voice broke high and then low, a boy’s voice and a man’s fighting over every word. "The extra son you never intended to keep. You were just waiting till I was old enough to throw away!"

"Ashton, that’s not true," Jocelynn protested.

"Don’t lie to me!" Ashton snapped. "I was with Grandmother when she died," he said. "Did anyone even tell you that? I sat by her bed at the convent until the very end. I, I held her hand," he said with hot, furious tears streaming from his eyes.

Her son had held her mother’s hand while she died. Jocelynn hadn’t even known that she was ill.

"She kept asking for you," Ashton said, pouring out the hurt in his heart. "Every time she woke up, she asked if you’d come yet." His voice wobbled, and he hated it, Jocelynn could see that he hated it. "She said she was holding on for you. That she had to see you one more time, so she could tell you that she forgave you for what you did..."

Jocelynn’s knees nearly gave way beneath her. She caught the arm of the sofa, and the cold of it seeped into her palm and spread up her arm until her whole body felt numb.

"She... She forgave me...?" Jocelynn said, not sure she believed what she’d heard.

"For Aunt Ashlynn," Ashton said. "She told me everything. About the wedding. About what you whispered to Father the night of the wedding, and what he did to her because of it."

The words hit Jocelynn like a fist.

"Ashton..." she said because she had to respond to him, but no matter what she tried, she couldn’t find the words she needed to say next. Behind her, she heard her father cough again. That same deep, rattling sound. She didn’t turn around.

"Admit it, Mother," Ashton shouted. "That’s why you named me after her, isn’t it? So I could take her place in Grandfather’s house? You had to make up for what you did, so you..."

Jocelynn opened her mouth to deny it, and nothing came out. She had named him for Ashlynn. She’d held him in her arms on the day he was born and whispered her sister’s name into his hair, and she’d never told a soul why.

"Ashton," Rhys said sharply from the sofa. "Lad, that’s..." He broke off, coughing. "That’s enough," he said, furrowing his white, heavy brows at his grandson.

"No, Grandfather! She should hear it!" Ashton didn’t even look at him. His eyes never left Jocelynn’s face.

Behind them, on the sofa, Rhys’s breathing had gone short and shallow. One hand had crept back to his chest. Neither of them saw.

"She wrote to you," Ashton went on, relentlessly. "She told me she wrote to you every month, for years. Begging you to come. And you never came. Not once."

"Ashton, I never..." Jocelynn’s voice broke. "I never got her letters. I swear it, I never got a single one..."

"Liar!" The word cracked across the study like a whip. "She waited for you! She waited and waited, and she held on until she couldn’t anymore, and you never came, and now it’s too late!"

Tears were running down his face now. He scrubbed at them furiously with the back of his sleeve, the way a much younger boy would have, the way Caleb never would have let anyone see.

"You betrayed your own sister," he spat. "And now you’re betraying me too. I hate you. I hate you!"

For a single heartbeat, his face crumpled, and he looked eight years old again. The little boy who used to climb into her bed during thunderstorms.

He turned and ran. Jocelynn reached for him, and her fingers brushed his sleeve, and then he was gone.

"Ashton, wait!" Jocelynn started after him. "Please! I came all this way to see you! Ashton!"

His footsteps pounded away down the corridor and up the stairs. Somewhere far above, a door slammed so hard that the sound echoed through the old stone of the manor.

Jocelynn reached the foot of the stairs before she stopped, one hand on the cold stone banister, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She should go after him. She should...

From the study behind her, a wine cup clattered to the floor.

Jocelynn turned and ran back to the study, and her eyes opened wide as an icy hand of dread gripped her heart.

Her father had half-risen from the sofa. One hand clutched at its arm. The other was pressed flat against his chest, his fingers twisted into the wool of his robe. His face had gone the color of ash, and his mouth opened and closed without a sound. His lips had gone grey, and his breath came in short, wet gasps, painful and labored.

Pear wine spread slowly across the old floorboards like freshly spilled blood.

"Father?"

Count Rhys Blackwell’s sea-green eyes met hers. In them, she saw grief and love and a terrible, aching weariness. The look of a man watching the last of his family fall to ruins before him.

Then his knees gave way, and he crashed to the floor.

"Father!"