Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Awful.
Fiendish.
“And Joan was into this too?” I inquired.
Ian shook his head. “Not at all. She hated it. Enter poor Cuthbert.”
Poor Cuthbert.
“She fell in love,” I guessed.
Ian nodded, but said, “He was a favorite of Thomas’s. An actor. He lived in this house with them for years. The Owl Room. Reportedly, he was very handsome. Tall. Built. Dark.” He stared intently at me. “With eyes as blue as the sea.”
I felt my heart stutter in shock.
“Holy fuck,” I whispered.
“Well stated,” he agreed. “However, there came a time when Joan had had enough. She went to her father. She begged his mercy and him to intervene. A devout man, he was outraged. He went to the king.”
I sipped, watching him.
He sipped and kept talking.
“She was pregnant by this time, and Thomas suspected it wasn’t his. He fucked everything that moved, and as yet, had no progeny. My aunt is certain he was sterile. The idea that Joan would birth someone not of his line sent him into a rage. He too went to the king.”
“Oh boy.”
“Mm,” he hummed. “Though, Joan had a card up her sleeve that Thomas could never imagine. No one could. It was a secret closely held.”
“That being?”
“She was a direct descendent of Henry the Eighth. He had a number of children that were not from his wives. Some were secreted away. Some were carefully homed. Some given land and titles. Joan was Henry’s great-great granddaughter. A secret well-kept, issue well protected, even by King James. You see, if one was thrown under the bus, others could be too. No monarch wanted to see their seed wasted, especially when it laid no claim to the crown and was not a threat. So Thomas was ordered to love and cherish her and the babe in her womb.”
“Are you telling me that you’re—”
“Royal blood? A direct descendent of Henry the Eighth? Yes.”
I couldn’t believe this!
“Oh my God, Ian.”
“Perhaps that’s where it all began,” he said musingly to his Cognac.
It was a valid question. Henry was an asshole.
“Another reason Duncroft survived where other aristocratic houses dwindled or blinked out of existence,” he remarked. “Until the twentieth century, we had royal patronage.”
“This is huge,” I uttered my understatement. “Are you sworn to secrecy or something?”
“All anyone would have to do is read Aunt Louisa’s diaries.”
“But they’re in your library.”
“Copies are also in The British Library for anyone to check out. I suppose the ramblings of a dotty spinster aren’t interesting to some, no matter how meticulously researched and referenced they are. Another indication of how foolhardy it is to ignore intelligent women you deem superfluous simply because they were unwanted by a man. That said, it’s my understanding from her diaries, it was the other way around. She found men vain and tedious. Nevertheless, she had affairs and ‘men friends’ until she died at age eighty-three.”
I felt my lips curve. “I think I would have liked her.”
“I can guarantee she would have liked you.”
How sweet.
“So, with the king’s protection, how did things go so poorly for Joan and Cuthbert?” I asked.
“I suppose there’s only so much a vain, tedious and privileged man can take. Thomas came home one day and found Joan and Cuthbert enjoying each other in a session that was not ordered by him. He lost his mind, gutted Cuthbert and turned the bloody blade on Joan. Fortunately for the Alcott line, by that time, she’d given him a son and two daughters. All with dark hair and sea-blue eyes.”
“In other words, the real Alcott line died with Thomas.”
He threw back his Cognac then asked. “I don’t think that was much of a loss, do you?”
I studied him closely, noting, “This is a lot of history to be lugging around.”
“You know, the most amusing aspect of it is that Dad has never read those diaries. I’m not sure anyone has, but me. Louisa didn’t shout it from the rooftops. I think her uncovering of it, and how it’s there, right there and no one knows, was amusing as hell for her too. Dad has no idea in his veins runs the blood of a common actor and male prostitute who spent his adult life as a sexual plaything. He also has no idea he has royal blood. He has no idea this blood, the blood he’d deem important, didn’t come down the paternal side of his line, but the maternal. He has no idea, for all intents and purposes, he’s a Tudor, not an Alcott. He’s convinced of the nobility of his blood, not understanding his many-times great-grandfather was the one who proclaimed the divine right of kings.”
“So, you haven’t told him,” I drawled.
That coaxed a small smile out of him. “No, I haven’t shared this with Dad.”
“What happened to Thomas after he disobeyed the king?”
“She’d birthed a son by then. What do you think?”