Garden Of Scandal. Jennifer Blake

Laurel said, not sure whether she meant for his loss or for her urge to pry that had led her into so private a history.

      He looked away. “I don’t suppose it matters. It was a long time ago.”

      She thought it did matter—possibly always had, always would—to him and Alec both, but she couldn’t say so. Instead she said, “You were young to take on so much responsibility.”

      “Me? Responsible?” He laughed, a harsh yet hollow sound. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

      “But, well, I assumed there was no other man around to take over.”

      “There wasn’t, except for Alec.”

      She leaned her head against the high seat-back, rocking a little as she frowned in thought. “But he must have been, what? Only thirteen? Fourteen?”

      “Something like that. Our little man, though, he was always big and tough for his age.”

      “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” She stopped rocking.

      “You wouldn’t,” he answered with an edge of rudeness as he looked around at Ivywild. “You’ve always been respectable, I would imagine. I bet you’ve never been hungry, really hungry, a day in your life. You’ve always known exactly who you are, where you came from, and where you belong. No doubts, no wild guesses, no looking for yourself in the bottom of a bottle or in the white dust of some drug with a name you can’t pronounce….”

      He trailed off, but she did finally understand. Gregory had been a drug user at eighteen, and so Alec had taken over, fending for himself and his little sister.

      “Surely some government agency could have helped out?” she asked.

      “Oh, right. Helped Alec and Mita right into separate foster homes, is what they would have done. No way, not on your life. Alec fooled them when they came around. He may be a bastard, but he’s a smart one. Of course, he had old lady Chadwick by then.”

      A chill moved over Laurel. In her compassion for Alec—for them all, really—she had almost forgotten the point of her questions. Lips stiff, she said, “Old lady Chadwick? Who was she?”

      “Our landlady, after Alec moved us all out of the slum apartment where we’d been staying.” Gregory grimaced. “She owned this big estate—swimming pool, tennis courts, golfing green, guesthouse, groundskeeper’s cottage, the whole nine yards, complete with a chauffeur and even a Chinese gardener.”

      “Mr. Wu,” she said in quiet discovery.

      “Alec mentioned him, huh? Figures. The old guy was his idol, lived down the street from our apartment on the edge of Chinatown before we moved—preferred it to living on the estate. I think he admired Alec’s gumption. Anyway, Mr. Wu used to pay him a little something for helping out at the old lady’s house after school, whenever Alec could thumb a ride to get there.”

      Laurel, watching Alec’s stiff movements as he wielded his shovel, thought he knew they were talking about him even if he couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t help that. Sunlight moved back and forth along the filaments of his hair that were as dark and gleaming as the feathers on a raven’s wing. Indian black and shiny. It made sense.

      Aware, suddenly, that Gregory was looking at her with a malicious grin for her preoccupation with his brother, she collected her scattered thoughts. As if the question had her entire concentration, she asked, “Mr. Wu wasn’t, by any chance, related to Mita?”

      “Her father, you mean? Lord, no. I mean he was ancient, white hair and beard down to here.” He leveled a hand near his navel. “He did have a soft spot for her, though, and I wondered once or twice about his eldest son. Anyway, after Mom died Alec had the nerve to ask old lady Chadwick if we could stay in the groundskeeper’s cottage at the back of the property since Mr. Wu wasn’t using it.”

      “You moved to avoid the child welfare authorities,” she said, clarifying the situation in her own mind.

      He gave a nod. “Alec said nobody would think to bother us there. Turned out he was right. Of course, he only told the old lady that Mom was sick in the hospital. She believed him for three months or more—time enough.”

      Laurel didn’t even try to disguise her sharpened curiosity. “Time enough for what?”

      “To win her over. Our Alec has a way about him, or haven’t you noticed?” He watched her, a faint smile playing over his thin features and a suggestive look in his eyes.

      “I thought you said he was thirteen?”

      “He was.”

      “This woman, then…”

      “She seemed old at the time,” he said whimsically, “though I don’t imagine she was more than, oh, about your age now.”

      Old enough to be Alec’s mother, almost thirty years older than he had been then. Laurel scowled. The Chadwick woman couldn’t be the one he had married. Could she?

      “You’ve heard the story already, haven’t you?” Gregory guessed. “That’s not like Alec. He’s usually too embarrassed to talk about it.”

      She gave him a straight look. “But you aren’t?”

      He shook his head. “No, but I’ve got no manners and no shame, you know. Mrs. Chadwick never had much time for me even when I was around, which wasn’t often. Mita, now, she treated her like a doll, dressing her up, showing her off. But Alec was her darling.”

      “You make it sound as if there was something wrong with that.” She couldn’t quite put the thought in plain words.

      “I do, don’t I? And there was, in a way. He isn’t perfect any more than I am. He makes mistakes. And like me, he pays for them. With interest.”

      She heard the bitterness lining his words. Still, her preoccupation with Alec’s life story was too intense to spare his feelings more than a glancing thought. “What exactly was his mistake?”

      “He said yes when our landlady asked him to marry her.”

      So it was true. More than that, it was worse than she had thought. A woman old enough to be his mother. Dear heaven.

      She hadn’t believed it; she recognized that, as she felt the sick acceptance move over her. Somehow, she had thought talking to Gregory Stanton would prove Mother Bancroft had lied, or else that she had embellished some less damaging story to suit herself.

      Wrong. All wrong.

      “I suppose,” Laurel said quietly, “that we all make our mistakes.”

      “Some more than others,” Gregory said on a huffing sigh.

      She wanted to be absolutely fair. With great care, she said, “Alec doesn’t seem to have benefited a great deal from this odd marriage.”

      “Depends on how you look at it. He became an engineer thanks to Chadwick money. Mita was able to zip through eight years of training for her Ph.D., and is interning now in pediatrics. Me, well, I didn’t have to worry about eating or a place to sleep for ages, only about supporting my habit.”

      “You lived on him.” She spoke before she thought, then wished immediately she hadn’t.

      “Yeah,” he answered, looking away. “I lived on him.”

      That explained a lot—not that it was any of her business. “But I have to say it doesn’t sound like very much return in exchange for his freedom, especially considering the size of the estate you mentioned.”

      He shrugged. “There were a few problems with the old lady’s heirs after she died, though Alec still took care of everybody. Now—” Gregory stopped.

      Now Alec was still taking care of him, she finished silently for him, because Gregory was dying in slow stages. “You resent him for it,” Laurel said in sudden