The Right Hand Of The Father

chapter 20

He stared at the boy sitting across from him in the carriage. His son. His son.

George felt his stomach churn. God the boy was his son.

He hadn't wanted to believe it. Had wanted to deny it. Claim there had been a mistake. But now that he looked at Alexander he saw the way Rachel's nose wrinkled when she laughed at him. Remembered the way she shivered when he kissed her behind the ears and how similar it was to the way their son had trembled in his arms. He saw Alexander tilt his head and he could see his brother Lawrence doing the same thing. His mother was in the set of the boy's shoulders when he was determined to have his way about something. He saw his father's chin and Rachel's eyes and her tiny ears. Saw his brother about the forehead. His mother in the boy's walk.

Why hadn't he seen it all before?

Because his son was supposed to be dead. His son was a big strapping dark skinned boy of who was born in the spring, named after George himself, who liked books and the stars and had problems with his numbers but with hard work and persistence improved his math skills. His son was a bastard but a bastard with money to see those concerns waved away. But even more than that? His son— his George— died of fever when he was sixteen.

He looked across the carriage at the small, pale young man and could see the redness in his eyes. The heavy bags underneath them.

After he'd finished vomiting his dinner he'd stepped on the other side of the screen and saw Alexander had been sickened as well. Had rang for the night maid and gotten the sheets changed. Gotten a basin of water and washed the sick off of him. Dressed him in a clean shirt.

Then, like the coward he was, he'd fled to the parlor without saying another word.

But what could he say? The boy was his son. His son.

He'd been sending Thomas Stevens money to make sure the boy was being cared for— given the best of everything— and the man had kept his money and worked his son as a slave. Let his own son abuse George's. Beat him. Put him in the cane fields. 
He'd gifted George with his own son as a slave to relieve a debt.

If George had insisted Rachel go with him to Virginia this would have never happened. They'd have married and Alexander would have been legitimate. Would have been his heir from the moment he was born. Given everything he could ask for. He'd have also died at the age of nine — bayonetted by a red coat who'd come to take George for treason, just as Jacky was.

He should have gone back to St. Croix when he'd found out Rachel had a son. Bought a sugar plantation there and they could have lived on St. Croix and Alexander would have been his heir and—

Except the boy had said his mother had been jailed for harlotry. Adultery. Which was, he suspected, why she'd refused to leave for Virginia with him. She would take a lover but she would not commit bigamy. Would not risk the scandal. If he'd have gone to St. Croix there would have been scandal. His plantation would have been ruined and...

He should have at least visited. Checked on the boy and his mother. Taken the chance to get to know him.

"Your mother," George's voice cracked as Alexander turned dark, haunted eyes toward him. "Is she still—"

"No." Alexander shook his head. "She died when I was thirteen. A fever."

"A fever?" George asked. "That is what Thom Stevens told me you'd died of."

"They thought I would," Alexander answered. "She fell sick in the rainy season. There was standing water in the cane and it mixed with the night soil and the biters they were fierce that year and..."