Chapter 209: An unhealed scar
They lay there quietly, bodies still entangled. The storm of breath and skin had faded.
Anne shifted slightly and looked up at him, finally asking the question that had been pressing at her all day.
"Why Bennet? You are a Beaumont by blood. Why don’t you use that name? Is it because you are angry with them?"
Her eyes searched his face.
Augustine lay flat on his back and stared at the ceiling, his features tightening. "The Beaumonts were never really my family." His voice was calm, but there was a quiet edge of bitterness beneath it. A scar that hadn’t quite faded.
"They never accepted my parents. Or me."
It was a painful reality he and his parents had lived through. Still, his father had always insisted that the Beaumonts were their family, not their enemies. For a long time, Augustine believed him until life proved otherwise, and the betrayal became impossible to ignore.
"My grandfather had never married my grandmother," he continued. "He kept the relationship with her secret for years. My father was born in the shadows, raised without a name."
Anne’s brow furrowed as she listened to him.
"When my grandmother died, my grandfather brought my father into the family. His wife was furious—threatened divorce. So he backed down and sent my father away, out of the mansion."
Anne’s voice dropped to a whisper. "He still wouldn’t give your father his name?"