Galen began matter-of-factly. “Perhaps if I had been more of a soldier or scholar…or perhaps if he hadn’t married my stepmother.”“She didn’t like you?”“No, not at all. She had me sent away to school the first chance she had, and with my father’s blessing, I’m sorry to say. She disliked me from the first moment she laid eyes on me when I was six years old.”“Why?” Verity asked softly.“I fear I made a very bad impression.”“How can a child make a bad impression? You didn’t hit her, did you?”Galen smiled ruefully. “No, I didn’t, but I wasn’t exactly delighted by her arrival.“I loved my mother very much. She was never so cold and distant as my father. When I saw my stepmother and understood what my father had done, I was upset. Indeed, it was frightening to see this strange woman clinging to my father’s arm like a leech. However, I tried not to cry. My father detested the sight of tears.”“But surely she could understand,” Verity protested.“Apparently she did not, for she said, ‘Why, what sulky little baby is this?’ My father was very angry with me, and …well, we never got on a better footing.”“But you were only a child!”“I was the heir, my dear,”
