"My father kept many secrets," Hugo said, shaking his head and glowering at the bound and gagged man who was responsible for guiding the course of his life for so many years, until he dumped his bastard son on Owain Lothian in an attempt to wash his hands of the young man. "I was one of his secrets for most of my life."
Even Hugo hadn't known who his father was for most of his life. His mother only told him that he was an 'important man' in the distant frontier. That he was wealthy and powerful, and that he would provide for them.
But his mother understood that children were horrible keepers of secrets, and so in order to keep Ian Hanrahan's secret safe, she'd kept the identity of Hugo's father a secret, even from him. It was only years later that Hugo discovered that the controlling baron had threatened to cut off the six silver pennies he sent her every month if word of Hugo's parentage ever circulated.