Seduced by a Scoundrel - By Barbara Dawson Smith Page 0,110
don’t know,” she said with a helpless shake of her head. “Mama is … not herself this evening, so I doubt there is any purpose to asking her.”
Drake prowled the chamber, his footsteps loud on the bare marble floor. He tunneled his fingers through his hair, mussing the black strands. “This must be a hoax. Muira Wilder bore me. She wouldn’t have lied about that.”
“Perhaps she was warned to keep silent,” Alicia suggested. “Perhaps she’d been told you would be taken from her if ever she revealed the truth.”
“Warned,” he said through clenched teeth. “By whom? Hailstock? If he’d wanted to get rid of Claire’s child, he could have smothered him.”
James brought his fist down on the arm of his chair. “My father is no murderer,” he flared. “He wouldn’t kill a baby.”
“We seem doomed to disagree about his character.”
The two men glared at each other. As if they would come to blows rather than help her find a way out of their dilemma.
“Stop, both of you,” Alicia said sharply. “Your quarreling only makes matters worse. Drake, did Muira Wilder ever say anything at all that might verify this story?”
“No. Nothing.” Then he stopped pacing, his gaze unfocused, as if he were looking inwardly at his past.
“You’ve remembered something,” she said.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Tell us anyway.”
Drake paced to the window, opening the shutters to stare out into the night. “On her deathbed … when she told me to go to London and see my father, she said, “‘I nivver could carry a bairn, lost so many till ye came along. Ye were my blessin’, my gift from heaven.’”
His husky Scottish lilt caused a prickling over Alicia’s skin. As did the message … I nivver could carry a bairn. “There, you see?” she said, a tremor in her voice. “She raised you, but she didn’t give birth to you.”
He shook his head. “She meant I was her only surviving pregnancy. She’d suffered a few miscarriages before I was born, that’s all.”
But Alicia saw the doubt in him. The subtle change from disbelief to cautious acceptance. Would he rejoice now? Would he seize his chance to exact the most punishing revenge of all?
She prayed he would not be so cruel to his brother.
James made an impatient sound. “We must find the documents proving the validity of this claim. Is Lady Eleanor truly so unbalanced that she cannot remember where she put them?”
“She has moments of sanity,” Alicia explained. “We shall have to wait for one of those times.”
“God!” With an angry push, James sent his chair careening across the chamber. He caught the wheels and spun to face her. “I cannot sit idly by, wondering if my father did such a deed. Have you searched your mother’s chambers?”
“Yes. I did so when I looked for the letters.” To steady her nerves, Alicia took great care in refolding the letter. “You should know, James, that your father has been seeking these documents, too.”
He wheeled closer. “What do you mean?”
Before she could reply, Drake pivoted. “Alicia came upon him poking through the study at Pemberton House. He said he was looking for some old papers that belonged to her father.”
“That isn’t all,” Alicia added. “Yesterday evening, while Drake and I were gone at the circus, his lordship came here and badgered Mama about a letter. I’m sure it was this letter—”
“The wretch came into my house? He upset your mother?” His hands clenched, Drake took a step toward her. “You ought to have told me so immediately.”
“I have had other things on my mind today,” she said, enunciating each word to keep from shouting back at him. “And I was about to say that I didn’t realize his purpose, or why he was so concerned about finding some old letters. Until … this afternoon.”
When she had found out that Drake was the marquess’s son. When she’d had enough time to ponder and consider and realize …
Unable to sit still any longer, she surged to her feet. “I am going to find Mama. If she has a lucid moment, I’ll ask her to show me where she hid the papers.”
With quick decisive steps, Drake strode toward her. “I’ll go with you. I’ll convince her that I’m”—he grimaced as if still fighting the truth—“Claire’s son.”
“No.” Alicia didn’t care if he saw the raw pain in her eyes. “I don’t want you with me. I will do this alone.”
He stopped as if struck. That look of fathomless intensity hid his thoughts from her. It would always be