Wiser. More capable of self-discipline. “Even then…”
“What?” she asked.
He was silent for a long moment, his fingers stroking the curve of her cheek. When next he spoke, his voice was husky with memory. “Sometimes, when I was standing on the deck of a ship at midnight or driving alone along some deserted moonlit road, I’d feel the oddest sensation. A sharp tug pulling at my heart. As if a thread was anchored there, linking me to some other person, somewhere out there in the wide world. I always imagined it was you. Imagined it, and wondered if you felt it, too.”
A rogue tear slipped down Maggie’s cheek. “I did feel it. I still do.”
He brushed the tear away, cursing himself for provoking it. “I’m sorry, Maggie. So sorry that I’ve hurt you. That I didn’t keep my promise.”
“I waited for you. For so long.”
A burning prickle stung at the back of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I wanted to come home, but…there was no way back to you. Not as the boy I was. Not as Nicholas Seaton.”
“You make him sound like he was quite another person.”
“I’ve come to think of him as such. A young, unfortunate fellow who I laid to rest somewhere in Italy.”
Fresh tears threatened. “And Lord St. Clare?”
“Born in the same place. From Seaton’s ashes, you might say. The man I was meant to be. Who I would have been, had things been different.” He realized how nonsensical he must sound. “It’s all become so bloody complicated.”
“It has, rather.” She set a slim hand on his bare chest, her palm sliding upward, brushing over the decade-old scar from Fred’s whip. Her fingers curled around his neck. “But you’re here now. That’s all that matters to me at the moment.”
He bent his head and kissed her very softly on the mouth. Their breath mingled, their lips parting and clinging. His pulse throbbed. It took all of his strength of will to draw back from her. “Can you ever forgive me? I know I don’t deserve it—”
“Of course, I forgive you. I only wish you’d had the good sense to confide in me earlier. To trust me enough to explain who you really are.”
“Who I really am,” he repeated with a wry huff. “It’s more complicated than you might think.”
“I’m beginning to see that.” She frowned. “Lord Allendale’s son, James Beresford—the man you claim is your father… He truly was your father, wasn’t he? He was Gentleman Jim.”
St. Clare’s fingers stilled on the curve of her cheek. He felt a disconcerting mixture of relief and alarm. “How did you know?”
“Something Jane’s aunt said. She’s forever mistaking people for their forebears. She caught a glimpse of you tonight through the carriage window and thought you were your father—Jim, she called him.” Maggie searched his face. “It is true, isn’t it?”
“It’s true,” he admitted. “James Beresford was Gentleman Jim.”
He hadn’t realized how much of a burden the truth was until he confessed it to her. No one else knew of it, save his grandfather. And the Earl of Allendale wasn’t much for talking about the past. Not St. Clare’s past, anyway. His boyhood in Somerset was a subject the earl had discouraged almost from the first moment they’d met.
“How ever did you find out?” Maggie asked. “The night you left Beasley Park, all you had was the merest suspicion. And that was only that a highwayman was your father, not a nobleman.” Her eyes widened on a sudden thought. “Did you ask after him at the hedge tavern in Market Barrow? The one where Jenny used to work?”
St. Clare’s thumb moved over her jaw in a slow caress. And then he dropped his hand. He exhaled heavily. “I didn’t go to Market Barrow. I couldn’t risk it. It would have meant riding inland, instead of to the coast.”
“But how—”
“I went to Bristol, just as I’d planned. I asked after Gentleman Jim at every tavern I passed. All the while, I was dreading the moment the authorities would catch up with me and haul me back to Somerset to face the noose. And it wasn’t only them I feared. On one occasion, two sailors from His Majesty’s Royal Navy nearly impressed me into service. I managed to get away from them, but it was a very near thing.”
“I thought you must have joined up. I thought you’d become a soldier or a sailor and gone away to fight Napoleon.”
“Nothing so noble as that. I carried on with my search