“Six. It was completed just before they were killed.”
“Why would someone kill them?” she demanded to know.
Luke had no answer for that. “Robbery most likely.”
“But the boy, what happened to him?”
Luke shook his head. “Sold. Put on a ship. Perhaps he died elsewhere. There’s no way of knowing.”
“It just seems so very odd. And it also seems that quite possibly you could be—”
“Catherine, as you say, they were happy. Why would I not remember that? Why would I have no memory of him or her? You were young when your mother died. Have you no memory of her?”
Sighing, she looked down at the floor. “I remember her. Vaguely.” She lifted her gaze back to his. “I see your point, I suppose.”
“Good.” He plowed his hands through his hair, pressing on his scalp, trying to relieve the pain that had begun without giving away that it was there. “I need to see to some matters.”
“Am I free to roam the house?”
“You’re free to do anything you want, although I advise you against leaving. Avendale could show up at anytime.”
“I won’t leave these walls.”
He took a step nearer and stroked his thumb over her lips. He wanted to carry her to his bedchamber, he wanted to spend every moment that remained to them here making love to her. But the truth was that he was no longer certain how to define their relationship.
She’d asked for a night in his arms. Had it been enough for her? It certainly hadn’t been for him, but it was wrong of him to pursue more when he couldn’t give her forever. It was wrong when Frannie—
He dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Then he strode from the room, praying that Avendale would make his appearance soon, before Luke went mad with wanting Catherine again.
The rain began near dusk, the wind whipping off the moors, the thunder rumbling.
In the library, Luke stood at the window, his hip against the windowsill, gazing out on the darkness, the land occasionally illuminated by the flashes of lightning.
Catherine sat in a nearby chair, a book in her lap. She’d read the same passage three times now and still hadn’t a clear understanding of what Jane Austen was trying to say. It wasn’t a complicated point. She simply couldn’t concentrate.
“I’ve been pondering something you told me once,” Claybourne said quietly.
Catherine welcomed the opportunity for conversation and closed the book. “And what was that?”
Claybourne was studying something beyond the window. “You said that the first Earl of Claybourne had earned the right to pass the estates and title on to his heirs.”
“I have a vague recollection—”
He turned from the window. “When we return to London, I’m going to appear before the House of Lords and denounce my claim to Claybourne.”
Slowly coming to her feet, Catherine felt as though all the air had been forced from her lungs. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m weary of living a lie. Because a time existed when I didn’t fully appreciate what I’d been handed—I saw only my life not the legacy behind the title. All of this truly belongs to Marcus Langdon, and I shall see that he comes to have it.”
She saw so many problems and difficulties with his plan that she hardly knew where to begin.
“They’ll hang you.”
“I doubt it. The witness to my crime died several years ago. What evidence do they have? Besides, I can well afford to pay the sharpest legal mind in all of England to defend me if it comes to that.”
“But Marcus Langdon—he isn’t you.”
