“Pleasant lady,” he said, one eyebrow raised. “Most refined, Kate. Have you decided on a method?”
“With my bare hands,” she declared rashly.
“I have heard it said that anger gives one superhuman strength,” he said, fingering the ribbon of his quizzing glass and raising it to his eye, to Kate’s extreme wrath. “You must be very, very angry, Kate. But even a condemned criminal is entitled to know on what charge he has been convicted, you know. Might I know why I am to die at your hands?”
“You are a liar and a cheat and . . . and . . . I hate you,” she said.
He dropped his glass and looked hard at her for several seconds. “You know, don’t you?” he asked quietly.
“How you must despise me and hate me,” she cried. “How you must have laughed all this time. I believe it is a matter of some triumph to a man to successfully seduce a woman. A conquest about which to boast to all his male companions. Well, you are doubly triumphant, Nicholas Seyton. Get away from me and begin your boasting. Make me a laughingstock. I don’t care. I will not hear any of it anyway. I shall be teaching someone’s children in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands, if I am fortunate. Go away. I hate you. And I am going to kill you.”
“Katherine!” he said tenderly. “You malign me. You know you do.”
“Get out of my sight!” she hissed. “Or I shall kill you before you have had a chance to meet your brother.”
“My brother?” he said. “You are talking in riddles, love.”
Kate took one step closer to him. “Call me your love once more,” she said very quietly, her voice trembling with fury, “and I shall . . . I shall start using my fists. And you are right that I am very, very angry. You would not escape without a black eye at the very least. And then who would be the laughingstock?”
“Me, doubtless, and deservedly,” he said, infuriating her further by grinning. “When did I acquire a brother, Katherine?”
“I would estimate about twenty years ago,” she said with great deliberateness, and watched the grin fade and a questioning frown take its place. “How do you think I discovered the truth? There is a young man inside who could almost be a twin of both Sir Harry Tate and Nicholas Seyton. He has a French accent that could almost be cut with a knife.”
His eyes had widened but had not left hers. His face had turned very pale. “What are you saying?” he whispered.
The fight went out of Kate. She looked at him with dull, hostile eyes and drooping shoulders. “He is your half-brother,” she said. “You had better go inside to meet him without further delay. I believe your mother is in London.”
“Katherine!” He whispered her name and held out a hand to her that was not quite steady. “Come with me.”
She shook her head, her expression unchanged. “Go,” she said.
He held her eyes and kept his hand extended to her for a few moments longer. But there was no yielding in her attitude, no forgiveness in her eyes. He turned and hurried across the cobblestones toward the door. Kate watched him disappear inside.
An hour passed before Nicholas reappeared in the stableyard. And what a momentous hour, he reflected. Sometimes it seemed as if whole days passed with activities of so little importance that one week later they were as a blank in the mind. Yet sometimes so much could happen in a single hour that it seemed a whole week must have passed.
He had met his brother and talked a great deal with him. Yet at the end of the hour he still could not quite believe that he did not dream. How could he have a twenty-year-old brother, so like him in looks, so similar in personality, it seemed, and have been unaware of his existence all this time?
Anatole had repeated to him the story he had told Kate. It seemed that his mother had never made a secret of the fact that she had had a son by her first husband and had given him up that he might be groomed by his grandfather for the role of an English earl. But she had steadfastly refused to break the promise she had made to stay away from the boy so that he would not become confused about his identity. This despite the fact that both her husband and her son had assured her that the promise exacted from her had been a wholly unreasonable one.
But when they had heard quite by chance that the Earl of Barton was dead, then she had given in to their persuasions. She would come to England, she had agreed, and try to see her son, though she would not promise to make herself known to him. The new Earl of Barton might not be pleased to discover that he had a French mother still living. There had been great consternation in London when they had discovered that the new earl was not a young man, but a man of middle years, a nephew of the late earl. The comtesse had been inconsolable, lamenting her stubbornness over the years, wishing now that she had come sooner and perhaps seen her boy before his death.
Her living son had offered the only comfort he could think of. He had decided to travel to Barton Abbey, talk to the earl, and discover what had happened to Nicholas, and where his grave could be found. Imagine his surprise, he said, when the English mamselle had told him that his brother was alive and at Barton Abbey.
Nicholas in his turn told briefly about the deception that had been played on him all his life and of how he had tracked down every clue in the months since the death of his grandfather in an effort to find his mother. He told of his discovery of the truth only the night before, thanks to that same English madame—not mamselle—whom he wished to present formally to his brother in a short while. In the meantime he had urgent business in the private parlor.
The earl had still been outside when Nicholas entered the inn. He had been in close conversation with the luckless Sidney Moreton. But he had come inside and demanded to know where the parlor was while the brothers talked. He had been too intent on his business with his daughter to take any notice of the two men. But Nicholas decided eventually that it was time to have a talk with his relative. He tapped on the parlor door, went inside without waiting for an answer, and discovered, not surprisingly, a tearful Thelma and a thunderous father.
“Forgive the interruption,” Nicholas said in his most indolent manner, “but I must have a word with you.”
“Not now, Tate,” the earl said. “This is a private matter.”
“So is mine,” Nicholas said. “Perhaps Lady Thelma could join Mrs. Mannering outside for a few minutes?”
“And have her run off again?” the earl said scornfully. “Do you take me for a complete nincompoop, Tate?”
“By no means,” that gentleman answered mildly. “But I do not believe that either Moreton or Lady Thelma would be that foolish. Besides, I wish to discuss with you some papers that I believe you have been searching for for some time.”
The earl went very still. He looked at Nicholas with narrowed eyes. “Thelma,” he said, “go outside, girl. But remember that if you try to fly again, you will not get very far.”
