“Visit from Maximilien Voss,” Arthur said, looking from Marcus to Selina with a keen eye, “he’s up to something. Arrived demanding to see the impostor and claiming to speak for the rightful heir to Valebridge.”
Marcus smiled grimly, “I thought as much. I worried as much. Your father did not intervene on the spur of the moment. I doubt it was news to him when you wrote to him. This smells like a plan that goes back further.”
“To when I arrived? How would he have known where I was?” Selina asked.
“There were some strange folk in these hills that night. “You weren’t the first I came across, though you were the first that I allowed myself to be seen by,” Arthur replied, attacking a piece of cheese with a belt knife.
Selina shivered. Her hair was wet, as was Marcus’. There hadn’t been time for either of them to dry themselves properly. The morning was warm but the fresh air felt chilly against wet skin. Now, there was the added chill of the threat from an enemy. She shifted to sit next to Marcus, pressing herself against him and he put an arm about her shoulders. Arthur nodded in approval.
“You look after her. This man Voss is a snake. I doubt he’s been challenged before. He has the look of a man rarely told no.”
“Remind you of anyone?” Marcus said wryly.
That could have been a description of their own father. Arthur nodded grimly.
“Beveridge is keeping Voss at bay for now, refusing him entry into the house. But, if there is any legal means to his claim, a butler won’t be able to keep him out forever. We need to legitimize you, Marcus.”
“How do we do that? Father didn’t acknowledge me. The letter he wrote summoning me home did not mention me as his son, merely that I should come to Valebridge to learn something to my advantage. My solicitor believes me to be you and when he finds out that I am not, he may well switch his allegiance to the rightful claimant.”
“Which is you,” Arthur pointed out, “whoever Voss has found won’t have the Roy Mark.”
He pulled at his own shirt, revealing the tell-tale mark against his nut-brown skin.
“The first thing to do is go back to Valebridge and search it from top to bottom for some documented evidence of your identity. Voss can wait,” Arthur said.
“You’ll come back with us?” Selina said, hopefully.
Arthur shuddered. “I’ve spent my time in that place. I’ll help in any way I can but I won’t set foot in there again.”
CHAPTER34
They rode back over the Old Gop and down the other side towards Valebridge. Arthur did not ride, but vanished into the rolling fastness of the Downs, announcing his intention to seek a friendly face in Wilmington. Marcus and Selina rode through the hills, side by side in companionable silence. She felt no need to fill that silence. With Marcus, she didn’t need to. It was enough to be with him in that beautiful country with Valebridge rising majestic and ancient in the distance. She felt a warmth within her, as though the morning sun were able to penetrate into the depths of her body. That warmth came from Marcus. It came from his body, from what they had shared. She found herself touching her stomach and wondered to herself how long after making love was a child conceived. And would she be able to tell when it happened?
For a while, she rode, lost in a daydream of being the mother to many children of Marcus. It was a pleasant thought.
“You are smiling,” Marcus observed as they reached the open expanse of the Valebridge Park.
“I am thinking of the future,” Selina replied.
“What particular future?” Marcus asked.
“One where we are parents to a large family,” Selina admitted.
Marcus nodded slowly, then looked up at Valebridge ahead of them with narrowed eyes. “The men of my family do not have a great record in that area,” he said, after a moment’s silence.
Selina thought on this, it was a sobering thought.
“Are you saying that you don’t want to have children?” Selina asked, half-fearing the answer.
“No. Not that,” Marcus replied brusquely, “it is more that I fear the same curse that my father and grandfather suffered. The curse that turns them into tyrants when it comes to their children. What if I am the same?”
Selina felt a flash of relief, saw the anxiety on Marcus’ face, and reached out to take his hand.
“You spent the majority of your childhood in the north, did you not?” she said, remembering the diary kept by Beveridge and the journey it had laid out.
“I did, in the Livingstone household.”
“And was the master of that household a good father?” Selina asked.
