Susan.
Madeline.
“Madeline has your look, Fox,” Leah continued. “She has tae be your child.”
Child?
“No,” he replied, the words spilling from him. “Though I think of her as my daughter, Madeline was never mine. Susan . . .”—deep breath—“Susan was my younger sister. Madeline is my niece.”
20
Leah stilled, the words lighting candles of understanding in her head.
Of course.
Why hadn’t she thought of that possibility?
“I didnae know ye had a sister,” she whispered.
Shamelessly, she buried her nose into the space between Fox’s throat and collar. He was holding her, and she was not going to squander this opportunity. He smelled like his shirts: leather, wool, sandalwood, and an underlying spice that had to be pure Fox.
Longing clogged the back of her throat. Would that she had permission to touch him like this anytime she wished.
The very thought rendered her dizzy and aching.
“Very few people knew of Susan’s existence,” he replied, his voice a rasp in her ear.
“But . . .” Leah frowned and reluctantly pulled her head back. “Why couldnae ye tell me this? I asked ye once if ye had a sister, and ye . . .” She frowned, thinking back to their previous, drunken conversation. “Ye evaded my question. ’Tis an odd thing tae keep secret. Surely, the fact of your sister was well-known enough?”
“Yes and no,” he sighed.
He stepped away from her, his hands sliding off her person. Leah keenly felt the loss of him.
Come back, she nearly whimpered.Dinnae go. Not yet. Hold me a wee while longer.
But she said nothing. Fox was finally tentatively opening a window into his past, entrusting her with some view of it. She would do nothing to jeopardize his trust.
He walked over to one of the small windows.
“Susan was much younger than myself,” he said, voice blending with the sound of rain battering the moor. “She was under my uncle’s care, as her guardian, until her twenty-first birthday. As I was stationed out of the country, we rarely saw one another. Most of my acquaintance didn’t realize I even had a sister.”
“She didnae marry before her majority, then?”
Fox hesitated, shaking his head. “No. She was . . . afraid of marriage.”
Leah paused. “Afraid?”
He swallowed and then let out a deep breath, clearing his throat.
Ratatat!Rain pounded against the window in a staccato burst, startling her. Thunder rumbled in reply.
“My family . . . ,” he began and then paused, shaking his head and turning to stare out the window again. “Blast, this is difficult. I have honestly never divulged this to anyone—not a soul—with the exception of my solicitor who had learned about it through other means. It is too damning, too ruinous.”
Leah said nothing, her heart thrumming in time with the drum of rain atop the roof.
What had happened to Susan?
After a moment, Fox continued, “The women in my family are susceptible to a peculiar sort of . . . malady.”
