Clairemont wrinkled his brow. He hadn’t thought Gray would give a damn considering everything that had happened. Slowly Clairemont shrugged out the coat, pushed the rip in his shirt beneath open and looked. There was a thin line of blood on his left bicep where the bullet had just danced along the skin.
“It’s not bad. I’ve had worse,” he said.
Gray said nothing, but turned to the sideboard and poured a hefty glass of scotch. He returned and handed it to Clairemont. “For the wound. Or for your courage. Whichever needs it more.”
Clairemont dug into his pocket for a handkerchief and dipped it in the glass. He slugged back the remaining liquid before he rubbed the fiery alcohol across the cut. It was like rubbing salt in the wound and he sucked air through his teeth.
“Bloody hell, that hurts.”
Gray glared at him. “Good. Now explain yourself.”
Clairemont shut his eyes briefly. There was no avoiding this, not anymore. The ship had sailed on his lies, on his deception, on whatever bright little life he’d briefly allowed himself to have as Aiden, Duke of Clairemont. Now the pain was here.
Pain he had hoped to avoid for a little while longer. For Celia’s sake more than his own.
“I’m not even sure where to start,” he said. “Or how to make you understand.”
“I have a feeling there is no way I’m going to understand,” Gray spat, and poured himself a drink. He clutched it in his hand tightly. “But try, if you are capable of doing anything but lying.”
Clairemont flinched. Lying was part of his game. Part of how he stayed alive. He’d never wished to be worse at it than now.
“You know the first part,” he said. “I am not the Duke of Clairemont.”
At the parlor door there was a loud sound. Clairemont leapt to his feet and both he and Gray faced the door. There, standing in the entrance, a hatbox at her feet where she had dropped it, stood Celia. Rosalinde stood behind her. But Clairemont only saw Celia. He saw the pain on her face. The confusion.
He hated himself for it.
“What do you mean, Aiden?” she asked, all the blood draining from her face. “What do you mean you aren’t the Duke of Clairemont?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Celia stared at Aiden, waiting for his answer, waiting for him to say anything at all in response to her question. But it was Gray who stepped forward, not the man she loved.
“Celia, Rosalinde,” he said slowly. “It’s all right. I promise I’llmakeit all right somehow.”
“Is that blood?” Rosalinde cried out.
Celia jerked her gaze from Aiden’s face to his arm, where her sister pointed. She gasped as she moved toward him, forgetting for the moment everything except for the fact that he was hurt. He stepped back before he recovered the wound with his handkerchief.
“I was shot at. He stepped in the way and saved my life,” Gray said.
Rosalinde made a soft sound of terror in her throat and flew across the room to her husband. “Shot at, Gray? What in the world? Are you injured? Who would do this? Why?” Rosalinde burst out, smoothing her hands over his face, his shoulders, as if to reassure herself that he was well.
How Celia wished to do the same to Aiden, but she didn’t move again. She just stared at him, waiting for him to say something, anything. But he just looked at her, his expression dark and sorry.
“That’s a lot to cover,” Gray said softly, taking Rosalinde’s hands. “I’m not injured.”
Rosalinde spun on Aiden. “If you saved my husband, I’m in your debt.”
“No, you aren’t,” Aiden finally said, his voice strained. “I’m the reason he was shot at.”
Celia’s hands began to shake and she clenched them at her sides. “Enough of this. Answer my question. If you aren’t the Duke of Clairemont, who are you?”
He bent his head, and there was such a look of pain and defeat on his handsome face that Celia longed to move on him, to wrap her arms around him, to smooth the lines from his face. But even though she didn’t understand what was going on at all, she instinctively recognized that time was over. Whatever Aiden was going to say, it would destroy everything she’d hoped for. She didn’t feel like she could draw full breath anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft in the quiet room. He lifted his gaze and met hers evenly. “It is complicated. I work for the War Department.”
Celia shook her head. That meant very little to her. Was Aiden a soldier?
