Jasper resisted the urge to pull out his watch and check the time. How much of the night remained for Greydrake to search for Madelina? Yet, this might be Jasper’s one chance to hear the truth. “Tell me.”
Greydrake nodded. “When Madeline was seven, our father killed her mother. Pushed her down the stairs, and Madelina bore witness.”
Jasper couldn’t prevent a gasp, but he clamped his mouth closed over any further interruption.
“Worse, our father knew. He came after Madelina. He would have killed her.”
Greydrake passed a hand over his eyes and suddenly, even though the man spoke of events that took place a dozen years ago, Jasper read the strain of that telling.
“I hid her,” Greydrake continued. “When my father regained some semblance of calm, I talked him into sending Madelina away. I told him a girl of seven would forget. That she already thought she’d dreamed the incident. I pointed out how suspicious it would look for both a wife and a daughter to have fatal accidents, one so hard upon the other.”
Jasper offered a shaky nod of agreement.
“Miss Saint Lawrence is the older sister of Madelina’s mother.”
Jasper nodded again. He’d known that and yet, he hadn’t put all the pieces together. “That is why she hates your father.”
“And why she felt the perfect revenge would be to have him die at Madelina’s hands.”
“Do you…. Do you think she could have killed him?” Jasper asked.
“I don’t know.” Greydrake’s gaze focused on one of the sarcophagi, but his attention seemed far away. “I never could bring myself to.” He shrugged, bringing his attention back to Jasper. “As I said, when my father died, Miss Saint Lawrence tried to send Madelina home. By then, I’d known for some time about the training. I’d learned that my sister hadn’t attended school and had sent men to discover what happened to the money and where she went. I approved of her training, but not of the way Miss Saint Lawrence intended to cast Madelina aside once my father died. I went to Miss Saint Lawrence and told her that I am Lefthook. I fostered the idea that Madelina could join me with a little more training. That she could do great good.”
Jasper took in the hard planes of the marquess’s face in the flickering light and phrased his next question with care. “I understand you not wanting Miss Saint Lawrence to abandon Madelina, but how can you endure your sister taking such a path? The danger….” He shook his head, confounded.
Greydrake studied Jasper for a long moment. “Do you know what it’s like, Mclintock, to be at the mercy of absolute evil? To be a child and watch your mother die, and have no recourse? No way to help her?”
“No,” Jasper’s voice came out a near whisper. He cleared his throat. “No, you know I do not. My mother is very much alive.”
“Yes, I should have Lanora call on her.”
Jasper stifled a half-mad laugh.
Greydrake’s gaze raked over him again, assessing. “There aren’t many ways to cope with witnessing such a thing. With that…trauma.” His pose remained nonchalant, but tension radiated from him. “You can despair and cry. Rather, you do despair and cry. But, at some point, you must reclaim your life. This”—his sweeping gesture encompassed his black-clad frame—“this is control. Knowing how to fight? That is safety. You can never go back and change what happened, but you can prove, every night, that you’ll never have to stand by and witness such an atrocity again. You will stop it.”
Jasper noted the blade-sharp edge to the marquess’s voice, the strain about his eyes. The old marquess had lost two wives and his firstborn son. The revelation about Madelina’s mother must encompass but a portion of a much larger tale. “I’m not certain I understand any of this, but I’m sure we must get Madelina back.”
“Agreed. Enough reminiscing. Why is my sister missing?”
“Because Clementine wants me to marry her.”
“She saw an obstacle in my sister?”
Jasper nodded, trying not to recall flinging that same accusation at Madelina. “And an opportunity. If I’d known that Clementine still wanted to marry me, I would have been less candid.”
“She offers Madelina’s life in exchange for your vow?”
“The first banns have already been read,” Jasper could hardly force the words through his lips.
“So, you’re willing to go through with it?”
A wave of nausea surged through him. “I’d rather die.”
“It’s not you she’d kill,” Greydrake said quietly.
Jasper nodded. “If it saves Madelina, I’ll do it.” Even though it would kill him inside. “Clementine swore there will be no more abductions, no more auctions.”
“Do you believe her?”
