“Roger isn’t a Campion by blood,” she blurted. “Alvina was already pregnant when she married Victor’s father’s cousin. Roger wasn’t weak because he was born a month early. He was sickly because his scheming mother was clearly sleeping with men who were not royals. She likely doesn’t even know who the actual father is, but a recent blood test was brought to my attention, showing that Roger isn’t related to his Campion father.”
Raphael didn’t share the same old-fashioned ideas about bloodlines and their strength or weakness based on royal bloodlines, but it was a waste of his breath to say so. “Why did Alvina think she’d be able to put Roger into the Campion title? They would have done tests to assure he was truly in the bloodline, wouldn’t they?”
Claudia shrugged. “Perhaps. I couldn’t take that chance. She’s not below paying people off to curry favor.”
Neither are you, he almost said. “What else are you hiding?”
She shrugged again.
“Why aren’t you a contender for the title?” He moved closer, one inch more, and bumped her knee with his. His movement made her look up, lips parted in a sneer, ready for combat. “I’m theonlycontender after Victor.”
“What does Alvina know about you that threatens your claim? There must be something.”
“My claim is secure. I am a legitimate Campion. She simply has information that does not make me the best marital candidate, that’s all.”
Raphael wanted to scream the rafters down at her vague answer. “Tell me what it is!”
Claudia sighed. “If you must know, I’m infertile. I will never have children. Not that I wanted any in the first place—I most surely don’t—but it doesn’t make for a good marriage alliance when it’s known that a woman can’t bear children.”
She sounded resolute about her inability to conceive. Accepting. She only wanted the security of a good marriage with a royal family. If she acquired the title this way, her infertility wouldn’t be an issue. At least not as much as if she tried to find a royal husband who needed an heir and a spare, as was the custom.
If they’d married a decade ago, the odds were high she wouldn’t ever have had to produce a child as the wife of a second born. Raphael was stunned. Was that why she’d insisted they didn’t need to have a physical relationship? Had that been part of her rationale at the time?
“Okay, you seem to have come to terms with that issue. What else happened?”
He backed away, not feeling the need to hover so close. He reseated himself in the creaky chair.
Claudia’s mouth shaped into a sneer. “Alvina found out about the pivotal examination my family had done years ago, confirming I would never be able to produce healthy heirs for any family. When the test said I was barren, my family hid the results, but not well enough, apparently.”
“You never married because you couldn’t produce an heir.”
“Yes. But I’m not a pretender to the title like Roger.”
Raphael almost felt sorry for Claudia. The truth was, she’d done him a favor by nixing any kind of physical relationship between them when they were younger. If she hadn’t been so cold and unrelenting where sex in a possible marriage was concerned, he might have made a different choice. She did it for her own purposes, but any additional animosity he’d held all this time fell away.
He leaned forward, creaking again, wanting to let her down gently. “I’m afraid you will not be inheriting the Campion title, Claudia.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Whyever not?”
“You’ll find out soon enough, but trust me on this.”
“I don’t trust anyone, least of all you.”
“I’ll see myself out. Good luck to you, Claudia,” Raphael said as he exited. She might need luck. But she was not his problem anymore.
He was determined to head to Elda’s hideout. Raphael didn’t regard it as very safe, but at least no one would think to look for Victor in a former orphan hospital for desperate girls, abandoned as it was to the elements for longer than two decades.
Before Raphael got into the vehicle he’d acquired, his communication device buzzed again. He’d used this device more in the past two weeks than in the past two years.
Surprisingly, the call was someone who’d never contacted him before.
Someone who was supposed to be in a coma. Victor’s father.
Henry Campion.
Francine had practically paced a hole in the rug as she waited for Raphael to return from his meeting with Claudia.
