Kate glanced at the long blond hair of her captor and frowned slightly. “So you are not legitimate?” she asked. She was surprised to hear her voice sounding almost disappointed.
“So I concluded,” he agreed. “But I was intrigued and excited to learn that my mother was French, not English, as I had assumed, and that there had never been any notice of her death. She may still be alive, Katherine. In fact, she very possibly is. She was probably young when she had me. My father was only in his early twenties when he died. I wanted to find her. Correction. I want to find her. But my grandfather no longer had that letter she had sent. He could remember only that her name was Annette. He could not remember where she lived, only that it was a place he had never heard of before. France is a large country to search for a lady called Annette.”
“Oh,” Kate said, staring at him with wide, sympathetic eyes. She completely forgot for the moment her captive state. “You poor man. Is it a quite impossible task? But perhaps it is just as well. She might be ... I mean ...”
“A tavern maid? A whore?” he completed for her. “I have considered that. But I believe I want to find her even so. Can you imagine what it is like, Katherine, to have believed all your life that both your parents are dead and then to find that perhaps your mother is alive after all? I am obsessed with the need to find her, or at least to find her grave. I want to know who she is. Or was.”
“But you have no way of doing so?” she asked. She was gazing at him, spots of color high on her cheeks. She had become oblivious of the mask and the potential menace of this man at whose mercy her virtue and her very life lay.
“Oh, yes,” he said with a laugh that held no amusement. “There is a way. The messenger who was sent to France was my father’s cousin, Mr. Clive Seyton.”
Kate’s jaw dropped. “Then what is the problem?” she asked, puzzled.
“I wrote to him in great excitement even before my grandfather died,” Nicholas Seyton said, “to ask for the name of my mother and the town or village where she lived five-and-twenty years ago. It did not once occur to me before I received his reply that he would deny me the information.”
“And he did?” Kate was mesmerized.
He laughed. “He could not recall either piece of information,” he said. “Only that she was a vulgar dancer who had been starving and otherwise neglecting me before he intervened to take me to Barton Abbey. He was very sorry he could remember no more. But he agreed with you, Katherine. It was just as well that I did not find my mother.”
“How could he forget if he went there?” Kate asked, frowning. “Surely he can remember whereabouts it was and what towns it was close to even if the name of the precise place evades his memory.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he said. “I wrote back to him with more searching questions. This was little more than six weeks ago, shortly after the death of my grandfather. I received a reply from his lawyer almost immediately ordering me to leave his lordship’s property without further delay or face prosecution for trespassing. I was advised to leave the district entirely and to desist from harassing his lordship with begging letters. My illegitimate status gave me no claim whatsoever on the property of the Earl of Barton.”
“Oh,” Kate said. “How could he be so cruel? He seems not to be a hard-hearted man.”
“I believe he made a tactical error in responding in such a manner,” Nicholas Seyton said. “My conclusion is that the earl is an imposter. He knows more than he is willing to tell me and thinks to solve the problem by getting rid of me. The only way I can explain his behavior to myself, Katherine, is to believe that I am legitimate. What would make him deny me information that might lead me to my mother? A concern for my feelings if I should discover that she is not respectable? Why would he care? And why would he tell me she is a vulgar dancer? He has not seen me for more than twenty years. A fear that I will discover that she is a lady who was indeed married to my father? I believe so.”
“But why?” Kate asked. “Why would he do such a thing? And why would your mother have allowed him to take you away? Why would she have remained silent all these years?”
“His motive should be obvious,” he replied. “If I was legitimate, I would have become the viscount and the heir to my grandfather’s title and property. If not, then he was the heir. He was the son of my grandfather’s only brother. Of the answers to your other questions I am more uncertain. Was my mother sick, perhaps, and unable to care for me? Did she let me go and maintain a silence because she considered such a course best for me? Did she die, perhaps, soon after I was taken away? Was she poor and forced to let me go and keep silent about me, taking money in exchange? Whatever the truth, my father’s cousin must have been confident that she would not suddenly reappear. Does that mean that he knows she is dead? I do not know, Katherine. And I want to know.”
“You kidnapped me in the hope of forcing answers from the earl?” Kate asked.
He got to his feet, his chair scraping over the bare floor as he pushed it back with his legs. “Yes,” he said. “And you were right, Katherine. It was a cowardly thing to do, using a helpless woman as a weapon against a blackguard. The morality of my plan has troubled me, I must admit, but I have always pushed my uneasiness to the back of my mind. Kidnapping is not a pretty crime, even if one has no intention of harming one’s victim. My pistol was unloaded tonight, by the way. I would not risk shooting anyone by accident. I am almost glad my plan failed. But you have suffered. And what the deuce am I to do with you?”
“You will let me go, of course,” Kate said, folding her napkin and placing it on her empty plate. Suddenly she found that all her terror had gone.
“And why would I do anything so foolish, Katherine?” he asked, turning and looking at her.
“Because it is the decent thing to do,” she said, pushing back her chair and rising to her feet, “besides being the only practical course of action. If you will not let me go, you will have to kill me. And you will not do that.”
He grinned. “For someone in captivity with a masked man at least twice your size,” he said, “you seem remarkably confident, Katherine. And will you reveal all you have been told to the earl? It is too late now, I suppose, for me to consider that probability. Well . . . ” He sighed. “Perhaps I can go to France and start asking at every town and village for females named Annette.”
“Of course I will not tell!” Kate declared scornfully. “If you have been spinning a yarn, I should end up looking remarkably foolish to repeat it. If you have been telling the truth, then Lord Barton should not know that you are on his trail.”
Nicholas Seyton smiled fleetingly. “No, I would not expect you to be so poor-spirited as to spill all,” he said. “What an admirable female you are, Katherine Mannering. What was your husband? Did he not leave you the means with which to live in independence?”
“My husband had debts,” Kate said briskly. “I could have returned to my father’s house. But he has a large family to provide for without me. I could have entered society under the sponsorship of my aunt and waited for someone else to make me his chattel. Or I could take employment. I chose employment.”
“Chattel,” he repeated softly. “You have certainly answered one of my questions, my dear. Come. I shall take you home without further delay. As it is, you may find that your reputation will be somewhat tarnished after tonight’s escapade.”
“First I must leave my money and my pearl earrings with you,” Kate said, picking up her reticule and rummaging inside it, “and my wedding ring. It must seem that you had theft in mind when you carried me off. Perhaps you should take my whole reticule.”
Nicholas watched in some amusement as she placed first the individual items and then the whole bag on the table. “They will be here for you whenever you need them,” he said. “Are the earrings valuable?”
“Not very,” she said. “If they had been, Giles would have taken them long ago.” Then she bit her lip painfully. She was grateful that he made no comment. “I shall see what I can learn at the Abbey. Perhaps his lordship will speak of you or ask the servants about you. Perhaps there will be something else to learn. I shall try. But are you not afraid that you will be seen in the neighborhood and word will reach the earl? We rode a long way tonight, but I do not believe we can be a great distance from Barton Abbey.”
“Only a few miles,” he said. “This is one of many cottages scattered along the coast. The sea is close by. A fisherman and his wife have been kind enough to take me in here. Indeed they now behave as if I own the house and they are merely my servants. Buildings are scattered in this part of the world, but in many ways it is a close community. Most people in the vicinity, including the servants at the Abbey, know that I live here, but all will have sealed lips if questioned. And none will have any idea where I have gone. These people can be remarkably stupid when they wish to be.”
