Page 113 of A Convenient Fiction

“Oui, monsieur.” The waiter departed.

“My wife doesn’t know the whole of this,” Alex said.

“About the circumstances in which you left Abbot’s Holcombe?”

“About the orphanage. The things that happened in North Devon. I’ve tried to forget.”

“And yet…she wears the ring we found at Greyfriar’s Abbey.” Tom’s features set in a puzzled frown. “Odd, that.”

Alex stiffened. “Why are you here? How did you find me?”

“You assume it wasn’t a coincidence.”

“That you just happen to appear in Grasse? Not bloody likely. You’re here for a reason, and it isn’t because you’re on your wedding trip.”

Tom didn’t deny it. “Last month I received word you were in France. Some reports said Paris, others Marseilles. My wife and I enjoy traveling. It seemed natural to come here on our honeymoon—and to search for you at the same time. I believe we’ve been no more than two days behind you since you left Paris.”

“When did you arrive in Grasse?”

“Not a half hour before we encountered your wife. Imagine my surprise, as I signed into the hotel, to find the Greyfriar’s Abbey ruby on the finger of the lady standing next to me.”

“It belongs to my wife now. If you want your share of the treasure—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t need any money from you. And I don’t want any portion of that blasted treasure.”

“Then why are you here?” Alex asked. “It’s been decades. Why have you come looking for me after all this time?”

“Because Justin and Neville asked me to.”

“What?”

“Do you know, I never even told them about the treasure. All this time, they believed you’d simply vanished. That you were very likely dead. And then, earlier this year, my wife convinced me to make a clean breast of things. To tell Justin and Neville about what you’d done.” Tom’s expression grew somber. “That’s when I learned that you visited Neville’s sickbed the night you disappeared. That you told him someone was hurting you.”

Alex recoiled from Tom’s words.

“Neville says it was one of Crenshaw’s friends. Someone at the apothecary shop.”

“Good God, Tom,” Alex said hoarsely. “Do you think I want to relive this?”

“What happened?” Tom asked. “Who was it?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Tell me his name.”

“Is that why you came here? To hear every sordid detail of why I left North Devon?” Alex muttered an oath. “I was a boy of twelve. It was decades ago.”

“They’re all dead, you know,” Tom casually informed him. “Sir Oswald. Cheevers. The men who beat us, starved us—fathered one of us.”

A derisive smile edged Alex’s mouth. “Only one of us?”

Tom contemplated him from across the table. “I don’t know if Sir Oswald was your father. I only ever found proof that he was Justin’s. But looking at you now… My God, but you resemble the man.”

It was the worst sort of praise.

To think that he looked like Sir Oswald Bannister. A gentleman renowned for being a wastrel. A lecher.

“How did he die?” Alex asked.