Page 66 of Gentleman Jim

His mouth twisted. She didn’t know. Couldn’t comprehend the power she had over him. The way the sight of her had affected him that night. One moment he’d been John Beresford, standing in front of the library fireplace after a night at his club. And the next he’d been Nicholas Seaton again. As if a crack had opened up in the universe and wrenched him back to Somerset. Not to the loose box in Squire Honeywell’s stable, but to the forget-me-not covered grass where he’d lain with his blue-eyed love, his heart full with the promise of tomorrow.

No, his world hadn’t ended, but the landscape of it had changed dramatically. Maggie’s late-night visit had conjured the past for him more vividly than could a dozen encounters with the likes of Frederick Burton-Smythe. Not the anger and the rage of it, but those singular moments of sweetness. Of warmth, and unwavering devotion.

It had been all he could do to keep his countenance. To maintain the coldness of his reserve, and to preserve in his voice the hard-earned accents of a gentleman. The only saving grace had been that she hadn’t seemed to recognize him.

Or so he’d thought, until their drive in Hyde Park.

“Weren’t you at all curious about where I was or what I’d done with my life?” she asked. “Even if you didn’t wish to see me, you might have at least made inquiries.”

“To what end? I assumed you’d be long married. Settled down with a husband and children of your own.” He grimaced. “I’d rather not have known the precise details.”

A faint smile touched her lips. “You did think of me, then?”

“In the beginning, I did nothing but think of you. It was years before I was able to put my dreaming behind me.” He’d been older. Wiser. More capable of self-discipline. “Even then…”

“What?” she asked.

He was silent for a long moment, his fingers stroking the curve of her cheek. When next he spoke, his voice was husky with memory. “Sometimes, when I was standing on the deck of a ship at midnight or driving alone along some deserted moonlit road, I’d feel the oddest sensation. A sharp tug pulling at my heart. As if a thread was anchored there, linking me to some other person, somewhere out there in the wide world. I always imagined it was you. Imagined it, and wondered if you felt it, too.”

A rogue tear slipped down Maggie’s cheek. “I did feel it. I still do.”

He brushed the tear away, cursing himself for provoking it. “I’m sorry, Maggie. So sorry that I’ve hurt you. That I didn’t keep my promise.”

“I waited for you. For so long.”

A burning prickle stung at the back of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I wanted to come home, but…there was no way back to you. Not as the boy I was. Not as Nicholas Seaton.”

“You make him sound like he was quite another person.”

“I’ve come to think of him as such. A young, unfortunate fellow who I laid to rest somewhere in Italy.”

Fresh tears threatened. “And Lord St. Clare?”

“Born in the same place. From Seaton’s ashes, you might say. The man I was meant to be. Who I would have been, had things been different.” He realized how nonsensical he must sound. “It’s all become so bloody complicated.”

“It has, rather.” She set a slim hand on his bare chest, her palm sliding upward, brushing over the decade-old scar from Fred’s whip. Her fingers curled around his neck. “But you’re here now. That’s all that matters to me at the moment.”

He bent his head and kissed her very softly on the mouth. Their breath mingled, their lips parting and clinging. His pulse throbbed. It took all of his strength of will to draw back from her. “Can you ever forgive me? I know I don’t deserve it—”

“Of course, I forgive you. I only wish you’d had the good sense to confide in me earlier. To trust me enough to explain who you really are.”

“Who I really am,” he repeated with a wry huff. “It’s more complicated than you might think.”

“I’m beginning to see that.” She frowned. “Lord Allendale’s son, James Beresford—the man you claim is your father… He truly was your father, wasn’t he? He was Gentleman Jim.”

St. Clare’s fingers stilled on the curve of her cheek. He felt a disconcerting mixture of relief and alarm. “How did you know?”

“Something Jane’s aunt said. She’s forever mistaking people for their forebears. She caught a glimpse of you tonight through the carriage window and thought you were your father—Jim, she called him.” Maggie searched his face. “It is true, isn’t it?”

“It’s true,” he admitted. “James Beresford was Gentleman Jim.”

He hadn’t realized how much of a burden the truth was until he confessed it to her. No one else knew of it, save his grandfather. And the Earl of Allendale wasn’t much for talking about the past. Not St. Clare’s past, anyway. His boyhood in Somerset was a subject the earl had discouraged almost from the first moment they’d met.

“How ever did you find out?” Maggie asked. “The night you left Beasley Park, all you had was the merest suspicion. And that was only that a highwayman was your father, not a nobleman.” Her eyes widened on a sudden thought. “Did you ask after him at the hedge tavern in Market Barrow? The one where Jenny used to work?”

St. Clare’s thumb moved over her jaw in a slow caress. And then he dropped his hand. He exhaled heavily. “I didn’t go to Market Barrow. I couldn’t risk it. It would have meant riding inland, instead of to the coast.”

“But how—”