His brows lifted. “I would say you are rather intimately acquainted with me, kitten.”
“I do not mean . . .” A delicious blush stole to her cheeks before she was sternly gathering her composure. “What of your family?”
Despite his best efforts Hawksley felt his muscles tense. Oh, he understood her curiosity. Even sympathized with her need to know more of the man who for all practical purposes held her captive. Still, he had devoted nearly twelve years to forgetting he even possessed a family. It was not easy to pretend indifference.
“What of them?” he demanded in clipped tone.
She absently blew a stray silver curl from her brow. It was a habit that Hawksley found oddly charming.
“Do you have any?”
“Too damnably many. Thankfully, we are estranged.”
“Thankfully?” She did not bother to hide her shock. “But that is horrible.”
“You say that only because you are not familiar with them.”
She gave a slow shake of her head, her eyes darkening with remembered pain. “No, I say that because I have lost everyone I love. I am alone because of fate, not out of choice.”
Hawksley’s chest tightened with regret. Damn. He was an insensitive lout.
“Forgive me, I did not mean to be flippant,” he murmured. Then, with a grimace, he forced himself to swallow his pride. “I assure you that I did not turn my back on my family by choice. I was requested by my father to leave his home the day I celebrated my eighteenth birthday.”
“Oh.” A shocked sympathy softened her features. “Hawksley, I am sorry.”
He shrugged, as always discomforted by any hint of pity. It was not what he desired from this woman.
“No doubt he felt he possessed reason,” he confessed wryly. “I have never found it particularly easy to bend to another’s will.”
Her brows lifted. “Really? You shock me.”
“Minx,” he chastised her teasing. “Very well. I am stubborn and opinionated and far too frivolous of mind to suit Lor—” He abruptly bit off his words. He was not quite certain why, but he had no desire to reveal the identity of his father, or the fact that he now had been burdened with a title he had never desired. Perhaps it was a fear that Clara would suddenly treat him as something he was not. Or that she would become uncomfortable in his presence. Or perhaps it was something he did not want to ponder. In any event, he was not yet prepared to share all his secrets. “My father.”
She had no doubt noted his hesitation and tucked it in the back of her peculiar mind. Thankfully, however, she did not press him with tedious questions.
“He truly requested you leave your home?” she demanded softly, clearly unable to conceive that any father would toss his own child from his house.
Hawksley had no such trouble. He had been a disappointment to his father for as long as he could remember. It had only been a matter of time before the pompous old prig had rid himself of such a constant irritation.
“Oh yes. He claimed my wicked ways would never be tamed as long as he was there to haul me out of trouble. He presumed I would soon tire of living upon my own wits and come crawling back for his forgiveness.”
She pondered his words for a long moment before a small smile touched her lips. Hawksley felt his heart perform that unexplainable flop in his chest. Even attired in a plain blue gown with her hair pulled into a simple knot, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes upon.
“Obviously your wits proved more tenacious than he suspected,” she retorted.
“I would say it was my pride, not my wits, that was tenacious.”
“What of your brother? Did the two of you remain close?”
“In truth we were not that close when we were young. He is . . .” Hawksley painfully corrected himself. “He was eight years my senior, a vast difference in age when we were children. It was not until I arrived in London that we at last came to know one another.”
Without warning she reached out to softly touch his hand. “And then you lost him.”
His fingers clasped hers in a tight grip. Her warmth helped to ease the chill that had haunted him for too long.
“Yes.”
“’Tis no wonder you are so determined to find his killer.”
Hawksley gave an inelegant snort. For all his rushing about, he had achieved very little.
“Determined, perhaps. But thus far spectacularly unsuccessful.”
“You have not managed to have the servants followed?”
“Only upon mundane tasks. If they are meeting with anyone they are sly enough to conceal it from Biddles’s prying eyes.” He gave an impatient shake of his head. “Most unlikely.”
She leaned forward, her eyes glittering with a sudden excitement.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” she informed him. “I think I have reasoned out why Lord Doulton wishes me dead.”
Chapter Ten
Hawksley regarded her with that blank stare that was all too familiar to Clara. It often accompanied what she considered to be a brilliant deduction, but what others seemed to find as gibberish.
“You have reasoned out . . . have you received some new information?”
She gave him a steady glance. They both knew that she had not been allowed to step a foot outside the house without Dillon hovering like a rabid guard dog at her side. Nor did anyone know where to reach her even if they did wish to send her a missive.
Not that she had felt in any way imprisoned, she had to concede. She had no desire to flaunt her presence in London when someone wished her dead. Nor did she feel like indulging in the various entertainments when Mr. Chesterfield was missing and poor Hawksley’s brother murdered.
Perhaps there had been a few occasions when she had been restlessly aware of Hawksley’s absence. And a sense of regret that he seemed to have lost all interest in kissing her after their delicious interlude in the carriage, but she was swift to squash such selfish emotions.
Hawksley was naturally consumed with the need to capture his brother’s murderer. She more than anyone understood such an intense distraction. She often forgot everyone and everything when puzzling a mystery.
And so she had devoted her time to more productive means than fretting over the strange yearning for Hawksley’s company.
“No. I just took the time to consider the facts.”
“What facts?”
“So far as we know, the only connection between myself and Lord Doulton is Mr. Chesterfield,” she explained. “So we must begin with that.”
His head tilted to one side as he regarded her with a curious intensity.
“We still have no evidence that Lord Doulton had anything to do with Mr. Chesterfield.”
“True, but we must start somewhere,” she pointed out.
“Very well.”
Clara carefully organized her thoughts. Her conclusions called for a great deal of supposition, but she believed the logic to be sound. Now she had to convince Hawksley.
“If we may suppose that your brother took the manuscript to Mr. Chesterfield and learned something nefarious about the document, then it might be that your brother returned to Lord Doulton to question him on how he came to possess such an artifact.”
His lips twisted. “It is possible. His curiosity would have been roused as to why a gentleman without the least interest in things scholarly would have an ancient papal petition lying about his house.” His hand abruptly hit the table. “God, for such an intelligent gentleman he could be so bloody na?ve.”