Page 68 of A Scandal at Stonecliffe

“Well, we certainly should have been more specific with his uncle than saying Malcolm was tall, blond, and blue-eyed. That could fit any number of men.” She paused. “But his impersonation makes sense of several oddities in the matter.” She began to count them off on her fingers. “He didn’t arrive at his uncle’s, as he had said he would. The idea of scandal staining his name—either one—didn’t bother him. He didn’t pursue the matter in court because he knew he couldn’t even prove he was Malcolm, let alone prove that Malcolm was your father’s heir. All he wanted was to get some blackmail money from you.”

“And leaving his inn, that always bothered me. But the imposter wouldn’t want to make it easy to find him. I could have brought someone with me who knew the real Malcolm. His uncle, say. Or even if I just told his Uncle Robert where he was, that would have been disastrous for him.”

Verity nodded, then straightened. “Those men. The ones who attacked us. He could have sent them.”

“The imposter? Why? It wouldn’t have benefitted him to have us harmed.”

“Maybe he grew alarmed because we met Malcolm’s uncle at that Scottish party. He was afraid Robert Douglas would look for him.” Verity chewed the inside of her cheek, thinking. “Or he may not have expected us to investigate his claim. But when we did, he realized that we might discover that he wasn’t really Malcolm. Consider the timing. The attack on us was after we’d talked to his uncle and after we’d tried to track Malcolm down at his inn.”

“True. But that doesn’t explain why they were asking us ‘where.’ Still, we have not been set upon again, so I will not complain. The most important thing to me is that you are safe.”

Verity slid over to snuggle against his side and Nathan’s arm went around her shoulders.

This was so very nice. She didn’t want it to ever end. Verity had never had permanence, nothing to make her stay. There was nothing in her life she could not change just as easily as she slid from one role to another. Even her house, satisfying as it was to have a home, was something that she could sell and leave. But Nathan... Nathan anchored her. Whatever flight of fancy she pursued, Nathan was still there, so sure, so even, so very much himself, and her heart quailed inside to think of him not being there, of living a life without him.

It was dangerous to want something so much. Verity tried never to do it. But she wanted this life with Nathan. And she would continue to ignore the knowledge that sat darkly in the back of her mind: the truth that their time together would end, that Nathan could never be hers.

“We’ll have to look in the village where the real Malcolm was abducted, of course—Delbourne. But it’s been some time, and I can’t imagine we’ll find anything helpful there,” Nathan mused. “I think the surest way to locate Malcolm is to find the imposter and make him take us to Malcolm.”

“You are very set on finding him, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course. He’s my brother.” Nathan turned his head to look down at her.

“Half brother. One you’ve never known, from a household that despises your name.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he’s family.”

Verity sat up and looked Nathan in the face. “You do realize that he may not be imprisoned.”

“You mean the imposter might have killed Malcolm.”

Verity nodded. “It’s easier to simply get rid of a man than to hide him somewhere and bring him food and water. Less risky.”

“I know.” Nathan sighed. “And believe me, I don’t want to be the one who carries that news back to his mother.”

“Grandmother.” Verity nestled back against his side. After a moment she said, “Do you think Malcolm knows?”

“That he is really Margaret’s son? Or that his father was George Dunbridge? That he has a brother?”

“Any. All of it.”

“I think—the way his mother said he would not have come to me and claimed to be my father’s son, I think he must know the truth and he’s been raised to despise my father. But however much he knows or doesn’t know, I think that to him and Flora, they are mother and son.”

“It will devastate her if we don’t find him. Even if he’s dead, it would be better to know than to spend the rest of her years wondering.”

“We’ll find him,” Nathan said firmly. “We could learn something in this village. I doubt his valet investigated—his thought, of course, was to chase after the other vehicle.”

“Perhaps we will,” Verity agreed, though she doubted it. Even if there had been some evidence, after all this time, it wasn’t likely to still be there.

*

WHEN THEY REACHED Delbourne two days later, her doubts were justified. They asked first at the inn where Cummings had said he and Malcolm had stayed. No one in the inn remembered Malcolm, even after they showed them the miniature portrait in the locket.

“Good-looking chap, in’t he?” the girl at the tavern said, but shook her head. “But I don’t remember him. It gets terrible busy in here some nights.”

The ostler in the stables said, “Oh, aye, I remember his valet running in, all upset and shouting that someone had been kidnapped,” the ostler said. “Don’t remember his name.”

“Was this the man who was kidnapped?” Verity showed him the locket.