Page 67 of Gentleman Jim

“I went to Bristol, just as I’d planned. I asked after Gentleman Jim at every tavern I passed. All the while, I was dreading the moment the authorities would catch up with me and haul me back to Somerset to face the noose. And it wasn’t only them I feared. On one occasion, two sailors from His Majesty’s Royal Navy nearly impressed me into service. I managed to get away from them, but it was a very near thing.”

“I thought you must have joined up. I thought you’d become a soldier or a sailor and gone away to fight Napoleon.”

“Nothing so noble as that. I carried on with my search for Gentleman Jim. Kept looking—kept asking. Nearly got myself killed once or twice venturing into the wrong places.” He still had the scars to prove it. Grim mementos of his early days searching for his father. “He wasn’t as romantic a figure as you and I made him out to be, Maggie. He was an out-and-out rogue who kept dangerous company. Rumor was he’d escaped to the continent. To Italy some people said, by way of Geneva.”

“So you traveled there yourself?”

He nodded. “I bought passage on a merchant vessel bound for Amsterdam.” He could still recall, with gut-clenching clarity, how sick he’d become on the voyage. And then, that first taste of rye bread and herring when the ship had finally docked. The flavors so different from anything he’d ever eaten in England. “Thank God for that money you gave me. It saved my life more times than I can count. Kept a roof over my head and food in my belly while I trekked across the Alps to Milan.”

“Such a long way,” she said. “Were you ever afraid?”

“Frequently. It was a perilous journey, and for the better part of it, I was reliant on guides and the traveling companions I met along the way. I was in constant fear that one of them might slit my throat as I slept. It was a devilish incentive to learn as many languages as I could. A little German. A little Italian. Even a little French. Enough to keep me from being helpless—and from sounding too English. At the time, an English tongue was a liability.”

“I wish I could have been there with you.”

“You were with me,” he said. “Every day. Every night.” That, too, he recalled with painful clarity. The longing for her. The soul-deep yearning, worn to rawness from years spent trying—and failing—to forget. “There was so much I wanted to tell you. To share with you. Everything I saw and heard. All the funny little stories that I knew would make you laugh.”

Tears glistened in her eyes. She blinked them away. “I envy you your adventures.”

“Don’t be too envious. My grandfather was a brutal taskmaster. I sometimes wondered if I’d have been better off taking the King’s shilling.”

“When did you first hear news of him?”

“Not until I reached Milan. There was an English-speaking fellow at a pensione there. He directed me to Venice—to the villa where the Earl of Allendale was staying.”

Her brows knit. “But how did this man know where to send you? You’re not saying he knew the truth of Gentleman Jim’s identity?”

“He didn’t know anything about Gentleman Jim at all. It was me he recognized. Some years earlier, Allendale had come to Italy looking for his son. He’d shown people a miniature.” St. Clare’s mouth hitched in a brief and bitter smile. “It turns out, Mrs. Applewhite was right all those years ago. I do bear an uncanny resemblance to my father. Some might even mistake us for the same man. Allendale knew as soon as he saw me that I was his grandson.”

“His illegitimate grandson.”

“His only grandson. He’d very nearly resigned himself to the title being passed to Lionel. It’s a very sore point with my grandfather. All he’s ever wanted is to secure the Beresford line. When I appeared, he realized there might be a chance to do it. He’s unable to sire more children himself. And with my father dead—”

“Is he dead?”

“He is,” St. Clare said. “I never got the chance to meet him. He died several years before I arrived in Italy, the victim of a wasting disease brought on by drink and whoring. Had my grandfather softened toward him sooner, he might have come home. But the Beresfords are stubborn—vindictive. Grandfather thought that a time in exile would be good for my father. That it would build his character. He was a disappointment to him, you see.”

“A wrong ’un. That’s what Jane’s aunt called him.”

“I daresay he was. Drinking. Fighting. Engaging in ill-conceived pranks. He was always getting himself into scrapes. When my grandfather cut him off for a time, my father resorted to robbery. I suspect it was all a lark to him.”

“And Jenny?”

“One of his many conquests. No different from the other tavern wenches he struck up with during his time on the run.”

Maggie didn’t appear convinced. “I think there must have been more to it than that. Papa always said your mother was a rare beauty in her youth. And when she was at the hedge tavern in Market Barrow—”

“Plying her trade.”

“My point is, I don’t ever recall hearing Gentleman Jim’s name linked with another woman. It was only ever Jenny. Which would lead one to believe—”

“That it was some grand love affair?” St. Clare scoffed. “If that was the case, then why—” He stopped himself from giving voice to the questions that had plagued his unhappy childhood.

Why hadn’t Jenny loved him?

Why had she hit him and shouted at him and told him he’d ruined her life?

Maggie seemed to know what he was feeling, just as she always had. Her hand stroked the back of his neck in a soothing caress. “I think that, perhaps, she was disappointed by your father. Disappointed in life. It’s unfair that she took it out on you, but…I do believe she loved you in her way.”