could not come near you.” He added in a voice full of bitterness and regret, “I
was forced to leave, my child. Your grandfather would not allow me near you. I
would have tried to see you after your grandfather’s death, but a dear friend of
mine was dying, and I could not leave her.”
“Did you kill her, too, Jameson?”
“No, you bastard, I did not.” He looked directly at me again. “You believe I
wanted never to see you again, my only child? Oh, no, Andrea, I loved you. Not
seeing you left emptiness in my heart.”
I looked at this man who was my father, not all that good and honorable a man
perhaps, not all that steady and reliable a man, but he was still my father, and
he had tried to save me. He had stayed with a dying friend. I stretched out my
hand toward him. I wanted to cry and hug him so tightly I would feel the essence
of him deep inside me. I whispered, “Did you come to save me, Father?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Oh, yes.” He rose slowly to his feet. None of the men
stopped him. He walked to me and took my hand in both of his. He petted George.
George licked his hand. He smiled down at me. “You are still small. I wondered
how tall you would grow.” He lightly touched his fingers to my hair. “The color
is incredible?so many different brilliant shades, not just the red or brown of
mine. You are beautiful, Andrea. And I imagine that you are brave as well. You
have become an admirable woman.”
Lawrence did nothing at all, just stood there, watching us.
I saw my father weave where he stood. I walked with him back to that narrow bed
and helped him sit down. “Tell me the rest now, Father. It seems that all three
of us are in this situation together. You owe it to me, to John. I must know the
rest.”
“There is not much more, Andrea. Caroline left Paris to return to Lyndhurst. She
didn’t want to leave me, but there was simply no other choice for either of us.
Her family wouldn’t have helped her, she knew that. She was so beside herself at
one point that she tried to abort the child, but it didn’t work.
“She wrote to tell me that Lyndhurst had taken her back immediately. I received
one more letter from her that said he did not seem to suspect at all that the
child wasn’t his. I was terribly sad, but relieved. I wanted Caroline to be safe,
to find happiness, and I knew she wanted the child, our child.
“Then I heard that Lyndhurst was spreading the story that his wife was mad.
There is no doubt in my mind that he knew she was pregnant with another man’s
child. Perhaps he even knew it was me. It is my belief that after the child was
born, he murdered Caroline.”
“Yes, I guessed that he had,” I said. I heard John suck in his breath behind me.
Lawrence said, “I dislike John having to hear these accusations, and that is all
they are, base accusations. As to your tawdry affaire with my wife, once she
told me she was with child, I knew what had happened. It didn’t take me long to
find out the name of her lover.
“Her attempts at concealment, at perfidy, amused me. Actually, there was never
any question at all in my mind. You see, I was unable to impregnate a woman. My
seed was lifeless. Thus, it was obvious that Caroline had betrayed me. I did
nothing wrong. You are the dishonorable one here, Jameson, not I.”
“No, sir,” John said. “I don’t believe they are simply accusations at all.” He
sounded so calm, so in control that in the deepest part of me, a bit of hope
sprang to life. “I had already come to the conclusion that only you could be
behind all the incidents at the Manor?the old woman wearing that marvelous
disguise, wielding my Moorish knife, that barbed wire beneath Small Bess’s
saddle. They were clumsy, yet very effective. You scared both Andy and me