A Passion for Pleasure(28)

He chuckled again and shook his head, reaching for his teacup. He took a sip and looked at the contents as if wishing they were something much stronger, then set the cup aside and rose.

Clara stepped forward, not wanting to give him the opportunity to bolt from the room before she’d had a chance to present her case.

“Sebastian.” His name flowed like honey across her tongue. She swallowed and felt the sound warm her chest from the inside out. “Please allow me to explain. This involves my son, Andrew, whom I have not seen in over a year.”

Sebastian frowned. “You told me he lives with your father in Surrey.”

“Yes. My father is his legal guardian.” Clara could not prevent the bitter tone underscoring her voice. “He keeps me from Andrew…or keeps Andrew from me, as the case may be. He has very rigid ideas about how Andrew ought to be raised and does not care for my interference.

“My late husband, Richard, God rest his soul, left his money for Andrew’s inheritance, which of course is as it should be. However, he also returned to me a property that once belonged to my mother. Wakefield House.”

“He returned it to you?” Sebastian asked.

“Prior to our marriage, Wakefield House belonged to me,” Clara explained. “It was handed down in trust from my grandfather with Uncle Granville designated as the trustee. When I wed Richard, Wakefield House was transferred to him but he returned it to me in his will. And my father would very much like to own it.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s been in rather dire financial straits since my husband died,” Clara admitted. “Wakefield House is an extensive property. It’s been long deserted, but with the right management and repairs, it could sell for a substantial sum. Of course, in order to sell it, my father first must own it.”

“Can you sell it?” Sebastian asked.

Clara shook her head. “A condition of the trust is that the house be bequeathed to my firstborn. I am not allowed to sell it.”

“And Wakefield House is the sole reason your father keeps your son from you?”

“No.” She couldn’t confess the darkest reason behind her father’s severance of their relationship. She would not be able to bear it if Sebastian looked at her with suspicion or, worse, revulsion.

“My father was quite close to Richard,” she explained. “They were both great sportsmen and shared the same interests. It was easy for them, natural.”

“And yet it was not so for you.”

Clara gave a quick shake of her head and spoke the words she’d repeated to herself so often, the phrase whose truth lodged like a burr in her chest.

“Nothing for me was easy with my father.”

“What happened?”

“Richard died after being thrown from his horse while out riding.” Her eyes stung. “I was shocked to learn that he had designated my father as Andrew’s guardian. When I resisted my father’s rules, he threatened to send me away to America. I left Manley Park before he could.

“I arrived here at my uncle’s determined to find a way to regain custody of Andrew. All my and Uncle Granville’s efforts have come to naught. We attempted to try to sell Wakefield House in the hopes of appeasing my father, but by the terms of the trust and inheritance, I’m unable to do so.

“However”—she inhaled a hard breath—“if I were to marry again, the house would transfer into my husband’s name and he would be allowed to sell it.”

For a moment that seemed to stretch forever, Sebastian looked at her. A swath of hair fell across his forehead, almost into his eyes. Clara was seized by the urge to brush away the thick strands, to tunnel her fingers into the dark mass of his hair.

She clenched her fists tighter.

“So,” Sebastian finally said. “You want to marry me so I can give Wakefield House to your father.”

He spoke with a straightforwardness that made Clara jerk her gaze to his. Perhaps she needn’t have rehearsed her speech after all.

“I’ve one thing to offer you in exchange,” she said.

His brows rose as he waited for her to continue.

“The plans for the cipher machine you seek.”

Sebastian’s breath hissed out in a rush. “You told me you’ve no knowledge of it.”

“I didn’t. I still don’t. But before his death, Jacques Dupree sent my uncle numerous crates and boxes of machinery and plans. His son sent even more after Monsieur Dupree died. It’s entirely possible the cipher machine plans are among those possessions. If so, I will find them.”