A Passion for Pleasure(50)

“You are welcome.” Her brows pulled together, caution evident in the corded lines of her neck. “Mr. Hall.”

“Darius, please.”

“Darius.”

Darius smiled, clearly pleased by the way his name swam through her voice. He took her hand in greeting. Jealousy rustled in Sebastian’s gut. He rose to his feet, wrenching his brother’s hand away from Clara.

“Why here?” he asked Darius bluntly.

“Away from the possibility of Rushton’s discovery,” his brother replied.

“Why are you so goddamned intent on avoiding Rushton?” Sebastian snapped. “What are you hiding?”

Clara cupped her hand beneath Sebastian’s elbow, silently urging him to sit. He did, fighting the burn still crawling across his chest.

“You have the plans?” Darius asked.

Sebastian tossed the scroll onto the table. The pages scattered like leaves, absorbing puddles of spilled ale before Darius rescued them from damage with a sweep of his hand.

“We’ll pay a visit to the bank tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll transfer funds into your account.”

Sebastian no longer cared about the funds. He restrained the urge to grasp Darius’s arm again. “Tell me what’s going on or I’ll tell Rushton you’re here.”

Darius sat back. Behind his glasses, his gaze was unflinching. “Catherine Leskovna.”

“Catherine…”

“Our mother. She wants to see you again.”

Sebastian couldn’t have been more surprised if the roof had fallen in. Past the sudden shock, he heard Clara’s intake of breath.

Christ. He didn’t want her here. Didn’t want her to know anything about his godforsaken mother.

He swallowed another gulp of ale and then, as if an epiphany burst within him, he had the answer. So obvious. If he’d taken a half-second to actually think, it might have occurred to him much sooner.

“Where is she?” he asked Darius in Russian. The language crunched between his teeth, unfamiliar and stale with neglect.

Darius’s eyebrow arched in surprise, but he responded in kind. “Dare I suspect Mrs. Winter does not speak Russian?”

Sebastian leaned forward, tension knotting his shoulders. Beside him, Clara shifted. He felt the exasperation building in her. Her own damned fault for insisting on this foolishness.

“Where is our mother?” he asked. “What do you know of her?”

“She found me in St. Petersburg earlier this year.” Darius heaved out a sigh and sat back. “She remarried and is now known as Catherine Leskovna. She contacted me because she suspected I would be the only one to agree to a meeting.”

“She was right,” Sebastian muttered. Alexander and Talia would have refused to see her, and Sebastian had no reason to react any differently. Certainly their mother had no way of contacting Nicholas or even knowing where he was. Darius, on the other hand, would allow his intellectual curiosity about their mother to conquer any remnants of anger and hurt.

“She has been following your career,” Darius continued, “and wanted to seek you out after your resignation from Weimar, but feared causing further disruption.”

Sebastian laughed without humor. “Did she consider that when she had a blasted affair?”

“She then approached me asking if I knew what had happened, as she suspected more than a conflict with the Weimar committee.”

Anger twisted hard in Sebastian’s chest. Bloody, bloody hell.

He’d not been any closer to their remote mother than his brothers or sister, but he and Catherine had shared an unspoken love for music—a love Catherine had kept private. Even now, Sebastian remembered hovering in the shadows of the doorway as a child while his mother played the piano to an empty drawing room. Unaware that her son was her only audience.

Sebastian jerked his head toward the scroll Darius had set on an empty chair. “That’s what this was about? Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I knew your loyalty to Alexander would preclude you from even hearing me out,” Darius said. “And while it’s true that I believe the cipher machine has numerous uses, I also wanted to know if you would agree to my proposition.”

“Why?”

“If you did, it meant that you had nothing else to do. No plans for another tour, no income from concerts or teaching, no work with the Society of Musicians. It verified that you withdrew not only from your public career but from any association whatsoever with music. And your acceptance of financial compensation indicated you were in need of funds, which I’d suspected after I saw Grand Duchess Irina last summer. She informed me you’d refused her further patronage and returned to London without explanation.”