When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(107)

“But again,” Francesca said desperately, “why are you convinced in Ian’s case? Are you only going by Trevor Gaines’s word that Ian was one of his biological children? Surely his word isn’t to be trusted.”

“He knew a great deal of intimate information about Helen Noble. He met up with her first in England. She’d apparently had her first psychotic break there.” Lucien said the last quietly, his gaze still locked with Ian’s. “She had run away from home, and Gaines took her under his wing in Essex. He could be quite charming when he chose, as many sociopaths can be, and your mother was at the beginning stages of schizophrenia, and very vulnerable. He brought Helen back to the north of France, near where he lived, installing her in a small house about fifty miles from his estate—the house where you spent the early years of your life, Ian. He claimed Helen and he were lovers, but if they were, he abandoned her after she became pregnant, despite her increasing illness and disorientation.”

“We never knew how she ended up in France,” Ian said dully. “My grandparents searched far and wide in England and all over Europe. The village where we lived was so remote, though. He must have understood who she was . . . her status. Gaines probably knew it was unlikely anyone would ever find my mother there.”

“My mother was Helen’s maid. Apparently, Helen had hired her during a moment of lucidity, while she was still in England. It was several months after she’d fled Belford Hall,” Lucien explained, referring to Ian’s grandparents’ estate in East Sussex. “He had a penchant for impregnating women that were related somehow. For instance, one of the women he raped that he was finally successfully prosecuted for was one of three sisters. He’d seduced two of them, unbeknownst to each other. He attempted to seduce the third, but when he failed, he resorted to rape. He couldn’t have anything—including a woman’s right to refuse him—stand in the way of his sick goal of having all three sisters pregnant with his child at once. He also had a proclivity for videotaping both his seductions and his rapes. It’s that which finally landed him a guilty verdict without a doubt.”

In the awful silence that followed, Elise noticed Ian’s gaze flash to Francesca. His features were impassive, but Elise thought she saw pure horror in his glance. Francesca shook her head, looking utterly helpless.

“No,” Francesca said with quiet forcefulness, her meaning lost on Elise, but her desperation clear. Ian turned to back to Lucien.

“What else?” Ian prodded doggedly.

“He pulled something similar with our mothers. Not the videotaped rape,” Lucien said quickly when Ian’s look grew wild. “I mean his desire to impregnate women who were associated with one another. Apparently, Gaines was having relations with both of our mothers at once, whether by force or seduction, I don’t know. We’re only six weeks apart in age, I believe.”

Ian just stared.

“But still,” Francesca interrupted. “That’s hardly proof. What makes you so sure Ian is definitely this criminal’s biological son?”

Lucien seemed to hesitate.

“Lucien?” Ian asked.

“You’d find out now anyway,” Lucien muttered. He turned and walked over to the oval table, retrieving the laptop. He returned, sitting next to Elise on the couch. She watched as his long fingers moved fleetly over the keyboard. A black and white photograph appeared. She stared in numb disbelief.

Ian took the computer when Lucien handed it to him. Francesca’s hand flew up to cover her mouth.

“Jesus,” Francesca muttered, sounding like she was about to be sick as she stared at the photograph along with Ian. Elise knew precisely what she meant by her horrified exclamation. The newspaper caption beneath the scanned photograph said it was of Trevor Gaines when he was in his thirties, looking extremely handsome and charming with a small, mysterious smile on his lips—the exact opposite of what one might imagine a rapist and conniver to look like.

Ian Noble was the spitting image of Trevor Gaines.

“That’s why she always got scared of me when she was psychotic,” Ian said with an eerie calmness that sent shivers down Elise’s back. He looked at Francesca’s shocked, puzzled face. “My mother. That’s why she sometimes acted afraid of me—all my life, she’d wince and cower at times at the very sight of me. I never understood why, but I sensed something. Something bad. That’s why my presence could trigger a relapse for her . . . still to this day. Because I looked so much like him. Because I had the face of the man who took advantage of her. I had the face of her rapist.” He looked at Lucien. Lucien looked back, every bit as grim.

Every bit as sad.

Francesca’s mouth hung open. Elise could almost hear the inner workings of the other woman’s mind, sense her searching for words of comfort . . . and finding none. She understood because she herself had gone numb with helplessness.

Ian set the computer on the couch and stood.

“Ian,” Francesca said sharply. He paused and looked back at her. She stared at him . . . mute . . . shattered. He held out his arms and Francesca flew into them, hugging him. He crushed her to him, his eyes clamped tight, every line of his body conveying unspeakable pain.

“You are the best of me,” he muttered. “The very best. But there’s so much more ugliness. The balance is uneven.”