The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

With that he turned and started down the stairs.

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Trevelyan immediately went back to the third table and picked up his pen. He was working on his book about Pesha. He was going to tell the world what it had been like to visit, in disguise, that secret city. After Jack Powell had told the world he was the one to have visited Pesha, thinking there was no one alive who could contradict him, Trevelyan was going to publish his book and tell the world the truth. Jack thought he had taken all of Trevelyan’s notes on Pesha when he’d left him there to die, but Trevelyan had much more in his head that was not written down.

It was hours later when Oman quietly entered the room and handed Trevelyan a flat package.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“The American lady gave it to me for you.”

It took Trevelyan a moment to realize that Oman was calling Claire a “lady”—high praise indeed. He frowned as he opened the package, but as he pulled out the first drawing, his eyes widened.

The drawings were crude, done by an unpracticed hand, but it was easy to see what they were meant to represent. They were drawings of him. She showed him as a highwayman about to be hanged. She showed him as a little boy standing outside a children’s party, sneering, acting as though he didn’t want to join the party, but his eyes were lonely. She showed him as a man sitting all alone in a tower.

When Trevelyan first saw them, he was enraged. How dare that nobody American make such drawings of him! How dare she represent him in such an unflattering light. How dare she—

He looked at the drawings again, and his anger was replaced by hurt. He had no idea she thought of him in this way. He had thought she…well, almost worshiped him. To find that this was what she thought of him, was…well, painful.

It was the snicker from Oman that made him turn. Oman, stone-faced, unemotional Oman, was trying not to laugh aloud at the drawing of the highwayman.

“I see nothing humorous in this,” Trevelyan snapped.

“It is just like you. See, here and here. This is very like you.”

“It is no such thing,” Trevelyan said as he snatched the drawing out of Oman’s hand. “It is—” He stopped, for he did see just a bit of resemblance between himself and the man in the drawing. In spite of himself, he began to smile. “It could not be me,” he said, but Oman had already left the room.

Trevelyan took the drawings to the window and studied them, and as he did so, he smiled more broadly. Didn’t she know that he was the great Captain Baker? Didn’t that impudent little American know that no one laughed at a man of his accomplishments? He, Trevelyan, was the one who did the laughing, not the other way around.

He put the drawings down and went to the fireplace, poking the logs around. Claire was none of his business and all that Angus had told him made no difference. He believed in not interfering. His refusal to interfere had saved his life many times.

But now he remembered the way Claire had taken care of him when he was ill. Of course there was nothing she could do to help him recover from yet another bout of malaria, but she had stayed with him and she had kept his secret. She had let no one know where he was.

He poked the logs around some more. It really wasn’t any of his business if she wanted to take on Harry’s mother. Harry’s mother, he thought with a grimace. The woman was his mother too. Not that he’d ever received anything from her except abuse and criticism.

He knew how formidable the old woman could be. As Angus had said, she was capable of anything. Hadn’t she sent her second son away to live with her old bastard of a father? She’d sent her own son away when he was just nine years old, not on a visit, but she’d sent him away forever, never again to live as part of the family, because she thought he was discourteous and disrespectful. It had taken Trevelyan only two weeks with the old man to realize how very much his mother had hated him.

And what would the duchess do to Claire when she found out Claire had attempted to usurp her place? Make her a prisoner as she’d done to Lee, Trevelyan thought. And who would defend Claire? Not Harry. He wouldn’t want to be bothered with the turmoil. Harry wouldn’t want anything to interfere with his hunting schedule. Would Claire’s parents defend her? From what Trevelyan knew of them, he didn’t think so. They would have obtained what they wanted—no matter that it was at the expense of their daughter.

So, in the end, nothing would have changed. The duchess would still have complete and absolute control over the household—and his sister and Claire would be the woman’s prisoners. Life would go on.

Trevelyan tried to think what Claire would be like under the old woman’s rule. There would be no more sitting in Angus MacTarvit’s cottage and drinking whisky or dancing with the crofters. In fact, there probably wouldn’t be any crofters to dance with. Trevelyan hadn’t asked Harry, but it was his guess that his mother planned to use part of Claire’s dowry to buy sheep, and you couldn’t graze sheep where people were living.

Trevelyan looked at the fire. It was not any of his business. He’d come back for the sole purpose of recovering his health and writing his books. When that was done he was going to leave, and if Harry made good on his promise of money for expeditions, Trevelyan planned to go back into Africa by the end of next year. There was much more of Africa he’d like to see.

“It is of no interest to me,” he said aloud. Then he looked again at the drawings, and in the next instant he called Oman to him.

Chapter Fourteen

Harry was sleeping so soundly that Trevelyan had to shake him awake. Harry rolled over, looked at his brother in disgust, then turned away and closed his eyes again.

“I want to talk to you,” Trevelyan said.

“Do you never sleep?”

“Not if I can avoid it.” When Harry didn’t bother to open his eyes again and looked as though he were going back to sleep, Trevelyan pushed him on the shoulder again. “I’m not leaving.”

Harry grimaced and slowly sat up. “For someone who’s supposed to be in hiding you do get around. What’s wrong now?”