Touch of Passion (27 page)

Loris felt a little swell of pride. “Of course. That makes perfect sense. Loris McClendon,” she said, testing the sound of it. “I like it. What else do you know of them?”

“The father—your father's father—was the rector at Perham. He and his wife, both departed now, had three children. An elder son, who has died, leaving neither wife nor children behind, a daughter, who has married and borne children of her own—these would be your aunt and cousins—and a younger son, who Lord Perham believes is your father. The younger McClendon was the wild and undisciplined man of
whom I spoke earlier. He and Perham's daughter ran away together, and neither has been heard of since.”

Loris sat quietly, pondering the things Lord Graymar had said. After a moment she sighed and said quietly, “I never knew my last name, you know. My father changed it each time we moved. It was Smith or Andrews or Clay. He never told me what it really was.”

“Which is precisely why Lord Perham isn't certain that you're his granddaughter. And you may not be, Loris. You must prepare your heart for both eventualities.”

“Yes, I know,” she agreed solemnly. “May I tell you something in confidence, my lord?” She gave herself a mental shake and said, “Malachi.”

“If I were your lord, Loris,” he said, “I would readily give you my oath of secrecy. But you know that I am not. Another is, of whom we have already agreed we will not speak. I will keep secret all that you tell me, save from him, if he should ask me for such knowledge.”

“Kian Seymour is only my lord as master of Tylluan,” she told him. “He certainly won't care to know what I wish to say. He sent me to London to meet Lord Perham.”

“What is it, then?”

“It's difficult to say,” she began, “for I've often wished to know who my parents' people were. But if Lord Perham is not my grandfather, I think what I'm going to feel more than anything else is relief.” She hesitated. “Is that wrong of me?”

Malachi was thoughtful, then said, “I don't believe it is. You love Tylluan and wish to remain there, and a grandfather who is not of magic blood complicates matters. From my own experience of him, I do not believe that Lord Perham is one of our sympathetics. If that is true, and if he should prove implacable in not understanding our kind, then a relationship with him would prove difficult. You would have to make a choice, and as I know that it is impossible for you to part from Kian for any great length of time, I have no doubt of what that choice must be.”

Out of respect for the earl, Loris refrained from arguing with him about his assertion regarding her relationship with Kian. It would have been churlish to naysay Malachi, and fruitless as well. The Earl of Graymar wasn't given to being corrected. She focused, instead, on what else he had said.

“Are you quite certain, sir?” she asked. “That Lord Perham couldn't one day become a sympathetic?”

A sympathetic was a mere mortal who understood and accepted magic mortals. Sympathetics sometimes married into magic Families and helped to keep them safe. Seymours were especially fond of uniting with such beings, for rather than diluting their powers, the mixing of bloods increased them.

“No, I'm not,” he confessed. “I do not know the man well, and have only dealt with him in regard to meeting you. Perhaps you might discover something in him that will give us an answer.”

“Perhaps,” she said as the carriage came to a stop outside of a very large town house. Loris looked out at it, and her heart gave a leap of fear.

“Malachi.” Her voice sounded thin even to her own ears. “Please stay with me.”

He took her gloved hand and squeezed it lightly. “I will. Don't be afraid, Loris. You're in the care of the
Dewin Mawr
, and Lord Perham is but a mere mortal. Nothing so very terrible can happen, can it?”

“I don't know,” she murmured as the carriage door was opened. “He may well be a grandparent, and I've heard that they are the most powerful beings alive.”

Lord Perham's town house was built on a grand scale; in fact, it looked more like an imperial mansion than a mere dwelling. Malachi was clearly comfortable with such surroundings, but Loris found them to be daunting. Which struck her as odd, considering that she lived in a beautiful medieval castle.

A butler in elegant costume opened the door and led them into an impressive entryway with marble floors and fragile antiques lining the walls.

“His Lordship awaits you,” said the butler, and motioned for them to follow him.

Malachi took Loris's hand and set it upon his arm, and she found that her feet moved forward whether she wished them to or not.

The large room they were taken to was at once imposing and inviting, with ornate furnishings and a fireplace burning merrily in the far wall. Lord Perham was sitting in a chair near that fire, a book resting on his lap and a glass filled with an amber liquid in one hand, halfway to his lips. The glass was put back on a nearby table when they entered the room, and Lord Perham stood, closing the book and putting it aside as well.

He was a tall, slender, distinguished-looking gentleman, with a thick crown of white hair and neatly trimmed mustache. He gazed at Loris very directly, and she gazed at him, both trying to find some resemblance to the woman they remembered, one as daughter, one as mother.

Loris had been seven when her mother had died and had nothing but the dimmest of memories to remember what she had looked like. This very fine gentleman stirred nothing within her, and yet she couldn't say that he wasn't her grandfather. From the forbidding expression on his face Loris wondered if he wasn't having the same trouble.

“Is this the girl then, Graymar?” Lord Perham's tone was calm and steady, nearly absent emotion.

Malachi's hand was warm and comforting on Loris's back, and as he prodded her forward he replied graciously, “This is she. We do not know her last name, and have always called her by the first, which is Loris.”

He kept pushing until she stood directly in front of the older man, who hadn't moved an inch. Loris could see his eyes now and drew in a sharp breath. They were the same color as her own. The same as the dress she wore. Not quite brown, not quite gold. That was how Niclas had described them, and it was true.

“Loris,” Lord Graymar said, “I make known to you Alexander Bissinger, Earl of Perham. Lord Perham, this is
Loris, ward to my uncle, Ffinian Seymour, former Baron of Tylluan.”

Julia had taught Loris how to make a proper curtsy, and she performed it now, praying that her feet didn't twist beneath her and send her straight down onto the exquisite carpet.

“My lord,” she murmured.

“Miss Loris,” Lord Perham said in return, his voice still perfectly level, as if there were nothing at all remarkable about the occasion that brought them together. “Thank you for coming to meet with me. I hope that you will not regret the effort. Will you leave us to speak privately, Graymar?”

“I regret to say that I shall not,” Malachi replied in such an easy and friendly manner that Loris couldn't imagine anyone taking exception to his refusal. “But I will be glad to sit here, on the other side of the fire, far enough away so that you may both converse in a more comfortable manner.”

Lord Perham frowned at his peer but seemed to realize that to argue would be pointless. The door opened and a servant entered bearing a tea tray.

“Set it here,” Lord Perham directed, pointing to a table near the chair he'd been seated in. “Will you do us the honor of pouring, Miss Loris?”

“I should be happy to do so, my lord,” she replied, glad to have something to occupy her mind, even briefly. “Please don't stand on my account,” she said, looking at both men. “Lord Graymar, do you still take cream in your tea?”

The men settled into chairs as Loris prepared their cups. She was aware that Lord Perham watched her closely, but he would be disappointed if he thought she would falter in this particular task. She might not have any of the finer skills that ladies of the
ton
possessed, but years of being hostess at Castle Tylluan had trained her well in such small matters as serving tea. It was an ability that had been self-taught, with a little help from Dyfed and Kian, and Loris had added touches that simply made sense to her. By the time she settled into her own chair, next to Lord Perham's, she saw the approval in his eyes.

“You are aware of what my interest in you is, I believe,” Lord Perham stated, rather than asked.

“Yes, my lord. You believe I may be your granddaughter.”

“May be,” he repeated. “Yes, that's so. I've had dealings with individuals who own an establishment where I believe you once lived—”

“The Goodbodys,” Loris said. “At the Red Fox.”

“Just so,” he said, his tone tinged with obvious distaste. For that Loris didn't blame him in the least.

“They knew nothing of who your mother was,” he said. “But they knew your father and described him to me in detail. And you also, of course.”

“They wouldn't have known my mother,” Loris told him. “She died when I was seven, and my father began to frequent the Red Fox when I was ten. Shall I tell you what I remember of my parents? Would that be helpful?”

“If you wouldn't find it too difficult,” he said, sitting up more straightly in his chair.

Lord Perham appeared to steel himself for what she was about to say, and it occurred to Loris that he was the one who might find such knowledge difficult.
And of course it would be
, she thought, feeling a great deal of sympathy for the elderly gentleman. He had been searching for his daughter for years now, with so much disappointment. He must be very weary of wrong turns and empty destinations.

“My mother's name was Nancy, but my father's pet name for her was Nan. My father's name was John. As I was telling Lord Graymar earlier, I don't know what his actual last name was, for he changed it wherever we went. The name he was using when he died was Whitford.”

She paused to see if Lord Perham wished to make any comment, but he wasn't even looking at her. His hands were tented beneath his chin, and he was deep in thought. When he noticed her silence, he glanced up and said, “Please continue.”

Loris tried to think of what else would interest him or be helpful.

“Let me see. Well, my parents often told me about the countryside where they had been raised, that it was exceedingly beautiful and green, and that there were many lakes and rivers. They promised that one day they would take me out of London to see countryside.”

“Did they keep this promise?” he asked curiously.

“No.” Loris gave a single shake of her head. “It wasn't until Ffinian Seymour took me away to Wales that I saw the beauties that my parents had spoken of.” She glanced at Lord Graymar, who nodded encouragingly and sipped his tea. “Tylluan—my home in Wales—is the most beautiful place on earth. I hope that, regardless how matters end between us, sir, you might see it one day.”

“I'm glad that you found refuge in a happy place,” he said. “Especially after the life you were forced to endure in London. Did your parents ever speak of any relatives?”

“My mother sometimes spoke of her family,” Loris said. “Not anything specific, of course, for it always angered my father terribly, but in a general way. She wished to return and make amends, but my father wouldn't allow it. He didn't like her to speak of it in front of me.”

Lord Perham sat forward, gazing at her intently. “She wished to return to her family?” he asked. “Your mother? Did she?”

“Very much,” Loris assured him. “It was the final request she made of my father before she died, that I should at least know her people. But he was absolutely set against it. If she was your daughter, sir, then I'm very sorry.”

He had lowered his head into one hand, grieving, and Loris's heart clenched at the sight.

“
Damn him
,” Lord Perham said, his voice filled with anguish. “Damn that man. He took her away and kept her away, even when she wished to come back.”

Loris reached out to touch his hand, wishing that she might soothe his pain. “Lord Graymar has told me something of what happened to your daughter, sir, at her mother's hand. If that is so, and if my mother was your daughter, does it seem so
unreasonable to you that my father would be afraid to return? Not just for his wife's safety, but for his child's, as well?”

Lord Perham lowered his hand and looked at her, his expression a mixture of fury and sorrow. “My wife was an ill woman. Ill in her mind, if not in her body. I didn't realize it before she tried to murder my grandchild, but once I did, I would have done everything possible to protect my daughter and her child.”

Loris privately thought that he should have protected his daughter long beforehand, for surely he'd had some idea of his wife's sickness, but didn't speak the thought aloud. Instead, she said, “I'm sure you would have, sir. I'm terribly sorry for your loss.”

“But not for your own?” he asked. “Do you believe yourself to be my granddaughter, Miss Loris?”

“I do not know, my lord,” she replied honestly. “Do you believe it?”

“You say that your mother's name was Nancy. My daughter's name was Anna, but there were those who called her Nan. The scoundrel who dallied with her and stole her away was the youngest son of our rector. His name was not John, but Donald.”

“Oh,” Loris said, surprised to find that she felt a touch of sadness, rather than the relief she'd told Malachi she thought she would know. “Then I'm doubly sorry for you, sir, for it seems that I cannot be the grandchild you've been seeking.”

“And why not?” he asked. “It would be expected that they would not use their real names, for fear of being discovered.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true,” she agreed. “But how can we know for certain, one way or the other, my lord?”