“Jeremy was an orphan,” she murmured, matching his hushed tone so that Leo wouldn’t overhear. “He was living in a poorhouse when a kind vicar provided him a proper education after spotting his quickness with memorizing Scripture. I don’t believe he had any relatives at all.” Then the implication of what the duke had said struck her. She took a step closer to him and uttered in a harsh whisper, “Do you truly think that Lord Godwin will reject his own grandson? Is he so bitter as that?”

“He’s a proud man with strict notions of propriety. Understandably, he was angry when Audrey defied him to marry beneath her rank.”

“Understandably?” Somehow, it shocked Natalie to hear the duke casually confirm what her father had always said about aristocratic marriages. “Jeremy was a worthy, upright man. This obsession with inherited status is ridiculous.”

“Nevertheless, it’s our tradition in England. We can’t all be upstart rebels like you Americans.”

She mustn’t be distracted by that playful glimmer in his eyes. “If you ask me, Lord Godwin behaved like a tyrant toward Audrey. After meeting him, I can’t understand why she made me promise to bring Leo back here.”

“Perhaps because she knew her father hadn’t always been so hostile. At one time, he’d doted on Audrey. She had a happy childhood here, all in all.”

“A doting father doesn’t forsake his beloved daughter. If he was truly attached to her, he would have made an effort to contact her after she left.”

The duke shrugged. “We knew she’d emigrated to America, but not where. For that matter, why did she not write? She certainly knew where to find him.”

“He’d cut her out of his life, that’s why. He said that if she married against his wishes, she was no longer his daughter.”

“As I said, her departure hurt Godwin deeply. He became colder, more withdrawn and unforgiving. He forbade us even to speak her name.”

Natalie clenched her fingers around the fine cape. Having had a loving father herself, she found the earl’s behavior reprehensible. “Well, none of this is Leo’s fault. It isn’t right that the earl should spurn his own flesh and blood.”

If anything, that only made Clayton’s face turn grim. Seeming to weigh his answer, he glanced across the tower room toward Leo, who was still busy delving for treasures. Then his troubled eyes seared into hers. “I hesitate to tell you this, Miss Fanshawe. But you deserve to know the truth.”

“The truth?”

“Yes. The situation is more complicated than you realize. You see, my cousin suspects you of being … a trickster.”

“What?” Of all the things he might have said, nothing could have startled her more. “I don’t understand. How so?”

“It has been suggested that Leo is not really Audrey’s son. That upon meeting her in America, you devised a scheme to inveigle yourself into a noble household. That perhaps Leo is your son—and you hope to gain an inheritance for him by means of fraud.”