“His only grandson. He’d very nearly resigned himself to the title being passed to Lionel. It’s a very sore point with my grandfather. All he’s ever wanted is to secure the Beresford line. When I appeared, he realized there might be a chance to do it. He’s unable to sire more children himself. And with my father dead—”

“Is he dead?”

“He is,” St. Clare said. “I never got the chance to meet him. He died several years before I arrived in Italy, the victim of a wasting disease brought on by drink and whoring. Had my grandfather softened toward him sooner, he might have come home. But the Beresfords are stubborn—vindictive. Grandfather thought that a time in exile would be good for my father. That it would build his character. He was a disappointment to him, you see.”

“A wrong ’un. That’s what Jane’s aunt called him.”

“I daresay he was. Drinking. Fighting. Engaging in ill-conceived pranks. He was always getting himself into scrapes. When my grandfather cut him off for a time, my father resorted to robbery. I suspect it was all a lark to him.”

“And Jenny?”

“One of his many conquests. No different from the other tavern wenches he struck up with during his time on the run.”

Maggie didn’t appear convinced. “I think there must have been more to it than that. Papa always said your mother was a rare beauty in her youth. And when she was at the hedge tavern in Market Barrow—”

“Plying her trade.”

“My point is, I don’t ever recall hearing Gentleman Jim’s name linked with another woman. It was only ever Jenny. Which would lead one to believe—”

“That it was some grand love affair?” St. Clare scoffed. “If that was the case, then why—” He stopped himself from giving voice to the questions that had plagued his unhappy childhood.

Why hadn’t Jenny loved him?

Why had she hit him and shouted at him and told him he’d ruined her life?

Maggie seemed to know what he was feeling, just as she always had. Her hand stroked the back of his neck in a soothing caress. “I think that, perhaps, she was disappointed by your father. Disappointed in life. It’s unfair that she took it out on you, but…I do believe she loved you in her way.”

“Oh, do you?” He gave a humorless laugh. “I’d wager she never lost any sleep over my disappearance.”

“You’re wrong,” Maggie said. “She spoke about you in the end.”

He flinched from her words as if they caused him physical pain. Jenny had often been cruel to him. And worse. She’d left him feeling as though he wasn’t worthy of a mother’s love. Even so, the thought of her dying—of speaking of him in her final moments—was almost too much to bear.