St. Clare folded his arms. His stitches strained across his wound. The bite of pain only sharpened his resolve. “She may as well be as far as I’m concerned.”

“Bah! She’s an acknowledged beauty.”

“She’s not for me. Only one lady is. And I’ve a mind to have her, by whatever means. Even if I must—”

“Don’t dare say another word,” Allendale warned. His face was red, his jaw clenching and unclenching with barely controlled fury. “By heaven, I never thought I’d see the day you’d go the way of your father. Throwing everything away for the sake of your basest impulses.”

“For love.”

“Love!”

“Love,” St. Clare affirmed.

“We were soul mates,” Maggie had said. “As essential to each other as light or air. From my earliest memory, I existed only for those moments when I could see him next, and he did the same. Neither of us was complete outside the presence of the other.”

St. Clare’s chest constricted to recall it. It was the truth. He’d only ever been loved but once in his life, and had only ever loved once in return. “I tried to forget her,” he said. “To leave her behind with all the rest of my past. I thought I had done. But I hadn’t. I can’t. I’d sooner cut out my own beating heart.”

Allendale studied his face. “Because you love her.”

St. Clare nodded grimly.

“You’d give up the title? You may as well do. You’ll be leading the papers straight to Somerset. Any enterprising reporter could find out the rest. Question the servants at that estate where you lived. What was it called?”

“Beasley Park.”

“Just so. You won’t have been forgotten completely. Some groom or groundskeeper will sell their secrets for a shilling. ‘Aye, that’s him,’ they’ll say. ‘That’s the scullery maid’s bastard.’ And when that much is known, you may bid goodbye to the title.”

“It’s not mine,” St. Clare said. It was the bitter truth. He was a bastard. A drunken mistake. He had no right to any of this. “Not by law.”

“You had no scruples about that when we began this venture. No more than I did.”

“That was before.”

“Before you saw this Honeywell gel.”

St. Clare fell silent.

“Think well on it, my lad,” Allendale said. “If you abandon the claim, you’ll receive nothing from the estate. Nothing from me. Not a single penny. I won’t support my son’s bastard.”

St. Clare’s felt a twinge in his midsection—the veriest ache somewhere in the region of his heart. Stupid, really. He supposed he’d begun to believe that his grandfather cared for him. Not for what he could do to secure the title, but for him. The man. “I’d expect nothing from you, of course.”