A shaft of doubt thrust through Daniel’s chest. He locked eyes with his mother, and again hers pleaded for understanding. After she had been rejected by her newlywed husband, she had become pregnant by another man? Or …

“Go on,” Haverly ordered the lawyer. “Finish it.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Moody nodded. “I’m nearly done.”

Daniel didn’t know if he wanted to hear it.

“‘The boy was twelve, and when I demanded to be taken to see him, to observe him without his knowledge from the privacy of my carriage, there was no doubt. He was the image of his father at that age. My son had a son by his legitimate wife.’”

The viscountess made a strangling noise, but she stifled it, gripping the edge of the table as if she would break off a chunk and hit someone with it.

Daniel’s mind was blank. At last the greatest mystery of his life had been solved. He knew who his father was. Regret that the man had died so long ago nearly overthrew him.

“I arranged, again through my solicitor, for an agent to approach Catherine Swann and make her an offer. I was not ready to acknowledge the boy as my grandson and heir, for I did not wish to expose my son’s memory or my family name to such a scandal. I would provide for the boy, educate, feed, clothe, and house him until his twenty-fifth birthday. He could enter the trade or vocation of his choice, as long as it was not a military career, for I loathe the incompetency of the military. In exchange she was never to tell the boy who his father was, nor to reveal her story to anyone.

“‘I thought I had solved the problem. The boy, Daniel, was cared for, much better than he would have been without my stepping in, and Alonzo would continue to be my heir. I followed Daniel’s academic career. Occasionally I sent tasks for him through my solicitors, and he performed each one well. Though I was not pleased with his choice of occupation—a detective?—I suppose he was showing the more common side of his pedigree by choosing such a lowly place of employment where he would encounter the squalid and depraved every day, but what could I do? I kept my part of the agreement.