“I don’t remember everything I left in the chest. Some official papers and books, some small wood carvings, and a Royal Navy dirk, which is what I’m interested in,” Lucas explained. “Thorsay House, where Kendra Douglas is living, has masses of Scottish weapons displayed on the walls, including Highland dirks. I think the design is a little different from the naval version, so I wanted to compare.”

“Of course,” Suzanne said warmly. “What man wouldn’t be desperate to know which is longer?”

Lucas laughed. “I suspect you’re implying that no sane woman would care. I’m sure you’re right. Is it all right if I retrieve the chest now, Simon?”

His cousin waved a hand toward the master’s bedroom. “You know where the dressing room is.”

Lucas nodded and bid them both good night before he collected his lamp and entered Simon’s bedchamber. It didn’t look much occupied because Simon and Suzanne always shared the bed in the lady’s chamber at the other end of the suite. Lucas envied their unfashionable fondness for each other.

The chest was where Simon had said, in the back corner of the dressing room with several folded blankets resting on top. He moved the blankets and picked up the chest by the leather handle on one end, leaving one hand free for his lamp. The chest had seemed large when he first took it off to school, but he could lift it easily with one hand now.

He left the dressing room through the back door, which opened on a corridor. Once in his own room, he set the chest on the bed and examined the scuffs and other signs of wear it had accumulated since his aunt and uncle Duval had given it to him when he first went off to Harrow. Simon had received a similar one, his covered with dark red leather because of his interest in the army, while Lucas’s was navy blue. Their initials were picked out with small brass-headed nails on the lids.

He ran a fingertip over the initials. Aunt and Uncle Duval had welcomed him warmly after the death of his parents and always treated both boys with scrupulous fairness. He’d been very lucky, but he wondered why he’d thought of the chest on this particular night.

Because it was a doorway to an earlier life. He hadn’t been ready to look at that life until now. Expression set, he turned the key in the lock and opened the door to his past.

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

Lucas arrived to escort Kendra to dinner a few minutes early so she had less time to wonder whether he’d changed his mind. She headed down the stairs when the housekeeper, Mrs. Brown, said that her guest had arrived. Lucas was in the drawing room gazing at a circle of dirks mounted on the wall.