Lucian reached out like a striking snake coiling his fingers painfully around her arm, drawing her down across his chest to stare directly into her eyes. “Someday, Catherine, we’ll discover if that is so.”
He released her, pushing her back up away from him. “Your father,” he reminded her, and pillowed his arms beneath his head.
Catherine rubbed her aching arm as she spoke. “My father is a patient and gentle—”
Lucian interrupted with an unpleasant grunt.
She turned her head, her brow raised in annoyance. “Do you intend to interrupt my every word?”
He smiled wickedly as he asked, “Why, do you intend to sew my lips shut?”
“I am skillful with a needle.” She grinned, pleased at the suggestion.
“Your countless skills amaze me.”
“You have yet to know them all, Captain.” Her grin grew.
“We have time, Catherine, for me to discover all of your talents.”
Catherine instantly read his implied message. He intended to keep her captive for some time. Why? What good would her continued captivity do? And how long could she carry on this charade?
“As I was saying,” she said, returning to safer conversation.
“By all means,” Lucian interrupted again, “tell me of your gentle father.”
Catherine ignored his sarcastic remark and proceeded. “I was four when my mother married the marquis. From the moment I entered his house, he treated me like his own daughter.
He took me for walks, read to me —”
“Pampered and spoiled you,” Lucian added with disgust, annoyed by her description of an attentive and loving father.
“He most certainly did not,” Catherine said indignantly. “He expected proper behavior from me.”
“Proper?” he asked with a quirk of his brow. “And proper is hoisting your skirts for any man who sniffs at them?”
Catherine felt the hot tears gather in her eyes. They begged for release, begged to ease the ache in her heart. She would never embarrass her father by behaving so indecently. Yet her pretense of indecency would be her father’s saving grace. How ironic, she thought sadly, and locked her tears away to shed when she was alone.
She raised her chin in courage, not in arrogance, though she was certain Lucian would assume otherwise. “I keep my affairs discreet.”
“Discreet affairs are proper?”
“The aristocracy insists on being discreet for propriety’s sake,” she explained, having learned at an early age that the nobility made their own rules to cover their own indiscretions.
“Ah, yes, the aristocracy, the ruling class who rule themselves. And give not a damn for the common folk.”
“My father cares.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Lucian said contemptuously. “The marquis cares for his own and no one else.”
Catherine took offense to his disparaging remark. “My father has been a proponent of the less fortunate for many years. He has established several orphanages, hoping to provide a home for the children that are forced to beg on the streets. He has arranged for educational funds for the needy. He does what he can though he considers it not near enough.”
Lucian stretched his arms up grabbing the top of the intricately carved headboard secured to the wall and pulled himself up. He rested comfortably against a stack of white pillows and regarded her with a scornful look. “And where does he get the money for these charitable works?”
Catherine chose her words carefully, feeling distrustful of him. “He possesses centuries-old family wealth and continues to invest it wisely.”
“Like an investment in merchant ships?”
A response seemed senseless. Lucian appeared intent on faulting her father regardless of anyone else’s opinion.
“What, no answer, madam? And here I thought you would jump to your father’s defense.”
“Why? You won’t bother to listen to reason. Your head is filled with nonsense and your heart is bitter with hate.”
“And for good reason,” he argued.
She shook her head sadly. “What reason? Because someone spoke the name Abelard?”
“His signature condemned me to hell.”
“Show me this document with my father’s signature, prove to me his guilt.”
“When I’m ready,” he answered calmly.
Much too calmly to Catherine’s way of thinking. A shiver ran down her spine and she took it as an omen of things to come.
“Had you been in debt to my father?” she asked, attempting to solve the misunderstanding that had existed for years.
“I was in debt to no man. My finances were above reproach, my family is known for their integrity.”