She smiled. “You sound just like my father.”
“That’s a handsome compliment.”
“One wholly deserved.”
The need to confess what she meant to him surfaced. The need to tell her that he had loved her for so long. The need to say that loving her was the only thing that made him feel whole.
By way of a distraction, he said, “What’s it like?”
“Desire?” she said, confused.
“No. Loving your parents.”
The words carried the weight of a burden he’d lugged around for years. The guilt he bore for his lack of feeling. The crippling sense of inadequacy, the belief that he was somehow to blame.
She pursed her lips and took a moment to answer. “I suppose I always took our love for granted. But I couldn’t have wished for a better childhood, couldn’t have wished for better parents.”
He could sense emotion welling before water filled her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said softly. “I was there the night your mother died. I was there hiding in the shadows when you came running downstairs, when you collapsed into your father’s arms.”
She blinked back her tears. “You were the person who came to see my father in his study?”
“We often met late at night, for obvious reasons.” He sighed. “Your pain has stayed with me. It made me feel normal. Everyone suffers. Those who are loved and those who aren’t.”
She dabbed at her eyes. “There is no love between you and your parents?”
“None.” Guilt tightened its noose around his neck. “When I saw my mother last night, I didn’t embrace her. I didn’t welcome her, didn’t say how I’d mourned her absence. I’m no longer the lonely child. Can’t be the loving son she lost.”
Sybil pushed out of the chair and came around the table. “Is that what was troubling you?”
He shrugged, but when her soft hand slipped into his, he clasped it tightly. “The irony is we have no control over who we love or who we don’t.”
“No.” She placed her other hand on his shoulder. “When it comes to your mother, perhaps you should give it some time. Let things develop naturally. It must b
e difficult to focus on anything when we have so many other matters demanding our attention.”
“Yes,” he said.
But he was a man of predictions and premonitions and prophecies. He knew beyond doubt that no other woman would speak to his soul like Sybil Atwood. He knew he was but one clue away from solving the riddle of Atticus’ murder. And he knew that Julia Fontaine was not what she seemed.
Chapter Sixteen
Sybil was supposed to be reading through her father’s notes, but she was too busy watching him across the dining table. Lucius Daventry. Watching the way his lips moved as he read silently from a journal, remembering the earthy taste of his mouth, the feel of his tongue, the heat. Watching the way his strong hand gripped the pages, remembering the sensual way it had slipped over her sex, rousing pants and pleas and moans of pleasure.
She silently sighed.
With skill, the man had worked his way in and out of her body. He had used the same expertise to work his way into her heart. She could no longer distinguish between longing, lust and love. She was addicted to his company, to passionate kisses, to the softening of those grey eyes as he cradled her in his arms.
“Have you discovered anything of interest?” he said, looking up to meet her gaze.
Only that I think I’ve fallen in love with you.
“The scribbled notes have faded,” she said, gathering her wits. “The words are difficult to decipher. But Mr Cribb must have been a man of means.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Logic says the first point of call when investigating someone is to visit their home, then their place of work. My father had written the word work, but the space beneath is blank.”