When I'm With You: The Complete Novel (54 page)

“Yes. I admit it.”

“I ought to call the police right now,” Ian hissed. “Why? Why were you doing it?”

“For two purposes only. Whether or not my reasons seem mercenary and selfish, you’ll have to be the judge. One, I needed to discover the whereabouts of the woman who might provide me with unanswered questions. I didn’t think you would easily open up to me about your mother if I just asked. Two, I wanted to get to know you better personally.”

“Why would you want to get to know me better?” Ian asked angrily, looking offended.

“Because family is very important to me,” Lucien replied. “And for better or for worse, you’re the only blood family I know of at this point. You’re my half brother, Ian.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ian collapsed heavily onto the leather couch. For a moment, all four of them didn’t speak. The silence seemed to press on Elise’s chest, making breathing difficult. Ian looked like he’d just been clobbered, but Elise also sensed his mind working . . . churning . . . sifting for answers.

“Trevor Gaines?” he finally asked Lucien.

Lucien nodded once. Elise had never seen him look so sober.

Francesca went and sat down next to Ian. Ian numbly took her hand and squeezed it.

“What was Gaines in prison for?” Ian croaked.

“I’m not sure you want to know that right now,” Lucien said.

Francesca’s face looked ashen. Something flashed in her dark eyes as she stared at Lucien’s solemn face.

“I agree. Of course we’ll have to hear more about this, but later. We need to go to London, Ian.”

Ian looked into Francesca’s face. She saw the sleety misery in his eyes when he gazed upon his fiancée . . . the dawning emptiness.

“I want to know,” Ian said. “I’ve wanted to know about the son of a bitch that was my father for most of my life. You
know
that, Francesca.”

“Whoever your biological father was won’t change who you are,” Elise heard Francesca whisper in a pressured fashion.

“It was for rape, wasn’t it?” Ian rasped, seeming not to have heard Francesca. “Trevor Gaines was a rapist.”

A wave of dizziness struck Elise in the short pause that followed. She didn’t know if she swayed or not, but suddenly Lucien was staring at her, his hand on her elbow. She sat automatically when he lowered her to the couch.

“He was indicted on two counts of rape, but by all accounts he was probably guilty of more. It was only the two they had sufficient evidence on to prosecute. But there’s something else. I might as well tell you,” Lucien said. “Now that you know his name, you’ll find out soon enough. In addition to being a rapist, Gaines was a serial reproductionist.”

“What’s that?” Elise asked when no one spoke. Lucien glanced down at her. What she saw in his eyes made her want to weep: a hopeless sadness, a bitter disgust that could never be purged.

“A serial reproductionist has a sick obsession with impregnating women. He does it by seduction and craft—by discovering women’s cycles and sabotaging birth control, perhaps weakening a condom to ensure it breaks during intercourse, increasing the likelihood of impregnation. He might compulsively give sperm for insemination. When his means fall short, he might resort to rape. Trevor Gaines used all three tactics, and quite possibly others that we aren’t aware of. The police suspect that he impregnated close to twenty women, although Gaines often bragged to Herr Shroeder—the private investigator I hired—that there were more. Many more. We were like trophies to him.”

Nausea struck Elise when she realized the
we
Lucien referred to was all of Trevor Gaines’s offspring.

“Until you understand the psychological profile of such a man, it’s very difficult to comprehend his motives and actions . . . and even then . . .” Lucien shook his head.

“I think I remember reading something about him. The Gentleman Rapist—or something idiotic like that. Isn’t that what the English newspapers called him?” Ian asked.

Lucien nodded. “He was a wealthy man, with supposed noble blood, as well as being a brilliant scientist and inventor. He was also one of the sickest fucks ever born. He wanted nothing to do with his children. He just got some twisted, narcissistic satisfaction out of knowing he proliferated so greatly, planted his seed far and wide. It was all a twisted game to him, the selfish bastard,” Lucien added bitterly under his breath.

“Lucien, this all seems so far-fetched,” Francesca said suddenly. “How can you possibly know that this man is yours or Ian’s father?”

“In my case, I know because he agreed to a blood test. Trevor Gaines definitely is—or was—my biological father.”

Elise made a shaky sound at his barren tone. She hated seeing his pain exposed, and she had no one to blame but herself for what she so unexpectedly witnessed.

“Was?”
Ian asked sharply. “Don’t tell me he’s dead.”

“He just died several weeks ago, of a sudden heart attack while in prison.”

“He’d better be thankful from hell that he died naturally,” Ian muttered viciously, his sudden blaze of anger sending a chill through Elise. Francesca’s eyes widened in anxiety as she studied her lover’s profile.

“I’ve had similar thoughts ever since I discovered what he was,” Lucien said, and Elise heard the edge of bitter fury in his tone as well. “Unfortunately, Gaines must have realized his progeny might feel that way, because he refused point-blank to see me. I assume it would have been the same for you. As I’ve learned, a prison can keep people out just as effectively as it keeps people trapped inside.” He paused, holding Ian’s stare. “I’ve wanted to tell you. For a long time now. But how does one go about revealing something like this? It’s not as if it’s happy news. I wasn’t sure how you would take it. I’m still not sure, but after tonight . . .” He paused, glancing at Elise. Her heart plummeted in her chest. “It seemed impossible to keep the truth from you anymore.”

“But again,” Francesca said desperately, “why are you convinced in Ian’s case? Are you only going by Trevor Gaines’s word that Ian was one of his biological children?
Surely
his word isn’t to be trusted.”

“He knew a great deal of intimate information about Helen Noble. He met up with her first in England. She’d apparently had her first psychotic break there.” Lucien said the last quietly, his gaze still locked with Ian’s. “She had run away from home, and Gaines took her under his wing in Essex. He could be quite charming when he chose, as many sociopaths can be, and your mother was at the beginning stages of schizophrenia, and very vulnerable. He brought Helen back to the north of France, near where he lived, installing her in a small house about fifty miles from his estate—the house where you spent the early years of your life, Ian. He claimed Helen and he were lovers, but if they were, he abandoned her after she became pregnant, despite her increasing illness and disorientation.”

“We never knew how she ended up in France,” Ian said dully. “My grandparents searched far and wide in England and all over Europe. The village where we lived was so remote, though. He must have understood who she was . . . her status. Gaines probably knew it was unlikely anyone would ever find my mother there.”

“My mother was Helen’s maid. Apparently, Helen had hired her during a moment of lucidity, while she was still in England. It was several months after she’d fled Belford Hall,” Lucien explained, referring to Ian’s grandparents’ estate in East Sussex. “He had a penchant for impregnating women that were related somehow. For instance, one of the women he raped that he was finally successfully prosecuted for was one of three sisters. He’d seduced two of them, unbeknownst to each other. He attempted to seduce the third, but when he failed, he resorted to rape. He couldn’t have anything—including a woman’s right to refuse him—stand in the way of his sick goal of having all three sisters pregnant with his child at once. He also had a proclivity for videotaping both his seductions and his rapes. It’s that which finally landed him a guilty verdict without a doubt.”

In the awful silence that followed, Elise noticed Ian’s gaze flash to Francesca. His features were impassive, but Elise thought she saw pure horror in his glance. Francesca shook her head, looking utterly helpless.

“
No
,” Francesca said with quiet forcefulness, her meaning lost on Elise, but her desperation clear. Ian turned to back to Lucien.

“What else?” Ian prodded doggedly.

“He pulled something similar with our mothers. Not the videotaped rape,” Lucien said quickly when Ian’s look grew wild. “I mean his desire to impregnate women who were associated with one another. Apparently, Gaines was having relations with both of our mothers at once, whether by force or seduction, I don’t know. We’re only six weeks apart in age, I believe.”

Ian just stared.

“But still,” Francesca interrupted. “That’s hardly proof. What makes you so sure Ian is definitely this criminal’s biological son?”

Lucien seemed to hesitate.

“Lucien?” Ian asked.

“You’d find out now anyway,” Lucien muttered. He turned and walked over to the oval table, retrieving the laptop. He returned, sitting next to Elise on the couch. She watched as his long fingers moved fleetly over the keyboard. A black and white photograph appeared. She stared in numb disbelief.

Ian took the computer when Lucien handed it to him. Francesca’s hand flew up to cover her mouth.

“Jesus,”
Francesca muttered, sounding like she was about to be sick as she stared at the photograph along with Ian. Elise knew precisely what she meant by her horrified exclamation. The newspaper caption beneath the scanned photograph said it was of Trevor Gaines when he was in his thirties, looking extremely handsome and charming with a small, mysterious smile on his lips—the exact opposite of what one might imagine a rapist and conniver to look like.

Ian Noble was the spitting image of Trevor Gaines.

“That’s why she always got scared of me when she was psychotic,” Ian said with an eerie calmness that sent shivers down Elise’s back. He looked at Francesca’s shocked, puzzled face. “My mother. That’s why she sometimes acted afraid of me—all my life, she’d wince and cower at times at the very sight of me. I never understood why, but I sensed something. Something bad. That’s why my presence could trigger a relapse for her . . . still to this day. Because I looked so much like him. Because I had the face of the man who took advantage of her. I had the face of her rapist.” He looked at Lucien. Lucien looked back, every bit as grim.

Every bit as sad.

Francesca’s mouth hung open. Elise could almost hear the inner workings of the other woman’s mind, sense her searching for words of comfort . . . and finding none. She understood because she herself had gone numb with helplessness.

Ian set the computer on the couch and stood.

“Ian,” Francesca said sharply. He paused and looked back at her. She stared at him . . . mute . . . shattered. He held out his arms and Francesca flew into them, hugging him. He crushed her to him, his eyes clamped tight, every line of his body conveying unspeakable pain.

“You are the best of me,” he muttered. “The very best. But there’s so much more ugliness. The balance is uneven.”

“No,”
Elise heard Francesca whisper heatedly.

Ian kissed the top of her head, his lips lingering as he inhaled her scent. He wore a death mask as he gently extricated her from his arms and strode out of the room.

Francesca just stood there for a moment, stunned.

“I’ll go after him,” Lucien said, standing. “I know what it’s like to find out—”

“It’s his worst nightmare made a hundred times worse,” Francesca said bleakly as if to herself. She roused and glanced back at Lucien. “I’ll go,” she said, hurrying from the room.

In her absence, Elise just looked up at Lucien, dread making her shrink within herself. He stared at the closed door where Ian and Francesca had just exited. Why hadn’t he told her the full truth? What must he be thinking?

Elise herself couldn’t put into words what she was feeling: Misery for Ian, Francesca, and Lucien for such a harsh, soul-tearing truth. Shame that she had been the one to reveal it out of her ignorance and her damnable impulsivity. Lucien had always wanted family. He hadn’t just been spying on Ian for the purposes of discovering the whereabouts and circumstances of Helen Noble.

He’d wanted to get to know a blood brother. To love him, despite the foulest of circumstances. And they
had
grown close . . . so comfortable with each other.

Elise had changed all that now. Ian was confused. Furious. She’d perhaps robbed Lucien of the only blood family he would ever know.

“Lucien,” she whispered, wild to apologize . . . to ask him why he hadn’t told her everything, but fearing his answer. Why should he tell her anything important, when she’d betrayed the truth the way she had? But the door suddenly opened and Francesca stepped into the room, her face as white as a sheet.

“He’s gone,” she said blankly.

Again, that frightening shiver of inevitability rippled through Elise. Somehow, those two words seemed to signify more than a short absence on Ian Nobel’s part.

“I’ve never seen him so upset—” Francesca broke off as a convulsion of emotion went through her.

“This is my fault. I’ll find him,” Lucien said when Francesca faded off. “I’ll call when I do.”

Elise just sat there, watching as Lucien walked away from her, all the while thinking that if anything, tonight had been her fault, not his. After the way she’d inadvertently exposed Lucien, perhaps he was walking away from her for the last time.

After the panel door closed with a snap, her dazed glance landed on Francesca. She rose swiftly and went to her. The other woman looked completely shell-shocked, and let Elise lead her to the sofa without protest. Francesca blinked when Elise handed her a snifter of brandy a moment later.

“What’s going to happen now?” Francesca wondered hollowly.

“Lucien will find him. It’s going to be all right,” Elise said with a certainty she was far from feeling.

* * *

Earlier, Elise had felt like an interloper during an intensely private moment, but as she sat there with Francesca waiting to hear from either Ian or Lucien, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was like waiting at a death bed. For half an hour, they sat in near silence in the office, both of their cell phones on the coffee table in front of them. Francesca cursed under her breath at one point and tried to contact Ian.

“He’s not answering,” she said a moment later, hanging up the phone.

After a while, a tap came at the door and Mrs. Hanson poked her head in.

“Elise? I’m about to start the pudding.”

“Mrs. Hanson, I’m sorry,” Francesca said, standing. “I should have found you. There’s been a change of plans, I’m afraid. Lucien and Ian had to go out.”

“Would you like me to serve you and Elise in the dining room, then?”