by Mary Balogh
For a few minutes, a few minutes out of their lives, they had been a family.
She remembered watching him a little later looking down at Christina, who had been humming and skipping along between then, a smile of such tenderness on his face that she had felt a deep pain.
She remembered—oh, she could not stop remembering.
It was embarrassing to find only Nancy in the suite that Christopher had taken at the Pulteney. He had gone out on some private errands, it seemed. The temptation was to leave rather than have to sit with Nancy and make conversation. But Elizabeth wanted to talk with him before the afternoon. She sat down on the chair indicated by Nancy, and they proceeded to talk about the weather and the success of Lady Drummond’s hall and the excitement of having the Grand Duchess Catherine in residence at the Pulteney.
Not a mention was made of Penhallow or the weeks they had spent there together.
It was a relief when the door opened abruptly and Christopher came striding inside, still dressed for the outdoors. A relief and a new ordeal.
He stopped short when he saw her. Both she and Nancy had risen to their feet.
“Elizabeth is here,” Nancy said unnecessarily. “I shall leave you to talk with her privately, Christopher.”
She left the room. At least, Elizabeth assumed she had left. She did not take her own eyes from Christopher. He set his hat and gloves and cane down on a chair close to the door and turned to look at her.
“Elizabeth,” he said. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
There was no point in engaging in pure courtesy talk. “You have a curricle?” she asked.
He looked at her strangely. “Yes, actually,” he said. “Brand new. Purchased only this morning. Were you afraid that I would be unable to give Christina her treat?”
“Your mind is set on it, then?” she asked.
He looked keenly at her. “You did not need to ask that, did you, Elizabeth?” he said.
“I wish you would change your mind,” she said. “Even so, it must be the last time, Christopher. Twice is enough. She cannot mean that much to you after all. You did not even know of her existence until recently.”
“Twice is enough,” he repeated. “If you knew that you were to see her twice more, would you agree that that was enough, Elizabeth? For the rest of her life and yours she would be a stranger to you. Would you accept that?”
“Of course I would not,” she said crossly. “I am her mother.”
“Yes, you are,” he agreed. “And I am her father.”
“I have been with her all her life,” she said. “It is a different matter entirely.”
“Yes,” he said. “I have not been with her because you chose to deprive me of those years. There is much to make up for. Six years. I never will be able to make up for them, Elizabeth, years in which she has thought me dead. Years when she will think I did not care once she knows that I am still alive.”
That line of appeal was clearly having no effect on him. She had not really expected that it would.
“My father knows,” she said, flushing. “He wanted to pack us off to Kingston without delay. He will not let you come near her, Christopher. You must know that. There will be dreadful unpleasantness if you persist.”
“Then so be it,” he said. “I had a note from him early this morning instructing me to wait on him when I arrive at Grosvenor Square this afternoon. I believe the advance notice is designed to have me quaking in my boots by the time I arrive.”
He had always been a little in awe of her father. She could remember how very nervous he had been when he had been going to ask her father for her hand. Now he was standing in his sitting room at the Pulteney, his feet slightly apart, his eyes hard, his jaw set, and she knew that this line of appeal would not have any effect either.
“I have something of an appetite for battle, having avoided it seven years ago,” he said.
“I could put powerful weapons into his hands with just a few words,” she said.
“By telling him how I deceived you into living with me as my wife after I kidnapped you?” he said. “Yes, do that, Elizabeth. We will see how much of a stomach he has for public scandal yet again.”
She looked at him and swallowed. That had been her trump card, though she had feared that she would not be able to use it with conviction. He must know that she would never reveal that piece of information and that she was very thankful that the only other two people who knew, Nancy and Martin, could also be trusted to keep the secret. She turned to look out of a window.
“You might as well save your breath, Elizabeth,” he said quietly.
He had come up behind her to stand quite close.
“Christopher,” she said, staring out toward the park, “do you hate me so much that you would ruin my life all over again? I don’t believe you care. And if you do, or think you do, then you must remember that you forfeited the right to care years ago.”
“By running,” he said. “Yes, it was a grievous fault, Elizabeth. We all make them, unfortunately. I would like to believe that there was as little malice in your grievous fault as there was in mine.”
“Mine?” she said.
“I ran because I was in despair,” he said. “Because I did not see how I was to clear myself of a charge that appeared so black against me. I had been lured to that woman’s house and she had her bodice off and my coat down to my wrists even before shock could register on my inexperienced mind. Your arrival was timed for that exact moment, of course. When she cried and claimed that we were longtime lovers, that I had promised to marry her, that I had married you only to get enough money to keep her and our child in comfort, I knew that it was a carefully concocted plot and that I would be fortunate indeed to get myself out of it. I could only rely on your faith in me. But it did not exist.”
“You were clearly guilty,” she said indignantly. “If you would just admit it, Christopher, I would be far more inclined to forgive you.”
“Despair caused my great sin,” he said. “What caused yours, Elizabeth? Spite? Did it give you the satisfaction of getting even to keep from me the fact that we were to have a child? And the fact of Christina’s existence?”
“I did not want you as the father of my child,” she said. “You were not worthy.”
“But I was the father,” he said. “Who has played papa all these years? Your father? Martin? John has been away, hasn’t he?”
“Martin has been wonderful to me,” she said. “He tried so hard to make excuses for you, Christopher. He tried to stop me from hating you. And he stayed with me and Christina all the time we were at Kingston before coming back here. He is even willing to go back there with me now.”
“Yes, Martin,” he said. “Everyone’s best friend. Have you ever been able to explain to yourself why you disliked him and even feared him before you recovered your memory?”
“Yes,” she said. “It was shame. Some part of me knew that I would be ashamed of myself and would find it difficult to face him when I knew the truth. But I need not have worried. Martin never condemns. He always looks for the best in people. He is always willing to love without asking for anything in return.”
“Perhaps it is Martin you should have married,” he said.
“Our feelings for each other have never been like that,” she said.
“We have always felt for each other the love of brother and sister.”
“Convenient,” he said.
“You may choose to believe otherwise,” she said, anger flaring. “I do not care.”
“She is beautiful, Elizabeth,” he said, changing the subject so abruptly that for a moment she felt bewildered. “You would not realize how much like Nancy at her age she is, except that she has those lovely blue eyes. She seems like a happy child.”
“I have had a great deal of love to give her,” she said. “She does not usually take to strangers.”
“She was a little shy,” he said. “I have no experience with children. She seemed not to be afra
id of me after a while. Did she say anything about me afterward?”
Christina had said that she liked that gentleman because he did not smile at her and chuck her under the chin and call her a good girl and a pretty girl, which she knew she was not, and then turn his attention to Mama and forget all about her. She had said that she liked that gentleman better than Lord Poole, who pretended to like her but did not. She had been scolded for those final words.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “Nothing.” She glanced at him but could not tell from his expression if he was disappointed. But she felt guilty for the lie.
“Ah,” he said.
“Christopher”—she would try her final line of appeal—”it has taken me a long, long time to get my life back in order again. I have finally done it. I have chosen a good man to marry. And I know that life with him will appeal to me. I will be busy and useful as a politician’s wife.”
“Will you?” he said.
“But Manley feels vulnerable,” she said. “He is a Whig in a country that has gone mad for the Tories in light of the recent victory. Soon all the foreign visitors are going to be here and life will grow frantic. It is important that he be seen celebrating with everyone else. And it is important that I be seen at his side. This is not the time for scandal, and I am afraid that you being in London has already aroused gossip as will the fact that we were walking in the park together yesterday and will be driving together today. There must be no more; Christopher. Please. You must see that. Have some feeling for Manley and for Christina even if you can have none for me.”
“If you are a millstone about his neck, Elizabeth,” he said, “perhaps you should set him free before it is too late.”
“There is no argument that will weigh anything at all with you, is there?” she said bitterly. “You do not care for anyone but yourself.”
“I cannot allow him my daughter,” he said. “I will not have him in a position to call himself her father or even her stepfather. I am her father, Elizabeth.”
“You are despicable,” she said. “Very well, then, if it is what you want, I shall fight you. Try to ruin the Season for both me and Manley. Perhaps you will succeed. But that will be your only satisfaction. During the summer months Manley and I will be marrying. And then he will be Christina’s stepfather. There is nothing you can do to prevent it, Christopher.”
“I think,” he said quietly, “that you had better marry me, Elizabeth.”
“What?” She could only look at him in shock.
“We had better put right what was put so very wrong almost seven years ago,” he said. “We were married then and produced a child. We have been married during the past month. We might as well make it official again.”
“We are divorced!” She almost spat the words at him.
“There was no just cause,” he said. “Besides, when we were married, we both agreed that it was until death. We spoke those words to each other before a vicar and witnesses. And before God. Neither of us is dead, Elizabeth.”
She had a sudden and unwelcome memory of the small chapel at Kingston and of Christopher beside her, holding her hand, looking handsome and pale and nervous. And of herself calm and happy and drinking in the moment and telling herself quite deliberately that she would remember it until her dying breath. She felt a rush of tears and turned her head sharply away toward the window again.
“I would not marry you,” she said, “if you were the last man left on earth.”
“And yet,” he said, “you loved me just a few weeks ago. Without the memory of what happened in the past, you loved me. What if those things you thought happened actually never did, Elizabeth? There would have been no reason for the divorce, would there? You would still be my wife. And there would be no cause for you not to love me.”
“But there was cause,” she said.
“And there would have been no cause for keeping my child from me,” he said. “I would be the one who has been terribly wronged, Elizabeth, not you.”
For perhaps the first time she felt a dreadful and almost overpowering surge of doubt. She had wanted to feel it seven years before, had tried to feel it, and had failed. She had longed for his innocence too much to allow herself to hope for it.
“How clever you are with words,” she said, her voice low and bitter. “You would like to add guilt to all the other things I have suffered, Christopher. No, thank you. My emotions are not so easily devastated as they used to be.”
She had not realized he was standing quite so close until his hand reached out and took her by the chin and turned her face, teary eyes and all, for his scrutiny.
“For better, for worse,” he said. “We said those words too, Elizabeth. No one in the marriage service promised us a happily ever after. That was our own personal mistake. We were too young and did not understand that life would not be like that despite the fact that we were in love. The marriage service merely made us promise that we would live through and work through all the difficulties life and marriage would bring us— together. We failed the very first test quite miserably. Both of us.”
She felt humiliation when one tear dripped onto his hand and he dried her cheek with his thumb.
“You are far more dangerous than you used to be,” she said.
“You have developed a persuasive tongue. I don’t want to be hurt again, Christopher. I don’t want all this. I want peace and contentment. I want Manley. Please leave me alone. And leave Christina alone. Your presence in her life can only confuse her.”
“Marry me,” he said. “I want us to be a family.”
“You merely want her because she is yours,” she said. “A piece of property you have come home to claim, like Penhallow. And because through her you can get even with me for allowing Papa to bring divorce proceedings against you. Let us go, Christopher. Accept reality.”
“You can think about it,” he said. “I’ll not press for an immediate answer, Elizabeth.”
He touched the pad of his thumb to her lips and his eyes watched what he was doing. She thought for one moment that he was going to kiss her and longed for the touch of his lips. And almost panicked at the thought. But he released her and took a step back.
“This afternoon will not be the last time you will wish to see Christina, then?” she said.
“No.”
She looked down at her hands for a while, but there was nothing else to be said. He was not to be moved. She crossed the room, picked up her bonnet from a small table, and found that he was already at the door to hold it open for her. She half ran down the stairs, tying the strings of her bonnet as she went, but even if dignity had allowed her to run as fast as her legs would carry her, she would not have been able to outstrip her realization that she wished he had kissed her, put his arms about her, forced the issue as he had when he had taken her from outside St. George’s.
She might have said yes. It was a shameful admission to have to make even in the privacy of her own thoughts. Perhaps especially there. He exerted a very powerful magic over her. Even more powerful than when she had first known him. He had been an inexperienced boy then. He was a man now.
Inexperienced. Had he been? And a boy? Even though he had been twenty-four years old? And yet at the time he had convinced her that he was a tough man of the world. The very naive girl she had been had believed him. Yet she could look back now and realize both his inexperience and her own na’iveté.
And that in itself was a frightening admission. If it was true, was it likely that he would have taken a mistress during his years at Oxford, fathered a child, moved the family to London, and planned a coldhearted marriage with a rich heiress so that his mistress and child could live in comfort? Could he have ruthlessly stripped a man of his fortune while at Oxford and shown no remorse when that man committed suicide? Could he have beaten a prostitute until she fell and killed herself?
Her father’s carriage was waiting outside the Pulteney. Elizabeth climbed into it gratefully and sank back against the cushions. She was
feeling so very tired despite the fact that she had slept surprisingly well the night before. Weary right through her bones. And unwilling to think. She must not begin to have doubts now. Had he not proved his ruthlessness again just recently? Had he not kidnapped her and taken full advantage of the fall that had robbed her of her memory and might as easily have robbed her of life?
No, she must not begin to doubt. She hated him. She hated him because he had brought turmoil into her life again. And emotion.
And bitter regret for all that might have been. She hated him.
Chapter 20
JOHN arrived promptly at the Pulteney to take Nancy to Kew Gardens. He had felt exhilarated during the morning to find that the weather was as lovely as it had been the day before and that there were no distant clouds to threaten the afternoon.
He was feeling as excited as a boy, he found to his own amusement. He had thought himself well past the age of feeling aroused by romance or any other enthusiasm for women beyond the purely sexual. But there was more than just the physical in his enthusiasm for Nancy.
She was waiting for him—alone. He was quite happy that Christopher was not there too. He did not like to interfere in family affairs, yet it was obvious that Christopher’s return to England was causing some commotion at home and especially in Elizabeth’s emotions. Even Christina was not immune. When he had wandered into the nursery that morning, as he had done most mornings since his return, she had told him about the gentleman who had put her up on his shoulders the afternoon before and was to take her for a drive in his curricle that afternoon and who had eyes as blue as hers and who liked her, not just Mama.
If it were to come to a contest between Christopher and Poole, John thought, then he would secretly cheer for the former. And perhaps not so secretly either if Elizabeth asked his opinion. But he would not interfere unbidden. So he was relieved to find that he did not have to say anything to Christopher.
