by Anne O'Brien
Then she descended the stairs at last, breathing shallow, palms damp with latent panic. It was a dangerous game she was playing. She could win the glittering prize. Hold the moon and stars in her hands. Or her hopes and dreams could disintegrate, her heart broken. But she must do it. It was only right. Henry must not be allowed to leave England without the knowledge, without the opportunity to make a choice that could change the direction of his whole life. If she kept silent, the guilt would be too heavy and would hound her to the day of her death. She owed him the truth, even if he damned her for it and left her to face the future alone.
Henry ignored the timid knock on the door of the morning room. It would not be one of the family—they would not knock, so probably one of the servants who would go away if he made no response. He did not need an interruption. Marcle could find Nicholas if there was some urgent matter to be dealt with. The neglected business of Faringdon and Bridges still lay before him as he had left it on the previous afternoon. He must complete it. There was a sailing next week from Liverpool that he would take. With luck and a fair wind the letters could leave tomorrow and would make land before he did, informing Nat of his imminent arrival and the decisions he had made. Caught up in the planning, he did not notice when the door opened quietly and Eleanor entered.
She closed it silently and remained by the door, watching him for a little while as he sat, head bent, reading rapidly, before making a reply with firm characters on the page. There was a line between his brow as he concentrated, just as she had imagined in her thoughts the previous night. The bright sunshine kissed his raven-black hair so that it shone blue-black, but it was too dense to take any gilding. She knew its weight and its texture, its softness against her skin that made her shiver with remembered passion, and her fingers yearned to touch it again. Her mouth was dry, her pulse hectic.
‘Hal.’
He looked up and immediately smiled. How could he not? How beautiful she was with the clear morning light teasing her hair with hints of gold and auburn, and bringing a jewel-like glow to her extraordinary violet eyes. He held out his hand to encourage her closer, his doubts assuaged by her presence and the fact that she had sought him out. He expected to see contentment in her face, an ease previously absent.
His gaze locked on hers. ‘What is this?’ He pushed back the chair and rose to his feet, approaching to take her hands in his, raising them to his lips, searching her face with instant concern. ‘The Baxendale issue need no longer worry you. You must sleep and eat and regain your peace of mind. Nothing can harm you now.’ He bent his head to press his lips to her forehead in a blessing, infinitely tender. ‘You need not be unhappy Nell.’
Carefully, she disengaged her hands, which caused him to frown, and took a step in retreat. ‘There is something I must tell you…’
Her low voice and the shadows in her eyes made his blood chill. There was something here… He set his mind and his will to remain calm.
‘Come and sit,’ he encouraged. ‘Tell me what it is.’
She resisted still, remaining tall and straight in the centre of the room. He noted that her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, although half-hidden by the folds of her dress.
‘No. I must stand… Listen, Hal. You must not go back to America without knowing…without realising…’ Her words dried on her lips.
Hal’s concern deepened, acquiring a sharp edge that sliced at his heart. ‘Do I really need to know?’ he asked gently. It was the coward’s way, he knew, to prevent her opening her heart to him, but what good would it do? Was she indeed going to confess at last that she had rejected him to set her sights so much higher—and had achieved her goal through less than honourable means? He did not think that he wanted to know. He would rather live without the unpalatable knowledge of her betrayal and perfidy, rather carry the memory of her softness and sweetness as she turned to him in the night.
‘I must say it,’ she said simply, studying her fingers now linked before her, white with tension. ‘It is on my conscience. And it could affect your future, your whole life. I must say it. By keeping silent I committed a great wrong.’
A pause. She moistened her lips with her tongue, then raised her eyes to his, a silent plea for understanding and compassion. For acceptance of a situation that had not been entirely of her own making, in which she had made the only choice possible.
‘My son. Tom. He is not Thomas’s child. He is yours…your son, Hal.’
The resulting silence echoed in the room, filling it from floor to ceiling with a tension that could be felt, tasted even. Lord Henry stared at her, blank shock imprinting his face, his brain repeating the words over and over again as if it might make for clearer understanding. Incomprehensibly, he could not grasp their significance.
‘What?’ The question was harsh, even though his voice was soft. He had suspected her of carrying Thomas’s child and cursed himself for his lack of trust. But he had never suspected this.
‘Tom is your child.’ Eleanor never once took her gaze from his face, pinning him with her words, challenging him to deny it. ‘That last night we spent together… I found that I was carrying him when you had gone…’
‘My son.’ The meaning took hold, searingly bright, as the implications began to leap into sharp and painful focus. As Henry recalled, suddenly with a terrible clarity, the words that he had overheard her speak to the child, his child, in the small sunlit parlour. Before he had held the infant in his own arms. You can never know your father…you will never keep his image in your memory… And he had not known, not understood. How could he have held his own son and not have realised? But then he had not understood her meaning. The powerful tangle of emotions threatened to choke him, but his eyes were stark, austere even, all emotion effectively buried when he turned his gaze on the woman who stood before him. ‘Why did you not tell me? Why did I not know of this?’
‘I did not know how to reach you. I wrote to you, but received no reply. And then it was too late—I was married to Thomas and it would have done more harm than good to tell you. And…’ But there were no excuses, really. She gave up, eyes still searching his face to determine his reaction.
‘Did Thomas know?’ Henry rubbed his hands over his face, struggling to make sense of the incredible confession. ‘When you married him, did he know that you carried my child?’
‘Of course he did!’ She grew pale with anger and not a little shame that she had put Thomas in such an invidious position. ‘Would you accuse me of tricking him? Of course Thomas knew that Tom was your son.’
Baxendale’s words returned to Henry like a blow to the gut. Your precious sister-in-law made sure that she ensnared your brother, did she not? This terrible scenario opening before him, revealed by the only woman whom he had ever loved, was even worse than the one painted by his enemy with such malicious intent. The shock wave rolled over him with remorseless power. It coated his next words with pitiless despair.
‘Or did you allow my gullible brother to think that the child was his? Was that why he married you, to give his name to his own bastard child? Poor Thomas always did believe the best of everyone. Did you indeed trap him into marriage? Baxendale did not realise how far from the mark he was. Even he did not imagine that you would be capable of such a depth of deceit and trickery.’
Eleanor drew in her breath at the deliberate and ruthless assassination of her character. The pain in her heart was tangible. How could he accuse her of such dishonesty? What could Edward Baxendale have possibly said to cause this volley of spiteful words?
‘Why tell me now?’ Lord Henry demanded, lips curled in a snarl. ‘If you made so little effort to inform me two years ago, why now?’
She strove for calm in the midst of this storm of callous cruelty. There must be a way out of this maelstrom if only she could find it. ‘Because with Thomas’s death it has changed everything. The title is yours by rights. You should be Marquis of Burford. My son—your son—has no right to inherit before you.’
&n
bsp; No! Oh God, no!
An icy hand closed inexorably round his heart with exquisite torture as he contemplated the one thing in life he did not want, had never wanted.
‘I do not want it.’ The denial was flat and instantaneous, disguising his fear. ‘Neither the title nor the estate.’
‘Perhaps not. But it would be wrong if you never knew, never had the knowledge to make the choice.’ She swallowed against the lump in her throat. ‘If you never had the choice to claim your son and recognise him as your own.’
‘Do you really expect me to believe all this?’ She would never have believed the flat denial in his eyes, in his voice.
‘Why not? Why should you not believe me?’ Anger began to replace shock in her veins and she lifted her head, drawing pride and dignity around her shoulders like a velvet cloak. ‘I could have let you leave next week—without ever telling you that you had a child. Why should I make up a situation that would compromise my own honour? I have nothing to gain from this confession other than society’s condemnation if it becomes known outside these four walls. It was my decision to allow you…intimacies without marriage. For that I certainly deserve censure. And how I paid the price!’ She stifled a sob. She would not shed tears over this. Never again! ‘I trusted you to marry me.’
Her accusation hit home, but he was too angry to give it credence, to contemplate it for more than a heartbeat. Even though a small part of his brain admitted that in all honesty she could not take all the blame for this. The child was the making of both of them in a moment of mutual love and desire. Hers had been the innocence on that occasion. How could he be so utterly selfish as to heap the blame on her? If the child was really his, of course, a nasty little voice insinuated in his mind. But he pushed away the uncomfortable thoughts and concentrated on the burning issue that raged, destructive and uncurbed, through his blood.
‘You ask why I should accept your words. Perhaps you think your timely confession to be in your own interests. I suppose that it is just conceivable that, given the glad news of a son and heir, I would fall at your feet in guilt for my past actions and in gratitude marry you. That would restore all your status and wealth as Marchioness of Burford. An achievement indeed! Instead of the power being held in trust and your own income limited to that from the widow’s jointure, however generous it might be.’
‘Do you think so little of me, that I would deliberately lie to you?’ Her cheeks were ashen, her eyes so dark as to be almost indigo as she regarded him with horror.
‘Perhaps not, in all fairness.’ The admission was forced from him. ‘But I would not put it past your mother to lay out such a campaign! Her ambitions for you are outrageous. Whether you are compliant in her schemes or simply ignorant, I know not.’
Eleanor could find nothing to say. Her body seemed numb to all sensation. Nothing could be worse she thought, watching herself objectively, listening to Hal’s harsh voice as if it were from a great distance, than this one moment in her life. She felt as if he had struck her, an open-handed slap, as indeed he had, with words if not with his hand. Her heart ached from the blow.
Lord Henry saw the effect of his attack. It had been devastating. It struck him instantly that he was in the wrong, but his disillusion was as bitter as gall, his wretchedness at being chained into a life that he detested was intemperate. Resisting the urge to enfold her close, to stroke and comfort, to fall on his knees to beg a forgiveness that he did not deserve, was almost beyond his power. Even though he raged against himself for his brutal insensitivity, Hal continued to lash out to cover his own hurt, his own vulnerability.
‘Are you sure that you really know whose child it is?’
She had been wrong, Eleanor thought. This was worse. She shook her head as she struggled to find an answer to such an impossible question. ‘I…I can’t…’
Self-contempt now lodged in his chest to reproach him for so offensive an attack, disgust that he should make such an unwarranted accusation. Seeing the rigidity in her whole body, he reined in his temper and tried for a more moderate tone. ‘Could you not have told me this any time before now, Eleanor?’
But Eleanor was beyond moderation. Fury leapt within her with all-consuming flames. She was past considering the effect of her words and struck out in her own defence. ‘When do you suggest, my lord? The moment you arrived back at Burford Hall?’ The sarcasm was biting, although she kept her voice low and admirably controlled. ‘Welcome home, Henry. Let me introduce you to your son?’ She laughed with a hint of hysteria. ‘It would have put Sir Edward’s news of an unknown wife, hidden away in the country, in the shade, I imagine. No, I could not. And I will tell you why. I was afraid.’ She all but spat out the words. ‘I was afraid to tell you. I knew that you did not want me. I could accept that—and have done so for two years. But I was afraid to discover that you would not want your son either. I thought that would break my heart.’
‘Eleanor!’ He had hurt her beyond measure.
‘And I was right, wasn’t I? You have no wish to know him or claim him and I cannot persuade you otherwise. It makes me regret that I ever tried, simply for the sake of my own conscience. It would have been far better if neither you nor my son knew. Thomas was more of a father to him than you could ever be.’
The hurt shimmered between them. Her eyes bright with unshed tears. His face ravaged with the deep lines of hard-held emotion. The abyss yawned wide and dangerous between them, impossible to bridge.
‘Don’t concern yourself, my lord.’ Eleanor continued to pour out the anguish and the pain. ‘Tom will never have to know that his father did not choose to acknowledge him, for I know not what reason other than that you doubt my honesty. From this moment, Tom’s father was Thomas, my husband. How could I have been so mistaken in my judgement? What a terrible mistake I made. And what a fool you must think me.’ She laughed again, a sharp sound without humour that told him more than anything else of the depth of her despair. ‘Go back to New York, Hal. Forget that Tom and I exist. I loved you to the depths of my soul and I gave you everything. I gave you a splendid child. But you are not worthy to be the father of my son. I wish Rosalind well of you.’
She turned her back on him.
Henry strode from the room, her final words, her merciless condemnation ringing in his ears. He thought that they would haunt him forever. He did not see the tears spangling her cheeks, despite all her good intentions. Or read the desolation in her face, not yet hidden behind a mask of hard serenity that would deny to the world that her heart had been ripped to pieces.
How could he have done it? How could he have been so deliberately cruel? So demon-driven, vicious as a wolf attacking its prey. Fear, he admitted. A title he did not want. A way of life that he had no desire for. But a son? The child whom he had held in his arms? He believed her, of course, every word that she had spoken. Her integrity was beyond question and she would not make up such a story. But he had hurt her so much. She would never forgive him, and rightly so. He was no better than Baxendale in his destruction of her life. Worse, in fact, since she had come to trust him and rely on him. And yet he had turned on her, cut her with taunts and vitriolic words. She had every reason to hate him. What the hell did he do now?
And he had a son.
‘Hal…’
‘Not now.’ He strode past Nicholas with savage grace. ‘Come and ride if you wish, but don’t talk to me for a little while. Just don’t ask. I am impossible company. I have just committed the worst sin of my life. I cannot undo the words I have said or the harm I have caused…’
Seeing the ungovernable torment and remorse in his face, Nick let him go, standing to watch as his usually impassive brother flung out of the house. At that moment, nothing would have persuaded him to restrain his brother, to question the reason for his distress. Nothing would have made him go into the room that Hal had just vacated, where Eleanor still remained. If he had needed any confirmation of his suspicions, his convictions even, it had just struck him with all the brutality o
f a slap to his face. Surely only two people helplessly in love could reduce each other to such devastating unhappiness as he had seen in his brother’s face.
From the window of the morning room, Eleanor also watched with eyes as cold and empty as the hollow places in her heart. Could she blame him? Yes, she could! She had not deserved such condemnation, would never have believed that he would show such harshness towards her. But circumstances had conspired against her, she had kept her secret from Hal, and whatever Edward Baxendale had said to him in the aftermath of their disclosure of his deceit had borne fruit. She had played the game out to the full and must now bear the consequences of her shattered dreams and bruised heart.
But she had told Hal the truth at last. His reaction to it was within his own dominion—and, besides, he would be gone in a few days. Her damaged heart would heal, in a hundred years or so. And whatever she had told Hal in her wretchedness, in the desert of her wasted emotions, she would tell her son about his magnificent father. But never that Hal had rejected him, had rejected them both.
Chapter Eleven
‘Nick. There is a ship sailing next week from Liverpool. I shall take passage on it.’ Henry came to a halt at the bottom of the staircase as his brother was making his way down, dressed with fashionable, if unusual, flamboyance to go out.
‘I supposed you would eventually.’ Nicholas cast his hat and gloves onto the sidetable in the hall and followed Henry into the morning room. ‘But I did not expect you to go so soon.’ He took the offered glass of port. ‘I shall miss you, Hal.’
‘An important business deal has come to fruition—a lucrative contract that we wish to take up to ship raw cotton to the mills here in Lancashire and then return the finished textiles.’ Hal made an obvious excuse. ‘It is best if I am there. Besides, there is nothing to hold me here in London.’ He bared his teeth in something that was not a smile and took a swallow of the port. ‘Forgive me. I did not mean that as it sounded.’
