‘And I suppose you are going to say he bore a remarkable resemblance to you?’ sneered the Squire.
‘Not particularly.’ Carleton shrugged. ‘But you have to understand that the French paid little attention to their prisoners. And that by the time José went to the gallows in my stead I was no longer under the jurisdiction of the General who bore me such personal malice.’
Carleton fell silent, his eyes taking on that faraway look that told Nell he was not really in the room with her but in the past, reliving a profoundly moving experience.
‘After that,’ he continued, though he still seemed not to be altogether fixed in the present, ‘his comrades all seemed to regard keeping me alive as a symbolic way of continuing to fight the French. Whenever they obtained food they made sure I had more than my share. I never lacked clothes on my back or boots on my feet during our long forced march into France, no matter what they had to endure. We were put to work in the Western marshes. I hesitate to say the other prisoners dropped like flies. Flies were the only creatures that seemed to thrive in that abominable waste-land.’
It must have been a salutary lesson to him, thought Nell. The kind of men he would have scorned to notice in his privileged youth had sacrificed their own well-being to ensure his survival.
‘When the other prisoners were freed and sent back to Portugal I went with them,’ he said. ‘I did try to tell the British officer in charge who I was, but he either could not or would not believe me. I could see his point, I suppose. I must have sounded like a raving lunatic. There was I, dressed in rags, amidst a batch of Portuguese prisoners, claiming to be an English viscount!’ He smiled ruefully. ‘My claim to be a civilian clinched it for him, though. If I had ever been an enlisted man I would have been the responsibility of some regiment. There would have been proper channels for him to process me through. So, instead of coming straight home when France was occupied, I was obliged to take a detour through Portugal, thus delaying my return until less than a week ago. And then, only because my Portuguese brothers banded together to pay for my passage.’
‘Very affecting, I’m sure,’ said the Squire, wrenching Nell from the wonder she had been feeling as she listened to Carleton’s remarkably humbling experiences.
‘Now I dare say you are going to put the seal on this farrago of nonsense by relating how you have a distinctive birthmark that only your wife knows about, the revealing of which will be irrefutable proof you are who you claim to be?’
‘Birthmark?’ Carleton looked puzzled. ‘No, I have no such thing.’
The Squire clucked his tongue. ‘You disappoint me. It is the usual climax to a tale of this nature, you know.’
‘What are you implying?’ Carleton frowned.
‘Do you really think I am green enough to be taken in by tales of Spanish mistresses and spies, and people going to the gallows in the place of a complete stranger?’ the Squire scoffed. ‘Your tale is leakier than a sieve!’
He surged to his feet.
‘Mrs Tillotson,’ he said sternly, ‘Viscount Lambourne warned me that you were another such as Mrs Green before you came to live here. So I have been half expecting you to get up to some such trick as this. But I am still shocked,’ he said, snatching his hat from her lax grasp, ‘that you should attempt to embroil me in what I can only assume is a scheme to oust a decent man from a position he fills with admirable probity.’
‘Helena is doing nothing of the sort!’ Carleton objected. ‘All you need to do, if you don’t believe us, is to contact my mother or my sister and bring them here. They will only have to take one look at me to confirm my identity.’
The Squire laughed harshly. ‘If you really were who you claim to be, you would know that the lady you claim is your mother died last winter. And since her daughter is married to a diplomat, and conveniently out of the country, there is no danger of her exposing you as an impostor.’
He clapped his hat on his head and made for the door.
‘If it were not for the season I would be very tempted to have the pair of you thrown in jail. As it is…’ he paused on the threshold, eyeing them with contempt ‘…I give you fair warning that if you persist in trying to stir up trouble with your malicious lies I shall make your lives extremely uncomfortable.’ He rounded on Nell. ‘You have lulled us all into a false sense of security with your show of modesty and industry. But I have always known what you really are. We do not want your sort living in Barstow. When your accomplice is well enough to travel, I strongly suggest you remove to the city, where you will find more scope for your…’ his lips curled into a sneer, ‘…talents.’
He whirled out of the cottage in a flurry of snowflakes. Nell slammed the door behind him. She had never liked the horrid man! He had always looked down his nose at her and found fault with her at every available opportunity. She had been a fool to seek his help. She would have done better to apply to the vicar. Reverend Byatt would at least have given her a fair hearing.
It was just that she always thought of him as being so heavenly minded he was of no earthly use!
‘I am so sorry,’ she said, returning to the parlour where Carleton was sitting staring dejectedly into the fire. ‘I thought the local magistrate would have the right connections and the legal experience to know just how to sort out your predicament. It never occurred to me that he would think we were making the whole thing up!’ She slumped in the chair opposite Carleton, staring moodily into the flames.
She did not want to admit how badly it hurt to learn that no matter what she did everyone put the worst possible interpretation on it. She could imagine how the gossip must have flown round the village when Carleton had shown up. Nell Tillotson had a man living in her cottage, so he must be her lover. She could not possibly have taken him in out of compassion, because he was sick. Oh, no. Her years of living blamelessly were now seen as a deliberate attempt to lull everyone into a false sense of security so that she would find it all the easier to swindle them at the first available opportunity.
‘You have no need to apologise, Helena,’ Carleton said softly. ‘It is entirely my fault that your reputation has been tarnished.’
Nell turned to stare at him.
‘I often wondered,’ he continued reflectively, ‘during the years I spent as a prisoner of war, what I had done to deserve such suffering. Now that I have heard what you have endured in my absence…’ He sucked in a ragged breath, his eyes skittering away from her. ‘Whatever happens to me now, I can only feel as though I am reaping what I have sown. Although…’ he flicked her a wary glance ‘…I should like to know why…’ He took another rasping breath, his eyes looking unnaturally dark against the pallor of his cheeks. ‘Why did you summon the Squire at all? Would it not have been easier for you to fall in with my cousin’s plans to dispose of me? Permanently?’
Nell gasped. ‘You know of his plans?’
Carleton nodded gravely. ‘I heard him urging you to poison me. Why do you not seek to get your revenge upon me, Helena? It is only what I deserve. And there is nothing I can do to prevent you.’ He spread his hands wide in an attitude of surrender. ‘Why don’t you strike while you have me at your mercy? While I am too weak to try and escape?’
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ she cried, getting to her feet. ‘You cannot really believe that I would stoop to so foul a crime as murder! It is bad enough that you thought all the rest—though I am beginning to see why you might have acted as you did. But murder…’ She covered her face, shuddering at the very thought.
‘Were you not even tempted?’ he persisted. ‘I must confess if I had been able to get my hands on the Spanish woman whose lies condemned me to such hellish suffering I would have cheerfully wrung her neck.’
‘No! Oh, no—you would not!’ Nell fell to her knees at his feet. ‘When you had a chance to reflect, you must have seen that she feared for her own life! You must have worked out that she would rather sacrifice someone she did not know to that horrid French soldier’s brutality than the man she lov
ed! You would not murder a woman in cold blood, Carleton. I know you would not!’
‘You…’ He frowned. ‘You seem quite ridiculously determined to see some good in me.’
‘But there is good in you!’ she protested.
‘You can say that?’ he said wonderingly. ‘After suffering such cruelty at my hands?’
‘Well, but you never meant to be cruel, did you? You were just young and proud and hot-tempered. Like Harry.’
‘Helena,’ he breathed, reaching down to take her hands and pull her up so that she was sitting on the sofa next to him.
Emboldened by the fact that this was the first time he had ever reached out to her of his own volition, she blurted out, ‘I expect you even had a really good reason for believing I had taken some other man to my bed?’
Carleton’s hands clenched over hers so hard she winced.
‘Yes, I did. Thank you for crediting me with that much integrity. It was Nicholas Malgrove whom I always believed was the father of your child.’
Nell wrinkled her brow in perplexity.
Carleton let out a stunned laugh. ‘You have no idea who he is, have you?’
Nell shook her head.
‘He was one of the crowd I brought down to the hunting box with me. That weekend, when I was so determined to prove that even though I was married I could still behave exactly as I pleased, I rounded up the very worst of my acquaintance, conveyed them to your home, and let them loose to wreak what havoc they would. Though I want to make it quite clear, my dear, that I was not in the habit of throwing that kind of party.’
Nell’s own fingers tightened on his. Had he just called her his dear? Had he meant it? Or had the endearment just slipped out? Perhaps he always peppered his conversation with females with such meaningless blandishments. She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation he was having with her, though she could not prevent her heart from beating very fast as she admitted, ‘They terrified me.’
‘I failed to take into account how very young you were,’ he confessed ruefully. ‘Scarce seventeen, was it not?’
She nodded.
‘Dear God,’ he breathed. ‘How on earth did you survive?’
‘Mostly by hiding in the staff quarters. After that first evening, when I thought—’ She broke off, blushing.
When she had seen the coaches drawing up, and the sumptuously dressed people come tumbling out of them, she had assumed she ought to act as her husband’s hostess. Though she had had not a clue how to fulfil this role, she had tried to do her very best. She had organised what she’d hoped was an adequate dinner, given that she’d had no notice Carleton was bringing guests down. But when she had entered the dining room later, dressed in her finest gown, it had been to discover one scantily clad female draped across Carleton’s lap, while two other gentlemen were vying for another’s favours. When they had seen her they had let out a hunting cry and come bounding towards her.
Thankfully, the dining room had been large, the floor highly polished, and her pursuers far from sober.
‘I kept to the kitchens by day,’ she said, thrusting that frighteningly unpleasant episode from her mind. ‘And at night I took refuge in your housekeeper’s rooms. You remember Mrs Took?’
Carleton inhaled sharply. If any of the staff from those days remained in service, they would be able to confirm or deny her story. Helena had continued to live in that hunting box, alone except for the staff, when he had returned to London. She had stayed there after Harry had been born. Until the day the false account of his execution had reached England and Peregrine had sent her here. His staff would know her character inside out. Yet she looked completely unperturbed by the prospect that he might check up on her. Like a woman with nothing to fear.
An innocent woman.
‘My reason for thinking you had entered into the spirit of debauchery that ran rife that weekend,’ he said, hanging his head as he ran his thumbs over and over the backs of her hands, ‘was that I saw Malgrove coming out of your bedroom one morning, in a state of…undress.’
Carleton had gone to her room to tell her he’d had as much of his guests as he could stomach. That he was sorry he’d brought people into her home who had frightened her. To apologise for not behaving as a gentleman should and to assure her he was sending them all packing that very day.
He’d had some thought of maybe introducing her to his mother, who would train his young bride to behave in a manner befitting her new station in life. Or at the very least teach her to dress so that she might look the part.
‘I heard a woman’s laughter coming from within…’
‘So of course you assumed it was me,’ she nodded.
Oh, yes, he had. He had imagined Malgrove’s limbs tangled with hers. That lecher breaching the innocence that rightfully belonged to him.
There was no punishment too great for such betrayal. He had vowed he would never forgive her!
And he’d been the one to leave, lest in his jealous rage he stormed into her chamber and throttled her where she lay!
‘Are you not angry?’ He looked up, searching her face for signs that she bore him some malice.
She shook her head. ‘No, of course not. What you have just told me explains everything.’
‘But it does not excuse it. I behaved abominably. I have given you nothing but grief…’
She tugged one hand free, raising it to his mouth to silence him. ‘You gave me Harry,’ she protested. ‘From the moment I held him in my arms my life was transformed. I love being a mother.’ She smiled. ‘To know that I finally belong to someone, in such a special way…’
She turned eyes that were suddenly shadowed on him. ‘From the day my parents died nobody wanted me. My aunt and uncle made sure I knew they had only taken me in on sufferance. I knew a man as handsome and rich as you would never even have noticed a girl like me, and that had it not been for my aunt’s wicked plot to trap you into marrying Lucinda I would probably not have married anyone. But then Harry was born. And, however bad our marriage was, I was always grateful it produced him. He has been such a blessing to me…’
The shadows faded and she seemed to light from within. She looked so radiant that Carleton could not help himself.
He took her lovely face between his workworn hands and kissed her full on the lips.
Chapter Five
For a moment Nell was so surprised she could not react. Carleton was kissing her.
Her husband was kissing her as though he meant it.
‘Wh…why did you do that?’ she could not help blurting, the moment he stopped.
He looked down at her ruefully.
‘Did you not like it?’ He stroked her face gently, then ran his hands down her arms, squeezing her hands gently as his shoulders sagged in defeat.
But when he would have let go of her hands altogether, Nell gripped them tightly.
‘It was not that I did not like it,’ she explained. ‘Just that you took me by surprise.’
‘Surprise?’ he repeated, studying the way her fingers were clutching his spasmodically. ‘If I were to give you fair warning of my intent,’ he asked with great seriousness, ‘would you object if I were to kiss you again?’
‘No,’ Nell breathed.
‘Quite sure?’
She nodded, blushing.
‘Thank God,’ he sighed. ‘Because I find you irresistible. Even on our wedding night,’ he mused, ‘when I thought I hated you, it was the same.’
He took her in his arms and, far from making any move to escape him, she let her darkened eyes fasten on his lips. His last doubts as to whether she found his attentions unwelcome dissipated when she looped her arms about his neck and very inexpertly attempted to kiss him back.
In less than a heartbeat Nell was melting into the sofa cushions, Carleton sprawled half on top of her. She was trembling, and when he laid one hand upon her breast he could feel her heart pounding beneath his palm.
His own heart was racing too. In fact he was feeling qu
ite light-headed.
‘We are going to have to stop,’ he panted, drawing back from her reluctantly. ‘Else Peregrine will get his wish.’ He lay back, letting his head loll against the sofa-back, his eyes closing.
Nell scrambled upright. ‘Oh, dear,’ she exclaimed, noting his pallor. ‘I did not mean to harm you.’
‘It is not your fault I got a little carried away,’ he assured her. ‘I know you would never do anything to hurt me. Nor anyone else, I suspect.’ He opened his eyes and regarded her curiously. ‘I do not think you have a malicious bone in your body, do you?’
Nell was so flustered by the unexpectedness of the kiss, the havoc it had wrought on her senses, and the flattering words coming from the lips of a man who had previously done nothing but sneer at her, that she found herself opening and closing her mouth like a fish.
‘Helena,’ he sighed, reaching for her hand. ‘You are a rare treasure in this benighted world. You took me in and cared for me when anyone else would have left me outside in the snow. You have tried to restore me to what is lawfully mine, at risk to yourself and our son.’ He found her hand and grasped it, his eyes suspiciously bright. ‘You know it is no use, though, do you not?’
‘No use?’ Nell’s heart plunged.
‘No. From what you have told me I have come to believe Peregrine swindled and cheated and lied to get his hands on my title. We both know he is prepared to kill me to keep it. I am sorry…No, though, I am not!’ A little colour was returning to his face, and his eyes burned brightly as he declared, ‘I was going to say I am sorry I came here and brought all this trouble to your doorstep. And I am sorry that I have brought the trouble, but not that I have discovered you. We may only have a few days left to us, but I am so glad that we will be spending them together. We should always have been together, Helena. I wish to God I had not been such a colossal fool!’
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