by Mary Balogh
Winnie laughed. She rarely laughed these days, and only ever when she was with him. And he was the only man she would touch now or allow to touch her. She always clung to his arm when they walked. Sometimes, if she had seen Martin Honywood that day or if she could not stop herself from remembering, she would burrow against him and draw comfort from his arms about her.
Once she even put her arms about his neck and smiled at him almost radiantly—because Martin had left Penhallow and was not coming back.
“I feel safe at last, Mr. Bouchard,” she told him. “You cannot imagine what it has been like never to know when I was going to meet him on the stairs or pass him in a corridor. You cannot imagine the terror and the sick feeling in the stomach.” But her smile soon faded. “Do you think I will ever feel clean again?” she asked him rather wistfully. “Do you suppose I will ever forget?”
She met him on the day following Martin’s departure with troubled, anxious eyes. Lady Nancy was leaving for London the next morning and Winnie was to go too.
“To London, Mr. Bouchard," she said. “I can’t go there. There are so many people there. And he is there, isn’t he?”
“You come to London, Winnie," Antoine said, “and you lift your nose to ’im if you see ’im. Antoine will keep you safe, ma petite. And maybe ’e will ’ave a chance to sink ’is knife into the smiling Mr. ’Onywood. Right up to the ’ilt, non?”
“No," she said urgently. “You must never do such a thing for me, Mr. Bouchard. Please, you must not even think of it. You are going to London too?”
“Mais oui,” he said. “The earl does not go nowhere without Antoine. What would I do ’ere without ’im?”
“Oh,” she said. “Yes, of course I should have realized that you would be going too. I will feel safer in London than here then. Mr. Bouchard, am I a nuisance to you? I didn’t used to be like this.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But I only ever feel quite safe when I am with you. I will get over that in time, won’t I? I will forget in time. You are not the only good man in the world, are you?”
Antoine chuckled and drew her arm through his. “We walk, non?” he said. “Soon we must be back to pack the trunks. Trunks and more trunks. Ah, these wealthy English. They ’ave more clothes than they ’ave days in which to wear them. ‘Ow many times can you make a pebble bounce on the water today, eh? Twice it was yesterday, non? Shameful. Today it must be three times, or four.”
“I cannot flick my wrist the way you do,” she said, laughing and looking for one fleeting moment, Antoine thought, like the pretty little maid he had used to enjoy flirting with. The little maid whose spirit had been killed by a man whose body would be killed in return.
An eye for an eye, Antoine thought grimly. Or perhaps an eye and a half for an eye in the true spirit of wilderness living. And in the true spirit of justice too.
Elizabeth knew she should call on her father first when she arrived home. But Martin could do that and explain the story they had agreed upon. She did not even spare a look or a smile for the footmen on duty in the hall. She raced up two flights of stairs, her skirts gathered above her ankles, and flung open the door of the nursery.
Christina was seated beside her nurse, a book open on their laps between them. The child gave a cry, flung the book aside, and hurled herself across the room and into her mother’s arms.
There could be no greater joy in life, Elizabeth thought, her arms closing about the slight form of her daughter and lifting her from the floor, than to hold one’s very own child. Her arms had been so empty. So very empty. She closed her eyes and found herself quite unable to control her sobs for a few moments.
“Mama!” Christina was crying too.
“Sweetheart.” Elizabeth tightened her hold. “I am home to stay. Oh, how I have missed you.”
The nurse was putting the book away and leaving the room quietly. Christina was crying loudly.
“Mama,” she said through her sobs when Elizabeth had crossed the room with her and sat down on a low chair, her daughter hugged close on her lap. “Mama, I won’t be bad again. I promise I won’t be bad again. Don’t leave me again, Mama.”
“Bad?” Elizabeth kissed the child’s cheek, smoothing back the soft dark curls from her thin face. “My angel? You are never bad.”
“I cried on your happy day,” Christina wailed, “and you went away. I won’t do it again, Mama. I won’t mind him being my papa as long as you don’t leave me, Mama. Promise? Promise, Mama?”
Elizabeth rocked her, crooning to her. “I was taken away,” she said, “and came back to you as soon as ever I could, Christina. I came up here to you even before seeing Grandpapa. I would never leave you, sweetheart, even if you cried a pailful of tears every day. And even if you really were bad. You are Mama’s very own girl. How could I live without you?”
Christina cried a little more, but they were comfortable tears as she burrowed closer into the safety of her mother’s arms. “Grandpapa said I was bad,” she said after a while.
Elizabeth kissed her hot temple.
“And Uncle Martin told Nurse to keep me in the nursery where no one could hear me,” Christina said.
“They were both worried because Mama was taken away and they did not know where I was,” Elizabeth said. “But I am back now.”
“Uncle John read me stories until I fell asleep yesterday,” the child said.
“Uncle John is home?” Elizabeth kissed her and rocked her again until Christina’s eyelids began to flutter. She was fast asleep within a few minutes.
This was happiness, Elizabeth thought. Just this. A home and quietness and safety and one’s child asleep in one’s arms. She looked down at Christina, at the narrow little face and the straight nose and the long-lashed eyes—eyes of intense blue that had looked up at her with such contentment just a few minutes before. And the dark hair in tumbled curls over the child’s head and about her face.
So like. Oh, she was so very like. It was no wonder that a mere portrait had revealed her paternity. Part of Elizabeth’s happiness—perhaps most of it—evaporated. Her arms were full with her child, and her heart was too. But sometimes one needed more than a child. Sometimes one needed the child’s father too. Sometimes one needed a whole family—mother, father, and child, and the hope of more children.
Sometimes one longed for the impossible. And so the little happiness that one might have lived on disappeared too. It was the reason why she had come back to London last autumn in search of another husband. Manley. But Manley was not Christina’s father.
Christopher was. Her heart ached on.
The nursery door opened and she looked up, happy for the distraction. She smiled in answer to the grin of the tall man standing in the doorway.
“John!” she mouthed.
He came across the room toward her and peered down at Christina. “Fast asleep,” he whispered. “Here, I’ll take her.” And he stooped down, lifted the child into his arms, and carried her through to her bedchamber to set her down on the bed. Elizabeth drew back the blankets and tucked them about her.
“John,” she said again when they had tiptoed back into the nursery. “You are home and safe.”
“I might say the same of you,” he said, drawing her into a hard hug. “I have been worried out of my mind.”
She drew back her head and looked up at him. “There were so many casualties all the time,” she said. “It seemed almost too much to hope for that you would come through unscathed.” She ran a finger along a scar that followed the line of his jaw on the left side, almost from ear to chin.
“Someone tried to shave me with a bayonet instead of a razor,” he said with a grin. “It was an experiment not to be repeated.”
She shuddered. An inch lower and his throat would have been slit. He would not be standing there grinning at her.
“Martin has been telling the damnedest story to Papa and me,” he said, “if you will pardon my language. I am going to have to clean it up now that I am back home, aren’t I? All abou
t escaping from carriages and banging heads on milestones and losing memories and villains making off into the sunset and benefactresses nursing you back to health and Martin on a white charger to your rescue with a portrait of Christina. All high drama and highly improbable. He was not telling the truth by any chance, was he?”
“Yes, he was,” she said warily. “I did not know who I was for almost three weeks, John.”
“Well”—his smile had disappeared and he looked at her searchingly—“one shudders to know what the real truth is. You must tell me one day when you are ready. But for the time being it will do. People will not believe it, of course, but how are they to refute it? Are you ready to carry it off, Elizabeth? Martin says you will not hear of going back to Kingston until everything has blown over and some other poor soul has stepped into the scandal arena.”
“I can carry it off,” she said. “I am not going to run to Kingston, John. Not this time.”
“Good girl,” he said, smiling affectionately at her. “I always knew you would be one hell of a woman once you grew up, Elizabeth. And damn it, I am going to have to relearn the English language before I murder your ears and have Papa ringing one of his famous peals over my head.”
“I had better go down and see him,” she said.
“Good Lord, yes,” he said. “You must have far more courage than I suspected if you could come up to the nursery before reporting to headquarters, Elizabeth. I had better come with you and offer my sword in your support. But dash it, I am not wearing it.”
“Come anyway,” she said, linking her arm through his. “It is so good to see you safe and alive, John.”
“And with all four limbs intact,” he said. “You look as if you might not have slept in a week, Elizabeth.”
She smiled at him.
He was just Christopher’s height, she thought. She had noticed that seven years before, of course. In fact, she could distinctly remember having them stand back to back on one occasion so that she could prove the point.
She held her smile in place.
At first it seemed that Christopher and Nancy were not going to be able to acquire rooms at the Pulteney. The Prince Regent had invited numerous European rulers and dignitaries to London for a state visit in celebration of the victory over Napoleon Bonaparte. The Grand Duchess Catherine, sister of the Tsar of Russia, was in residence at the Pulteney, awaiting the arrival of her brother.
Not every common traveler was going to be allowed to share the hotel with the Grand Duchess, it appeared. But when it was known that the new arrivals were the Earl of Trevelyan and his sister, Lady Nancy Atwell, then a suite of rooms was discovered to be vacant and they were bowed into their new accommodations.
“Whew!” Nancy said when the doors closed behind them and they were alone together. She wandered to the window of their sitting room and gazed out on Piccadilly and Green Park beyond. “We can see the towers of Westminster Abbey from here, Christopher. And Buckingham House. What a splendid view.”
He came to stand at her side. “London,” he said. “There is nothing quite like it, is there? I can say that even after traveling abroad and seeing other cities. There is something about the sight of London that grabs one about the heart and makes one proud to be English. Do you feel it too? Are you sorry to have left the peace of Penhallow for this, Nance?”
He looked at her curiously. But there was color in her cheeks and a glow in her eyes, reminding him of how she had reacted to her first visit to London and the very short Season she had had here. She had come to life during those weeks and loved every moment—or so he had thought. But she had been taken away to Kingston Park by his betrothal to Elizabeth and then kept there by their decision to marry as soon as the banns could be read. But even there she had appeared unhappy. Until she had come to him abruptly late one evening to tell him that she was homesick and could not bear to be away from Penhallow for even one more week so that she could attend his wedding. She had left the following morning.
He had raged against her and felt a personal affront at her desertion. But he had been too wrapped up in his own sense of euphoria to question her reason for going. And after that he had had little chance to do so. But he wondered now. Why would a twenty-year-old woman who was beautiful and who had been made much of suddenly decide to retreat to her father’s remote country estate and declare her intention of spending the rest of her life there alone? Especially when she had apparently enjoyed her come-out so much.
Had something happened? he wondered, and was ashamed that he had not asked such an obvious question before.
“No,” she said, her voice dreamy, “I am not sorry to have come, Christopher, apart from the danger to you. I have always longed to see it again. Just once more.” She turned to smile at him rather self-consciously. “The scene of youthful frivolities.”
It was hard to believe that she was twenty-seven years old. She had the type of startling dark beauty that did not fade with the first blush of youth. Maturity seemed only to have added to her loveliness.
“Perhaps it will be the scene of more frivolities this spring,” he said. “There is going to be a dizzying number of entertainments to choose among.”
Her smile faded. “What are your plans?” she asked. “To try to see the child and then leave? They will never allow it.”
He shook his head. “No. They would not. I might as well batter my head against a brick wall as call at Grosvenor Square. I’ll have to go about it more patiently, Nance. How do you fancy another Season and a chance perhaps to mingle with such exalted personages as the Regent and the Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia?”
Nancy raised her eyebrows.
“I plan to start paying calls,” he said, “and leaving my card everywhere. It is a shame that Aunt Hilda went to live in Scotland, but I don’t believe her absence will hamper us. I am after all the Earl of Trevelyan and possessor of a large estate and fortune, and you are the daughter and sister of an earl. And I am notorious, a fact that will make me quite irresistible if society is as it used to be. England has known precious few women who have been divorced for misdemeanors. But men? I will be a freak, a curiosity, Nance. We will be invited everywhere, I can guarantee.”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Won’t you hate being stared at, Christopher?”
“We will be invited everywhere she is invited,” he said. “Sooner or later our paths are bound to cross. Society will adore it, Nance. They will be able to view us meeting again almost seven years after such a bitter ending to surely the shortest marriage in history.”
Nancy came and took both his hands in hers. “Let’s order tea and sit down to relax for a while,” she said quietly. “I don’t like it when your face tightens like this, Christopher, and when your voice hardens. We will be going to ton events again, then? I had not expected that. The very thought makes me feel as if I had run a mile uphill without stopping. I am going to have to go shopping. I have nothing to wear.”
“We’ll go together tomorrow morning,” he said. “I wonder if she will get wind of our arrival before coming face to face with me. I hope not. But she can’t hide away forever, can she? Sooner or later Lady Elizabeth Ward is going to have some explaining to do.”
Chapter 15
THE Duke of Chicheley had surprised Elizabeth by supporting her decision to return to London. And as far as he was concerned her betrothal was still a fact. All that needed to be done was to arrange a new wedding date. All must be done openly and decisively. Only then could the ton be convinced that there was really no cause for scandal.
Elizabeth fell in with his plans though she was not at all sure that she really would be able to marry Lord Poole now. Certainly she would not be able to do so without telling him the truth of what had happened during those weeks of her absence. But she agreed to a meeting with her betrothed. She needed to get her life back to normal again. She had chosen Manley with great care as a man who could offer her the sort of life she needed. She still needed that life. There was a gre
at deal of brooding she could do if she would allow it. But she would not.
Christopher was to be forgotten. That was more easily resolved than done, of course, but the best possible way to ensure that she did forget him eventually was to continue with the plans she had been making for her own future and Christina’s. Christina needed a father.
Manley Hill, Lord Poole, was a distinguished looking man. A little taller than Elizabeth, his figure was beginning to thicken around the waist, but he still looked fit and quite youthful. His brown hair had receded a little from his forehead and was silvered at the temples. He looked rather uncomfortable when Elizabeth joined him in a salon after he had had a private interview with the duke. But his bow was deferential, and he reached for her hand and carried it to his lips.
“Elizabeth?” he said.
“Manley.” She smiled ruefully. “I little thought when I stepped from Papa’s carriage outside St. George’s more than three weeks ago that I would not set eyes on you until now. It was rather a unique wedding day, was it not?”
“It was a huge embarrassment,” he said, “to be waiting at the front of the church with the whole ton in attendance for a bride who never came.”
“I hope you felt more than embarrassment,” she said, “when you knew what had happened.”
“Of course,” he said, making her another slight bow. “I have been frantic with worry about you, Elizabeth.”
“Well,” she said, “that is something at least.”
If she had expected, and perhaps hoped, that he would sweep her into his arms as soon as she crossed the threshold of the room, then of course she was being grossly unrealistic, she told herself. Manley’s feelings for her were not strongly emotional ones, just as hers for him were not. He had chosen her because she was a duke’s daughter and wealthy and respectable despite the past scandal.
They were to have an amicable and civil relationship. That was what she had wanted and still wanted. It was foolish to be disappointed at the undemonstrative way he was greeting her return from a kidnapping.
