by Mary Balogh
“And the gaming and the cheating?” he said. “Was I a gamer, Elizabeth? And a dishonest one at that?”
“Did you know that he shot himself after you had taken everything from him?” she asked. “You left him with nothing but despair. But of course you must have known. How could you live with yourself afterward?”
“Morrison?” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Are you talking about Edgar Morrison? When I was at Oxford? I have always felt dreadful guilt that I stood by and watched the poor devil being stripped of everything. He had very little to start with. Good Lord, Elizabeth, it was an experienced card sharp who did that to him. I was not even playing.”
“There are those who said you were,” she said. “And that you were the big winner.”
“Well.” He stood away from the door at last and clasped his hands behind him. “Someone worked very hard to blacken my name. You were fortunate to have a father powerful enough to free you from such a demon of a husband.”
“Yes,” she said. “I was.”
He looked at her for what seemed long moments of silence. “I did not come here to talk of all this,” he said at last. “It is somewhat pointless when you believe me guilty and I cannot prove my innocence—yet. I will do so, Elizabeth, though there is somewhat more to clear myself of than I believed. I brought you here to talk about Christina. She is six years old? Does she look like you?”
“No,” she said.
“Like me, then?” He raised his eyebrows.
“She has dark hair and blue eyes,” she said.
“A constant reminder to you,” he said. “How unfortunate.”
“She is a beautiful child,” she said angrily. “And she is a person in her own right.”
“And you called her Christina,” he said. “A deliberate reminder. Why?”
“I like the name,” she said.
“And it is very similar to mine,” he said.
She said nothing.
“I want to see her,” he said.
“No.” She felt instant panic.
“Perhaps you misunderstood me,” he said. “I was not asking. I want to see her, Elizabeth.”
“What does she know of me?” he asked, his eyes narrowing again. “Does she know that her father is an adulterer and a murderer? Does she know that she has a half sister somewhere—my, er, mistress’s child was a girl, wasn’t she?”
“You are not my husband any longer,” she said. “You have no right to see her. I will not allow it.”
“And Papa will not allow it either, will he?” he said. “She is my daughter, Elizabeth. You must have known you were expecting her before I left. Did you?”
She said nothing.
“You kept me from all the joy of knowing that I had begotten a child in you,” he said. “And all the anxiety of the birth. You kept her babyhood from me and her young childhood. My own child, Elizabeth. My only child, though perhaps you believe otherwise. I am not sure I can ever forgive you for such cruelty.”
Somehow everything was topsy-turvy. She should be the angry one. She should be the one talking about the impossibility of forgiveness.
“What does she know of me?” he asked.
“That you are dead,” she said. “I want her to go on believing that.”
“I have been annoying enough to have myself resurrected,” he said. “When can I see her?”
Panic was like a large ball in her stomach. Years ago she would have given in to it. She would have been begging, pleading, becoming hysterical. Now she concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly.
“You can’t,” she said. “It is best this way, Christopher. Best for her. Think of her feelings even if you cannot consider mine.”
“How long,” he asked, “do you think you can keep the truth from her, Elizabeth? Perhaps through her childhood when she can be confined to the schoolroom or to carefully supervised outings with you or a governess. Eventually she will know what happened and what villainies I was accused of. She will know that I came back when she was six years old. Is she also to know that I did not care enough for her to see her?”
“She has me,” she said, “and Papa and Martin and John. She is about to have a new papa. I am to be married during the summer.”
“She does not need a new papa,” he said. “I am very glad now, Elizabeth, that I prevented your marrying in April. Perhaps you are free to choose a new husband. But you are not free to choose a new father for my daughter. I am her father.”
She was afraid of him. He had changed in seven years. This man would even stand up against her father if he must, she suspected.
“Do you ever take her walking?” he asked. “In the parks?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Christopher, I’ll not let—”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “Hyde Park. Between three and four o’clock, before the fashionable hour brings out the crush. We can meet by accident, Elizabeth, and I can see my child.” He held up a staying hand as she was about to speak. “Think carefully before you say no. My guess is that we are about to provide the ton with gossip and entertainment enough to fill in the time before the foreign visitors arrive and the victory celebrations start in earnest. Do you want them gossiping about my call at Grosvenor Square and the explosion that would follow upon such a call?”
“That is blackmail,” she said coldly.
“I seem guilty of almost every other crime ever invented,” he said. “Why not of that too? I merely want you to realize that I am not going to take no for an answer. A chance meeting in the park seems the best plan to me. Does it not to you?”
“And will that be the end of it?” she asked. “Will you be content to see her once, Christopher?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I somehow doubt it.”
She looked at him in despair. “Promise me one thing?” she asked him. “Promise that you will not tell her who you are.”
He looked broodingly at her. “Elizabeth,” he said quietly, “I have never seen the child. I have known of her existence for only a week. But I love her. She is the issue of my own body. I am not going to snatch her away from you or frighten her with ideas she cannot cope with. I think I must have frightened her sufficiently when I took you from her for almost three weeks. I would not have done so if I had known of her existence.”
“Then you promise?” she said.
“For tomorrow, yes,” he said. “It would be far too soon for her to know the truth. But I will not promise never to tell her. If you do not do so, then I will when the time seems right, whether that is the day after tomorrow or next year. I intend to be her father for the rest of my life.”
She opened her mouth to reply. Her father would have something to say about that. So would Manley. And Martin and John. But she sensed that there was no point in arguing with him. Not now. She was mortally afraid, though whether more for Christina or herself she did not know.
“If it is not raining,” she said, “I shall take Christina walking in Hyde Park tomorrow afternoon. She likes to walk along beside the Serpentine.”
He nodded.
And then she thought of how long they must have been there in that room, alone, away from the ballroom and the crowds of curious people.
“I must go back upstairs,” she said. “Manley will be wondering where I am.”
“Oh,” he said, “I imagine there are a few dozen people only too eager to let him know, Elizabeth. Come, then, I’ll escort you back there.” He extended an arm to her.
She crossed the room toward him and set her own arm resolutely along his. But she could not stop herself from remembering as they left the small reception room and climbed the staircase toward the ballroom the race they had had down the beach at Penhallow toward the sea, when he had allowed her to stay ahead of him until the last moment and had then swung her up into his arms and threatened to throw her into the water.
John and Martin were with Lord Poole when Christopher returned Elizabeth to the ballroom. Lord Poole was angry
and fretting at the return of her first husband and the possible scandal that might arise from her having disappeared with him for all of half an hour.
Elizabeth was looking pale but quite composed, John saw with approval. Christopher was tight-lipped. He had changed. He looked as if he had seven years of hard living behind him. But then they were all changed. John himself had now experienced all the horrors and hardships of real war after playing with the glamour of it for a few years at a home posting. That summer of Elizabeth’s marriage and his own rejection by Nancy Atwell seemed longer ago than seven years.
Christopher bowed distantly and moved away without a word. John touched his stepbrother’s sleeve and drew him away.
Elizabeth looked at Lord Poole in some apprehension. “He wanted to talk with me,” she said. “I could hardly refuse without causing something of a scene, Manley.”
“This is very awkward, Elizabeth,” Lord Poole said, careful not to frown in such a public place.
“Yes,” she said.
“You must realize how foolish you made me look, going off like that with your former husband,” he said.
“I am sorry, Manley.” She set a hand on his sleeve. “He has recently returned to England. He wants to see Christina.”
“That is out of the question,” he said. “He no longer has any claim to either you or the child.”
“He is her father,” she said. “I have promised to take her to Hyde Park tomorrow afternoon for him to see her. It will be the only time. I will persuade him that that is enough.”
“And so shall I,” he said, flushing. “Christina will be under my care as soon as we are married, Elizabeth. I will not have Trevelyan interfering.”
“I don’t think you need worry,” she said. “He will be returning to Penhallow soon.”
“Penhallow?” he said. “In Dorsetshire?”
“Devonshire,” she said.
“Even better,” he said. “It is far enough away. I wish tomorrow’s meeting could be avoided, Elizabeth. I wish you had consulted me first. But there must certainly be no more.”
“There will be no more,” she agreed. “But she is his daughter, Manley. I thought it only fair that he should be allowed to see her just this once.”
“Come and dance,” he said. “We must not give anyone the impression that we have been upset by events.”
“No,” she said, smiling.
“Let’s move on,” John said to Martin. “Are you bound on staying at this ball until the bitter end?”
“Lizzie—” Martin said.
“—is engaged to Poole and needs some time alone with him,” John said. “Christopher’s return is a little awkward for her. She is going to have to work it out with Poole on her own. She seems to have grown her own wings since I was home last. I approve. You helped her, Martin?”
“It took a long time,” Martin said. “But being at Kingston all those years and being mistress there finally gave her confidence in herself. She has done very well.”
“And so have you,” John said. “It must have been quite a sacrifice to stay there with her all that time, Martin.”
“Nothing is a sacrifice as far as Lizzie is concerned,” Martin said.
“Shall we leave?” John suggested. Since dancing so unexpectedly with Nancy, he seemed to have lost his earlier enthusiasm for eyeing all the new beauties that the Season had to offer. He felt in something of a bad mood. “Seek out other pleasures, perhaps?”
Martin raised his eyebrows, but he did not object. Soon the two brothers were outside the house, waiting for their carriage to be brought up.
“Where is the best place to go?” John asked.
“For ladies?” Martin asked.
“Preferably not.” John grinned. “I am quite out of touch with London houses. Which is the best?”
“It depends on your tastes.” Martin looked at him a little warily. “Do you like a simple throw, or do you prefer something rather more titillating?”
“Like what?” John stood aside while someone else’s carriage drew up and a lady was helped inside by a man who climbed in after her.
Martin shrugged. “Young girls?” he said. “Or boys? Or more than one at a time? Or a bit of roughness as an appetizer?”
“Perversions?” John looked at him with interest. “And violence? Do you know where such entertainments can be found, Martin? Do you like any of them yourself?”
“I daresay I know where they can all be found,” Martin said. “Who doesn’t if he keeps his ears open? I’ll take you to one if you want. My own preference is for something plain and ordinary, of course.”
John chuckled. “I hope not too plain or too ordinary,” he said. “Take me somewhere where the girls are pretty and lively, Martin. But nothing perverted, please. I merely want a warm and pretty and shapely armful and a mattress for her back.”
Martin gave an address to the coachman before climbing into the carriage after his brother.
“You are not disappointed at my choice?” John asked, grinning again. “You don’t enjoy deflowering young virgins or being chained and whipped with knotted cords by naked goddesses or suchlike, do you, Martin?”
“Good Lord, no,” Martin said. “I have rather more respect for the female sex. Sometimes I even feel guilty using the favors of ordinary whores. I have to keep reminding myself that they have to earn a living too. And that they might have it a lot rougher with someone else.”
John lapsed into silence. But he did look at Martin curiously. He could not quite imagine Martin with a woman, and yet it seemed that his brother was accompanying him to a brothel, not just taking him there. It was not strange, perhaps, that his stepbrother should know where the better brothels were in London. But the slimier, more violent types of sexual activities that some men craved? Martin knew where they were to be found?
He turned his thoughts to himself. He had had the same Spanish mistress for most of his years in the Peninsula and had taken his leave of her a couple of months before with some regret. It was many years since he had gone whoring. He had not thought to do so again. He had thought to look about him for a wife now that he was home to stay and settle to a life of marital fidelity.
He wished he had not met Nancy again. He had not thought seriously of her for years. But seeing her tonight had filled him with dissatisfaction and the ridiculous need to prove his virility with a brothel whore. Had he still not got over her unexpected rejection, then, even after almost seven years? But it had not been merely the rejection. When he had asked her to marry him, he had also tried to touch her—the day after she had appeared to rather enjoy their first kiss. She had recoiled in horror, and her face had shown revulsion as well as horror. The actual rejection had been almost an anticlimax.
Yes, John thought ruefully, it had been enough to send a man scurrying to prove his manhood on a prostitute even years after the fact.
Chapter 17
CHRISTOPHER was nervous. He had scarcely touched his breakfast and had merely pecked at his luncheon. And now he was pacing about the sitting room of the hotel suite, unable to sit still or settle to anything.
Nancy was working at her embroidery. She was almost glad that her brother was so preoccupied with his own anxieties that he had noticed nothing unusual about her. Or perhaps he had.
“You did not enjoy the ball last night, Nance?” he asked her.
“I did,” she said, looking up from her work and smiling at him. “It was rather exciting to be back in such an atmosphere, and three gentlemen danced with me. All of them surprised me by remembering me and complimenting me on my continued good looks. I believe remarks like that to ladies of above five-and-twenty must be obligatory. Are they, Christopher?”
“They are the simple truth in your case, Nance,” he said. “But you did not really enjoy the evening, did you? You did not want to dance with John, but I forced you.”
She bent her head to her work. “It is a little embarrassing for a lady to seem to assume that a gentleman wishes to da
nce with her,” she said.
“You rather fancied each other at one time, didn’t you?” he asked. “When Elizabeth and I were betrothed?”
“Oh, not really,” she said hastily. “We were thrown together by the occasion and liked each other. But there was nothing more than that.”
“A pity,” he said. “I always liked John.” But the mention of Elizabeth had distracted him again. “Do you suppose they will really be there, Nance? Did she say they would last night just to pacify me?”
“I don’t know, Christopher.” Nancy looked up at him in some sympathy. “But apparently you made it clear to her that you intend to see the child before you leave London.”
“What if she does not take to me?” he said, staring broodingly from one window. “She is six years old. Children of that age frequently distrust strangers. What if she actively dislikes me or is frightened of me? Would I look frightening to a child, Nance?”
“When you frown like that, perhaps,” she said. “Don’t worry, Christopher. Just don’t expect too much. Don’t expect her to sense that you are her father. Don’t expect her to rush into your arms.”
He drew a deep breath and let it out unsteadily. But before he could say any more there was a knock on the other door. They heard Antoine Bouchard going to answer it.
The next moment Nancy had bundled up her embroidery and dropped it onto a table and scrambled to her feet. Her heart felt as if it had leapt into her throat and was beating there at double time. John Ward, Viscount Aston, had stepped into the room.
“I hope I am not intruding,” he said, addressing himself to Christopher after greeting both of them. “The trouble with staying at hotels is that visitors are upon one before one has a chance to send the message that one is from home.”
“I have an appointment in an hour’s time,” Christopher said. “But you are welcome, John. Do have a chair.”
