by Mary Balogh
“Oh,” John said, “a party. Is it you everyone is cheering for, then, Christina?”
“No!” She giggled happily and waved a large white handkerchief from her hand. “The Tsar of Russia is here. We saw him. He smiled at me.”
“Ah,” John said, “so you are famous after all.”
“I have a papa,” Christina said.
John pursed his lips and glanced from Christopher to Elizabeth.
“My real one,” Christina said. “He didn’t die after all, Uncle John, and he has come back from Canada to see me. He loves me and he is going to stay. And he is going to build me the biggest castle in the sand there ever was. Aren’t you, Papa?” she concluded triumphantly.
“And bigger even than that, sweetheart,” Christopher said, smiling at her.
It was the first time Nancy had seen her niece. She stood very still and gazed at the child. Oh, how very like Christopher she was. And how happy he looked. As happy as he had looked at Kingston when—But no. She and John had agreed that morning that they would not spoil the day with talk or even thoughts about any of those matters.
“Are you surprised, Uncle John?” Christina asked.
“If you had a feather in your hand instead of a very large handkerchief,” he said, “you could knock me down with it. It’s the best surprise of the day. Better even than mine.”
“What is yours?” she asked.
“Oh,” he said, “I had better not even mention it after hearing yours. You will think it a very sorry surprise.”
“Uncle John!” Christina protested.
“Very well, then,” John said, turning and setting his arm about Nancy’s shoulders. “Two surprises actually, scamp. This is your Aunt Nancy. I don’t think you have met her before, have you? She is your papa’s sister. And if she were not, she would soon be your aunt anyway—your only aunt, right? Aunt Nancy is going to be my wife.”
Nancy watched the curiosity in Christina’s face. She dared not look at Elizabeth. But Elizabeth got swiftly to her feet and came across the room.
“I am so glad,” she said. “I always wondered why it did not happen before. You seemed fond of each other. I am so glad that you have found each other again.”
She hugged and kissed John, then turned, hesitated, and hugged Nancy too. “I am glad,” she said. “And I am sorry about that other, Nancy. I know that love of a brother is a very powerful force.”
Nancy hugged her in return.
“I would send for champagne,” Christopher said, “but I believe all the servants at this hotel have been paralyzed with awe over the arrival of the Tsar. How about some almost cold tea and some almost fresh cakes?”
John turned and grinned at Nancy. “I suppose we will always remember why we drank cold tea and ate almost fresh cakes in celebration of the announcement of our betrothal, won’t we?” he said. “It will be something to tell our grandchildren about, my love.”
“Lord Poole is not going to be my new papa,” Christina said happily, hugging Christopher’s neck, “because my real papa has come home.”
Chapter 26
JOHN escorted Elizabeth and Christina home from the Pulteney Hotel. He carried his niece upstairs to the nursery, Elizabeth walking beside them.
“Why I am carrying a six-year-old girl I do not know,” he said, “unless it is that she had a more wonderful surprise to tell of than I. It really knocked me off my feet.”
Christina chuckled. “What I don’t know,” she said, “is why Papa could not come home with us instead of staying in that place.”
“He wants to be near the Tsar,” John said. “Besides, he has to look after Aunt Nancy until she marries me. It would not do for her to stay in a hotel alone, you know. Ladies do not do such things.”
“She could have come here too,” she said.
“Not until we are married,” he said firmly. “Shall we keep your surprise a secret for a while—just between you, your mama, and me?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because secrets are fun, that’s why, scamp,” he said, setting her down inside the nursery and smiling cheerfully at her nurse. “We will wait for the very best time to tell it—a time we are all three agreed upon. Good idea?”
“Good idea,” she said, turning her back on her nurse and wrinkling her nose at him and her mother. “It’s a wonderful secret.”
“Why did you suggest that she keep it a secret?” Elizabeth asked John when they had left the nursery.
“They will take all her joy away,” he said, setting an arm loosely about her shoulders. “They will not think it such a wonderful secret. Papa and Martin, I mean.”
“Martin will.” She frowned. “No, maybe not. He thinks that my best chance of happiness lies with Manley. He will not like this complication.”
“And what do you think?” John asked.
She hesitated. They were walking slowly downstairs. “I need to talk with someone,” she said. “I need it so desperately. May I burden you, John? You probably have a thousand other things to rush off to.”
“Not a single one,” he said. “Come along to my dressing room, Elizabeth, and unburden your mind. This feels rather good actually. I have not had many chances to play big brother, have I?”
“No,” she said, waiting for him to open the door and preceding him inside. “I have always loved you dearly, John. You were the greatest hero in my life when I was a girl. But there was always Martin to confide in.”
“And there isn’t any longer?” he asked quietly, closing the door firmly behind them.
“Yes, there is.” She turned to look at him unhappily. “I don’t know what it is, John. Well, I do know. Something happened. But it was something to do with me, not him, and it does not seem fair to have reacted the way I have. I can’t—Well, I can’t seem to think of him as the other half of myself as I always used to do. I hate myself for it. He has always been so good to me. You would not believe the patience he has had with me since the divorce, John. And the way he gave up all his own chances for pleasure just to be at my side.”
“Yes,” he said, “perhaps I would believe it. What happened to change things?”
“Nothing really.” She shrugged. “He thinks I should settle for peace and contentment with Manley. It is wise advice. Even better than that, he wants me to go back to Kingston, where I can avoid all this confusion and all the gossip that Christopher’s arrival in town has caused. He is even willing to come with me. He is so very selfless, John. How can I confide to him all the turmoil in my life? He has the answers already, and I am not sure that that is what I need. I think I need someone to help me find the answers myself.”
“You want my ears but not my tongue,” he said. “Talk on then. They are yours.”
She looked at him apologetically. “I didn’t mean quite that,” she said. “And I shouldn’t be burdening you at all, should I? This is a wonderful day for you. You love Nancy, don’t you? I could see it in your eyes when you looked at her. And it was in her eyes too. I was so glad. I will let my hero brother go only to a woman who loves him, you see.”
He smiled at her.
“What happened the last time you were together?” she asked. “You were in love then too, weren’t you? But she ran away. Did you frighten her?”
His smiled faded and he shook his head. “Something happened,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me about yourself, Elizabeth. You want to marry Christopher again, don’t you? And he has asked you. What is the problem?”
She turned away from him, playing absently with a brush on the dressing table. “I’m going to have another child,” she said.
She heard him suck in his breath. “Then Poole had damned well better move the wedding date forward,” he said through his teeth. “I’ll not have my sister—”
“It isn’t Manley’s,” she said. “It’s Christopher’s.” There was silence behind her. “He has been here only a week or so,” John said at last.
“He arrived in London from America
at the end of April,” she said. “The day before my wedding. He kidnapped me and took me to Penhallow. The fall from the carriage and the loss of memory really happened. He told me I was his wife and I lived as his wife for a few weeks until after Martin found me.”
John said nothing.
She turned to look at him. “I loved him,” she said. “Until I remembered, until Martin showed me Christina’s portrait and I remembered everything, I loved him, John. More than I loved him when we were first married. I was timid then and homesick and a little afraid of him. At Penhallow life was paradise.”
“All right.” John swallowed. “I have provided the ears, Elizabeth. What do you want to do about all this?”
“I cannot now marry Manley,” she said. “That is certain. But I cannot break off our betrothal either. Not now. It is the worst possible time. He does not deserve to be scorned as a jilted man. I had decided that I would continue the betrothal for a month or two and then break it off as quietly as possible before going home to Kingston.”
“With Martin,” he said.
“No.” She frowned. “I cannot allow him to give up his life for me any longer. I would feel too much guilt. No, I have to shape my own life, live it myself. Martin means well, but I think sometimes that he tries to overprotect me. Is that very unfair?”
“No,” he said. “What happened to change your feelings about him, Elizabeth? His arrival at Penhallow to break up your idyll?”
“Perhaps that was it,” she said. “I did not know him, you see, and I disliked him and feared him from the first moment. And then when I went walking outside with him and he touched me as he has always done it felt as if—oh, John, this sounds terrible—as if he were making indecent advances to me. He gave me the shudders. Poor Martin. I feel so guilty. But I can’t seem to get back to the old relationship.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t, then,” he said. “As you say, Elizabeth, perhaps you need to become entirely your own person. You have done very well growing toward that ideal in the past few years.”
“Have I?” she said. “Yes, I think you are right.”
“You said that you had decided what to do,” John said. “But now you are not so sure?”
“Christina has found her father again,” she said. “She has always had Papa and Martin and you when you have been home. I did not really realize until today how much she has missed not having a father. And one who cares. Manley has never cared for her. I was selfish even to think of marrying him, wasn’t I? Christopher cares, John. He cried when she finally let him pick her up in his arms today after we had told her the truth. It was just before you came back to the Pulteney. I thought my heart was tearing in two.”
John nodded.
“Our unborn child is going to need a father too,” she said.
He nodded again.
Elizabeth drew a deep breath. “I have always thought that the whole fault in our breakup and divorce was his,” she said. “I have always thought that I was entirely blameless. I know now that in reality my own actions were quite as bad and quite as cruel as his. We are equally guilty. I kept all knowledge of Christina from him. I believe now that he would have fought for me and for our marriage if he had known. He would have asked forgiveness and been granted it long ago. It was a terrible thing I did, John. I don’t know if I can do it again. This child is one he can know from the beginning—if I allow it.”
“And will you?” John asked after a short pause.
“He has never asked forgiveness,” she said, staring down at the backs of her hands and spreading her fingers. “Or admitted his guilt. That is all I ask, John. Is it too much? I find I can no longer feel the moral outrage that I used to think would make me hate him for the rest of my life. All I want is the truth told with some sign of remorse. I don’t think I can accept anything else.”
“Can’t you?” he said. “Christopher has always said he is innocent, Elizabeth. Have you ever wondered if he is telling the truth? I am inclined to think that he is.”
She looked up at him with agonized eyes. “Don’t say that,” she said. “Oh, please, John. It is what I longed to believe years ago, but now I could not bear it. It would mean that everything was my fault, that our marriage collapsed and ended in such ugliness because of my lack of trust. It would mean that I have kept him and Christina apart for no reason whatsoever. I would not be able to live with my guilt.”
“Perhaps in time you can be convinced both of his innocence and of your diminished guilt, Elizabeth,” John said. “You have really made your new decision, haven’t you?”
“Have I?” she asked. “Yes, I suppose I have. We have a daughter who needs both of us and are to have another child who will need us too. He wants to marry me again for Christina’s sake and will be even more determined when he knows that I am with child again.”
“And?” John prompted.
She looked at him with luminous eyes. “Yes, that too, of course,” she said. “I love him. I have never for one moment stopped loving him. Not even when I hated him most.”
John crossed the room to her, set his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “I know,” he said. “I have always known. Let me say to you what I said to Christina a little while ago. Let’s keep this our secret for now, shall we? And before you can ask why, I’ll tell you. Because secrets are fun.”
“You are afraid that Papa will explode and Martin try to change my mind?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he said. “This is something you have decided for yourself, Elizabeth. I have not influenced your decision. At least I have tried not to do so even though you must suspect that I approve of it. Listening to Papa and especially to Martin can only confuse you again.”
“You don’t like Martin, do you?” she asked, looking into his eyes.
“Never mind my feelings for Martin,” he said. “You are the important one at the moment, Elizabeth. You have made a decision. Act upon it. And until you do, keep it a secret.”
She smiled slowly at him. “Thank you, big brother,” she said, “for lending me your ears and your heart but for respecting me enough not to try to manipulate and control me. Would things have turned out differently if I had looked to you for advice seven years ago instead of to Papa and Martin?”
“We can never know,” he said. “But that is the past, Elizabeth. It is the present that counts and what we can make of the future.”
“For both you and me,” she said. “I am glad you found Nancy again, John.”
“That makes two of us, then,” he said. “Tell me. When Martin came to Penhallow, was Nancy there too?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “She was there the whole time.”
John gritted his teeth.
“Don’t be angry with her,” she said. “She went along with Christopher’s lie, but she was kind to me. And I know how fond one can be of a brother.”
He smiled and hugged her tightly.
Nancy had gone shopping with one of her newfound acquaintances. The Tsar and the Grand Duchess had also gone out together in a carriage a short while earlier amid enthusiastic cheers from the ever-present mob. The Tsar, for reasons of his own, seemed to have decided to stay at the Pulteney instead of moving into the state apartments prepared for him at St. James’s.
There were still crowds outside, though, Christopher saw, gazing idly through the window. He and John were to call on John’s man of business again during the afternoon, and he was finding it hard to settle to anything while he waited. But he became alert suddenly. Elizabeth was descending from a carriage outside the doors of the hotel. She would have a hard time getting past the porter. He hurried from the room and down the staircase, his heart leaping with pleased anticipation.
She did not have Christina with her, he noticed as soon as he reached the outer doors and assured the porter that she was not a hired assassin awaiting the Tsar’s return. Part of him was disappointed; he wanted to hear his daughter calling him “Papa” again. He wanted to feel her child�
�s arms tight about his neck. Part of him was happy; he would have Elizabeth alone for a short while even if she had come to argue with him, to beg him to leave her and Christina alone. She was looking pale and none too happy.
“How is Christina?” he asked when he had ushered her into his sitting room.
“Well,” she said, removing her bonnet and dropping it onto a table inside the door. She crossed immediately to the window and stood with her back to him. “Do you still want to marry me, Christopher?”
He held his breath. “Yes,” he said.
“Very well, then,” she said. “You can start to make the necessary arrangements for the summer. By then I will be free of my betrothal to Manley.”
She spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, as if she were talking about some ordinary business dealing. She was talking about their wedding!
“You are ready to betroth yourself to me now,” he said, “but to continue with your old betrothal too for a while? Isn’t that almost like bigamy?”
“No,” she said, “of course not. Sooner or later I am going to be treating Manley shabbily. We are betrothed. Half the ton were at our wedding, which you put an end to. For the next few weeks there are going to be daily and nightly celebrations for our foreign guests. It would be cruel to humiliate him now. It will be cruel anyway. I do not feel proud of myself.”
“Why are you going to marry me rather than him, then?” he asked. “Is it just because of Christina?”
“Partly,” she said. “Half for Christina.”
And half for herself? he wondered. She was standing straight-backed at the window, staring out.
“And half for Christina’s brother or sister,” she said so quietly that for a moment he thought he might have imagined the words. But he knew he had not.
He gazed at her rigid back and felt as if a giant fist had just buried itself in his stomach. “You are with child again?” he asked.
