“It wasn’t like that,” Nat said again. “Lizzie, sweetheart-” He reached for her, but let his hand fall to his side as she turned her head away. “Gregory suggested he should add to your dowry, that is all,” he said. “God knows, he has done nothing for you since becoming Earl of Scarlet.”
“So he thought to make everything right with money,” Lizzie said bitterly, “and ease his conscience.” She sat up suddenly, fiery and indignant. “Did he say that I was a disgrace to the Scarlet name?” she demanded. “Did he say I was like my mother?”
“No!” Nat said. “If Tom told you that then it was only his malice.” He caught her arm. “Don’t listen to Tom, Lizzie,” he said. “Whatever he tells you he is only trying to hurt you. He takes the truth and twists it with his spite. Promise me you won’t listen to him.”
“All right,” Lizzie said. She was puzzled at the tone in Nat’s voice. For a moment he had sounded almost desperate. “I know Tom is a liar and a scoundrel,” she said. “I’ll try not to let him hurt me again.”
She felt Nat relax. He slid his hand down her arm to entwine his fingers with hers and she did not move away this time. The evening sun poured down on them, warming Lizzie’s skin, making her sore heart ease a little and helping her feel content for the first time in weeks.
“Nat,” she said slowly.
“Hmm?” Her husband made a sleepy sound of enquiry.
“If ever anything like this happens again,” Lizzie said, “will you tell me? You arranged the wedding and chose us somewhere to live and you make all these plans without reference to me but I am your wife now.” She smiled. “I know that many men do not see the need to consult their wives on any matter, but I do not take kindly to that.”
“I had noticed,” Nat said. He sat up. There was a rueful light in his dark eyes. “I am sorry,” he said. “This is new for me, too, sweetheart.”
Lizzie touched his cheek. “In return I promise I will try not to react so badly to things in future by gambling away a fortune or taking my clothes off in public.”
Nat gave a strangled laugh. “Perhaps if you could discuss that with me first as well…”
“Yes,” Lizzie said. She allowed him to draw her down into the circle of his arm and lay with her head pillowed comfortably on his shoulder.
“You need have no fear for your virtue,” Nat whispered against her hair. “I only want to hold you.”
“I am not sure that I have any virtue left after all the things that we have done,” Lizzie admitted softly. She wriggled closer into his embrace and lay listening to the strong beat of his heart.
“Ah, Lizzie…” Nat’s fingers brushed the hair gently back from her face, twining the soft auburn curls about his fingers. “Don’t say that. In so many ways you are the sweetest, bravest and most admirable woman.”
“And you are evidently quite deceived in my character if you think so.” Lizzie held her breath. There was a note in Nat’s voice she had never heard before, a mingling of tenderness and admiration and something else she did not yet dare name as love.
“Don’t say that,” Nat said again. He did not smile. “I saw you looking after Monty the night he returned so drunk from the Wheelers’ dinner.” His mouth set in a thin line. “I have often thought how little you have been spared by Monty and Tom-” His tone hardened still further, “And your parents. Things you should not have had to see or endure…All the people who should have cared for you and instead they hurt you and left you to fend for yourself.” His arms tightened about her. “It offends me deeply.”
“That was why you were always trying to protect me, wasn’t it,” Lizzie said softly, glancing up at his unyielding face. “Do you remember when I first came to Fortune Hall and Tom was always teasing me and you stood up for me even though I knew it irritated you because you were so much older and really did not wish to be bothered with a tiresome little hoyden…”
Nat laughed. “Even then you had more courage than either Monty or Tom. Do you remember when they made you walk along the edge of the battlements and you did it without a murmur, even though you were terrified of falling? And then Monty tried and almost fell in the moat?”
“Serve him right,” Lizzie said. “He always was a bully.” She sighed. “It was kind of you to tolerate me following you around like a shadow.” She turned within the curve of his arm and pressed her lips to the line of his jaw. “You are a kind person, Nat Waterhouse. You are always seeking to help people-” She broke off as she saw a flash of undeniable pain in Nat’s eyes.
“What is it?” she said.
“I don’t always succeed,” Nat said.
Lizzie frowned. “I don’t understand.”
There was silence for a moment. Held close within Nat’s embrace, Lizzie could sense tension in him and some kind of conflict, deep and painful. She pressed closer, wordlessly offering comfort with the warmth of her body and the touch of her hands and after a moment Nat let out a sigh.
“I had another sister,” he said. His voice had a rough edge. “Celeste had a twin. She died.”
Lizzie was shocked. In all the time that she had known Nat, she had never heard mention of another sister. He had not talked of her. Neither had his parents nor Celeste. Lizzie kept very still and quiet, waiting for Nat to continue, hoping that at last he might see her as a person he could confide in and draw strength from rather than another responsibility, another burden he had to carry.
“She was called Charlotte,” Nat said. “There was a fire at Water House one night when the girls were about six years old. I saved Celeste.” He cleared his throat. “I could not save Charley, too.”
“Nat,” Lizzie said. She could hear his pain now, as raw as when it had first struck. It was an echo in Nat’s voice and it was in the taut way in which he held her hard against him. “I had to choose,” he said. His voice was so low now that Lizzie could barely hear him. “I tried to carry both of them but they were terrified, too frightened to keep still. Charley slipped from my grasp. I had to let her go to save Celeste.” He shook his head a little, a lock of his hair brushing Lizzie’s cheek as he moved. “Even now I can remember the lick of the flames at my back and the heat of the banister under my hand and the smoke in my throat, so thick and choking. It was such a long way down the stairs…” He stopped. “I tried to go back for Charley but they would not let me. They said that I would die, too.”
Lizzie did not speak. She knew that nothing she could say could soothe him. There were no words. She held him close and felt the evening sun envelop them in its warmth and gradually she felt Nat relax a little as that unbearable tension seeped from his body and the tightness of his arms eased about her and he pressed his lips to her hair as though he would never let her go.
“I failed, Lizzie,” he said. “I never want that to happen again.”
“You saved Celeste,” Lizzie said, looking at him. “That was no failure.”
“Which is why I cannot-” Nat bit off whatever it was he was going to say and although Lizzie waited with unaccustomed patience, he did not speak again.
“You cannot…what?” Lizzie asked after a moment.
“Nothing.” For a moment Nat’s gaze was blind. “Just…don’t make me out to be more honorable than I am, Lizzie.”
He turned his head and gave her a lopsided smile. Despite the reassurance, Lizzie felt chilled. It felt as though despite opening his heart to her he was now keeping something back. A distance had opened between them. Perhaps, she thought suddenly, he resented the situation that his honor had placed him in when it had obliged him to marry her.
“That first night we were together,” she said, her voice falling. “When we were in the folly…It was all my fault. I should never have provoked you so.”
“You did not understand what you were doing,” Nat said, a little roughly. “I did. It was my fault, not yours.”
“I did know,” Lizzie said honestly. “At least I knew in theory if not in practice. I pushed you too hard. I did it on purpose. I always go too far.”
“You do seem to have a talent for it,” Nat agreed, but his voice was gentle. Out of the corner of her eye Lizzie saw his lips curl in a smile that made her stomach drop with longing.
“In my defence,” she added, “I had no notion that you had such an odious habit of losing your temper.”
Nat laughed. “You have known me for years, Lizzie,” he said. “You must have known I am notoriously short- tempered.”
“I never really noticed it before,” Lizzie confessed. “Oh, I knew that you could get angry with me sometimes,
