Secrets of a Lady

“And O’Roarke knew that challenging you was the best way to keep you at your post.”

“Oh, yes, Raoul’s fiendishly good at getting people to do what he wants. Besides, by then it was late 1813 and Wellington had pushed his way into France. Raoul asked me if I wanted to turn my back on the cause I’d worked for so long just when things were desperate.” His voice echoed in her head, at once caustic and impassioned. She looked at Charles. “And the truth is, my darling, I didn’t want to turn my back on it.”

“So our farce of a marriage continued. A marriage born of your duplicity.”

“And your guilt.”

He started to protest. Then he looked away. When he spoke the words seemed to be dragged out of him. “Oh, Christ. Can we ever really be sure of why we do anything? I’d failed Kitty when she needed me most. If you’re asking if I thought of that when I saw you in trouble, then of course I did. If you’re asking if I thought of my own unborn child when I learned you were pregnant, then of course that’s true as well. I told you the truth when I said I’d never expected to marry. I didn’t think I’d be much of a prize as a husband, and my parents had given me a singularly low opinion of the institution. If it hadn’t been for your predicament and my guilty conscience, I might never have found the courage to offer for you. But—I didn’t need guilt or duty to make me want you for my wife or love your child.”

Her fingers ached to smooth the shadows from his eyes. She wondered if she’d had this same urge to ease hurts before she was a mother. She couldn’t remember. “I’ve tainted it for you, haven’t I?” she said. “Whatever your reasons for marrying me, you gave your love to Colin freely, without condition. Now you feel as though I manipulated you into it. If you think everything between you and me was false, what does that do to what’s between you and Colin?”

His eyes went cold. “I’d never,” he said with precision, “let what’s happened between you and me affect how I feel about Colin.”

“But Colin’s inextricably bound up in everything that’s happened between us, from that moment you found me being sick by the stream. I didn’t mean to use him to trap you, but I did drag him into the deception with me. That’s probably the most unforgivable thing I’ve ever done.”

He stared at her, his gaze steady, appraising. “If I’d known the truth,” he said, “I’d never have let myself become Colin’s father. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am his father.”

And he always would be. But what did that mean for their future life when he couldn’t bear to live with Colin’s mother?

The fire gusted behind her and let loose a puff of smoke that prickled her eyes. She unhooked the brass dustpan and broom from the stand beside the fireplace and stared down at the wreckage of the glass Edgar had dropped. “At least now that I know about Kitty, I have an idea of what went wrong between you and Edgar.”

“What?” Charles turned his head.

“Why you aren’t as close as you once were.” She dropped down on the carpet. A jolt of pain reminded her of the wound in her side. She swept the sparkling shards of crystal into the dustpan. “It can’t have been easy for him to learn you’d been the lover of the woman he loved himself.”

In seven years, she could count the times she had taken her quick-witted husband completely by surprise. This was one of them. “My brother broke his share of hearts in the Peninsula,” Charles said, “but he wasn’t in love with Kit. He scarcely knew her.”

“He may have loved her from afar, but there’s no doubt he loved her.” She stood and emptied the dustpan into the fire. The fragments of crystal sparkled diamond-bright in the flame. “Didn’t you see his face when you were talking, darling? He couldn’t even bear to hear the whole story.”

“Of course he couldn’t. A story about a woman killing herself cuts a bit too close to the bone. Not because he loved Kitty. Because her fate is rather too much like Mother’s.”

Which must have burned Charles all the more. Melanie returned the broom and dustpan to their stand. “There is that, of course. But it was more than the painful associations that drove him from the room. You could see it in his eyes.”

Charles picked up his whisky glass and stared at it. “I’d have noticed.”

“Under normal circumstances I don’t doubt it, but you can scarcely have been yourself at the time, dearest. You never talked to him about Kitty. And Edgar was away with his regiment most of the time in those days.”

Charles tossed off the last of the whisky. “Even if it were true, whatever went wrong between Edgar and me started long before either of us met Kitty, when I was still at Oxford. When Mother died.”

“Then perhaps what happened with Kitty merely made it worse.”

He twisted his empty glass between his hands. She could see him turning the possibility over in his mind. Then he shook his head. “We’ve scarcely time to dwell on it at the moment. If this sordid story has convinced you there’s no good to be had from talking to Velasquez, it’s served its purpose. There’s no point in discussing it further.”

Melanie hesitated, but instinct said she had pushed him as far as she could. She moved to the door. “Edgar must have forestalled Laura. I’ll see if the food’s ready.”

Charles pulled his dressing gown closed at the neck. He looked more weary than she had ever seen him. “You’re unfailingly practical.”

She gave a bleak smile. “I’m a mother.”

Colin shifted his position on the bed. His leg jerked. He sat up and disentangled the chain that ran from the metal cuff round his ankle to a similar cuff on the bedpost. It didn’t hurt, really, except when he pulled on it. But it felt very undignified.

He’d managed to sleep when they first brought him here, once his heart stopped pounding so loud he could hear it. But now he felt as though he’d been sleeping for hours and he didn’t think he could anymore, even if it was the only way to pass the time.

He hitched himself up against the thin pillow and kicked off the scratchy blanket. The air clogged his throat and tickled his nose. Maybe that was because of the dust motes dancing in the glow from the rush light beside the bed. The air had a sour smell, too, like his stuffed duck when he’d left it outside for days and it had got rained on.

He’d only been in a place like this once before, last year just before Christmas, when Mummy took him with her to give toys to children whose parents didn’t have enough money to buy them presents. Some of the places they’d gone then had been even dirtier and damper than this, but Mummy had told him it wasn’t polite to stare or make comments about people who were less fortunate than you were. He wasn’t sure if that still applied if the people were holding you prisoner. He thought maybe it didn’t.

A door opened and closed with a thud in the room outside. The man, Jack, coming back. Colin wondered if he’d brought food. They’d given him some bread and smelly cheese when he woke up, but he’d only been able to swallow a few mouthfuls.

“Christ, you took long enough.” Meg’s voice came from the other room. Colin squirmed against the pillow. He could see shadows on the wall through the crack in the door.

“I stopped at a tavern. Got to pass the time somehow. Didn’t think there’d be another message since he told us to sit tight this morning. Turns out I was wrong.”

“There was a message? Why didn’t you say so to begin with? Let me see.”

“Pipe down, woman, ten to one he’s just telling us to be patient. There’s no money with it. I checked.”

Colin heard the sound of a paper being ripped open. “There’s a card enclosed,” Meg said. “‘Just in case you think I don’t mean what I say.’ What the bloody hell—The rest is in that damned code. Got a pencil?”

“What the hell would I be doing with a pencil?”

“What indeed? It’s a bloody good thing for you I went to the parish school for a spell. His lordship wouldn’t’ve hired us unless one of us could read. Here we are.” The scratch of a pencil on paper followed.

“How’s the brat been?” Jack asked.

“Quiet. Someone taught him manners. Christ, Jack, you’ve had one too many pints.”

“You like me when I’m drunk.”

“No, I don’t. Damn it, Jack!” Meg gave a yelp of protest.

“Why not?” Jack said, in a funny, thick-sounding voice. “You must be bored out of your wits.”

“Your breath smells like stout.” A thud followed, as though Jack had fallen into a chair. “Anyway, the kid’s right next door.”