Regency Society. Ann LethbridgeЧитать онлайн книгу.
moral fortitude and unequalled fairness.’ The timbre of her voice had risen, almost desperate.
‘A Samaritan, then?’ In the light of what had happened he should have been kinder.
‘Indeed.’
He hated the glint of tears in her eyes. If he had been less scrupulous, he might have reached forwards then and thrown all caution to the wind, taken her upstairs to his room and damned any repercussions. But he had done this once before, and look where that had got them both.
When he did not speak she walked to the door and let herself out. Cristo counted each step that she took across the tiled floor of his foyer as Milne saw to her exit.
Eleanor’s hands fisted as she climbed into the carriage waiting for her around the corner. Had Milne recognised her? Had the old butler known her as the woman he had shepherded from the room in the Château Giraudon, with the luridly coloured gypsy skirt swirling around her ankles and an unmade bed left behind? She could barely credit the danger she had allowed herself to be subjected to and the fact that the servant had not seemed to know her was no reason at all to let her guard down.
The truth shattered into fragments. Not quite this or quite that, but an amalgam. Eleanor remembered her father’s suicide the year after her brother’s death. Her mother had died eighteen months later in a carriage accident with a man who had a reputation for having a way with older women. Her maternal grandfather had denied such rumour, of course, as they sat in the big house after the funeral, but she had seen the look in his eyes that suggested otherwise, and the need for care given that they were the last surviving members of a family that luck had deserted.
Her own youth had been sandwiched between falsities and now here they were again, hemming her into all that she had never thought to become. Well, she could not let them. She would not allow herself to be alone with Cristo Wellingham again. Ever. Cradling the cross she often wore at her neck, she made the promise to herself before turning to look at the people on the busy streets outside and dreaded the Wellingham weekend that she had said she would attend in three days’ time.
Honour Baxter arrived less than an hour after Eleanor had left, and she looked neither relaxed nor happy.
‘You watch Lady Dromorne like a lover might, Cristo, a dangerous tendency given the power of her name and of yours.’
He stayed still. Honour was no fool, despite the rather frivolous appearance she presented to the world, as he well knew from her Paris days, before she had made her way to England and married.
‘I think she wants you, too.’
He turned as she said it.
‘There is a child, of course, and the Earl of Dromorne would never countenance any threat to his daughter’s happiness and stability.’
Shock rendered him speechless. A child? Eleanor had a child? He had heard no word of one at all.
‘How old is she?’
Honour shrugged her shoulders. ‘Nearly five. A girl who is rarely seen out in public. Florencia is her name.’
Nearly five.
Florencia.
If Eleanor had been fertile at Giraudon, then conception would have been the easiest thing in the world.
Nearly five. He counted back. Was the child his? Could he be a father? The heavy beat of his heart vibrated in his ears and he shut his eyes as he sat on the sofa.
‘Are you quite well, Cristo? Should I call someone?’
‘No, please don’t.’ His voice sounded like the string of some instrument tuned to the very last of its strength, a breaking point just waiting to happen as loss welled in his throat. Florencia. Even her name was beautiful. Swallowing, he made himself listen to Honour’s next words.
‘London has rules that would be ludicrous in the more passionate arena of Paris. What is acceptable there would not be here and there are many unwed and beautiful English girls just waiting for you to notice them, women without the ties of children and husbands. Let me introduce you to these girls of good family and unblemished name.’
He nodded, simply because to do otherwise would have incited question. His glance took in the clock on the mantel that showed up the hour of four and he wondered what outings little girls and their mothers went on in London at such a time. The park? The shops? The library on Bond Street?
When the hell had Eleanor met Martin Dromorne? He longed to ask Honour, but sense stopped him. He felt like he had at eighteen, abandoned by his family. No safety net. Unsettled. The very room swam with a hundred questions and just as many answers and everything was dangerous.
Florencia. Derived from the city of Florence in Italy? He listened as Honour prattled on about a list of possible candidates suitable in the marriage stakes.
Florencia. The word turned in his mind as Honour gave high praise to the three débutantes shortlisted in her attempt at matchmaking.
Florencia. His? A daughter conceived in lust in the high rooflines above Paris? If that was true, where had Eleanor birthed the child? Here? In France? Ruined from a husbandless pregnancy?
What of Martin Dromorne? Did he know this daughter was not his? Had she met him soon afterwards, perhaps, seizing the opportunity for redemption that marriage offered? Or was all he thought mere conjecture based on a groundless hope?
Eleanor and Florencia.
He dared not ask Honour another thing about either of them as a servant came in with a pot of tea and the conversation turned to more general things.
Taris arrived about ten minutes after Honour had departed. His man Bates was with him, though after seeing his master into the room he slipped out of it. His brother had a bright yellow flower threaded through his lapel.
‘You look festive?’
Taris lifted his hand up and smiled. ‘This is the handiwork of my oldest son, who is inclined to mischief. His twin brother enjoys the school lessons and yet all Alfred can think of is to escape his and head for the gardens.’
‘Ahh, the danger of comparisons. I never thought that you would make them.’
‘When you are a parent you do many things that you had not thought you would. But out of love, you understand. Only out of that.’
Parenthood! In the light of Honour’s visit the raw nerve of hope was exposed and Cristo was glad that his brother could not read his expression.
‘Ashe said that he had been to visit you and so I decided to do the same. He said that you seemed pleased to see him.’
‘Sickness has a habit of making one re-evaluate the usefulness of family.’
‘So cynical?’ Laughter rang around the room. ‘Our father always swore that you were stubborn.’
‘And did he ever tell you why?’ Cristo had suddenly had enough of all the secrecy. ‘Did he ever let you know that I was not entirely a Wellingham?’
When Taris’s face came up to his own with a slight flush Cristo suddenly knew that he had.
‘Alice never blamed him for his indiscretion. She told us that as she took her last breath. She also said that you were a gift she was meant to have. She kept track of you at Giraudon through your man Milne, you realise. The old valet at Falder was his brother and she never let him go.’
Cristo swore. What other confidences was he destined to hear this morning? A child who might be his? A mother who had never stopped loving him? Two brothers who had known he was not a full-blooded son of Falder and had treated him as one anyway? A feeling he had forgotten he knew was again budding. No longer alone. No longer just him against the world.
Shared secrets and trust, and beside a brother whose eyes saw what others never did, and with all the unexpected twists and turns Cristo found himself talking.
‘When I left