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Tom’s father was Thomas, my husband. How could I have been so mistaken in my judgement? What a terrible mistake I made. And what a fool you must think me.’ She laughed again, a sharp sound without humour that told him more than anything else of the depth of her despair. ‘Go back to New York, Hal. Forget that Tom and I exist. I loved you to the depths of my soul and I gave you everything. I gave you a splendid child. But you are not worthy to be the father of my son. I wish Rosalind well of you.’
She turned her back on him.
Henry strode from the room, her final words, her merciless condemnation ringing in his ears. He thought that they would haunt him forever. He did not see the tears spangling her cheeks, despite all her good intentions. Or read the desolation in her face, not yet hidden behind a mask of hard serenity that would deny to the world that her heart had been ripped to pieces.
How could he have done it? How could he have been so deliberately cruel? So demon-driven, vicious as a wolf attacking its prey. Fear, he admitted. A title he did not want. A way of life that he had no desire for. But a son? The child whom he had held in his arms? He believed her, of course, every word that she had spoken. Her integrity was beyond question and she would not make up such a story. But he had hurt her so much. She would never forgive him, and rightly so. He was no better than Baxendale in his destruction of her life. Worse, in fact, since she had come to trust him and rely on him. And yet he had turned on her, cut her with taunts and vitriolic words. She had every reason to hate him. What the hell did he do now?
And he had a son.
‘Hal…’
‘Not now.’ He strode past Nicholas with savage grace. ‘Come and ride if you wish, but don’t talk to me for a little while. Just don’t ask. I am impossible company. I have just committed the worst sin of my life. I cannot undo the words I have said or the harm I have caused.’
Seeing the ungovernable torment and remorse in his face, Nick let him go, standing to watch as his usually impassive brother flung out of the house. At that moment, nothing would have persuaded him to restrain his brother, to question the reason for his distress. Nothing would have made him go into the room that Hal had just vacated, where Eleanor still remained. If he had needed any confirmation of his suspicions, his convictions even, it had just struck him with all the brutality of a slap to his face. Surely only two people helplessly in love could reduce each other to such devastating unhappiness as he had seen in his brother’s face.
From the window of the morning room, Eleanor also watched with eyes as cold and empty as the hollow places in her heart. Could she blame him? Yes, she could! She had not deserved such condemnation, would never have believed that he would show such harshness towards her. But circumstances had conspired against her, she had kept her secret from Hal, and whatever Edward Baxendale had said to him in the aftermath of their disclosure of his deceit had borne fruit. She had played the game out to the full and must now bear the consequences of her shattered dreams and bruised heart.
But she had told Hal the truth at last. His reaction to it was within his own dominion—and, besides, he would be gone in a few days. Her damaged heart would heal, in a hundred years or so. And whatever she had told Hal in her wretchedness, in the desert of her wasted emotions, she would tell her son about his magnificent father. But never that Hal had rejected him, had rejected them both.
Chapter Eleven
‘Nick. There is a ship sailing next week from Liverpool. I shall take passage on it.’ Henry came to a halt at the bottom of the staircase as his brother was making his way down, dressed with fashionable, if unusual, flamboyance to go out.
‘I supposed you would eventually.’ Nicholas cast his hat and gloves onto the sidetable in the hall and followed Henry into the morning room. ‘But I did not expect you to go so soon.’ He took the offered glass of port. ‘I shall miss you, Hal.’
‘An important business deal has come to fruition—a lucrative contract that we wish to take up to ship raw cotton to the mills here in Lancashire and then return the finished textiles.’ Hal made an obvious excuse. ‘It is best if I am there. Besides, there is nothing to hold me here in London.’ He bared his teeth in something that was not a smile and took a swallow of the port. ‘Forgive me. I did not mean that as it sounded.’
‘So I should hope.’ Nicholas punched his shoulder in mock disgust, thinking that Hal looked as if he had spent a night of torment. No doubt the result of his conversation with Eleanor on the previous morning, the content of which still remained a mystery to him. Both parties had been at dinner, but so scrupulously polite to each other that it had been painfully unnerving to watch and listen. Like the silent shattering of fragile glass. The atmosphere had then glittered with shards of that broken glass, lurking to slice at the unwary—he had been more than glad to escape and join a party of friends at the theatre. What Henry had done he did not know and dare not ask. Eleanor had stalked from the room as soon as the meal had ended, leaving Mrs Stamford to stare with puzzlement from one to the other.
‘So you are leaving me to manage the estate in your absence?’
‘Yes. You will have to work for a living, for the first time in your life.’ Henry put down his glass and took the seat behind his desk. ‘Seriously, Nick. Would you dislike it too much? If so, it is unfair of me to leave you with it.’
‘No. You know me better than that, Hal. There is nothing that I would like more. I have plans. When Tom inherits the estate in the fullness of time it will be a wonder to behold with sound investment. When he is older, I will see that he is up to scratch. He will not live off the estate, giving nothing back, if I have anything to say in the matter.’
Hal’s answering smile was bleak. ‘I know that he is in good hands.’ My son. My son.
‘And I know that you would not want to take it on. For you to have been born the eldest son would have been the worst possible destiny for you.’ Nick grinned in some sympathy. ‘Whereas I enjoy the life as a country squire. I shall not be sorry to leave town.’
Henry’s smile vanished, leaving his face harsh and strained. ‘Hoskins can be relied upon,’ was all he said. He frowned unseeingly out of the window, arms folded before him on the desk. That was the key, of course, to his disastrous confrontation with Eleanor. Nick’s comment that he would not ever want the title, the social hierarchy, the acceptance that the manner in which the world saw him should rest purely on an accident of birth. The idea that all men should have the same opportunities open to them, to construct a future for themselves dependent on their own efforts, suited him far better. And it was that which had pushed him over the edge. The title was legally his after the death of his brother, tying him into a social and class system that he was more than ready to escape. That, coupled with Edward Baxendale’s vicious accusation and Mrs Stamford’s determined and unseemly pleasure at the outcome, had driven him to heap the blame on
Eleanor. As if she were responsible for chaining him to a life that he detested as much as Nick enjoyed.
Not true. Of course it wasn’t true. He knew it in every sinew of his body, heard it in every beat of his heart. And what had he done? He had made her cry! Humiliated her. Questioned her morality and her veracity. He deserved to be flogged. To be damned to the fires of hell.
It had not helped him when last night he had taken himself on an impulse to the baby’s room. An astonished nursemaid had looked up from her seat beside the fireplace where she was sewing some small item of clothing. She leapt to her feet as if to leave the room.
‘Don’t go. I just need a moment.’ A lifetime.
He looked down into the crib.
Hair, brows, nose—exact replicas of those that he saw every morning in his mirror. A sturdy frame that would become lithe and athletic. He would ride a horse with elegant grace. He would shoot with skill and accuracy. He would have dogs and horses as he grew from babyhood. He would look to Nicholas for his initiation into the rites and responsibilities of adolescence and adulthood. He would grow up not knowing his father.
The baby opened his eyes. Deep amethyst, fringed with dark lashes.
Henry held out his hand, drawn impossibly against his will to touch, to savour. The baby chuckled and clutched, delighted with the company, making contact in his small fist, drawing the offered fingers to his mouth to gnaw on them with half-formed teeth.
Henry’s chest tightened, he found it difficult to swallow. His son. And Eleanor’s. Whom he had rejected.
Oh, God!
What could he possibly say to Eleanor? She had borne this beautiful child alone, without him. He mentally thanked Thomas from the bottom of his heart for coming to her salvation. Knowing his brother as he did, he understood exactly what Thomas had done and why he had done it. Married Eleanor to give her the shelter of his name and consequence, so that no one need know that she had borne a child without the protection of marriage vows, and his brother’s child would have all the benefits of being brought up as the Faringdon heir. Henry breathed hard against the flood of emotion that threatened to unman him, longing for that one impossible opportunity to tell Thomas of his gratitude.
And he had accused Eleanor of treachery and betrayal, of luring Thomas into a marriage to satisfy her greed and ambition. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But why had she not come to meet him, to join him on the voyage? If she had, their marriage would have legitimised the child and all the following complications would never have arisen. He would probably never know.
He stroked his hand gently over his son’s hair, cupping his cheek, caressing the perfect fingers, the shell-like nails. Then turned and left the room, as quietly as he had come, with nothing resolved
‘Does Eleanor know?’ Nick broke into his uncomfortable musings, concerned for the stark misery in his brother’s eyes.
‘Yes.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing of importance.’ Henry shrugged and switched his focus back to Nick, replacing the inscrutable mask. ‘Why?
Well! Nicholas hesitated, remembering. That was one statement palpably untrue if Hal’s face, bleak with shock as he had exited the morning room after his conversation with Eleanor, was anything to go by. But should he interfere further? ‘Nothing. Just that I had thought that you were not…not indifferent to each other.’ Nicholas made his decision, for better or worse, and came to sit opposite the desk, to fix Hal with a stern expression. ‘To put it bluntly, I had thought that you were more than half in love with her. That is, until whatever passed between the two of you yesterday afternoon in the morning room.’ He waited the space of a heartbeat, seeing the shutters come down on any emotion in his brother’s face. ‘You are free to deny any or all of it if you wish, of course.’
‘Ha! I wish I were free.’ The words were wrung from Henry.
‘What should I understand by that?’
‘Nothing! Nothing at all!.’ Hal sighed and drove his fingers through his hair. ‘Yes, I love her. Of course I do. How can I deny it? I love her and I always will, even though I have hurt her beyond belief.’
‘So why are you leaving her? Have you told her that you love her?’
‘No.’
‘I also thought Nell loved you. Is it because she is Thomas’s widow that you have not spoken? I don’t see that it has any bearing on your feelings for her or hers for you.’ He frowned as he remembered their previous conversation. ‘Is that why you asked me if theirs had been a love match?’
‘Not really. There were other reasons at the time… But I have destroyed any hope of her love,’ Hal answered quietly. ‘She will never forgive me.’
‘It can’t be as bad as that.’
‘It can—you have no idea!’ I questioned the birth of her child. I accused her of every sin possible. I humiliated her.
‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘No. My feelings do not matter. Her life is here with the child. I have nothing to offer her. And—you cannot have thought…’ Hal’s face was bleak indeed ‘…there can never be any future between myself and Eleanor of that nature that has the blessing of the law. The church, little brother, in its infinite wisdom, denies the right of a man to marry his brother’s widow.’
‘I did not know…’
‘Oh, we could find a minister easily enough, who would turn a blind eye and commit the deed. Particularly if we greased his hand with sufficient gold. Perhaps even the Reverend Julius Broughton could be persuaded on such terms!’ His laugh was a harsh travesty. ‘But anyone with ill intent or outraged morality could have such a union declared null and void. Imagine the scandal that would create! I will not do it, even if Eleanor would contemplate such a relationship between us. Which she would not, not after…’ He shook his head and lapsed into silence.
‘I see. I had not thought of that.’ Nicholas decided to leap into the yawning chasm of Henry’s reticence, to risk an outbreak of the banked temper in his brother’s eyes. It would not be the first time that he had pushed and provoked until he had goaded his brother into disclosing what was on his mind. He might risk a firm and horribly accurate straight right to the jaw—a not infrequent retaliation in childhood when tempers had run high—but Nicholas was quite capable of holding his own, and it would be worth it if he could draw some of the pain from Hal’s set expression.
‘Look, Hal. I am not blind. To put it bluntly, the love between the two of you is as clear as a rising hawk at noonday. It shimmers between you when you are together in the same room.’ He saw the glint of denial leap into his brother’s eyes and stretched out a hand across the desk to grasp his wrist in strong fingers. ‘Don’t bother to deny it. She is as much in thrall as you. Why not simply take her with you? Marry her in New York where the family connection is not a matter of public knowledge. Surely it is better than committing yourselves to a lifetime of misery apart?’ He hesitated, tensed his shoulders. He might as well say it. ‘Do you have to be so damned noble?’
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