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“Yes.”
Sam sucked in air, a great gulp but it didn’t fill her lungs, didn’t help, did nothing to dull the throbbing in the back of her head. “Before Johann?”
“Yes.”
Sam couldn’t look away from Cristiano’s taut features. “What happened?”
“Life happened.” His expression was utterly blank, no emotion in his face or tone. “Gabriela’s mother moved on. But that’s not the issue now. The issue is you, running away with Gabriela—”
“I took her on a trip. I can do that. I’m her stepmother.”
“That’s right. Baroness van Bergen.” And he smiled, his teeth flashing white, but it was such a hard, unforgiving smile that Sam shivered inwardly.
Cold or fear, she wondered? Or maybe it was more dread, because that’s what filled her stomach in hard heavy bricks. “I wish you wouldn’t call me Baroness anymore.”
“What then?”
“Samantha will do.”
Cristiano’s head tipped and in the yellow-gold light of the fire he studied her through narrowed eyes. “You’re such a contradiction, Samantha. On one hand, you’re so very prim and proper, and then on the other you’ve this fierce spirit—”
“Can you tell me more about Gabriela’s mother? Gabby used to ask about her. I never knew what to tell her.”
“She was a film actress.”
“Not that. More like, her personality. What was she like?”
“Mercedes?” He paused, reflected. “Beautiful. Lively. She was a great deal of fun.”
“Is Gabby very like her?”
“I think Gabby’s a mix of her mother and father.”
Sam turned, looked at Gabby where she slept on the couch cocooned in blankets. “I’ve wished for years that Gabriela had a different life. I’ve wished it were more stable, more predictable. I tried to give her everything. It’s one thing for an adult to struggle, but it’s another for a child.”
“Has Gabriela suffered?”
“I’m sure she has. We both have to a greater or lesser extent. There’s never enough money. Johann’s rarely home. He may be Gabby’s father, but he’s shown her little love and even less attention.”
“Was he so different before you married him?”
“No.”
Cristiano watched her. “But you thought you’d marry him anyway, marry into a life of privilege?”
“It’s never been a very privileged life. I worked hard.”
“And I bet you just hated being a baroness.”
“Yes, I did. It was false.”
“False?”
“Johann didn’t love me and I didn’t love him. It was a marriage of convenience, that and nothing more.”
“Nothing more?”
Her own lips curved, in an equally hard cynical smile. She’d changed so much since Charles died, he wouldn’t even recognize her if he was alive now. “Nothing more.” Shivering, she held her hands up to the flames to try to warm herself. “I was convenient to marry.”
She leaned closer, stared into the flickering fire with its red and gold flames feeling the weight of years of secrets and silence on her. “You see, Mr. Bartolo, before I was the baroness, I was the van Bergens’ nanny.”
“The nanny?” He sounded shocked.
Sam looked at him, lips twisting wryly. “I’ve never told anyone before. Johann forbid me from telling people. He didn’t want anyone to know I’d been the hired help, but in private he never let me forget. It was one of the ways he ridiculed me—I was just a working girl, not an aristocrat like him.”
“You should have left him,” Cristiano said flatly.
“And what? Leave Gabby?” Sam drew a breath, her chest tender and glanced down at her hands bare of any rings. Johann had bought her a ring but he’d asked for it back when money got tight. “I couldn’t do that. Not then, not now, not ever.”
“Why are you so devoted?”
“I don’t know. I suppose Gabby needed someone to love her, and I—” She broke off, aware of how close she came to saying the words, and I needed someone to love. She finished the thought differently. “I like to be useful.”
“Johann found you useful?”
“I did what he needed me to do.”
“Including keeping Mercedes’s family away.”
Sam winced. “A mistake. I thought I was keeping a family together. I thought I’d be a good wife.” A good mother.
His eyes, dark in the firelight, met hers and for a long unblinking moment he just looked at her, as if he could see into her. “We all make mistakes,” he said at last.
Something in his voice nearly moved her to tears. He sounded almost sympathetic and that was unbearable. She bunched her hands in her lap, fighting emotions she didn’t know how to manage. Her life, like Gabby’s, hadn’t been easy, and in her life there had been few people looking out for her. Just Charles, and then Charles was gone as suddenly as he’d come into her life.
“Whatever happens,” she said hoarsely, thinking she shouldn’t have come back to the Rookery, shouldn’t have returned here at all. “Do not pity us. We don’t need your pity.”
“I don’t think I mentioned pity.”
Her teeth scraped together. She dropped her voice lower. “Maybe not. But I can see what you’re thinking.”
He dropped his voice even lower and leaning forward, he caught her chin in his hand, tilting her face up to his. “Then I need to buy you some glasses, Samantha, because apparently you can’t see a damn thing. You can’t see what’s in front of you—good or bad—and that’s a problem. Not just for you, but Gabriela.”
His hand burned where it touched her chin, her skin flaming hot, hotter. His touch was firm, sure, a finger at her chin, his thumb beneath, close to her throat. She shuddered a little. Everything was wrong. Nothing was right anymore. Her entire world had upended and she felt as if she were standing on top of her head. “I didn’t think you cared about Gabriela.”
Abruptly he released her, sat back. “It’s late,” he said shortly, “nearly two in the morning. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
She nodded, confused by his rapid mood change but too worried about antagonizing him to ask for an explanation. “There are two bedrooms, but they’ll both be cold.”
“Are the beds made up?” he asked, standing.
“Yes. There are extra quilts in chests at the foot of each bed.”
“Which room is yours?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m just going to sleep in here near Gabby.”
He started to leave and then stopped in the shadowed hall. “Maybe you weren’t the wife you hoped you’d be, but surely Johann wasn’t the husband you’d hoped for, either.”
Sam’s eyes burned. She’d never admit it to Cristiano, but she hadn’t really expected much from Johann. She’d worked for him before they’d married. She knew who he was, and what he was, and maybe that’s why she accepted his proposal. It was a paper marriage, was meant to be a loveless marriage. She knew she’d never love anyone the way she’d love Charles…and quite frankly, didn’t think she deserved love after losing Charles.
“Isn’t there a saying,” she said softly as the fire fizzed and popped, “be careful what you wish for?” Sam looked up, met Cristiano’s hooded gaze. “It’s true. I learned that one the hard way, too.” She grimaced, wrapped her arms tighter around her knees. “Anyway, it is late. Good night. Sleep well.”
Cristiano was right, morning did come early, but the fire never died out and Sam found out later, when she woke, it was because Cristiano had gotten up repeatedly during the night to add more logs to keep the cottage warm.
Gabby, for her part, was delighted to discover they had company. “You!” she said, bounding out of her bed on the couch as she spotted Cristiano entering the house, carrying a stack of firewood. “You came to see us in England!”
“I did.”
Gabby grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around her shoulder as he stacked the split logs next to the hearth. “You played cards with Papa.”
Sam turned sharply towards Gabby. “How do you know that?”
“He did, didn’t he?” she asked innocently. “And he took Papa’s money, too.”
“Gabriela!”
The girl looked from one to the other. “Didn’t he?”
Cristiano tossed a log onto the fire. “Yes,” he said bluntly as sparks hissed and shot from the fire. “He wasn’t a very good cardplayer.”
Gabby nodded thoughtfully and she chewed her lip. “That’s what Sam says, too.” And then her expression cleared. “Maybe you can play some cards with me.”
Sam nearly choked on her tongue. “I don’t think he plays the kind of games we play, Gabriela.”
“I can teach him,” Gabby answered. “Go Fish and War is easy.”
“I think I remember how to play.” Cristiano smiled faintly as he brushed his hands off. “In fact, I used to be very good at War.”
“Really?” Gabby’s tongue poked out, touched the corner of her mouth giving her a slightly naughty look. “I bet I’m better than you.” She leaned forward, said in a stage whisper. “I beat Sam. I beat everyone.”
Sam blushed with embarrassment but Cristiano laughed, a deep masculine sound that rumbled from his chest.
“You are your father’s child, aren’t you?” he said, but he wasn’t looking at Gabby as he spoke. He was looking right at Sam.
And suddenly Sam understood even though she didn’t want to. Last night she’d ignored the facts, but this morning she couldn’t play ostrich. It was all beginning to make sense. The card games, the high stakes, the ruthless moves, the seizing of family and assets…
She was forced to ask questions now, forced to piece it together bit by bit.
Perhaps this wasn’t just a gambler’s impulse move…
Perhaps all along Cristiano had ulterior motives…
Perhaps Cristiano, not Johann, was Gabriela’s father…
But those fragmented thoughts were forgotten as Gabby scrambled to the window and announced, “Someone’s coming! It’s a lady and she looks mad.”
Sam tucked a blond curl behind her ear and exchanging swift glances with Cristiano, headed for the door. But on opening the door, Sam froze as she caught sight of the white-haired woman bundled in a thick gray wool. “Mrs. Bishop,” she whispered, rooted to the spot.
The elderly woman looked equally stunned, her annoyance giving way to shock. “Samantha?”
Sam closed the distance and gave the older woman a swift hug. “What are you doing here?”
Mrs. Bishop clasped her hands on Sam’s shoulders. “I should ask you the same! You gave us all quite a scare. I’d heard there were lights here last night, and I insisted Gilbert, my son-in-law, drive me over.” She paused, tilted her head back, searched Sam’s face. “It’s been so long, my girl. Where have you been?”
“Away.” Sam tried to smile but couldn’t. Suddenly the past was rushing back, painful memories she didn’t want, couldn’t bear. Charles had died eight years ago and yet suddenly it seemed as if it were just yesterday. “How is everyone? And where is everyone? When did the Rookery close?”
“Not long after you left.”
“I see.” Sam bit her lip, and she did see, she knew exactly what had happened. Without Charles to run things there probably wasn’t funding, or the management, to keep the orphanage open. “Would you come in?”
Mrs. Bishop nodded, and followed Sam back into the cottage but her expression fell as she took in the cottage’s deplorable conditions. “You can’t possibly mean to stay here. The cottage is a wreck. There’s no water, heat, plumbing. What are you thinking?”
Sam smiled, but tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know.”
Mrs. Bishop saw the tears and shaking her head, clucked, “It’s not been easy, has it, my girl?”
Mrs. Bishop’s kindness would be Sam’s undoing and yet Sam knew she couldn’t break down here, not in front of Gabby, not with Cristiano standing just a stone’s throw away, listening to everything being said. Which reminded her, she ought to make introductions. She couldn’t very well pretend Gabby and Cristiano weren’t here.
But Mrs. Bishop had spotted Gabby already. She clapped her hands, bent low. “And is that your little girl?”
Gabby scampered to Sam’s side. “Um, yes.” Sam put an arm around Gabby’s shoulders. “I’m her…her…nanny.”
“And my mum. My stepmum,” the little girl corrected. “You see, she married my dad. Johann van Bergen. But he left us. There were problems with money.”
Mrs. Bishop’s head shot up and she stared aghast at Sam. “Is this true?”
Sam flushed. “More or less.”
“And is that why you’re here?” Mrs. Bishop continued worriedly. “You’ve nowhere else to go?”
Put like that it sounded absolutely appalling. A desperate Sam dragging a little girl across the continent to a derelict orphanage in Cheshire.
Her mouth opened, her throat worked, but there was no ready answer. Just the sting of tears she wouldn’t cry, and the bite of memory, the ache of heartbreak.
She’d grown up here, gone to school here, and would have lived here as Charles’s wife if he hadn’t died. No wonder she’d run here when she didn’t know where to go. Until she was eighteen, the Rookery was her entire world.
“We’re in transition,” she said, finally finding her voice. “But I thought until we were more settled, it’d be nice to visit.”
