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Claire sat with her head lowered and her hands in her lap, presenting the top of her hat. She raised her head. The black veil prevented him from seeing her eyes, but it left her delicate chin and deceptively vulnerable mouth visible. Her lips had a puffy look, as though she’d cried recently. Convincing—to everyone else. She’d sewn for actresses, he reminded himself. She would know how to make herself up.
Nicholas drew on his years of steadfast responsibility and dependability, and in a calm voice spoke of Stephen as a child, as a growing boy, and as a young adult. He said all the things that his mother wanted and needed to hear. All the things that their family and friends expected of him. All the things that he’d deliberately avoided thinking of until now. And then he took his seat.
And screamed silently on the inside.
Stephen. Stephen. His free-spirited brother with the unflappable zest for life and laughter. With so much yet to do and discover, his life had ended…leaving so many things between them unsettled. Would this gaping void of pain and loss ever heal?
The time had arrived for the mourners to get into their carriages and ride to the cemetery. Fearing she would crumple if he didn’t support her, Nicholas helped his mother stand. Milos Switzer appeared at his side, and Nicholas directed him to push Claire’s chair.
It didn’t matter who pushed her chair, Sarah’s thoughts were consumed with the actuality of what was taking place and what she’d done. Someone helped her into the carriage, where she sat with her foot on a padded crate and stared idly out the window, grateful for the cloaking anonymity of the veil covering most of her face.
Now his grave. She would have to see Stephen’s grave. And come to terms with the fact that he might have been alive had he been riding in his own compartment that evening.
They stopped and moved away from the carriage again. Nothing mattered but the sight of the canopy ahead. Her heart raced and panic rose in her chest. Somewhere in her peripheral hearing, a bird sang its sweet morning song.
Spring rain had turned the grass a bright green; scattered headstones and mourners dotted its perfection. Beribboned flower rings and colorful bouquets couldn’t hide the crude mound of freshly turned earth that covered Stephen Halliday’s body.
The overpowering floral scent struck the indisputable fact of Stephen’s death into Sarah’s heart with all the force of a bullet. She stared at the distressing sight, the ghastly horror of what she’d done hitting her squarely between the eyes.
She’d thought about Claire’s body before, but had banished the morbid thoughts from her mind. Now she had to deal with them.
Where was Claire? Where was Stephen’s real wife? She should be lying here beside him throughout eternity, but because of Sarah’s treachery, no one even knew enough to locate her body.
The thought physically weakened her and brought a sob to her throat. Leda reached a hand over to pat hers, multiplying Sarah’s feelings of hypocrisy.
And the baby Claire had been carrying! That tiny life deserved a burial place with both parents. There was no one to mourn for Stephen and Claire’s baby.
No one but her.
That burden crushed the air from her lungs and brought quick tears. Where were Claire and her baby? If they were separated from Stephen here on earth, would they be separated in the hereafter, too?
Sarah fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief and covered her trembling lips.
The minister went through his prepared speech, but it was lost on Sarah. God had spared her and William for reasons unknown to her, and in thanks she’d lied to Stephen’s grieving family.
One of Leda’s friends sang, and the clergyman prayed again. Sarah waited for lightning to come down and strike her where she sat. At that moment she’d have welcomed the escape. Lost in her own private guilt and misery, the only thing she could pray for was for this day to end.
“It’s time to go.” Milos Switzer stood beside her chair, and she realized Nicholas’s right-hand man had been silently waiting there for some time. The others had dispersed, and she sat alone on the grassy slope beneath the awning.
He pushed her chair over the uneven ground to where the carriage waited on the road, then lifted her in and assisted Mrs. Trent, who carried William. Once the women were situated, Milos seated himself at Sarah’s side, and the carriage pulled away.
“Stephen had so many friends,” Leda said, her voice hoarse with tears. “Just look at how many came.”
Nicholas rubbed his mother’s hand.
“He’s resting in a lovely spot, isn’t he, Claire darling?” she asked. “At his father’s left.”
Sarah was sure more blood drained from her face, if that were possible. She pressed the handkerchief to her lips to keep from sobbing aloud. Once Leda knew the truth she would hate Sarah for keeping Claire and her real grandson from their rightful resting place with Stephen.
William chose that moment to let out a wail. Mrs. Trent jostled him, and finally Leda took him and gave him her finger to suckle until they arrived home.
Claire sat with the handkerchief pressed to her lips. Observing, Nicholas wondered if she was ill.
“I’ll assist Mrs. Halliday,” he said to Milos once the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the house. “Help Mother, please.”
Milos tossed him an odd look, but said only, “My pleasure.”
Nicholas reached for Claire and she flinched, but composed herself. He lifted her against his chest and backed from the carriage.
In his arms, he discovered her trembling as fearsomely as his mother had. “Are you ill?”
“No,” she replied weakly, and steadied herself with a gloved hand against his shirtfront.
Yes, she smelled as exotic and erotic as he remembered, and he now regretted that Milos knew the pleasure of her soft feminine curves against his body. She was a Halliday.
Nicholas didn’t approve of her or trust her but he was responsible for protecting her and seeing to her well-being and that of her son. Like it or not, Stephen’s obligations were now his. His chest constricted at the reminder that this woman’s welfare belonged to him.
He didn’t want the responsibility of meeting her needs.
He didn’t trust her.
Or was it himself he didn’t trust?
He had no choice.
Aware of the slick cool fabric of her dress on his wrists, the mysterious rustle of petticoats beneath, and the jolting beat of his heart against her breast, he climbed the stairs.
He entered her suite and started for a chair.
“The bed, please,” she said with a fatigued wave.
“You are ill.” He leaned forward and deposited her against the bolster of pillows.
“No. Just tired.”
Nicholas reached for her hat, remembered it would be anchored somewhere, and instead flicked the veil back revealing her colorless face. Those solemn blue eyes met his gaze in surprise and…embarrassment? Or was it shame?
“This day was difficult,” she said softly.
He moved to stand at the end of the bed.
A dark smudge beneath each eye proved either her words or her skill with cosmetics. He fought against viewing her the way she wanted him to: fragile and painfully in need of care and guardianship. The vulnerable person he saw here contrasted vividly with the hard-edged women who had been his brother’s preference.
But he wasn’t about to be fooled. He had his mother and the business his father had built from the ground up to protect.
William’s cries carried up the stairs and along the corridor. Claire peeled off her gloves.
“I’ll go for your chair,” he said.
“Just leave it in the hall, please. I think I’ll rest here for a while.”
He nodded in consent.
Mrs. Trent bustled through the doorway with the squalling baby. Claire unpinned her hat, and a long strand of her hair caught and fell to her shoulder. She tossed the hat aside and watched the older woman. The governess carried him to his crib.
Nicholas followed and observed as she changed the baby’s wet clothing. William was a sturdy little fellow with fair hair that looked as though it would be feather-soft to touch. He had smooth pink cheeks that invited Nicholas’s fingertips to test the softness, but he kept his hand firmly at his side.
The baby’s flailing chubby legs testified to his health and appetite. He was a child anyone would be proud of. A little fellow who would be hard to resist if Nicholas didn’t know better. Yet he still wasn’t convinced this was really Stephen’s son. He studied the child, seeking something to significantly identify him as a Halliday.
The reports he’d received on Claire testified that Stephen had not been the first man with whom she’d kept company. She’d worked as a seamstress, but spent her evenings among the theater crowd. That was where, after brief relationships with at least three other men, she’d met Stephen.
A baby looked like a baby, Nicholas concluded. How could one compare those tiny features to an adult’s? It was impossible. His mother would be devastated if this were not Stephen’s child.
Mrs. Trent finished her task perfunctorily, rewrapped William and gave Nicholas a questioning glance.
“Give him to his mother,” he said.
She carried the child to Claire. Claire looked up at Nicholas, and embarrassment gave her cheeks the first color he’d seen on her face that day.
Feeling very much like an intruder, he excused himself and quit the room. For a woman who’d known her share of men, she certainly played the demure and modest young mother to her fullest advantage. And why shouldn’t she? As Stephen’s widow, she would never have to work another day in her life…or play another man’s mistress.
Mrs. Claire Halliday had it made.
Realizing he’d left his gloves behind, he stepped back to the partially open door, paused with his hand on the knob and peered around the mahogany panel.
Claire reclined against the stark white pillows, the baby suckling her full, ivory breast. The expression on her face was a lifetime away from Mrs. Trent’s when she held the baby. Claire studied her son, tenderness and adoration reflected on her lovely face. Nicholas wasn’t imagining the love shining from her eyes.
Okay, she loved the boy. She was his mother, so that didn’t prove anything. In fact she may have been so desperate to give him a father that she’d used Stephen to that end.
Nicholas had gone through the box of Stephen’s papers that had been forwarded, and if he remembered the date of their wedding correctly, it had been only about seven months ago.
William’s birth could have been brought on prematurely by the accident, however. He would probably never know for certain.
Nicholas observed mother and son a few minutes longer, coming to a conclusion. He wouldn’t know for sure if this were Stephen’s child—unless he got Claire to tell him. She was the one with the knowledge. His job was to wrest it from her.
By any means possible.
Chapter Four (#ulink_4ed3163a-872e-58f9-83dc-b66b530b7f5d)
Throughout dinner that evening, Nicholas sullenly speculated on the men Claire had consorted with. Was it something she enjoyed? Or simply a means to snare a fortune?
She wore another of her new black dresses, this one for evening wear, yet still properly modest. Against his will, he wondered what she looked like in russet or teal, or a shade of green. Even pastels would complement her multicolored gold- and wheat-toned hair and pink cream skin.
It was no secret why Stephen had fallen for her. Her seeming grace and delicate beauty had snared him. Stephen had appreciated her soft and flawless skin, the full ripe plushness of her lips, just as any man would. Perhaps those springy curls against her neck had captured his attention from the moment he’d met her and he’d yearned to place his lips there.
Beneath his scrutiny, a blush touched her cheekbones. Did her skin beneath the black dress pinken, too?
A highly inappropriate image of his brother touching her, kissing her, making love to her, burned an indelible impression in Nicholas’s mind and seared his body with unwelcome awareness.
Shocked at his presumptive and reproachful thoughts, he dropped his fork on his plate and excused himself.
Sarah glanced at Leda, who appeared too exhausted to notice her son’s odd behavior. “You really must get some rest,” she said to the woman. “This was an exhausting day for all of us.”
“Yes.” Leda leaned back and gestured for the maid to remove her plate. “I’m grateful it’s over now. I’m also grateful that I had you to help me through it.”
“It was my pleasure,” Sarah said honestly. Doing anything she could to lessen Leda’s pain assuaged her conscience.
“I believe I’ll go to my room,” Leda said after a few minutes of companionable silence. “Will you ask Mrs. Pratt to bring me wine later? That will help me sleep.”
“Certainly. Sleep well.”
Leda left her alone in the dining room.
“Anything else I can get for you, Mrs. Halliday?” the servant asked from her side.
Sarah instructed her on Leda’s request and rolled herself from the room. She’d never been abandoned downstairs before. Nicholas usually carried her back to her rooms after dinner. If he didn’t come for her, she could ask one of the servants for help. Sarah wasn’t worried. When William grew insistent, Mrs. Trent would come looking for her.
She took her time perusing the lower level of the Halliday home, admiring the handsome decor and elegant furnishings. Wood and brass and a minimum of glassware affirmed the masculine influences. Eventually, she came across a closed set of walnut doors and leaned forward to rap on the wood.
“Enter.”
Sarah rolled one of the doors back and edged her chair into the impressive but livable room, lit by a flickering fire and the golden glow of a hanging oil lamp.
Nicholas, sitting in a wing chair near the fireplace, turned his head at her approach. “Claire?”
“Pardon the interruption,” she said.
Swirling the golden liquid in his stemmed glass, he gestured to the decanter at his elbow. “Brandy?”
“No, thank you.”
“You don’t drink?”
“Whatever I eat and drink affects William.”
“It seems we both have responsibilities where William is concerned.”
“Are you feeling burdened?” she asked.
“Not at all. William’s care is of the utmost importance.”
She studied him curiously.
“He is the Halliday heir, after all.”
Guilt surged anew and Sarah turned and studied the surroundings with feigned interest. Bookshelves lined one wall, paintings adorned another. An enormous desk occupied an entire corner, papers and ledgers in orderly stacks on its surface. How much longer would she have to play this risky game?
A portrait hung over the fireplace.
