For some reason, the prospect of facing this unknown caller rattled Evie. She prayed Mrs. Murdoch was correct and he wasn’t here to collect on a debt. But whoever he was, her stomach knotted at the idea of facing him.
“I’ll see to this. You take Nicholas to the pond. It’s your last day here. Enjoy yourself.” Even as she said the words, a thickness rose in her throat to know that Marguerite would return to London tomorrow and she would not see her again for another year.
Shoving aside the grim thought, she pasted a reassuring smile on her face for the benefit of her housekeeper and Marguerite. Not for herself. That would be futile. Nothing could rid her of the uneasy fluttering in her belly.
She walked a steady line, entering the house through the kitchen. Mrs. Murdoch followed close behind, wringing her apron with one hand. Evie turned, nearly colliding with the overanxious housekeeper.
“No need to accompany me. I’ll be fine.”
Mrs. Murdoch’s ruddy face scowled. “I’ll fetch Mr. Murdoch. We might require—”
“I’m certain we don’t need to bother Mr. Murdoch from his fishing. Besides, we need whatever he catches for supper.”
Before Mrs. Murdoch could protest further, she spun around and departed the kitchen, taking the narrow steps two at a time to reach the main floor. Her feet moved silently down the worn runner leading to the front parlor.
Outside, the wind whistled, coming to life in earnest now. Belatedly, the thought crossed her mind that Nicholas might have needed his heavier coat for a trek to the pond.
That thought vanished, however, as she entered the parlor.
A lean figure stood with his back to her, staring out the window at the long-neglected front grounds. Mrs. Murdoch hadn’t bothered to take his coat, and the elegance of the dark greatcoat only heightened the shabbiness of her parlor.
For a moment, she observed him in silence, staring at the back of him, tall and imposing. With his hands locked behind his back, he struck her as rigid as a rock. She struggled to swallow past the tightness in her throat and imagined that he was probably here to collect on a debt, after all.
She moved deeper into the room, preparing herself for the unpleasant task of pleading and bartering with the gentleman. Perhaps he had need of a good seamstress or laundress? Or possessed a fondness for skinny parsnips. A laugh strangled, died in her dry throat.
Her skirt whispered against the arm of a chair as she moved. The floor creaked beneath her feet.
He turned in a swift, fluid motion.
She opened her mouth to speak, but froze. Her gaze locked with his as her entire body seized, the breath freezing inside her lungs. Staring upon his handsome face, she knew. She understood. The premonition she had felt in the breath of that icy wind made perfect, horrid sense.
The blood rushed to her head. Suddenly dizzy, she reached out to grasp the back of a nearby chair to keep from falling to her knees. Dear God.
Staring into his face, she felt as though she looked through a window into the years ahead. That she stared at the future. At a face time had yet to mold.
The moment hung, words waiting to fill it. He did not speak, only further evidence, further proof. Her stomach rolled, rebelled.
It was he—her greatest nightmare come true. He could be no other.
The single fear that had lurked in the back of her head all these years, the remote possibility that she had convinced herself too remote, too impossible, had, in fact, become reality.
The father of her sister’s child, Linnie’s child—her child—stood before her in her parlor.
Chapter 3
Spencer gazed at the woman Ian had spoken of until the very end, and he couldn’t help feeling . . . unsettled. This was Linnie?
He had known his cousin well, felt as though he had buried himself right alongside Ian those months ago in the Crimea.
Fighting for life beside Spencer, Ian had talked only of Linnie Cosgrove. With nary a letter from her, Ian had remained unflagging in his affections. Spencer never understood.
Hands clasped behind his back, Spencer surveyed this paragon of womanhood, the female who brought Ian to heel. Staring into her wide blue eyes, he searched his memory, recalling all the accounts he had heeded of Ian’s paramour.
Was it possible Ian had never mentioned the color of her hair? Spencer had always imagined golden tresses. The marginally attractive female with sun-streaked brown hair spilling in untidy tendrils from a haphazard knot on her head did not coincide with the image he had constructed.
She was neither short nor tall. Her slender frame lacked any notable curves. As she stood before him, he was reminded of the many sturdy Turkish girls he had observed toiling the fields while abroad.
“Madam.” He nodded his head in salute.
She said nothing. Her nose and cheeks glowed red. A smudge of dirt marred her jawline. She wore an old-fashioned pinafore over a dress so hideous that he couldn’t help wondering why she took pains to protect it. The ugly brown wool that peeped out around the pinafore looked fit for the burn pile.
Her eyes stood as her one remarkable feature. Slightly slanted, the wide, crystalline blue pools surveyed him coolly, as if he were a bug to be scraped off the soles of her boots.
The untidy creature before him looked wholly woman—confident, mature, and bold as she raked him with her piercing blue eyes. Ian had praised her angelic smile and sweet shyness, but there was nothing celestial about her.
Perhaps motherhood had altered her. Or marriage, an inner voice reminded. Her father had revealed to him that she was a widow. A truth or fabrication to protect her from ruin? The latter, he suspected. All the same, he felt an instant response to her.
Because she belongs to Ian . . . belonged, he quickly amended. He finally faced her—the phantom woman to fill Ian’s world, and, thereby, Spencer’s. His response was purely that. Nothing more.
“May I help you?” She lifted her chin, staring down the slim line of her nose.
The sight of her, garbed so shabbily and yet facing him with temerity gleaming in her eyes, reminded him of the women that followed their armies. Haunted, haggard creatures, resigned but determined, prepared to toss their skirts for half a pence and a warm bed for the night. Camp followers ready to spread their thighs to guarantee a day’s survival.
Despite his anger at her for failing to answer Ian’s letters, the similarity to those pitiable women left a foul taste in his mouth. Clearly she’d suffered her own struggles.
“Sir?” Her eyes snapped blue fire. “Who are you?”
Not quite ready to answer, his gaze crawled over her, imagining her free of her drab attire, as Ian might have seen her—all lithe lines and smooth female flesh.
Clearing his throat, he struggled to swallow past the sudden tightness. Clearly, he needed a woman. He had not slaked his lusts in weeks, too focused on his grief for Ian and the business of selling off his commission and returning home.
He recalled the serving girl at the inn where he had spent the previous night—remembered the invitation in her eyes. He needn’t leave immediately following this errand. A night’s delay wouldn’t hurt. He was in no hurry to reach his family’s estate, after all. To face his duty. To enter Society.
“Miss Linnie Cosgrove?” he queried, bowing slightly and still struggling to reconcile the earthy, beddable creature before him to the paragon he had placed on a pedestal. A chore, that.
She nodded, face ashen, bloodless. “Cross,” she murmured. “It’s Mrs. Cross now.”
That’s right. She claimed widowhood. A ruse to protect herself from ruin, he felt certain.
Nodding, he drew his body taller. Focusing his gaze just above her head, he spoke the words he’d traveled here to say. “With heavy heart, I regret to inform you of the death of Lieutenant Ian Holcomb.” A nerve ticked near his eye, his only surrender to emotion.
He continued, his words ripping fresh the pain he had lived with ever since burying his cousin. “I believe you were . . . acquainted
.”
Acquainted. A gentle euphemism to apply to the girl who’d borne his cousin’s bastard. If, in fact, she had. He’d yet to confirm that matter. Her father made no mention of a child, and he was not so bold or thoughtless to inquire.
“Y-yes,” she stammered.
He dropped his gaze to her face again. Her unyielding exterior had vanished. She looked ready to crumble. Stepping forward, he clasped her elbow. A spark shot through him at the contact. He scowled at the unwanted sensation.
Clearly, she was not unaffected either. She gasped. Or perhaps his scowl distressed her. His glares had been fierce enough to inject his soldiers with a healthy dose of fear on more than one occasion.
With an inward curse, he released her and motioned to the settee. The last five years of his life had been in service to the crown. He’d forgotten how to conduct himself in Society. He possessed little in the way of social grace. None was needed on the battlefield. He could scarcely recall the last occasion he’d stood in a lady’s parlor.
She sank down with a sigh. “When . . . how?”
“He died at Balaclava.” Still standing, he fished the pouch from his pocket. “He wanted you to have this.” He unraveled the bit of soiled lace handkerchief from the pouch.
She accepted it, her thumb brushing the EC embroidered in faint pink thread at the corner. “I remember this,” she murmured, barely audible.
He grimaced at the blood on it. “I tried to clean it—” He shrugged. “He carried it with him always.” Accusation laced his voice. “He never forgot you.”
Clutching the scrap of fabric, her eyes snapped to his. “Is that so?”
He blinked at the bright fury there. It amazed him that Ian never mentioned her eyes when he extolled her many attributes. He had never seen such a clear blue before. Like sun glowing off the Baltic.
“If he cared enough to carry this, why did he not care to write me then?”
Incredulity tore through him, gnawing at the grieving wound in his heart. His fist knotted at his side. “Surely you jest! Ian wrote you. Tirelessly.” He shook his head with a growl. “Clearly you moved on, forgot Ian.” He nodded once. Hard. “Very well. The least you owed him was a letter of explanation. Every week, he wrote you. To his death.” His voice sharpened to a razor’s edge. “Even when he received no word from you, he still wrote.”
Angry splotches of color filled her face. She closed her eyes and shook her head in weary motion. “Of course. They would . . . do that.”
“They who?” he demanded.
“My parents.”
“What did your parents—”
“Keep his letters from me, of course. They thought him the worst sort of reprobate and wished for me to break all ties with him.”
His lips pressed into a grim line.
She continued, “He would have sent correspondence to my parents’ residence.” The statement brought a sudden frown to her face. “How did you find me?”
“I called on your parents in Surrey. They directed me here.” His lips tightened. “Your father scarcely granted me a moment in his study before telling me where to find you. He seemed most eager for me to leave.”
She tugged on her lower lip, twisting the tender flesh until it turned a deep, provocative pink. Sudden desire licked through him at the innocuous gesture, and he looked sharply away, inhaling a deep breath and barely registering her murmured, “Yes. He would be uncomfortable at your presence.”
He glanced back at her, watching as she folded the handkerchief into a tiny square with trembling fingers.
“I must know. Did you bear Ian’s child?”
Her shoulders pulled back and a militant gleam came into her eyes. “It would seem Ian told you a great deal. How good of him to gossip with the soldiers of his regiment—”
“Ian,” he broke in, his voice falling with the sharp clap of command he’d grown accustomed to using with his men, “was my cousin. Upon his death, he charged me with the welfare of his child.”
The color bled from her cheeks. “Cousins?”
“On my mother’s side. Ian purchased a commission in my regiment so we could serve together.” He cocked his head. “Did he never mention me?”
She was back to tugging her lip again. “Um, that would seem to be the case.”
His gaze narrowed on her pale face. Knowing Ian, he had been too busy trying to get beneath her skirts. Shaking the thought free, he focused on the only thing that mattered, the one thing that demanded his presence in her parlor.
“The child. Did you bear my cousin’s child?”
“Yes.” The word escaped her in a breathy rush. “Nicholas will be four in April.”
“And I gather you’re really not a widow.”
Her chin lifted, blue eyes sparking in a way that made his gut tighten. “What else should I have done? The world is unkind to whores and bastards.”
He flinched. “You’re not a whore.”
“But the world would view me as such.”
He gave a single nod. “I don’t fault your actions.”
She clutched her hands around the small, folded handkerchief and smiled almost cruelly. “How kind of you to approve.”
Impudent chit.
For a long moment they stared at one another. A curious tension washed through the air between them. He longed to wipe free the cruel edge of mockery curving her lips. The longer he stared, the stronger the impulse . . . and the warmer his blood heated.
Inhaling through his nose, he recalled himself and forced coldness inside him where the heat stirred. “I would like to see the boy. I’m certain you understand I have a stake—”
“No.”
“I will see him.”
She sucked in a deep breath. He watched the rise of her chest and decided she might not be lacking all curves. Her breasts appeared to be more than a handful beneath the straight fall of her ghastly pinafore. A fact of which he did approve.
She shook her head fiercely. “I thank you for coming here. You’ve honored me in journeying this far to deliver the news, but you must know your presence puts me in jeopardy. It puts Nicholas in jeopardy. You bear a striking resemblance to him. The last thing I need is speculation on—”
“Rest easy. I have no wish to expose you. But that said, I’ve a stake in the lad and I’m not leaving until I’ve seen him.”
She moistened her lips. Her fingers tapped the arm of her chair as she weighed his words.
He arched a brow, waiting.
“Very well. Might I prevail on you to call later? I would like time to prepare him accordingly.”
“Prepare him?”
“Introducing him to you will lead to questions. I must consider what to tell him—”
“Why not the truth? I am a relation to his father. That might also relieve outside speculation—”
“Or feed it.”
He shrugged. “An unlikely risk.”
“A risk nonetheless.”
He shrugged again. “The boy is my kin. I’ll take any risk to assure myself of his well-being.”
She bristled, the color high in her face. “My son is well loved.”
“There are considerations greater than love.”
Her nostrils flared ever slightly. “Trust a man to believe that.”
He felt the corner of his mouth lift in a sneer. Before he could stop himself, he shot back, “Trust a lady well and truly compromised to set store in notions of love rather than the practical matters of life that require attending.”
A shocked breath crashed from her lips. The hand in her lap twitched as though she wished to strike him.
It certainly had not been his intention to provoke her, and yet he was doing just that. He said nothing more, merely held her brightly defiant gaze . . . and tried not to stare at the alluring way her dark lashes fringed those barely slanted eyes.
After some moments, she nodded stiffly. “Very well.”
He gave a curt nod. “I will call on the morrow.”
“Tomo
rrow,” she returned.
Even as she agreed, he sensed more behind her acquiescence. Something lurked in the guileless blue of her eyes.
If he was not mistaken, he thought it might be fear.
Chapter 4
For one brief, panicked moment, Evie considered packing her family and belongings and fleeing. Then sanity returned and with it the cold reminder that she possessed no funds and had nowhere to go. Certainly, she could not rely on her father to save her. He could scarcely support himself since Linnie’s death.
Hopping from the settee, she darted to the parlor window, watching as the devilishly handsome gentleman who had crowded her parlor and overwhelmed her senses rode away.
Spencer Lockhart. Ian’s cousin. Nicholas’s cousin. Her stomach knotted and she shivered as the ramifications of his arrival settled over her like a cold blanket of snow.
Should the truth come to light—that she was no widow, that she was not Nicholas’s mother . . .
The prospect shook her. Her knees suddenly felt weak and trembly. She reclaimed her seat, pressing a hand to her twisting stomach.
A pariah of Society and poor as a church mouse. A magistrate would well see fit to hand Nicholas over to Spencer Lockhart. The mere thought sent her pulse racing at her throat.
Ease yourself, Evie. You don’t know that he even wants the boy. He just wants to see him. Meet him. Understandable.
She drew a deep breath into her lungs, letting it cool her panic.
“Evie?” Marguerite entered the room. “Did your guest leave?”
She nodded mutely as her friend sank down beside her.
“I saw him pass. A handsome man.”
Handsome? Bitter laughter escaped her. “Indeed,” she choked. A relation to Ian, was it any wonder? Her sister had often blamed her weak will on Ian Holcomb’s face. Now a witness to such masculine beauty herself, she could almost understand why Linnie had succumbed. She frowned. It was more than Lockhart’s handsome face and broad shoulders that unnerved her. He looked at her as no man had. As though he knew her intimately. Or would like to. His eyes mesmerized.