When Nate got back to the house after walking for miles, Cecile wasn’t in her room, so he checked his. She’d left a single sheet of paper on the nightstand with a message in beautiful, flowing script.
“I apologize for any pain I have caused you. I may have lied about myself, but my feelings for you are real. Please forgive me.”
Nate rang for MacKenzie and learned from the butler that Madame Lambeaux had left in one of the carriages.
His first impulse was to saddle Jackdaw and go after her. She couldn’t have gotten far. He would catch up with her and…and what? Tell her he forgave her? Tell her he wanted her no matter what? He wasn’t ready to do that.
As much as he’d felt they had a special connection, an understanding of each other which he’d never shared with anyone, it was based on falsehoods. He didn’t really know Cecile Lambeaux at all—if that was even her real name. How much of what she’d represented herself to be was the actual woman and how much a character she’d fabricated in order to win him over? It could be that it was all a superb acting job and there wasn’t a trace of the woman he’d come to love in her real personality.
Honestly, he didn’t have the time or inclination to find out just now. For one thing, he was still very angry, but he also couldn’t leave Peter, who was just beginning to trust and rely on him. It was important that he be here for the boy now, every single day. He couldn’t go gallivanting cross country after a mystery woman.
And there was the matter of Ronald.
Nate hadn’t had a chance to talk with him yet, but he knew his brother rarely came home unless he was in bad financial straits. That would have to be dealt with. The first thing to do was get him away from his guests so they could talk about all their family issues without interruption. It was time they really spoke to each other, and maybe Nate would at last understand why his brother hated him so.
But first he needed to sleep. It was late evening now after a full and emotional day which had included seeing Peter through his grandmother’s funeral and being confronted with the truth about Cecile. Any discussion he had with Ronald right now might lead to punching the man in his arrogant face.
In the morning, rested and with a cooler mind, he would get his brother alone and have it all out. Meanwhile, as Nate stripped and lay down to sleep, stomach rumbling from the dinner he’d missed, he found it impossible to stop his mind from roaming over memories of Cecile. He replayed every moment, the nuances of their conversations, the intimacies of their lovemaking, searching for clues about who she really was.
The problem was she’d projected complete sincerity throughout their time together. He couldn’t see any point at which there was a suggestion of her exhibiting an opinion simply to mirror his or pretending an interest in something. She hadn’t seemed like a woman out to snag a husband. If she’d wanted marriage, she wouldn’t have succumbed to him sexually, but would’ve played a different sort of game.
What had she wanted then? Just a temporary sexual experience? An offer of being set up as his mistress? And where was she now? Jolting along a bumpy road at night or sleeping in a bed at an inn along the way? Was she wide awake and thinking of him, too? Did she want him to come after her? Was that what she expected?
Countless questions roiled in his mind like undigested, too-rich food. Between pondering the enigma of Cecile and considering the enormity of taking Peter into his life, it was many hours before Nate finally slept.
“We need to talk. Let your friends go on their outing without you.” Nate’s tone was brusque when he addressed Ronald the following forenoon.
“I’m the host. I can hardly desert my guests.”
Nate stared hard into his dark eyes. “Don’t cross me. I’ve been patient for as long as I can stand to be. It’s time.”
Ronald shrugged his elegantly-clad shoulders. The entire party was overdressed for an afternoon picnic at the river. The women’s shoes and even some of the gentlemen’s high heels weren’t built to trudge rough paths through the woods. They and their couture belonged in London, where they should’ve stayed.
“Sanderson,” Ron called to the fellow with the long sideburns, “will you host the excursion today? It appears my brother needs to consult with me on important business.”
“Absolutely.” The man practically wagged his tail, he was so obviously pleased at being chosen to fill in for the earl.
The group wandered off slowly in the direction where the footmen escorted them, and Ronald turned to Nate. “What do you want to talk about?” That annoying, ever-present smile lurked at the corners of his mouth.
“We’ll walk, too. This way.” Nate started the opposite way from the party. Ronald fell into step beside him.
“Well, this is a surprise. I thought you were going to drag me into that dreary office and show me the books.”
“You know the state of the books. You know the entire place is hanging together by a thread. There’s nothing new I can tell you about that,” Nate said in an even tone, suppressing his anger. “But if you want to live the lifestyle you enjoy, you will need continued income from the estate. The only way to achieve that is by operating it sensibly.”
“Which is what I rely on you to do. You’re an exceptional land agent…and at no cost.”
Nate had let the land agent go when he assumed his duties. Now he was trapped and working like a slave as he tried to balance the needs of the tenants with the wasteful expenses of their lord. Ron’s offhand comment set his blood boiling, but he forced himself to remain calm.
“Estate finances are only part of the reason I wanted to talk with you.” He changed one unresolved subject for another, which would probably waste more of his breath. “What you did yesterday, revealing Cecile in front of your guests, was…unbearably rude.” The words were too weak, but he could find no better ones. “Why didn’t you come to me privately?”
Ron poked at a leaf beside the path with the silver-headed walking cane he carried, an affectation as out-of-place in this rough country lane as Ronald himself. “Do you really want to know why? You won’t like the answer.”
“Yes.” Nate didn’t add anything else, but remained silent, waiting for an explanation.
“Because it amused me to do so.”
“Why? How can you be amused by people’s pain? Cecile has never done you any harm and me…you’ve always seemed to hate me and I have no idea why.”
Ron stopped walking, forcing Nate to stop, too. They faced each other. A breeze lifted Ron’s carefully styled curls and fluttered the ends of his cravat. His eyes glittered as he stared at Nathaniel, and it was impossible to tell if it was with anger or tears.
“No, I suppose you don’t, do you?”
“What happened? It wasn’t always like this. Or at least not this bad.”
Ronald looked away and then back at him again. “So this is to be a day for truth, is it? Very well. I’m sure you’ll find my reasons unfair. I know they are, but there’s nothing I can do about them. It’s simply the way I feel.
“The truth is I always resented you for causing my mother’s death. Rotten little baby comes into the world and takes my mummy. Childish, I know. Maybe I’d have eventually grown beyond that if you weren’t such an insufferable prig of a boy. I’m afraid I just couldn’t stand you. But the worst came when you sailed in and stole Fiona from me.”
“Fiona?” Nate was almost too shocked to process the words. “You?”
“Laughable, isn’t it? I had designs on the little housemaid, too. Being nearly as young and foolish as you, I believed myself in love with a pretty face and nice body. Of course, I was as ignorant as you of the fact that our dear pater had fucked the lass already.”
“Did you—?”
“No. I never had her. Not in the biblical sense, although I tried once. She wasn’t interested in me, and I was too proud to force myself. But I still saw her first, fell in love with her first. Then you came home from school and I saw the look in her eyes when she beheld you. It was the exact look I’d wanted her to bestow on me.” He laughed harshly and walked on, whipping the tip of his cane through the grass.
Nate fell into step behind him, unable to find words to respond. He almost felt the need to apologize although he’d done nothing wrong.
“Can you guess who told Father about the two of you?” Ron shot him a sly sideways glance and instantly, Nate’s urge to apologize crumbled. “It would never have worked anyway. You know that now, right? Can you imagine the pair of you living on nothing but love and poverty wages, your inheritance cut off?”
“You ruined my life,” Nate said, but there was no force behind the words, no hotheaded desire to punch Ron in the face and beat him to a pulp—or not much anyway. He realized his life hadn’t been ruined. It had gone on in a vastly different course, maybe even the right one, who could say?
“Well, that’s all ancient history now, isn’t it? Except for the boy, who brings it into the present. You’re thinking of acknowledging him, aren’t you, whether he’s yours or not?”
“I plan to.”
Ron shrugged. “He is a Covington. I suppose it’s right, and Father would approve.” He gazed up at the sky. “It’s probably time for me to think of finding a wife and producing an heir. No doubt I’ll find myself saddled with some horse-faced young chit with a tremendous dowry.”
Nate almost smiled. Ron sounded so dismal, as if marrying was akin to the eating of greens that their nanny use to enforce.
“And I suppose I should gather my friends and take them back to London. We’ve quite run out of entertainment here already. Of course, I’ll need a sum in order to be able to make the trip and to carry on for another month or two.”
“Of course,” Nate said, ready to pay anything to see the back of his brother for another length of time. “Tell me how much and I’ll see what I can manage.”
“Money is the root of all evil,” the spendthrift earl quoted. “We shouldn’t have to scramble so for it. To have a title and no means to enjoy it is dreadful.”
Nate bit his tongue rather than resume the harangue about how he should mind his expenses. It never made a jot of difference. “Up here,” he directed Ron, who was out of breath from the unaccustomed exercise of climbing a hill.
“Oh, no. Not the family plot.”
“Thought it would be fitting to stop for a moment.” Nate opened the gate in the wrought iron fence surrounding the small cemetery and led the way through it.
They stopped before their father’s tombstone, the granite cleaner than the other stones, the words fresh cut and pale against the darker gray: Harold Robert Scott Covington, Seventh Earl of Hillshire.
“There he is, the great man himself. I miss the old hellion,” Ron remarked.
Nate tried to feel something besides disgust at the memory of his father and couldn’t manage it. After years of rabid hatred toward the man for tearing him apart from Fiona, the horrors of warfare has dulled Nate’s anger to a softer glow. But upon learning how the earl had forced himself on young women, including Fiona, that glow had flared up as strong as ever. Even now, nearly a year after his father’s death, Nate couldn’t get past his revulsion at the man’s selfish abuse of power.
“I don’t,” Nate replied. “I still hate him.”
Ronald stood beside him, gazing at the headstone. “So do I.”
The breeze blew stronger and golden leaves from the butternut tree shading the plot showered over their father’s grave like a glorious benediction.
Nate appreciated the irony.
Another afternoon a few days later was cloudy, gray and cool with drizzling rain falling in sporadic bursts. Nate and Peter were fishing from the bank of the stream and the trout were biting well on this quiet, misty day.
“I’ve caught another!” Peter tugged on his line and pulled the fish to the surface where it danced across the wavelets as he pulled it toward shore. “Big, too.”
“Cook will be pleased to have all these fish to prepare for dinner. Will you come to the house for dinner?”
“I can take mine home and fry them. I know how.” Peter’s voice was slightly belligerent. He still stubbornly maintained his own residence and resisted Nate’s efforts to induce him to come to the manor.
“Then perhaps you could cook them for us both,” he agreed affably. “If you don’t mind having a guest.”
Peter quickly unhooked the flapping fish and dropped it in the basket. “I suppose it would be interesting to see how your cook prepares them. I guess I could come to your house instead.”
Nate’s heart surged triumphantly at this small step forward. “That would be lovely. And if it’s very late when we’re finished with dinner, you’re more than welcome to spend the night.”
“Maybe I will.” He closed the lid of the basket and cast his line again.
Fresh drops of rain spattered on the surface of the water and concentric circles spread out from each one. Nate almost felt at peace on this somber day, but the ache of Cecile’s absence was a pain that wouldn’t subside.
“At my school we have this tradition,” Peter began.
“Yes?”
“Once a year in the fall term there is a day when parents may come and visit the school. The boys show them their classrooms and introduce them to their teachers.”
Nate remembered that from his own school days. His father had never come, and Nate had watched other proud families with gnawing jealousy. Of course, he was hardly the only boy whose parents didn’t attend, but inside he felt as if he was.
“I should like to come and see your school, see if it measures up. Perhaps if I’m lucky I’ll get to watch you in a boxing match.”
He caught a quick flash of Peter’s grin before he turned away, busily studying the water. “If you like.” His tone conveyed that he could care less.
The rain came down harder and Nate turned up the collar of his coat. “Maybe we have enough fish now and should head back.”
“Yes,” Peter agreed and began pulling in his line. “Where is Madame Lambeaux? You don’t bring her with you anymore.”
The sound of her name sent a dagger into Nate’s chest. “She was only a visitor. She’s gone home now.” He drew in his own line, keeping the filament steady and even around the spindle.
“Oh.” He paused then added, “She was nice. I liked her very much.”
“I did, too.”
“Do you plan to marry her?”
“I’d thought about it.”
“Did you ask her?”
“It was too soon. It’s important to consider all sides in making a big decision like that.” Nate picked up the basket, heavy with fish, and turned away from the water.
Peter marched steadily by his side, rain dripping off the brim of his hat and onto the shoulders of his jacket. He needed a new one. His wrists stuck out of the sleeves.
“Do you know Tommy Weaver who lives in the village?” the boy asked.
“I know his family. Not sure which one is Tommy.”
“He’s a lot older than me, but we used to talk when I still went to the village school. He liked this girl once—I can’t tell you who ’cause I promised him I’d never tell anyone—but he didn’t say anything to her. He told me he was waiting and thinking about it because it’s one of the biggest decisions a man can make. The night of the harvest dance when he finally asked her to dance with him, she was already spoken for by Tom Norris.”
“Another Tom.”
Peter eyed him like he was stupid. “Yes. The point is he waited too long. She married Tom Norris.”
Nate nodded, amused that Peter hadn’t noticed the denouement of his story gave away the girl’s identity. “I appreciate the advice, but there are other complications where Cecile…that is, Madame Lambeaux and I are concerned.”
“Do you love her?”
“I…I believe so,” he stammered, feeling harried by the boy’s relentless questioning. He would do well as a solicitor some day.
“As much as you once loved my mother?” Peter’s bright eyes searched his face. Nate understood that he wanted to hear more about the mother he barely remembered. He wanted to know that she had been worth loving.
“I was very young when I knew her, but I loved her deeply. Your mother was a special woman. My affection for Madame Lambeaux is different because I am different now, but it’s no less strong.”
“Then you should probably ask her to marry you before it’s too late.” The boy’s frown and the slight shake of his head indicated how foolish he thought his would-be father was acting.
“I probably should.”
They walked the dirt lane toward Covington Manor, mud squelching from beneath their shoes as the rain came down harder. Nate shivered when a trickle of water crept underneath his collar and down his spine. The day was cold, wet and miserable, but it had been one of the best times of his life. He bumped his shoulder against his son’s as they trudged toward home and dinner.