Caroline pulled the wrapper more firmly around her shoulders as she climbed the stairs to Thornton Lindsay’s room. It was late. Almost two o’clock, and the noise of the servants had stopped some time ago, the house wreathed now in silence. She clutched the locket in her palm, glad she could use it as an excuse to come to his room if all else failed.
Slipping inside the door, she took a breath and was surprised by the sound of his voice.
‘Who’s there?’
He was not asleep. The light of a small lamp bathed an adjoining room; when she walked a few steps more she saw him sitting at a desk, a pen in one hand and a glass in another. A fire burned dully in the grate and on the wall in front of him was a picture of a beautiful woman. The artist in her was instantly interested in the lines, colour and strength of the work.
‘My mother had it done,’ he commented as he saw her looking. ‘As a gift to my father just before she died.’ He buttoned up his shirt where it gaped open across his chest as he saw her looking. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I have the locket of my mother’s that you asked for.’ She placed the trinket in a small silver dish on one end of his sideboard. ‘And I wanted to say thank you for coming to find us and for bringing us here to Penleven with you.’
‘This is the third time I have brought you home, Caroline. Will you be staying or is there another charade that is yet to play out?’
Removing himself from her proximity, he walked to the table, lifting a large brandy glass and emptying the contents. He looked wary.
‘I thought I knew you. But every moment I know you less. And I am not certain that I can survive more lies.’
‘You think that of me?’
‘This morning you were a woman who lay back against her pillow and feigned illness before stealing a horse from my stable and chasing her brother over half the county. Today dressed as a lad you were a card sharp, and tonight, in nothing save a smattering of lace and silk, a siren comes to my room when the house is quiet.’ He shook his head and faced her directly. ‘Who am I to believe is you? This person, that person? I spent years on the continent watching my back and trying to determine the truth amongst myriad lies. And all I want now is honesty. Can you give that to me, Caroline, for if we are to have any chance at giving Alexander a family, there needs to at least be trust between us.’
Trust.
Not love!
‘If you would prefer that I leave…’
‘No. I would not prefer that.’
The clock on the mantel ticked loud, marking the seconds of silence between them. Awkward. Heavy. She wished she had not worn this nightdress, its inherent thin silliness so suggestive of what she sought, and of what he refused. Embarrassment swamped her, the red bloom of blood a tell-tale sign of shame.
‘There is one more thing that I think you should know.’
He turned towards her. Warily.
‘My mother always said that our father was from the English aristocracy, though she would never mention any name.’
‘Why not?’
‘She had washed her hands of England, I think, and did not want us going back to be laughed at, or criticised. Besides,’ she added beneath her breath, ‘Mama was not a woman who limited herself to be the exclusive property of just one man.’ The bleakness of the truth fell between them again. A mother who was a trollop and a father who could have been anyone.
Unexpectedly Thornton began to smile.
‘Could you promise me, Caroline, that there will be no more secrets between us?’
‘I could.’ Her voice shook.
‘I asked your brother for your hand in marriage. Did he tell you that?’
She nodded, hating the hope that was beginning to bloom inside her.
‘And yet you locked your door and didn’t answer it.’
‘I thought if you knew about de Lerin, you might follow us and kill him yourself. I was trying to protect you.’
‘So you are saying…?’
She took a breath and risked it. Risked everything.
‘I love you, Thornton. I’ve always loved you since the first moment of meeting you at the ball in London with your collar up and your one eye daring the world to comment.’
‘Comprehensive!’
She frowned. It was not the answer that she was wanting back. Not at all.
‘I love you, but I can only marry you if you love me back.’
He began to laugh.
‘Do you truly not know how I feel, Caroline?’
She shook her head and in response he brought her hand to his mouth, his tongue laving a singular thin pain of passion that grew from her groin and blossomed. Quicksilver heat!
‘I have loved you since that first night when you came in your white gown and healed me. I had not been with a woman for more than two years…’
‘And I had not been with any man before.’
Lord! Suddenly he knew exactly what it was she was saying. The succession of lovers and husbands was as much of a cover as everything else in her life and she had been a virgin when he had paid her fifty guineas and forced her into his bed! Another secret! And with this one, guilt racked the very fibre of his being.
It had only ever been her and Thomas against a world that had labelled them as outcasts because of their very lack of alternative. And he had used her as his mistress.
‘You were a virgin?’
‘Yes.’
Everything made sense. Her fear. Her tightness. The blood he had seen on her ripped petticoat as he had stuffed it into the fire.
He could barely breathe with the fineness of such an unexpected gift.
‘I love you, sweetheart. Nay, don’t cry! ’Tis my heart I am offering you and that’s the truth of it.’
‘I don’t know if I deserve it. There are things that I have done…’
‘As the Duchess of Penborne, no one could touch you, I swear it.’
‘And Thomas?’
‘Will have a tongue of land nearby on the coast and build a house of his own.’
Tears streamed down her face.
‘You would do that for me? For us?’ Tracing the line of scarring up his cheek, she leaned in, kissing the hurt away, her tongue careful in its passage, a quiet touching. ‘I like it how you do not wear your patch with me or pull your collar up high. When I first met you, I thought your eyes were like those of a falcon.’
‘Blinded?’
She laughed. ‘No, amber and dangerous.’
‘And predatory?’ He began to peel back her thin wrapper, his brows rising when he determined how little she had on underneath.
Caroline stood completely still, waiting as the clothes pooled at her feet. In the candlelight with his eyes upon her she felt beautiful. Loved. Cherished. Sensuous.
She laughed as he lifted her up into his arms and brought her to his bed. In a moment he had joined her, his clothes also discarded on the floor.
Heat engulfed her and the throb of want drummed heavily, like it had right from that very first time in London. And when his hand came between her legs to open them, she arched into his touch and welcomed him in.
It was dark when she next awoke, the candles blown out and the light beat of rain steady against the window. When she moved she knew that Thornton was not next to her. Confused, she sat up and saw him, leaning against the wall by the fireplace and smoking a cheroot, its small red ember easily seen in the night.
‘You cannot sleep?’
He flicked the smoke into the fire and stretched. ‘Did your mother ever tell you anything else about your father?’
Of all the questions he could have asked, this was the last one that she expected, and she tensed further when she saw the locket and a small knife in his hand.
‘Once at Malmaison, she told me that she believed God provided a soulmate for everyone and that she had squandered her chance.’
‘And you were born in…’
‘1796.’
‘In France?’
‘Yes.’
He pushed away from the wall and came towards her, a smile replacing the frown that had been there.
‘Eloise St Clair arrived in France in the winter of 1795 according to the information I have gathered from the shipping lists. Do you know if your mother had known Adele Halstead for long before she died?’
‘No. She came to Paris when Mama was ill. They spent a lot of time together talking, and I think she helped my mother come to terms…with everything. That was one of the reasons we did not denounce her when we found the locket and other jewellery missing.’
‘And when you came to London you tried to get these things back?’
‘Only the locket. Mama was always careful to take it with her, you see. It was the only possession that she truly treasured.’
The tone of his voice made her hesitate. ‘You think Adele Halstead could have something to do with…’ She did not finish because in the fog of uncertainty another thought suddenly congealed. ‘You think that she knows something about who our father is?’
‘More than something. I think she came to Paris knowing exactly who your father was.’
‘Because…?’ She could no longer follow any of his reasoning.
‘Because it is my guess that your father is her husband, Maxwell Halstead, the Earl of Wroxham.’
He placed the small portraits of herself and her brother before her. Caroline saw that they had been carefully removed from the locket, their edges still curled from many years of placement.
Silence settled between them and she waited as he lifted the lamp and opened the trinket to the light so that she could more properly look inside.
Her mother’s much younger face stared out of the roundness, and the other held the portrait of a boy.
‘The man is Wroxham. Do you know the woman?’
‘It is my mother. They were beneath our likenesses all of this time?’
He nodded and history fell into place.
Her fingers entwined around his. ‘When did you know?’
‘Nothing is ever truly coincidental, Caroline. And Adele Halstead is not a woman to be trusted. Did your mother know she was married to Wroxham?’
‘I am not certain. I never heard her speak of her life in England and she did not use the name Wroxham or Halstead in Paris. She called herself Madame de Chabaneix. It was only by chance that we saw her here in London as Lady Wroxham in the gardens at Kew, though we were careful not to let her see us.’
‘From my information Wroxham married her in Spain in 1801. He had bought a commission as an officer there and she was already “helping” England with intelligence about the French.’
‘Do you think he knows? About her?’
‘I am sure that he does not, though the better question would be what was the relationship between your mother and the Earl.’
‘Eloise always said that she had loved him.’
‘How old was your mother when she had you?’
For a moment Caroline counted back the years. ‘Nineteen, I think.’
‘Under age for a marriage then in the church, though there was always Gretna Green.’
‘You think they could have eloped?’
He shrugged his shoulders and stood up straight. ‘If he had married your mother, Adele Halstead would have strong motive to be rid of you.’
The truth crystallised with a stinging clarity. ‘Because Thomas would be the heir to the earldom? My God. He needs to be told about this.’
‘If he is, it will probably be dangerous. The bullet missed your brain by less than a quarter of an inch. I think it is safe to say that whoever shot at you wanted you dead, and Thomas is inclined to rush into things.’
‘Whoever? You don’t think it was her? Adele Halstead knows how to handle a gun.’
‘Yet she has been nowhere near Penleven in the past month. I have had her followed since the locket incident and there has been nothing in her movements to arouse suspicion.’
‘And Tosh? Why wasn’t he killed in Exeter?’
‘I am not sure.’ His eyes flared in interest as she brought his hand up to cup the full softness of her breast. ‘But I will find out.’
‘Tomorrow. Think on it tomorrow, Thorn, for I need you now.’
Her simple invitation was quickly taken up as he gathered her body to his own in the bed.
‘You are telling me that you think we are the offspring of the Earl of Wroxham?’ Lifting the locket to the light, Thomas peered inside. ‘So what happens now?’
‘As I see it, we have two choices. You could stay here at Penleven—’
‘Where we have already been attacked once.’ Her brother’s impatience was easily heard. He had been incredulous when Thornton had told him of his theory about their father and the meeting here in the library this morning had tilted him from disbelief to anger.
‘Now that we have identified the risk, it will be easier to protect you.’
‘To stay inside, you mean. To be guarded and hidden—’
‘My grandson only means to keep ye both safe.’ Morag Lindsay got up from her place near the fire, the pain on her face reflecting old bones that no longer moved as they once had.
‘Safety at what cost? For how long would we be prisoners?’
‘I think you are overreacting, Tosh…’ Caroline tried to distil her brother’s anger and Thornton overrode them both.
‘Your brother makes a fair point, and this brings me to plan number two. If we played Adele Halstead at her own game, we might indeed have more luck. Morag will introduce you into London society as the children of one of her great friends and she will make certain that the Earl and his wife are included in the dinner party.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Wear the locket around your neck and see if the Earl has any sort of reaction. Often attack is a better policy than being defensive.’
Morag began to laugh, slapping her hands against her leg and cackling gleefully. ‘Ahh, Thornton. You are getting more and more like your father.’
‘Thank you.’
Caroline wondered if he should have taken such a statement as a compliment, but with the possibility of Thomas finding his place in the world she did not wish to express even the slightest notion of doubt.
Besides, she knew that they were playing this game according to the rules of a master. Thornton looked neither worried nor perturbed by the situation, and his confidence in coming out with a result by following this course was beginning to find favour with her.
‘We can open the family house in Mayfair,’ Morag was saying. ‘Leonard could come too, and of course we must visit a modiste and have some clothes made up for you both. And a hairdresser and a dance master.’
Lord. Caroline caught Tosh’s eyes as the old lady continued to rattle off a long list of helpers, and when he smiled back the most extraordinary thought hit her.
We were born to this! This extravagance and excess. After so many years of penny pinching and being careful the notion was bittersweet.