“I’d better leave now,” she murmured. “The coach will be passing the church in an hour or so.
He said nothing, nothing about the coach and nothing about his amazing offer. It was as if he’d never spoken.
Nell took three more steps, then stopped and slowly turned, the woman in her unable to leave it alone. “I have to know,” she said finally. “I have a question for you. Will you tell me the truth?”
His eyes narrowed, but he said, “I will.”
She examined his face intently and then gave a little nod. “Is it because of my title? The reason you asked me, I mean.”
“I suppose that’s part of it,” he admitted. “It would do a man no harm to have a titled wife.”
She nodded. “And my skill with horses would be useful, too, I expect.”
“It would. I don’t deny it.”
“I see. I thought as much. Thank you for your honesty.” She turned to leave again.
He cleared his throat. “But they are only part of the reason I asked you to be my wife.”
She turned back. “What else could there be?”
He swallowed and looked uncomfortable.
Stupid Nell, she thought. What was she doing? Angling for compliments now? Pathetic.
His face darkened and he cleared his throat.
“No, don’t worry—” she began. “I didn’t mean it.” She turned proudly away.
He cleared his throat. “The thing is, I am—” He swallowed again. “You’re lovely and I’m very attracted to y—”
“Stop it. Please.” She held up her hand. “I don’t want to listen.” She didn’t want, couldn’t bear labored, insincere compliments for the sake of misguided male gallantry.
He stared at her. “You did ask. And I thought women wanted to hear such things.”
“Not when they’re not true. And we both know they’re not.”
His brows snapped together. “Are you calling me a liar?”
She gave a miserable shrug and mumbled something about if the cap fits.
“Well, it damned well doesn’t.” He stepped up to her, so close she could smell him, the faint scents of leather and horses and expensive cologne and man.
She forced herself to stand her ground. She’d asked for this, so she must face the consequences.
His cold gray eyes blazed with emotion as he said in a low, vehement voice, “I am not a man of words. I have been likened, in fact, to a stump. My attraction to you is not an easy thing to admit to, especially since you’ve turned me down, but I promised you honesty. And that’s what I gave you—every word of it.”
Nell could not meet his eyes. She wanted to believe him—what woman wouldn’t? But she was under no illusions about her own looks. She’d had her nose rubbed in them all her life.
He’d been kind again, thinking she wanted compliments—even false ones—and then she’d shamed him, exposing the lie. She wanted to sink into the ground.
There was a long silence, then he added quietly, “If any man called me a liar as you have done, I would knock him to the ground.”
She flinched and braced herself.
He said softly, “You may think me a bastard, but I’ve never harmed a woman yet, and I don’t intend to start. But since you refuse to take my word, and since I refuse to let you believe me a cozening, insincere liar, I must resort to the most basic way of convincing you that I do indeed find you most attractive.”
She looked up, puzzled.
“Lady Helen,” he said. “Forgive me, but—”
To Nell’s shock, he kissed her. With complete assurance, he seized her by the waist and planted his mouth very firmly over hers. She’d never experienced such a thing in her life. Her mouth had been open with surprise and the hot male taste of him coursed through her body like a red-hot poker sizzling in a jug of spiced wine.
She made no attempt to struggle, had no thought of it. She was too shocked, too . . . amazed by the sensations surging through her. One hand waved ineffectually, then settled lightly on his shoulder. Her other hand was caught between their bodies and gradually she became aware of what the back of her hand was pressed against: his male parts. His very hard, very aroused male parts.
She should have pushed him away, struggled, something, anything, but her body seemed to have no will of its own. The taste and heat and power of him poured into her; she was helpless to resist. And all the time she could feel him, there against her fingers, hard and hot and growing larger and harder by the minute. Like a big human stallion, throbbing and urgent against her flesh.
It did not last long—less than a minute, she thought later, though at the time it felt like forever, and then he released her and stood back.
They were both breathing heavily.
She tried to speak but there were no words.
“Forgive me,” he said stiffly. “I should not have kissed you, I know; not on such short acquaintance. But I wanted you to know that what I said was no lie. None of it. I realize my suit is unwelcome . . . but I wanted you to know.” He gave a jerky bow.
Know?
Her whole body throbbed with knowledge.
He did find her attractive. She blinked. Very attractive, he’d said, and his body had demonstrated . . .
No man had ever found her very attractive. The only time she’d ever attracted the attention of a man had been for quite other reasons . . .
He’d made her no false promises—God, as if she believed in promises anymore. But Harry Morant had given her evidence. Hard evidence.
Her fingers still tingled. Very hard.
But no matter how tempted she was, a marriage between them was just not possible. She could not make the choice he would demand of her once he knew. She felt like weeping, but she had no tears left.
There was no question of what—who—she would choose. But it was so hard. The most beautiful man she’d ever met in her life and he
wanted
her.
Every part of her body throbbed with the knowledge of that wanting. Her blood was afire with it.
She managed to acknowledge his bow with a nod. “Thank you,” she said in a choked voice, “but my answer stands.” Head held high by some miracle of training, Nell managed to walk away from him with some semblance of dignity.
She felt him watching her leave. A woman could burn forever in the banked passion of those cold gray eyes. That was another part of the problem.
She’d endured much in her life and she knew she was strong. She mightn’t have beauty, but she had strength. Nothing and no one could break her spirit—not even this man.
But he could easily break her heart. And he would, when he found out what she’d done—birthed an illegitimate daughter whom she loved more than life itself.
When Harry Morant, who’d spent his life living down his own birth, discovered that, he would turn away from her. And that would break her heart.
If it wasn’t already broken . . .
Until now, Nell hadn’t ever thought of herself as a coward, but as she marched away from Harry Morant, her head held high so he wouldn’t imagine she cared the snap of a finger for what had just happened, she had to admit it: she was a coward through and through.
Four
N
ell sat squashed between a large man who smelled of cloves and another, even larger, who reeked of onions. She felt a little queasy. It wasn’t their combined smell though; it was that she was leaving her home forever.
Her home, and all her girlhood dreams.
They weren’t anything special, her dreams; just a man to love and horses to breed. And babies . . .
Torie . . .
She faced the back of the coach. Through the window of the coach she could see the village getting smaller and smaller, until at last she could only see the church spire. Then, finally it was gone.
The stagecoach lumbered along the muddy road, swaying and jolting. It was marginally faster than the dray she’d arrived in and a great deal warmer and drier.
Her two neighbors had spread themselves comfortably, knees planted wide apart and arms relaxed comfortably, while she was wedged in tightly. Two couples sat opposite, the men taking up twice the space of their wives, even though both women were comfortably built and one of the men was positively skinny. Why was it that men always took up more than their fair share of space? At least they kept her warm, she told herself, albeit in a clovey, oniony way.
And she was on her way to London, not directly, but soon. The arrangement was to meet her new employer in Bristol, then she and Mrs. Beasley would travel to London.
And then . . . then she would resume her search, her search for her daughter. For Torie.
She ached at the thought. Her breasts throbbed. She should have removed the bandages that bound them before she left. Her milk was long gone.
But, oh, how she ached for her baby, for her precious, tiny daughter. She’d kept the bandages on, reluctant to lose even that, a frail, tangible link, to the child that was . . . somewhere.
Lost. Stolen away.
Victoria Elizabeth . . . Torie, after Nell’s mother.
Nell folded her arms across her breasts. She ached with unanswerable questions. Who was feeding her little Torie now? Was anyone? Oh God, let her be alive, she prayed.
That torment was always with her, like a coal burning through her consciousness, day and night, the fear that like everyone else in her family, Torie might be—no! She couldn’t think like that.
Papa was misguided, but he wasn’t evil.
But he’d had no right to take her baby from her, no right to steal her away in the night. If only she’d divined his intentions . . . but he hadn’t breathed a word. If she’d known, she would have fought tooth and nail for her daughter.
Guilt wracked her. She should never have let herself fall asleep. Only, after the birth she’d had a touch of fever and she was so tired, so tired . . .
What had Papa done with her daughter? Where had he taken her?
They’d found him dead at the crossroads, on the way back from London. Dead, and the whereabouts of her baby gone with him.
Dead men tell no tales.
She knew why he’d done it. He’d told her when he first came to see her after locking her away for nearly six months. For her own good. To save her reputation. So she wouldn’t have to suffer for his bad judgment . . .
But she’d told him no. That she wanted to keep her child. That she loved Torie.
He’d assured her she wouldn’t have to live with the results of his mistakes. That she could make a new life, put it all behind her, forget . . .
As if Nell could ever forget the baby she’d carried beneath her heart all these long months. In Nell’s mind and heart, her little Torie had no connection with the events that had started it all, for which Papa blamed himself so deeply.
It was true that when she’d first discovered she was pregnant, she’d started off despising “it,” hating “it,” wishing “it” had never been conceived, but then . . . the first time she’d felt that tiny flutter of life in her womb . . .
She’d never felt anything like it.
She remembered placing her palm over the spot, and waiting, breathless, until she felt it again. And then, suddenly, she didn’t have a “thing” in her belly, she had a baby. A tiny, innocent baby.
A child that had nothing to do with anyone else, that had nothing to do with the ugliness that had preceded it. There was just Nell and her baby.
And in the long, lonely months in the strange house where Papa had taken her, shut away with strangers—kind strangers, but strangers, just the same—she’d fallen more and more in love with the tiny helpless creature growing inside her, moving, kicking, wrapping herself around her mother’s heartstrings with every movement.
Nell’s baby, Nell’s child. Nobody else’s.
She would sit for hours in the chair beside the window—they wouldn’t let her outside for fear she might be seen—with Freckles snoozing beside her. Freckles was the only friend from home Papa had permitted. He didn’t even trust Aggie not to gossip. Nell was to be hidden away with strangers, under a false name. Papa wasn’t going to let her suffer for his mistake . . .
As if locking her away from everything she knew and loved—except her dog—wasn’t making her suffer. Typical Papa, always locking the stable door after the horses had escaped.
So she sat with Freckles, growing a baby under her heart, dreaming of how it would be and making plans. She would take the baby home to Firmin Court, to where Mama was born, and Nell would teach her everything Mama taught Nell—and more, because Mama had gone and died when Nell was seven.
Her. She’d somehow never thought it would be a boy. But she wouldn’t have cared if it was. She only knew that she loved it.
And then the long, lonely labor through the night, as pain after pain shafted through her until she thought she might die of it, as Mama had. And finally at dawn, as the clear, gray, gold light spilled over the horizon, she had her baby.
Her daughter. Her precious, beautiful Torie . . . a tiny, fiercely wailing creature with a red face and gold fuzz and a mouth that was pure, furious rosebud, and tiny little fists with fingers coiled like exquisite, budding ferns.
And when the midwife had put the tiny creature to Nell’s breast, and the angry wails cut off in mid-scream and the little mouth suckled, a fierce love swelled up inside Nell until she felt she would burst with love and joy and pride. She had a daughter.
She’d hugged Torie to her and whispered in her miraculous, delicate ear that she’d love her forever and wouldn’t ever leave her . . .
But two weeks later Papa came, his first visit since he’d left her there all those months ago, and the next morning he and her baby were gone.
She blamed herself. She should have known, should have thought, should have suspected . . .
But she’d
told
him she loved her baby. She showed him her beautiful daughter and told him with such pride that she was naming her Torie—Victoria Elizabeth—after Mama.