But he never loved her at all. He never loved anyone. I was telling myself a tale. He didn't come back because he never cared."
"You don't know that," Merry said, her voice husky with shock. "There may have been other reasons."
"What reasons?" he demanded. "Just tell me what other reasons could there be?"
He sounded as if, despite his disillusionment, he wanted her to supply them. Merry wished she could.
"I don't know," she said, hugging him again. "Maybe the reason is something neither of us understands."
She tried to believe the words but feared she, too, was telling herself a tale.
* * *
She found Nic in the sitting room of their suite. He stood by the window, staring out at the night as he swirled a glass of brandy around his palm. His red-and-gold waistcoat, which matched the silk-papered walls, hung open around a snowy shirt. His trousers were rumpled, his hair unkempt. An evening beard shadowed the elegant hollows of his cheeks. He was the picture of Bohemian elan except for the line of worry that creased his brow.
For once she did not care what lay behind it.
I'm as bad as Evangeline, she thought. Illogical as it was, she wanted the man she loved to be a hero.
He turned when her heel struck the shining terrazzo floor. "Mary," he said, his smile unusually hesitant,
"I was hoping you'd come back soon."
She couldn't answer like a normal person, couldn't ease into the trouble or be kind.
"Your son is here," she said, so tired it wasn't even an accusation.
The blood drained visibly from his face. If she'd ever doubted Cristopher's tale of woe, she could not now.
"My son?"
"Yes," she said, "the one you hired to scrub your pots."
"The one I..." The brandy snifter slipped from his fingers. He tried to catch it, but it fell to a Persian rug and split in half. "My God." His eyes widened with rising horror. "No wonder he acted the way he did.
I spoke to him. Tonight. In the library. I had no idea."
"I have to say, Nic, I really don't understand that. Even if you hadn't seen him since he was four, all you'd have to do is look in a mirror to know he's yours."
"It's not what you think."
"I scarcely have to think. The facts speak well enough by themselves."
"You don't know the facts." He left the window to take her hands. "Cristopher doesn't know the facts. Not that they're praiseworthy as it is." He must have felt her stiffness, because he loosed her hands and ran his own back through his hair. "I'll tell you everything—if you want to hear it."
She met his gaze as steadily as she could. She wanted to hear, she did, and yet part of her could not
give a damn. This man had abandoned his son. How long before he abandoned her?
"I'm not certain you should tell me," she said. "Yes, we've enjoyed each other's company, but can you honestly say I need to know?"
He made a swallowed sound of protest, then cupped her cheeks between his palms as if he meant to
press his sincerity through her skin. "Yes," he said, "you, of all people, need to know."
Against her better judgment, she was flattered.
She, of all people.
As if she were different from the rest. But this could be the fatal secret to Nic's charm: that he made every woman think she was the exception. Wary, she pulled free of his hold and sat on the edge of a scarlet loveseat. Nic did not join her. His chest lifted on a breath. He closed his eyes, then opened them and spoke.
"I'm not who you think I am. I'm not who anyone thinks I am."
"You're not Nicolas Craven."
"I'm Nicolas Herbert Aldwin Craven, the seventh marquis of Northwick."
This wasn't remotely what she'd expected, but the minute she heard the words, they made a terrible kind of sense. She'd always marveled at the way he carried himself, at his lack of awe for men she'd supposed to be above him. He was a marquis, a marquis, a single rank below a duke. Good Lord, if her parents caught wind of this, they'd be crying the banns within the hour. But that didn't matter, couldn't matter. Marquis or not, Nic was no better marriage prospect than he'd been before. Head aching, she squeezed her temples and tried to think.
"What," she said, "does being a marquis have to do with not knowing your own son?"
"I have to tell it all," he said, "or you'll never understand."
"By all means." She motioned dryly for him to go on. 'Tell it all."
Her sarcasm brought his head up. He hesitated, then forged ahead.
"My father was weak," he said, "though he didn't seem it. Outwardly, he was handsome and athletic. Most people saw him as a hale-fellow, well-met sort of man. I doubt they knew what a liar he was, or suspected how soulless he could be. Perhaps his arrogance seemed appropriate to his station. But my father's
droit du seigneur
ran deep. What he wanted, he thought he had a right to, no matter who he
hurt to get it. No outrage was beneath him—not cheating, not theft, not rape— as long as he believed
he would not get caught."
Nic's hand made a fist before his breastbone, the other wrapping around it as if he wished to hit someone. Fascinated in spite of herself, Merry waited for him to pull himself together.
"He feared my mother," he said with a quick, sardonic glance. "Of all the people in his sphere, only she knew what he was, and had known since she maneuvered him into making her his wife. She's a practical woman, my mother, a mere squire's daughter. She married him for his estate, then ran it better than any Craven ever had. For the most part, she let him go his way. Sometimes, though, she'd catch him in an
act she couldn't stomach, usually an injury to someone too weak to stand against him. To her mind, my father could do what he liked to his peers. The servants, however, the tenants, or the young, she considered hers to protect. If he tried to take advantage of them, well, Hell knew no fury like
Northwick's marchioness."
He laughed at that, but the memory did not cheer him. With a heavy exhalation, he sat next to her on the love-seat. "I had a friend among the staff, a laundrymaid named Bess. She was like a lot of servants who work outside the house: sassy and independent. She was a little younger than you. Eighteen, I believe, and I was fifteen. Tall for my years. A man, I thought, though mostly I was just randy."
Smiling faintly, he drew his finger down Merry's nose. "We took a liking to each other, the way young people will. Played at kissing. Cuddled behind the barn. It was forbidden fruit, I guess, to treat each
other as equals when the world would say we were anything but. Bess was the first to teach me what women liked. In fact, before Bess, I barely knew what
I
liked.
"But we never went beyond that bit of play. Bess wanted to save her maidenhead for her husband. She used to tease me, saying I could never be aught but a toy to her. She was going to marry a dairy man
and raise a herd of cows."
His sigh came again, deeper this time and longer. He rested his forearms on his knees. "I don't know if my father discovered what we were up to, but whether he did or not, Bess took his fancy. She was a pretty girl, fair-haired and buxom, with a laugh that could make a man stiffen in his smalls. My father caught her alone one day and forced himself on her. Didn't even try to seduce her, just took what he pleased and left.
"For all her sass, he knew she wouldn't dare complain. She was a laundrymaid. He was a lord. With a word, he could ruin her chance of working anywhere again."
At that, he seemed unable to go on, his jaw bunching, his hands locked together between his knees. Merry touched his wrist, then gently wrapped her fingers around the bone.
"Didn't she tell you what your father had done?"
He shuddered and shook his head. "No. I think she was ashamed. And maybe she didn't want me to confront him. She must have known it would come to blows. The temper I had then, I'd have made
sure it did. She might have feared for me, or not wanted to set her friend and his father at odds, no
matter what had been done to her."
"She sounds like a special person."
"She was. Special and strong and brave. I doubt anyone would have known if she hadn't begun to show."
"Your father got her pregnant."
"Yes." He squeezed his knotted hands. "Naturally, my mother suspected him. She knew his habits. But he was ready for her accusations. He spun a story even he thought might be true. He claimed the child was mine. People knew Bess and I were close. An estate like Northwick is like a village. Gossip runs rampant from barn to ballroom. My mother kept abreast of goings on, so he knew she would have heard."
"Wouldn't your mother have believed you if you denied it?"
"Yes," Nic said, "but I didn't deny it." He met her startled gaze with the resignation of a man who
knows the worst confession is yet to come. Tensing, Merry drew her hand back from his arm. Nic
rubbed the place where she'd held his wrist.
"My father and I made a devil's bargain. He knew how much I wanted to travel to Europe to study painting. I was mad for it, like a knight with his holy grail. My mother hated the idea. She'd married my father so her sons could grow up to be lords. A painter worked for a living. A painter was in trade. To her, I might as well have wanted to be a butcher.
"My father swore he could bring her round, but only if I confirmed his lie.
"I knew I shouldn't have done it. Knew even as he swore up and down he'd take care of Bess and the baby. Give her money. Hire a midwife. Find them a good place to live."
"Did you think he was lying?"
Nic rasped out a laugh. "It didn't matter if he was lying. I knew my mother would do all he promised
and more, whoever she thought the father of the child. Bess was my friend.
I should have been there for her lying in. I should have stayed to make sure she was all right. I could
have waited to leave until the child was born. But I was like him. I wanted what I wanted and I didn't care to wait.
"She said she understood. She told me to go, to be happy with her blessing. We'd never loved each
other, either one. It was friendship between us, and a bit of fun. She told me to be the artist I was
meant to be. And then she died giving birth to my father's son."
He covered his face, then dropped his hands as if he didn't deserve to hide. His eyes were red but dry.
"By the time I came home, Bess was gone and my mother had taken the baby in. No one had bothered
to write me. I stayed at Northwick a month, until I couldn't bear the shame. I went to Paris that time and Rome and any place I could think of that was far. And then my father was killed in that hunting accident. My mother called me back for his funeral. Cristopher was four and hadn't the faintest notion who I was. Burst into tears the first time he saw me. My mother pressed me to take up the reins, but I couldn't be
the marquis, couldn't assume the title my father had made a mark of shame." His hand clenched on his thigh. "It was my shame, too. I knew I'd never live up to their expectations. I'd already proven that."
"So you went to London."
He shook himself. "Yes, I went to London and began the career for which I'd left my friend to die."
"And you never told your mother the truth, not even after your father died?"
He snorted. "What would be the point? So Cristopher could have a dead bastard for a father instead
of a living one?"
The simple bitterness of the statement broke through the guard around her heart. Nic had done wrong; she could not, would not deny that. To be sure, fifteen was young to expect a boy to carry the burdens