But Oliver must have recognized the caution in her eyes, for he cleared his throat and addressed the older man respectfully. “It was impossible, sir. We had to sail the channel in a tiny boat. And I thought we would capsize a dozen times,” he added.
“Oliver is a most talented sailor,” Eliza put in before the young man could elaborate any further.
“You’re sure Aubrey is not being mistreated?” Aunt Judith asked. The misery and hopefulness on her face made Eliza’s heart ache. How happy she would be to hear Aubrey was walking again. But the boy had exacted a solemn vow from her to allow him that privilege. And besides, it might aid Cyprian’s situation with his father when Aubrey was finally returned home.
“Your son is tan and fit, and he exercises his foot daily,” Oliver said, smiling reassuringly at Aubrey’s mother.
“Does he get enough to eat?”
“All he needs. He’s not mistreated at all,” he repeated. “In fact he’s quite a pet with the entire crew.”
“Then why—” She broke off again, stifling her sobs with a crumpled lace handkerchief.
“Yes, why?” Lloyd demanded, his anger at Cyprian focused on Oliver instead. “Why in the name of God would anyone use a child—a
crippled
child—to hurt someone who doesn’t even know him?”
“I can explain that. But first,” Eliza said, “I would like to sit down. And could we have tea, Mother?”
By the time they settled in the front parlor, their numbers were thinned to her parents, her aunt and uncle, LeClere, Perry, Oliver, and herself. But even that made for too many, she realized. “I need to speak to Uncle Lloyd. Alone,” she added, staring only at him.
“But why?” He glanced at his ashen-faced wife, then closed his mouth on the rest of his words. “May we use your study, Gerald?”
Once alone in her father’s study with her uncle—Cyprian’s negligent father—Eliza had an attack of the jitters. She didn’t know quite how to begin.
“Has he … has he done something hideous to my boy?” the man asked in a voice that unaccountably trembled.
Eliza frowned. “Something hideous? No. No, I told you, Aubrey is unharmed.”
“Then what?” he exploded, pacing back and forth and tugging at the thick facial hair that ran along his jawline. “What is it you cannot say in front of the rest of them? In front of his mother?”
“He’s your son!” Eliza shouted back at him. She was no longer sorry for her uncle but instead furious. It was clear he loved Aubrey, but what about his firstborn son? What about Cyprian?
“Of course he’s my son! He’s my son and crippled or not, I’ll kill to have him back. I’ll kill that bastard who took him!”
Eliza shook her head. “No, Uncle Lloyd. You don’t understand. I didn’t mean Aubrey. I mean Cyprian. Cyprian Dare is your son. And as you so eloquently put it,” she added, a sarcastic edge in her voice, “he may indeed be a bastard. But he’s
your
bastard.”
“What? What do you mean?” he sputtered. Then his eyes grew large and his face drained of all color. “What … what exactly do you mean?” he finished in a whisper.
“I mean that he is your son, your firstborn son,” she revealed, filled unaccountably with righteous fervor for Cyprian’s situation.
He sat down on the oxblood leather settee and stared disbelievingly at her. “But … but how could that be? Who—no.” He stood up scowling. “No. No, I don’t believe it.”
“Well, I do,” she said, angry that he could deny it. “He looks like you. And Aubrey looks like him,” she added for good measure.
“But how could that be?” he repeated, still fighting the truth.
“It probably occurred in the usual fashion that bastard children are made.”
At her tart reply, he focused back on her. “You
should not speak of such things. It’s unseemly.” When she only glared at him, he hesitated. “Well, it is,” he finished weakly.
“I don’t think you have the right to criticize anything about my behavior, Uncle Lloyd.”
He ran a hand through his wiry gray hair and stared distractedly about. She’d stunned him, it was plain, and Eliza felt the first meager glimmer of sympathy for him. “Didn’t you know you had another son?”
“No. No, of course not. Another son? But with whom?”
Her sympathy fled. “With whom? Was she so forgettable, then? Or were there so many women that you cannot recall them all?” She began to pace, anything to vent the quick anger—and quick fear—that welled up inside of her. Years from now would she be only some forgotten woman in Cyprian’s past? She didn’t want to believe it, but faced with her uncle’s attitude, it was impossible to ignore. She wrapped her arms around her waist and focused all her fury and terror on her uncle. “Is it possible there could be even more Haberton bastards out there?”
He seemed to shrink even more, for his head sunk low between his shoulders and he clasped his hands between his knees. “No one has ever told me that I … that she …” He looked up at her, the perfect picture of misery, and she was reminded of Aubrey before he’d relearned to walk, when he was unhappy and frustrated and knew he’d behaved shamefully. Sighing, she crossed the room and knelt before him on the plush carpeting.
“Cyprian is angry with you. He feels … he feels that you abandoned him and his mother.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, I did not. I would not …”
“Do you know who his mother was?”
He did. She could see it in his eyes. But he didn’t want to admit it could be true. “This man, he could be
lying. Does he have any proof? Did you speak to his mother?”
“She’s dead.”
“What? Cybil is dead?”
Cybil.
Somehow having a name made the woman even more real to Eliza. “He said she was a vicar’s daughter. Oh, Uncle Lloyd. How could you have ruined a vicar’s daughter?”
“I didn’t know! I was … I was young—not even twenty yet—and very stupid. I … I was on holiday and … and I fancied myself in love with her.”
How Eliza’s heart ached to hear his painful confession. Cybil, Cyprian, and now her uncle Lloyd, all of them tortured and ruined by passions run amuck. And she was in no better straits. She might already bear Cyprian’s child. Would her family abandon her if she did? Would Cyprian never try to learn the truth? Would her child grow up to despise his own father?
Oh, God, but she could not bear for history to repeat itself so horribly.
“I didn’t know she bore the child,” her uncle said, gripping her shoulders. “She said she knew a woman in a nearby village who … who helped girls in trouble. I gave her the money … .” He trailed off at her confused expression. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Not now. But tell me, Eliza.” His hands tightened painfully. “Will he —this man, my … my bastard—will he hurt Aubrey? Will he return my son unharmed to me?”
Eliza shook off her uncle’s hold and rose to her feet. To hear her uncle refer to Cyprian as his bastard in the same breath that he called Aubrey his son struck her as somehow distasteful. “They are both your sons. Cyprian should not be blamed for the circumstances of his birth. That is clearly
your
fault. And as for what he plans for Aubrey …” She paused and sighed. “I only know that he will not hurt him.”
“But I want him back!”
Eliza glared at him, and in that moment she was almost glad that Aubrey was with Cyprian. Lloyd Haberton did not deserve his son—he didn’t deserve
either
of them.
“Cyprian plans to raise Aubrey as he was raised, to be a survivor amid adverse conditions. To be strong. To be a fighter.”
“But he has no right! And anyway, Aubrey is crippled now.”
“You forget that they are brothers,” she pointed out, forcing herself not to reveal Aubrey’s recovery.
“Does he want a ransom? Is that it?”
“No.” She sighed again, suddenly overcome with weariness. She turned for the door, but he caught her before she could leave.
“There must be some way for me to get him back. He must want something, Eliza. Didn’t he say anything?”
Eliza shook her head, sad for him now instead of angry. “I’m sorry, Uncle Lloyd, but he didn’t say anything about a ransom or any other compensation. I don’t know what Cyprian Dare wants. I never have.”
E
liza stepped from her bath wrapped in a thick towel, and padded on bare feet through the door to her bedchamber. Her mother stood before the window, staring out at a moonless winter sky. It was cold out there, Eliza knew. But it was warm in her room. And it was no doubt warm on Alderney.
She shook off that thought and forced a small smile when her mother turned.
“Oh, Eliza.” Constance Thoroughgood smiled as she’d been smiling all evening, a trembling smile of pure happiness, misted over with just a hint of tears. “You cannot know, my darling, how we have worried.”
“Mama.” Eliza enfolded her mother in a hug that tightened as her own feelings of love strengthened. How blessed she’d been. She had her parents; she had Perry and LeClere, and all her aunts and uncles. And this home. The list was endless.
But Cyprian—and too many others like him—had not been nearly so blessed. “I love you, Mama,” she whispered. “I love you and Papa. More than you can ever know.”
Against her cheek she felt her mother’s damp smile. “I know, my darling. But you are only at the beginning of your life. You’ve so much yet to learn about love—
about how strong it can be. For a man. For your child.” She pulled away and stared into Eliza’s eyes. “I love you beyond all understanding. And … and I can see that you’ve changed,” she added in a more hesitant tone. “Do you wish to talk about it at all?”
Eliza knew at once what she meant. Could it possibly be that obvious? Still, she pretended not to understand. She pulled out of her mother’s embrace.
“Changed? Well, I suppose that I am,” she said, concentrating on drying her arms and legs. She donned a warm, flannel wrapper and slid her feet into a pair of matching mauve bedroom slippers, then found her comb. “I’m much healthier now. Did you know I didn’t have any attacks, even though it was all most stressful, and I was outside most of the time. Dr. Smalley is bound to be impressed.”
“You’re thinner.”
Eliza glanced over at her mother. “I’m stronger too. There’s no longer a need to keep this chamber for me on the main floor. Being outdoors so much and on a sailing vessel—”
“Eliza, you must tell me,” her mother broke in with unaccustomed force. “I am your mother, after all, and no matter how—no matter how you may have suffered at this man’s hands, we will weather the storm together.”
Eliza couldn’t help it. At her mother’s vow of such unswerving loyalty and support, she burst into tears. Why couldn’t poor Cybil’s mother have been as wonderful as her own? If Cybil’s parents had loved their daughter better, so much unhappiness could have been avoided. If she’d just held her daughter the way Constance Thoroughgood was holding
her
daughter right now.
“Hush. Oh, hush, my darling. My baby. It will be all right. You’ll see. It will,” Constance crooned to the sobbing Eliza. “I’ll make everything all right.”
Slowly Eliza’s sobs eased. Eventually she told her mother everything. About how she’d insisted on accompanying Aubrey when he was kidnapped, and about how she’d fallen in love with Cyprian.
“That’s not love,” her mother angrily countered. “You’re not in love with him. No one falls in love with a man who … who rapes her,” she choked out.
“No, it wasn’t like that.” Eliza grasped her mother’s hands urgently as they sat side by side on her settee. “It wasn’t like that at all. He didn’t force me. I wanted—”
“No, daughter. You’re wrong. He’s older than you and vastly more experienced. He knew precisely what he was doing and he took total advantage of your innocence. He seduced you and though to you it may seem entirely different than rape, it isn’t. Not really. If anything it’s even worse,” she stated, beginning once more to tear up.
“Mama, no. You don’t understand.”
But Constance was not to be convinced. In the end she smoothed her daughter’s tangled hair and managed a weak smile. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t really matter how it occurred now, does it? The outcome is still the same.” She sighed as if the weight of the world rested on her narrow shoulders. “Your father will have to speak to Michael.”
Eliza bowed her head. It was one thing to defend Cyprian to her mother. Michael was a different situation altogether. “I’m glad he wasn’t here tonight,” she whispered.
“He wanted to be, but your father decided it would be best for me to speak with you first.”
“I … I suppose you’ll go tell Father now.”
“You’re his daughter; it’s his right to know, for he’ll have to determine what we’re to do now.” Constance stroked Eliza’s hand, then took it in her grasp and twined their fingers together. “You must tell me, darling. Is there … is there any chance that you could be … with child?” She finished the last in a pained whisper.
Eliza shuddered, partly from fear and partly from a longing she could not explain, either to herself or to her mother. “I don’t know,” she confessed in a mumble.
Constance compressed her lips as if to prevent them from trembling. Then she burst out. “Oh, I hate that man. I hate him!”
“Please, Mother. No. How can I make you understand?” Then she had a ludicrous thought. “You realize, of course, that he’s family, don’t you? He’s my cousin by marriage. And your nephew.”
Constance drew back as if struck. “He is nothing to us—”
“No, Mama. Don’t say that,” Eliza interrupted with much heat in her voice. She lurched up from the settee and pulled her wrapper tighter against a sudden chill. Then she faced her mother. “You may hate him, if you must. But never say he is nothing. Not to me.”
Her mother stared at her in shock. “But Eliza—”
“No, just heed my words. For better or worse, I am not the same girl who left here. In the marriage mart I suppose it’s for the worse. But in other ways I am changed for the better. So …” She swallowed hard. “So tell Father to summon Michael. But also tell him that I will speak to Michael myself. This is, after all, a matter between him and me. No one else.”
Constance stood and did as her daughter ordered. She crossed the room and backed out the door. But the entire time she kept her surprised stare focused on her daughter, her strong, tanned daughter, who stood so straight and firm. Eliza had changed, she realized, from a girl into a woman. Her father might not like it, but perhaps, with the grace of God, Michael Johnstone would.
Gerald Thoroughgood looked nervous. But then, Michael was nervous too. Eliza was back and he’d tossed and turned the whole night, worried about what they’d done to her. Delicate creature that she was, there was no telling how she would be affected. That was, no doubt, why her father had made him stay away yesterday. But they’d sent word late last night for him to call in the morning. Come dawn he’d scarcely been able to wait. But although it was still early now, Gerald was awaiting him in the marbled foyer when the butler showed him in.
“Michael. So good of you to come.” Gerald shook his hand then cleared his throat. “Eliza is—”
“Is she all right?” he demanded, searching the older man’s face for some sign. Had she been ruined by them? Had she?
“She is … ah, well. But she wishes to speak to you herself. So … so I’ll just show you into the conservatory.”
Michael didn’t wait for Gerald Thoroughgood to show him the way. He knew well enough where the conservatory was and he hurried there without another word. The mahogany door stood open, but he closed it fully after he entered. At the click of the heavy brass latch, Eliza spun around.
For a moment he hardly recognized her. It was the sun behind her, he rationalized, for it backlit her, outlining her slender figure and leaving her face partially in shadow. But there was something more, he realized. Something he couldn’t name. He felt a slow sinking in the vicinity of his chest.
“Michael. Thank you for coming,” she said in a voice that she probably meant to sound calm, but which nevertheless revealed a trace of nerves.
“I would have been here last night, but your parents suggested that I wait.”
What did those bastards do to you?
“Yes. Well.” She moved away from the tall windows, and meandered restlessly past a tall potted palm. Michael’s eyes narrowed. There
was
something different about her; something in her carriage, in the tilt of her head.
“Are you all right?”
She looked up at him with a pained smile. “I am … well,” she finished after a brief hesitation. “However I thought it only right to offer you the … the opportunity to withdraw your offer of marriage to me.”
He crossed to stand before her, but at the startled look on her face, he refrained from actually touching her. “Why should I wish to do that?”
But he knew why, and the hot color that flooded her face confirmed it.
He’d kill the man, Michael swore as uncontrollable anger swept over him. He’d kill this Cyprian Dare for what he’d done to her!
But right now he had to deal with Eliza herself. Before she could turn away, he grabbed both of her hands. “I know you must have suffered terribly at the hands of your captors, Eliza, but that means nothing to me. I will stand by my offer of marriage as staunchly now as ever.”
She blinked and for a long moment she simply stared at him, clearly stunned. No doubt she’d expected him to acquiesce at once, relieved to be let off the hook. But if he did that now, what would happen to her? His defection was sure to confirm what everyone would already suspect.
“Eliza, none of this matters to me,” he repeated. “You’ve come back safely, just I’ve prayed you would. There’s no reason for wedding plans to be altered.”
“But … but you don’t understand,” she whispered. She looked away as her cheeks turned an even more violent hue.
“I do understand,” he said as gently as he could. “You
needn’t ever speak of it. Whatever happened—whatever that bastard—”
“Don’t call him that!” She jerked her hands free of his and spun away from him.
In the sudden silence Michael stared at her, at the long tumble of her dark hair and the yellow ribbon that held those luxurious waves in place. She
had
changed. She was no longer the beautiful but shy girl he’d thought so well suited to him. She was stronger now, with a will of her own. And it sounded as if she were defending the monster who’d ruined her! How could she?
“What do you mean?” When she only stiffened he turned her forcibly to face him. “Why do you care what I call him, Eliza?”
She met his gaze reluctantly, yet even in that he could see the changes in her. It was not shame that shone in her lovely gray eyes, but defensiveness. “Cyprian Dare may be my uncle’s bastard son, but I will not have him reviled for it in my presence.”
“What? Your uncle’s bastard?”
She squared her shoulders. “He is, though my uncle probably would prefer that such knowledge be kept private.”
Michael frowned, taken aback by this newest and most shocking disclosure. Young Aubrey Haberton had been kidnapped by his father’s bastard son, Aubrey’s own half brother. Then he had a thought. “That makes this man your cousin—at least by marriage. Does your uncle plan to acknowledge him? Because if he does, that would save your reputation. Our wedding can occur as planned.”
She didn’t refute his words, but he could read opposition in her expression and stiff posture. She didn’t want to marry him. But why?
“Must I be blunt?” she finally asked, lifting her chin to a pugnacious angle.
“Perhaps you should,” he replied, calling her bluff. And it was a bluff, he knew when her eyes darted away from his. She’d expected him to play the gentleman and let her off easily without a full explanation. But he had no intention of doing so. He’d admired her before, for her quiet beauty and unassuming manner. They were a perfect match in temperament, social standing, and fortune. But now he felt a stirring he’d not felt before. Was it simply jealousy, or perhaps disbelief that she could actually turn him down? He didn’t care. She had agreed once before to marry him and he would not release her now without a fight.
“Well, Eliza? I’m waiting for some explanation.” With a muffled cry of frustration, Eliza shook her head at Michael. Why was he being so obtuse? Did he want to hear all the details in excruciating description?
“I just … can’t. That’s all.”
“Did he rape you?”
Eliza cringed to hear him word it that way, but she also felt guilty for the righteous anger that filled him on her behalf. “No,” she mumbled. She turned away and began stripping the foliage from a fern, one narrow leaflet at a time.
“No?” She heard the enormous relief in his voice, and also the confusion. “No? Then … then what?”
She didn’t want to tell him, and yet it suddenly seemed unfair not to. Summoning her courage, Eliza turned to face him. He was handsome. He was kind. She should be grateful to still have the opportunity to become his wife. But she simply could not do it.
“He … he did not rape me. But all the same, I am … no longer a virgin.”
For one long second he did not comprehend. Then he drew back and his face lost color, and she knew he understood. They stood that way, staring at one another with the weak light of the winter morning slanting
through the glass doors, until finally Eliza had to look away. He knew her for what she was now.