Lottie and Chris, however, did not notice their little friend. “Look, Uncle Quin,” said Chris, ramming his hand deep in his coat pocket. “We’ve got conkers! Great, hard ones!”
“Oh ho!” Never one to be outdone on such an important point as the size of his conker, Quin dug into his own pocket, and produced the one Cerelia had bounced off his hat.
“Lud!” said Lottie.
Quin smiled. “Now this, Christopher, is a
conker,”
he said. “Go ahead and string yours up if you’ve a mind to take a thrashing. But it shan’t stand a chance against this behemoth.”
“Crikes!” said the boy. “That’s the biggest ever! Where’d you find it, Uncle Quin?”
Quin restored the nut to his pocket. “Actually, it belongs to Cerelia,” he said, turning to wink at her. “I am just keeping it for her.”
“See, Lottie!” The little boy tossed a disdainful glance at his sister. “I told you there wouldn’t be any salamanders down there. Perhaps I could have found that one.”
“They’re just big acorns,” said Cerelia. “I cannot see what all the fuss is about.”
“Actually, Cerelia, they are chestnuts,” said Quin. “But not the kind you eat. Now, it is going to be dark soon. Let’s be off, shall we? And on the way, we shall tell you all about conkers, and how we English like to string them up, and swing them at one another, usually until someone’s nose gets bloodied.”
Cerelia cut a strange glance up at him. “That sounds silly.”
“It is silly,” said Quin. “Frightfully silly—especially when grown men engage in it.”
They set off for home with the girls on either side of him. Lottie, of course, slipped her gloved hand into Quin’s. On impulse, he caught Cerelia’s hand in the other. Chris darted on ahead, pausing now and again to shuffle through the dead leaves beneath the chestnut trees.
Cerelia’s good humor was restored. She and Lottie chattered gaily as they wound their way back out of the wood and in the direction of Hill Court. But as the evening’s chill deepened, the girls’ teeth began to chatter. Quin opened his greatcoat, tucked them close to his sides, and folded it around them as best he could. Laughing, they waddled along together, looking, he imagined, rather like a drawing he had once seen of a great American grizzly bear.
It felt strangely pleasant to be walking with his arms and his coat wrapped about two small children. It also felt as though he’d seen more of his nieces and nephew these last few days than he had in the whole of their lives. And to his surprise, he had rather enjoyed it. They seemed genuinely fond of him, especially Alice’s youngest, who had developed something of an obsession with his cravat pin.
Each time he visited them in the nursery, Diana would clamber onto his lap and pluck at it most determinedly. He had finally decided simply to remove it and give it to the child, but Alice had caught him and soundly scolded him. Four-year-olds, apparently, were prone to swallowing small, pretty objects.
Such a thing would never have occurred to him. Indeed, he knew nothing at all of children. Oh, he had always assumed he would have two or three; it was expected. It was necessary, especially for his mother’s sake. But he had always imagined they would be like small adults, and that he would see little of them. They would be raised by nurses and governesses, he had supposed.
But why had he supposed it? He and Alice had not been reared in such a way. Their parents had been an ever-present force in their lives. Family outings had been frequent affairs. Their father, for all his reserve, had seen them two or three times a day. Their mother doted on them; never had she failed to kiss them good night and see them tucked safely into bed.
The truth was, he simply felt no connection to these preordained children he was meant to have. He had not actually tried to imagine what it would be like to be a father since—well, since Viviana Alessandri. It was almost an embarrassment to recall it now, how he would sometimes thrust himself so deep inside her, reveling in the rush of his seed toward her womb, and hope.
In those rash, heedless moments, he had been unable to stop the vision of what it would be like to see her soft, smooth belly grow round with his child. He had wanted it so very desperately, even as he had realized the hell they both would pay should it ever actually happen. Good God, his father would have disowned him. His mother would have swooned and taken to her bed for a week.
But neither of those reactions seemed so horrific now. He was almost ten years older. He had lived through some dark days. To worry about his parents having fits and swoons seemed almost laughable now.
They were not so laughable when one was but twenty years old, and unsure of one’s place in the world. And yet, those had been the only children Quin had ever pictured in his mind. The ones he had wanted to give Viviana Alessandri. He was damned lucky he hadn’t got his wish, too.
Then, he had assumed Viviana understood conception—or rather, how a woman avoided it. She had seemed so sophisticated, so urbane. But he now realized that, in all likelihood, she had done nothing. Certainly she had taken no steps which he, now older and wiser, would have recognized as contraception.
He looked down again at Cerelia, who looked so very much like her mother it suddenly made his heart ache. Gianpiero Bergonzi had got his wish, had he not? He had made three children with the wife he had so boldly married. Quin wondered if all three were this beautiful. If they looked anything like their mother, then the answer was a resounding
yes.
Unexpectedly, Cerelia tugged on his hand. “I know the way from here, Lord Wynwood,” she said softly. “You may let me go now.”
They were nearing the end of the wood, and through the thinning trees, he could see the soft lights of his uncle’s stables coming into view. He felt Cerelia’s fingers loosen about his own. And suddenly, Quin became aware of an awful, choking knot in his throat. His hand tightened on the child’s almost involuntarily.
He did not want to let her go, this beautiful piece of the woman he had once loved. He wanted to gaze upon her face and think upon the past. The awful, miserable past he had once sworn to forget. But something seemed to have changed.
Oh, he knew what had changed. Everything. His whole life. The past had returned to torment him, and his future seemed blighted and barren again.
Good God, Viviana Alessandri! After all these years. And this time, he was not at all sure he could survive it. This time, there was no easy way to deaden the pain of an old wound sliced open to bleed anew. And though he would never have admitted it to anyone, he was tired, so bloody weary of living a life devoid of hope and joy. A life where one could imagine, and even wish for, a future, and for the love and the family which came with it.
Yes, he was beginning to fear that he knew what had changed—or perhaps
not changed
was the more correct phrase.
“Lord Wynwood?” said the small voice again.
He gave her hand one last squeeze and let her go.
Cerelia slithered her way out of the folds of his coat. Cold air breezed in and wrapped around his heart. They watched her go in the swiftly approaching dusk, the hem of her heavy wool skirt brushing across the lawn as she dashed up the hill toward his uncle’s house.
She had almost reached the back terrace when he saw an indistinct figure come sweeping round from the front of the house. A woman in a bottle green gown and cloaked in black, whose face he could not see. But he did not need to see it, for the proud set of her shoulders and the angle of her chin gave her away.
At the corner of the house, mother and daughter met. He saw Viviana embrace Cerelia ardently, then urge her up the terrace steps. Neither spared a glance toward the three who waited at the foot of the hill.
He waited until they had reached the back door. A shaft of glowing gold lamplight spilt out across the terrace as they opened it. Then they slipped inside, their happy laughter carrying down the hill on the cold winter’s wind. The door closed, and the shaft of golden lamplight vanished. Quin felt, inexplicably, as if he had just been shut out. Viviana and the children were safe and snug together now. They were happy. They were a family, the four of them. And he was not a part of it. A sinking sense of emptiness weighed him down.
He had the strangest feeling that he had just made a terrible, irreparable mistake. But how could that be? Somehow, he turned to Chris and Lottie and forced himself to smile. “One down,” he said. “And two to go.”
In which the Contessa has An Assignation.
V
iviana was chilled to the bone by the time she reached the old cottage the following afternoon. A freezing rain had fallen during the night, icing the trees and weighing down the hedgerows which lined the last of her route. The clothes which she had brought with her from Venice—the very warmest things she possessed—were woefully inadequate to the Buckinghamshire winter. She wished desperately for some thick stockings and a habit of good Scotch wool; indeed, she should have ordered them from the village seamstress yesterday.
Instead, she had let herself be distracted by Lady Charlotte. And this, apparently, was where her foolishness had taken her, she mused as she surveyed the scene beyond the rotted gateposts. The ramshackle cottage looked as abandoned and unkempt as ever. With grave unease, she slid off her saddle and somehow landed on both feet, which felt like torpid blocks of ice.
After leading her mount around to the back of the cottage, she secured him in the rear of the shed—the half which had not yet buckled under the weight of its roof—and looked about. Obviously, the collapse was not recent. The former Earl of Wynwood must have been a dreadful old pinchpenny to let one of his properties come to this.
By the time she returned to the yard, the wind had picked up afresh. She knocked, and, getting the response she had expected—nothing—lifted the latch and pushed on the door anyway. It was stuck, but not locked. Stubbornly, Viviana set her shoulder to the wide planks and gave it a hearty shove. The hinges squalled, and the door swung inward, the bottom edge dragging on the flagstone floor.
Inside, the cottage had an air of forsakenness about it, but was not without charm. There was a smell, a hint of the mustiness one associated with old wood and a cold hearth, but there was another, more familiar scent, too. Viviana drifted about the place, wondering at it, and pausing from time to time to blow warm air down her gloves for heat. The cottage’s plain, roughly plastered walls reached up to a low ceiling which was supported by three broad, age-blackened beams. The flagstone floor had been swept clean, and the hearth was already laid with kindling. Yes, the place was vacant—but not entirely abandoned.
The cottage appeared to consist of two rooms with a kitchen across the back. There was a rickety little contraption which might charitably have been called a staircase, but was really just a ladder, ascending into a hole between the beams. The front room was fitted with an old chest, a deal corner cupboard, and a pair of sturdy armchairs. She tossed her hat onto one of the chairs, then peeked into the tiny bedchamber adjacent. In the gloom, she could see a rough-hewn bed covered with an old wool counterpane.
Viviana drifted into the back room, which was more or less empty save for an old-fashioned kitchen basin lined with zinc, and an ancient Welsh dresser, still filled with blue-and-white dishware bearing the cracks and chips of age. A peck basket of apples and two pails of fresh water sat near the sink. How very odd.
Just then, she heard the door scraping open again. She whirled around to see Quin stooping low beneath the lintel. He carried something in on his shoulder and was stomping the slush from his boots as he came. Viviana cleared her throat. He looked up, his eyes widening in surprise.
“It was freezing,” she said, her voice tart. “I had no wish to wait in the wind.”
He smiled coolly and tossed down the bundle which had been balanced on one shoulder. “I’m late,” he admitted. “Mr. Herndon, my steward, detained me. I apologize.”
Viviana drifted back into the front room. “Whose house is this?”
“It was occupied until recently by the widow of an old tenant farmer,” he answered, shucking his heavy coat and gloves. “But she has gone to live with her daughter in High Wycombe. Herndon cannot let it again until some repairs are made.”
“Yes, the shed is falling in,” she said crossly.
Quin’s smile thinned. “It seems my late father did not believe in making any repairs unless they were urgent,” he answered. “And the shed, I collect, was not used by the widow.”
“I sheltered my horse there.” She looked at him sharply. “Will he be safe?”
“Safe enough,” he answered, kneeling by the hearth. “You are cold. Let me start a fire.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” she returned, her tone impatient. “I cannot stay.” She chided herself at once. Good Lord, she was nervous as a cat. How did Quin get under her skin so easily?
He said nothing more but drew a dented old vesta box from his pocket and struck a match on the hearthstone. It flared to life, its unpleasant stench wafting through the room. He held the match to the kindling, which began to smolder, and finally, to burn.
“The new French matchsticks are not so malodorous,” she complained. “The tobacconist in the Burlington Arcade sells them a ha’pence a dozen.”
He did not answer, but instead stared into the incipient fire. “I am sorry, Viviana, that it is so cold out,” he finally said. “And I’m sorry that my shed is about to collapse on your horse. And that I was detained by Herndon. And that my lucifers are stinking up the room. In fact, I’m beginning to be sorry I bothered to come here at all.”
Viviana drew back an inch.
“Si,
I am being a—a—what is the English word?” She paused to glare at him.
“Una crudele strega.
A bitch? A witch? I forget how to say it.”
“Either will do,” he said dryly.
“Well, I shan’t apologize,” she answered. “I did not wish to come here. Not really.”
“And I did not wish you cutting up my peace,” he retorted.
“Cutting
your
peace?” she answered, not entirely sure what he meant, but unwilling to give an inch. “What about my peace? Is it not cut, also?”
“The peace of this cottage,” he clarified. “It felt like the only tranquil place in the county until five minutes ago.” He was on his feet now, his glossy riding boots set stubbornly wide.
She put her hands on her hips and looked past him, to the bundle he had dropped in one of the wooden armchairs. It looked like blankets. “Someone has been living here,” she said. “It is you, is it not?”
He lifted one brow, and said nothing.
“Your scent, it is in the room,” she challenged.
“Perhaps it’s just the stench of my matches,” he said sardonically. “Perhaps you cannot tell the difference anymore, Vivie.”
Viviana narrowed her gaze and wondered what to say next. Why was she trying to goad him? She did not know this implacable, steely-eyed man who looked as though ice water might run in his veins. In the old days, Quin had always been hot-tempered and eager for a fight—and eager to make up afterward, too. And she—well, she had been little better.
Like cats in heat,
she thought again. Emotional. Fiery. Passionate. Well, the passion was obviously gone now—thank God.
She resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “Well, let us get on with this, Quentin,” she said. “Let us ‘get our stories straight,’ as you insist we ought.”
He took a step toward her. “Firstly, I should like to know what you have told my sister.”
“I?” she snapped. “What
I
have told?
Niente affatto!
Nothing! You dare suggest otherwise?”
He looked at her grimly. “I just think it behooves us, Viviana, to say as little as possible about…about the past.”
“Andare all’inferno!”
she spit.
Oh, he knew how to interpret that one, thought Quin.
Go to hell.
Too bloody late for that. It felt as if he was already there. Somehow, he caught both her hands in his. “Oh, Viviana, for pity’s sake,” he said. “I only meant that—”
“I know what you meant,” she snapped, jerking her hands from his. “Do you think, Quinten, that I am not ashamed of what I was to you? I did not choose it, no. But I gave in to you. And I am still ashamed. More than you will ever know.”
“I am sorry to hear you say it,” he answered quietly. “I was never ashamed of you, Viviana. I was always proud that you were my—”
“Silenzio!”
Viviana’s face had gone taut and pale. “I was never yours, Quinten. Never! Can you not comprehend? And you may thank your uncle Chesley, not me, for what little your sister does know.”
“Uncle Ches?” Quin was bewildered. “What did he tell her?”
“That you once pursued me, no more,” she answered. “What else would he say? He knows nothing.”
That was probably true. Quin had taken great pains to hide the relationship from his uncle, in part because Viviana had begged him. But in part because…well, because he had feared Chesley’s wrath. He had known, had he not, that his uncle would not approve? Chesley had treated Viviana almost as a niece or goddaughter. That very fact should have told Quin something.
But there was something else in Viviana’s tone which Quin did not like. He lifted his head, and pinned her with his gaze. “What did you mean, Viviana, when you said you ‘did not choose it’?”
Viviana dropped her eyes. “I just meant that I did not—” She swallowed hard, then glanced back up at him almost accusingly. “That I did not wish to—”
He set both hands on her slender shoulders and gave her a little shake. “What are you saying?” he demanded. “That you did not wish to be my lover?”
She closed her eyes. “I did not wish it,” she whispered. “I told you so, Quinten. I told you so a hundred times.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Oh, don’t play the martyr with me, my dear,” he said. “Perhaps I pursued you rather determinedly. But you wanted it, Viviana.”
“Determinedly.” Her gaze flicked up again.
“Si, caro,
that is one way of putting it.”
“Are you saying, Vivie, that you didn’t
want
me?” He looked at her incredulously. “That just won’t wash, my dear.”
She looked weary and a little ill now. “I am not trying to wash anything,” she answered. “Please, Quinten, I must be going now. I think there is nothing for us to settle after all.”
But a distinctly unpleasant suspicion was creeping over him. “Viviana, good God! Are you…are you claiming that I—that I
violated
you?”
The hurt in her eyes deepened. “No, not that.” Her voice was so soft now he could barely hear. “I did not scream, did I? I did not kick or strike you, or—or…” The words fell away.
“Viviana.” His voice was hollow, even to his own ears. “Viviana—that first time—I did
not
force you. Do not you dare try to claim that now, after all that you have put me through.”
“Force?” Her eyes widened. “I never said it was that.”
“What then? What the devil
are
you saying?”
She looked away. “I just did not wish it to be like that,” she answered, sliding her hands up and down her arms. “Can you not understand, Quinten? Not the first time. Not on a divan in some tawdry backstage dressing room, with my skirts hiked up and the filth of the stage still on me. And I wished to be loved. To be
married.
Even the bourgeoisie,
caro mio,
have dreams and principles.”
Dreams? Principles?
Good God! He dropped his hands and turned away. The walls of the little cottage seemed to shift unsteadily.
He thought back on that night, his brain whirling, his palms beginning to sweat. He had been drinking, but no more than usual. He had been frustrated, yes. He had been growing increasingly desperate for Viviana and beginning to fear he would never win her. And halfway through her amazing performance, he had realized, just as everyone in the theater had, that Viviana Alessandri’s life as a mere understudy was over. He had realized, too, that the admiring glances which had driven him to near madness were about to increase tenfold.
But underneath all the anxiety, he had been so very proud. He had known how hard she had slaved for her success. He had awaited her return to her dressing room with an awful mix of delight and nervousness, pacing the floor and waiting for her to make her way through the throng of admirers which always crowded behind the stage. She had arrived utterly aglow with the light of success. Giddy from the thunderous applause. She had thrown herself into his arms with wild abandon. And he had believed that it meant something, something more than it apparently had.
He turned and walked into the shabby kitchen, where he could brace his hands on the old sink and stare through the window as he fought to collect himself. He felt, rather than heard, her follow him in. “You never desired me, Viviana?” he whispered. “It was just me, pushing you into something…something you did not want?”
“I was inexperienced, Quinten,” she whispered, lightly touching his arm. “How was I to know what I wanted? Did I desire you physically? Yes. You know that I did. But I let my…my exuberance get out of hand. I let things go too far.”
“How far, Vivie?” he rasped. “How far was too far for you?”
She hesitated, as if measuring her response. “I was not sure, Quinten,” she said. And then she answered the question he was afraid to ask. “I had lain with no man before you,
caro.
I did not know—did not even think about the fact that there was a point, emotionally and physically, at which one could not so easily turn back. Did you…did you not understand?”
He dragged a hand through his hair, and said nothing.
“I thought it was obvious,” she went on. “Obvious, I mean, that I did not know what I was doing. I had always assumed that the first would be my husband.”
Quin opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I…I never dreamt…,” he finally said.
She had circled around the narrow room and into his field of view. She looked deathly pale but almost frighteningly composed. “You never dreamt what, Quinten?” she went on, no anger in her words now. “Did you simply believe that all singers were whores?”
Yes, he had believed it.
It was what everyone said. But who was everyone? His new, ramshackle London friends? “I don’t know, Viviana, what I thought,” he lied. “I just…wanted you.”
“And damn the cost?” she finished. “Well, it has cost us both, Quinten. I was a good Catholic girl, but I did not count on the terrible temptation you would present. My resistance lasted all of what—? Two months?”