by Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley, Sandra Heath, Edith Layton, Laura Matthews
As soon as the maid had gone, she climbed swiftly into the huge bed, curled up into a tight ball, and pulled the bedclothes over her head. But in the cocoon of darkness, she could still hear Piers’s voice, and still see his face.
She hid her face in her hands. He’d said there were other things she didn’t yet know, but there were things he didn’t know either. Such as how much she loved him. And that although she was alone in this great bed, she wished more than anything that he were with her. If only he were, if only his arms were around her now, his lips soft against hers, his body urgent with the same desire that coursed so needfully through hers. This night she wanted to surrender to the feelings that had ruled her for so long, but she knew the dawn would come and nothing would have changed. She’d still be enslaved by secret passion, and he would neither know nor care.
But the night hadn’t finished yet. The cloaked man was already striding through the stormy darkness toward the castle, and would soon be within its walls to continue making fate—and Rebecca Winterbourne—bow to his wishes.
She was still awake a little later when slow, echoing footsteps approached her door. She sat up with a frightened gasp as a single imperative knock reverberated through the entire castle.
Holding the bedclothes to her chin, she gazed nervously toward the sound. “Who—who is it?”
The only reply was a second firm knock, then whoever it was walked slowly away, and again the steps echoed loudly.
Trembling, she flung the bedclothes aside and went to press her ear to the door. As the steps grew more faint, she opened the door to look out into the dark passage. Candlelight flickered at the far end as someone turned the corner and passed out of sight. She just caught a glimpse of a dark hem, and then the candlelight faded.
The cloaked man! Her father? Gathering her flimsy nightgown, she hurried barefoot after him. The cold of the night didn’t seem to touch her as she ran, and as she reached the corner, she was in time to see the man disappearing down the staircase.
“Stop!” she called desperately. “Please stop!”
She reached the top of the stairs, and paused with her hand on the greenery-swathed newel post to watch the shadowy figure walking slowly across the firelit hall toward the arched door of the library Suddenly he turned to look back at her, and his candle shivered, sending wild shadows leaping over the floor. Its uncertain light shone momentarily upon his face.
“Father? It is you, isn’t it?” she cried.
He didn’t reply, but made a beckoning gesture with his arm, and then continued toward the library.
She hesitated, then gathered her skirts again to follow; but as she reached the foot of the staircase, the library door closed resoundingly behind him. Her bare feet were almost silent on the stone floor as she ran across the hall, but suddenly Piers’s call halted her.
“Rebecca?”
She turned and saw him standing at the top of the staircase where she’d been a moment before. He was still wearing his evening clothes, and had been smoking a Spanish cigar in his room when he’d heard her cries.
Her voice shook. “My father has just gone into the library.”
“Please stop this, Rebecca,” he replied, coming down toward her.
“But it’s true! Didn’t you just hear the door close? He’s in there now, and he wants me to follow him.”
Turning, she continued toward the library, but as she flung the door open, what she saw inside brought her to an astonished standstill.
The room was in darkness, except for a soft glow from the hearth, but by that light she saw a blizzard of airborne documents. Every private paper in the castle seemed to be eddying around the room. Her father’s ghostly figure was by the fire, dark and mysterious against the flames, and as she stared, he pointed at one of the papers, which gradually floated to the carpet at her feet. As she bent to retrieve it, her father immediately disappeared, and the flying documents tumbled to the floor like a huge pack of cards.
Piers ran up behind her just in time to see the figure vanish and the papers fall, and he gave a startled gasp. “Great God above!”
She clutched the paper she’d picked up, crumpling it slightly as she gazed around nervously. What did it all mean? Why was her father appearing to her like this?
Piers took her arm and drew her protectively toward him. “It’s all right, it’s stopped now,” he said gently, but there was a slight tremor in his voice.
“He was there, wasn’t he? My father? You saw him too?” she asked anxiously. “Please say you did.”
“Yes, I saw him.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she turned to look up at him. “Why, Piers? Why is it happening?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced uneasily at the paper she held.
She saw his glance, and looked down at the paper too. Then her lips parted with fresh shock as she read the first legal sentences written in beautiful copperplate. This day; being the first of March in the Year of Grace eighteen hundred and ten, has an agreement been made for the monthly allowance shown below to be paid to Mr. Clifford Newton of Abbotlea Manor in the County of Devon, by Piers Winterbourne, Tenth Lord Winterbourne, of Winterbourne Castle in the County of Devon, for the maintenance and well-being of Mrs. Edward Winterbourne and her sons, Matthew Edward Henry and Frederick William James...
She stared at the writing for a long moment. Suddenly so much became clear, not least being how Clifford and Margaret had managed to stretch their finances to provide for three extra mouths! And she understood why they felt she’d been wronging Piers. Of course they’d think that, for they knew Piers was her benefactor. That was why they were always so anxious when she told them how badly her latest confrontation with him had gone, and why they’d been so at pains to gain her promise of good behavior at the ball. How doubly deceived she’d been! By him, and by her own family!
Piers looked uneasily at her. “I didn’t want you to find out like this, Rebecca.”
She quivered with anger. “No, I’ll warrant you didn’t. So this is what you declined to elaborate upon earlier! You almost blurted it out, didn’t you? You began to say that rather than be confrontational, you decided to observe your responsibilities by paying my brother a suitable sum! That’s correct, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he admitted unwillingly.
“Have you any idea how this makes me feel?” she cried. “I thought I was dependent upon my brother’s charity, but all the time you were keeping me!”
“Keeping you?” He laughed a little. “My God, if that’s what I’ve been doing, I’ve reaped scant reward from the arrangement! Oh, Rebecca, is it so demeaning to receive help from me? Do you hate me so much you’d rather your sons went without than accept anything I offer? Damn it, I’d have paid much much more if Clifford thought he’d be able to fool you into thinking the money came from him.”
“I’ll never forgive Clifford for this, or Margaret!”
“Unlike you, they’ve been putting your children’s welfare first,” he said coldly. “That’s why your brother sent word to me as soon as he heard of your intention to marry Willoughby. He doesn’t think Sir Oliver is a suitable person to be your sons’ father, nor do I! But you, as always it seems, are incapable of making a sensible choice of husband!”
“I find you deeply offensive, sirrah!” she breathed.
“That, madam, is your prerogative.”
She struck him, and her fingers left angry marks on his cheek. Bitterness and resentment flooded so strongly through her she couldn’t help herself, and she’d have struck him a second time if he hadn’t seized her wrist.
“Once is more than enough!” he said softly, and then flung her wrist aside to walk away. Suddenly he halted and came back, seizing her by both arms and shaking her slightly. “You’re the most provoking and stubborn woman I have ever known. Believe me, if you were being kept by me in the fullest sense of the word, I’d see you were always too busy between the sheets to indulge your propensity for carefully nurtured grievances
!” His eyes were like blue ice.
“There speaks the true gentleman!”
“More of a gentleman than the spendthrift you married, and certainly more than the vain old featherbrain you’re about to wed! You’re so fond of telling me how you feel, aren’t you? Well, have you ever paused for a single second to wonder how I feel? Has it ever crossed your mind to think for a moment why I behaved as I did when you took up so very publicly with my cousin? Well, has it?” He shook her again.
“I—I don’t understand!”
“No, you never understand! You merely judge and condemn out of hand!”
“Piers—”
“If you had any idea of the pain and heartbreak I felt when you danced with Edward and then allowed him to kiss you in front of the entire ball ... Rebecca, I wanted it to be me! I wanted to kiss you like that, I wanted to hold you close and show the world how much I loved and needed you. But in the space of a few short minutes, suddenly you were Edward’s. And now we’ve come to this—hating each other so much we can’t be civil for more than a few seconds.”
She was so thunderstruck she could only stare at him. He’d loved her all those years ago? Oh, Piers, Piers ... But as her lips parted to confess that she’d not only loved him then, but loved him still, he spoke again.
“Well, Rebecca, we may not have just finished a landler, and there may not be mistletoe or a host of onlookers, but I’m damned well going to take that kiss I wanted all those years ago!”
Before she knew it, he’d pulled her close and put his lips over hers. He held her tight with one arm, while his other hand slid richly over the warmth of her body through the thin stuff of her nightgown. He pressed her against him so that she could feel the arousal at his loins, and all the time his lips taunted her remorselessly. It was the skilled kiss of a man who’d made an art of lovemaking, and knew how to give as much pleasure as he took.
But then, as abruptly as he’d taken her in the embrace, he released her again, and without a word turned on his heel to walk away, leaving her standing in the library doorway with the crumpled paper still in her hand.
She called after him “Piers?”
He didn’t look back.
“Piers!” she cried.
But he walked on, ascending the staircase and passing out of sight as if he hadn’t heard her. After a moment she heard his door close softly.
Suddenly the ghostly hand seized her shoulder again. Its grasp was cold through her nightgown, and its strength fierce as it shook her angrily. She stumbled forward as it let go, and this time when she whirled about, her father stood there, his face grim in the uncertain light.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Why are you doing this, Father? Why have you come back? What have I done?”
In reply he walked past her, stepping so close she felt the sweeping draft of his cloak. His steps rang on the floor as he crossed to the staircase, where he turned to beckon before going slowly up.
She obeyed the silent command, her feet making no sound as she went after him. At the top of the staircase she paused, for he’d disappeared. She looked all around, but there were only shadows. She didn’t know what to do. Where was she supposed to go?
Walking on, she paused again at Piers’s door, trying to summon the courage to tell him the truth. But when she remembered the cynical way he’d kissed her, and how he’d refused to even look back when she’d called after him, she couldn’t go in.
Gathering her nightgown, she cravenly began to hurry on toward her own room, but suddenly her father’s reproachful figure barred the way. He shook his head, and wagged his finger, then he pointed at Piers’s door.
“I—I can’t,” she whispered.
He pointed again, more commandingly this time.
She searched his face. “You want me to go to Piers?”
He nodded, and suddenly she could hear his voice, even though his lips didn’t move. “You can find complete happiness with Piers Winterbourne. Seize your chance, Rebecca, for there will not be another one.”
As the last word was uttered, Piers’s door opened of its own accord, as if inviting her to enter. She hesitated, but her father’s gaze was still upon her, commanding and determined. She lowered her eyes submissively and stepped into the anteroom between the passage and the main apartment. As soon as she was inside, the door closed behind her.
Leaving the anteroom, she went into the apartment beyond. It was quiet, and the Jacobean furnishings were elegant in the mixed glow of candles and firelight. Piers stood looking into the fire, with one foot resting on the polished fender. He had a glass of cognac, and his golden hair was burnished as he stared into the flames without realizing she was there.
She gazed at him. Events beyond her control had brought her here, but she was in control now. She knew that if she said his name and went toward him, she’d expose forever the close-guarded secret she’d kept safely hidden for so long.
Suddenly he sensed her presence and turned. “Rebecca?” He placed his glass on the mantelshelf. “Why have you come here? If it’s to demand an apology for my monstrous conduct a few minutes ago, then I apologize.”
“If—if anyone should apologize, it’s me, Piers.”
“You bear a share of the blame, I’ll grant you that.”
“I deserve your anger. And my father’s,” she added.
“Your father’s?” He looked at her and then smiled a little. “If I hadn’t seen what I did in the library, I’d still think you were imagining it all. No, that’s not strictly true, for there have been other things.” He told her about trying to burn Clifford’s note, and about the shadowy figure he’d seen by the tree on his way to the ball.
She swallowed. “I—I wish you’d told me, instead of leaving me to think I was suffering from hallucinations. I kept seeing my father everywhere—by the river, in the church doorway, at the ball, in your carriage, and then here in the castle too. And there were the invisible hands on my shoulder, to say nothing of apparently winged documents taking to the air both here and in the library of Abbotlea.” She lowered her eyes for a moment, and then summoned her courage. “Piers, there’s something I have to confess.”
He searched her face. “A confession? I can’t imagine what sin you’ve committed.”
“It’s not a sin exactly.”
“Whatever it is, I hardly think I’m the one who should play confessor, do you? Surely Sir Oliver now has first claim upon that role?” He said this last with heavy irony.
“Sir Oliver hasn’t got first claim on anything. I—I’m not going to marry him.” Until the words came to her lips, she didn’t realize she’d even made the decision, let alone made it so firmly and irrevocably.
“Wisdom at last, belated maybe, but better late than never. It was an appalling idea from the outset. You have no need to marry again, unless for love of course. If you’ll only permit me to do what’s right, I’ll gladly make a generous allowance to support you and your sons. It’s my duty to do it, Rebecca, and it’s a duty I’d undertake only too willingly.”
“Is that what I’ve become? A duty?” she asked then. He didn’t reply.
She seized all the courage she could find. “Piers, by the library a few minutes ago, you said ... You said you once loved me.”
“Anger brings forth rash disclosures,” he murmured.
“And contrition is about to bring forth the same from me,” she said quietly.
“Indeed? And what have you to be contrite about?”
“My obstinacy.”
Humor lightened his eyes. “Which quality you have in plenty.”
“I know.”
He searched her face. “Although some may call it splendid spirit,” he said softly.
“There’s nothing splendid or spirited about my faintheartedness at this moment.”
“I don’t understand.”
Somehow she managed to meet his gaze. “Piers, the feelings you once had for me ... I—I share them. I mean, I still have them, although I know they’re very muc
h in the past for you.”
“I’m not sure I follow your meaning, but I certainly hope I do.” His blue eyes were quizzical in the firelight. “Would it help if I said those feelings have never become past for me? They’re as strong for me now as they always were.”
Her lips parted as hope leapt into her heart. “They are?”
He smiled. “Well, I think so. Provided we’re talking about the same thing. We are talking about the same thing, aren’t we?”
She stared at him. “I—I don’t know.”
“Then we may be here for some time, both timidly tiptoeing around the issue without being bold enough to say it outright.”
Suddenly she found the strength she needed. “I’ll say it outright, Piers. I love you, and I always have.” A huge weight seemed to be lifted from her, and she closed her eyes with relief. She’d said it. After all these years, she’d told him what she’d kept hidden for so long!
He didn’t say anything, and at last she opened her eyes to look anxiously at him. But he was smiling. “Oh, my darling, darling Rebecca, we were indeed talking of the same thing,” he said softly, holding out his hand to her.
She gazed incredulously at him. “We were? We truly were?”
“How can you ever doubt it? Come here.”
With an overjoyed sob she ran to him. He caught her fingers tightly to pull her gladly into his arms, then his lips found hers in a kiss so filled with released longing it seemed to turn their flesh to fire.
Then for a long moment they stood in a passionate embrace. Her forehead rested against his shoulder, and her eyes were closed as she made the other confession that had tormented her for so long. “Piers, it was you I wanted at the ball when I danced with Edward, but I thought you weren’t interested.”
His fingers coiled the hair at the nape of her neck. “But I was interested,” he whispered. “I wanted you more than anything, but suddenly it was too late, and I’d lost you to him.”