by Jude Knight
He lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “Have you lost your sweet tooth, then, dearest heart?”
She shook her head. “I am as bad as ever, I fear.”
His murmured, “One can hope,” was not meant to be heard, and he tried to cover by saying aloud, “Fournier’s, then.” The enterprising Marcel Fournier was a darling of the Polite World, and had recently opened a pastry shop to complement his restaurant.
“Until tomorrow.” Sarah gave in to the impulse to offer him her hands again, and this time he pulled her close and lowered his head, stopping when his lips were no more than an inch from hers. She waited a moment. He stayed where he was, the terrible man. Sarah raised herself that inch, her mouth tentative on his.
Odd. She thought she remembered his kisses. But she had forgotten the sweetness of it, the way his lips softened, the touch of his tongue asking her to open, the way he stroked into her mouth. With each moment, as the kiss deepened and his gentle persuasion became more insistent, more urgent, the memories flooded back.
That summer, they had discovered a hundred ways to kiss, a thousand. Different touches, different pressures, different positions. This, hand in hand, nothing but their mouths connected, was tame compared to some of their explorations, but there was nothing tame about the impact.
Cold? She could do with some cold. A dip in ice would not put out the conflagration.
When he pulled away, she whimpered.
His voice was strained as he stepped back, using his grasp on her hands to hold her at arm’s-length. “Dearest heart, have mercy. I am on fire, and if you are not going to invite me to stay...”
Oh. Her face heated. She dropped her gaze to his fall and blinked.
“Indeed,” he confirmed, with a short laugh. “I thought I had acquired considerable control over these past seven years, but you are fast demolishing it, my lady. Let me wish you a good night while I am still sane enough to be a gentleman.”
He was correct again, though for a wild moment she had not been able to think of any reason not to invite him to continue what they’d started. “Tomorrow, then,” she managed.
Nate gave her hands a final squeeze and released them. “Tomorrow,” he confirmed, with a bow.
Sarah followed him to the door and watched him cross the entrance hall where a footman waited to let him out. Four, she said to herself as the door closed behind him. One more point for that kiss, and another for stopping.
12
Nate couldn’t persuade Libby to accompany him. “I cannot come with you,” she kept saying.
He explained that he needed her and the children to cover his purpose in being there. “If I turn up on my own near the children and the ducks, and start talking to the Winderfield party, it will be all over town within the hour,” he pointed out.
“Lord Lechton does not wish to acknowledge the marriage, Nate,” Libby said. “I cannot come with you, Bentham. I am sorry.”
“Lord Lechton will change his mind when he realises what this means,” Nate assured her, though he did wonder. The old man was not flexible in his thinking. “His heir already has a legitimate heir. He has achieved his goal.”
“Perhaps.” Libby was even more doubtful than Nate. “But we cannot ask him, for he went out after you argued yesterday evening, and has not come home. I cannot come with you.”
He could not push her further. She was right that his father’s wrath would fall unequally, since there wasn’t much he could do to Nate, but Libby was fully in the old reprobate’s power. “Do not concern yourself, Libby. I will think of something else.”
“Take the girls.” Libby looked surprised by her own suggestion, but took a deep breath and repeated it. “Yes. Take the girls. Lechton cannot blame me if you take the girls to the park and happen to meet Lady Sarah. How would I know your intention?” She blushed, bright scarlet. “You must think me dreadful, to suggest deceiving my husband.”
“On the contrary,” Nate reassured her. “I think you a brave sweet lady, doing her best by your husband’s son. Yes, and Lechton, too, for he will only make a fool of himself if he goes up against the will of the Duke of Winshire, and the duke has accepted me as Sarah’s husband.”
Libby’s eyes widened. “Truly? Then you must go to the park, Bentham. Indeed, I must say I think it very wicked to separate a husband and wife, even if you were a disobedient son to marry Lady Sarah against your father’s wishes. But if the marriage is real, then there is nothing further to be said.” She gave a determined nod. “Indeed, it is my duty to help you and your wife. Take your sisters to the park, my lord. I shall tell their nurse and the governess.”
“Say nothing of my marriage for the moment, Libby, if you please. I have promised Lady Sarah time to consider whether she wishes it to be known.”
Libby’s eyes rounded. “She might refuse to remain married, you mean? But divorce would ruin her, Bentham.”
“Let us hope it does not come to that. Indeed, I am hopeful that I can win her again, and I certainly mean to try. For I tell you, Libby, if I cannot win my wife back, I will never marry.”
“Oh dear,” Libby responded. “I will say nothing, then, but I do wish you every success.”
As a result, Nate found himself escorting a bevy of females to the Chinese Bridge in St James Park. Honoria, aged five, walked beside him, holding his hand. The nurse followed, with three-year-old Lavinia in her arms, with the nursemaid pushing the baby carriage containing little Phillida, most commonly known as Baby. A footman trailed the party, carrying the essential bags of stale bread and buns, and another carried umbrellas in case the hovering clouds turned to rain.
Built for the victory celebrations earlier that year, the Chinese Bridge had fallen victim to the fireworks it had hosted for the occasion. It still stood, though fire scorched, but the pagoda that had been the centrepiece was gone.
Sarah and her sister had chosen a spot just along the bank of the canal. Lord Andrew was in attendance. A nursemaid stood back with several of the Winderfield guard. But Nate only had eyes for Sarah and the boy. Elias. His son. He was breaking chunks of bread off a loaf and tossing it to a squabbling rabble of ducks, and Sarah was right beside him, laughing at the birds’ antics, pointing to ducks that had been shouldered to the outskirts, and making comments that had Elias tipping back his head to shout with laughter.
Nate shepherded his entourage to the side of the Winderfield party, and nodded to the footman to distribute the bread to the two older girls. Baby was sound asleep in her carriage.
Lord Andrew opened the conversation between the two parties. “Good day, Bentham. Your sisters, I take it?”
“Lady Honoria Beauclair and Lady Lavinia with the ducks.” Nate broke off to swoop Lavie up into his arms as half a dozen ducks at once tried to pull the bread from her arms, and she opened her mouth to roar. “A little bit at a time, sweetheart,” he told her, demonstrating as he settled her safely on one arm.
“And Lady Phillida asleep in the carriage,” he added.
Lady Charlotte was staring at Norie. “My goodness, Sarah, Lady Honoria and El—your ward could be brother and sister.”
She was right. They had the same colouring, the same lean frame and oval face, the same determined chin and straight brows with a downward hook at the end. Elias’s hair was cropped short, but still showed a tendency to curl, as did Norie’s under her pretty cloth bonnet.
He exchanged a smile with Sarah. No one would remain in doubt of Elias’s parentage when they saw the two children together.
Elias tugged on Sarah’s hand. “I need more bread, Mama.”
“We have lots of bread,” Norie offered. “I can give the boy some bread, can I not, Bentham?”
Elias stared at her for a moment, his eyes wide, then remembered his manners. “Thank you, miss. But Uncle Drew has more bread.” He seemed to think this an adequate introduction, because he added, “You should throw some to that one at the back. The others are being greedy.”
Norie threw a piece of bread over th
e heads of the other ducks. It fell short, and before the target duck could read it, it was mobbed in a flurry of beaks and wings.
“They stole it,” Norie noted, then stamped a foot. “Bad ducks! You have no manners.”
“Ducks have duck manners,” observed Elias, from all the superiority of a year’s age and masculinity. “Here, let me help you.”
He took position beside the little girl, and showed her how to make pellets of the bread so they flew more accurately, and they were soon making a game of picking a duck to favour with their largesse and then throwing to that duck, groaning when another web-toed bandit reached the morsel first and cheering when they succeeded.
“He is a kind boy,” Nate observed to Sarah, blinking a little to clear the moisture from his eyes. “Me too, Benth,” Lavie demanded, wriggling to be put down. “Me throw bread with Boy.”
He set her on the ground and she rushed to squeeze between her sister and Elias—her nephew, Nate thought with bemusement—all the better to be protected from the ducks. Elias smiled down at her. “Is this your sister?” he asked Norie.
“She’s Lavie. And I’m Norie. And there’s Baby, too, but she’s asleep.” Norie waved in the direction of the carriage without looking away from the ducks.
“Bwead, Norie,” Lavie demanded.
Elias gave her a pelleted morsel. “Throw it over the ducks,” he advised. “I’m Elias,” he told Norie. “Pleased to meet you.”
Lavie’s effort flew all of two feet. Elias squatted on his heels to give Lavie another piece of bread, and showed her how to swing her arm so it flew at least four feet, right into the clamouring flock.
Nate’s eyes were watering again. What a fine little lad he was!
“Will you tell me about him?” he asked Sarah, who had slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, and was having a similar problem with her tear ducts as she watched the children.
Lord Andrew and Lady Charlotte had moved to the other side of the children, the servants had fallen back to cluster around the baby carriage, and the guard maintained their watchfulness in a semicircle around their charges. They were as private as they could be in such a public place.
“He is a kind boy, as you have said. Quiet, but he is coming out of his shell as he gains confidence. Very clever, too. In the eight months since I found him, he has almost caught up with his age group in most of his subjects, and is reading beyond what his nursemaid expects.”
“Only eight months? Rumour has it you found him in a workhouse.”
“His foster parents died, and their family didn’t want him. He was there only four months, Nate, but you should have seen him. He was skin and bones, and so nervous.”
Nate didn’t know what to say. The thought of his son being abused set his every protective instinct into full emergency action, and it was all too late. A year ago, he had been in Edinburgh, still under naval discipline, but he could have asked for leave in between terms. He could have come looking for his wife, and if he had, he might have been able to rescue his son before the poor little man was hurt.
“I lost them, Nate. Mama hand-picked them, and I think they were good to Elias, for he remembers them fondly. But my grandfather paid them to move away, and to break their agreement to send Mama reports on Elias’s health. We didn’t know where they had gone, and my grandfather was not telling.” She wiped away a tear.
“I tried, Nate. I saved as much as I could from my pin money, and I spent it all on hiring a man to search for Elias. But he found nothing. He kept asking for more money, but there was none. No more pin money and my dowry was gone—not that my father would have given it to me, even if my grandfather and father had not spent it all.”
“But you persisted, and in the end, you found him.”
“Uncle James came, and all of a sudden I had a bigger allowance than I had ever had in my life. I decided to try a new agent. I don’t think the first one ever left London. He just took my money and lied to me about what he was doing. But Prue—Mrs Wakefield—wouldn’t give up. And in the end, she found Elias and brought him to me.”
Nate put his hand over the one tucked into his elbow and stroked. “You have him now. You missed those years when he was little, years in which you could have known him and loved him, but he is here now. You have the future.”
She smiled up at him. “We have the future. I’ll not keep him from you, Nate.” She focused her eyes on his cravat pin, veiling them with her lashes. “I’ll not keep either us from you.”
He bent his head closer. “Unfair to tell me that now, in public, where I am constrained from kissing you.”
“I didn’t mean to, yet,” Sarah admitted. “But the loving way you treat your sisters, and then you said that about my future, not assuming that we would be together...and I can see how much Elias moves you. We are married, Nate, in intention, whatever the law says. I do not know you well any more. But I know you can be trusted with my son. I know you are a decent, honourable man.”
She coloured. “I know I desire you, as I have not desired any man since the last time we were together. Perhaps that would not be quite enough if we were not already married. But we are, and I do not want to waste any more time when we have already lost seven years. Unless you are not ready?”
“Ready?” Nate’s grin must have been visible from St James Palace, it was so wide. “Dearest heart, I cannot wait to tell the whole world that you are my wife and Elias is my son. And to make a home with the pair of you.” Now there was a disturbing thought. “I cannot take you to my lodgings. We shall have to find a place to live.”
“Yes, and we need to tell Elias, and work out how to announce our marriage to the world.”
“It would also be helpful if I can bring my father around. Which, since his greatest ambition is to have a grandson, is looking increasingly possible.”
“We have some work to do, then, my darling.” She smiled up at him, and he desperately wanted to lean under her very fetching hat and kiss her, but just then Norie screeched, “But I want to go on the bridge!”
Her nurse, who was unfortunately as timid as Libby, was making ineffectual noises, but Elias said firmly, “You cannot, Norie. It is not safe. My mama says it caught fire, and it might collapse if we go on it. Then the fishes will nibble your toes, and you would not like that.”
Norie narrowed her eyes.
“Go on bwidge,” Lavie demanded.
“Go to the tea shop for cake,” Nate suggested, swinging her back up into his arms, and the distraction worked magnificently. “Would you like to join us for cake, Master Elias? You and your family?”
13
Elias opened his mouth to reply then shut it. Sarah was pleased to see him remember his manners. “May we, Mama?”
At Sarah’s nod, he managed a creditable bow. “Yes, please, sir.”
“To Fournier’s, then,” Nate said, and shared a smile with Sarah when the boy offered his arm to Norie in imitation of his elders. Charlotte grinned at Sarah and took Drew’s arm.
What a procession they made!
Drew and Charlotte led the way, with Elias and Norie next and then Nate and Sarah with Lavie still enthroned on Nate’s other arm.
The cluster of nursemaids followed with Phillida still in her baby carriage but now awake and chattering in baby gurgles at everything they passed.
The footmen brought up the rear and the guard spread out on both sides of the path.
Quite a sight, if somewhat wasted on the noontime park crowd of children and their nursemaids, off-duty soldiers, and scurrying citizens using the park as a thoroughfare between Westminster and Mayfair.
Fournier’s was a short stroll away. It was still early afternoon, well before the fashionable promenade hours, and the pastry shop had only just opened. Nate commandeered a table large enough for the family, and another for the servants and guard, and suggested that everyone order what they most desired.
They had a wonderful time, and Sarah fell in love a little bit more with this new, more
mature version of Nate, as he discussed different types of waterfowl with Elias, fed morsels of sweet cake to his smallest sister, answered question after question from Norie, and gently encouraged Norie and Elias to give Lavie her chance to have her say from time to time, though most of what she said was unintelligible, at least to Sarah.
When the topic turned to horses, Nate disclaimed any expertise. “I have been at sea since I was seventeen,” he explained, “but Lord Andrew knows all about them.”
Norie turned to Drew with her question, and while the children were distracted, Sarah asked hers. “Where did you learn to be so good with children?”
“All it takes is patience and the willingness to listen. Much like medicine, in fact. I boarded with a widow and her eight children in Edinburgh,” Nate explained. “Mrs McTavish tried to keep them out of my way to start with, but I enjoyed them. Fascinating little beings. One doesn’t see many children aboard a warship.”
“Hello,” said a familiar voice. Drew’s sister Ruth had just entered the shop, with her husband Val and his two daughters.
“Have you come to take tea? Join us,” Charlotte suggested, then cast a guilty look at Nate, who was their host. “If you do not mind, Lord Bentham.”
“Lord Bentham!” Ruth exclaimed. “Val, remember Lord Bentham, the volunteer doctor who worked so hard the day of the fire?”
While the two men were shaking hands, Ruth cast a glance around the table. “And who do we have here?” Her eyes caught on Norie, and she looked from the girl to Elias and then back again, before raising her eyebrows at Sarah.
“Lord Bentham’s younger sisters, Ruth. Please allow me to present Lady Honoria, Lady Lavinia, and Lady Phillida Beauclair.” Ruth’s eyebrows elevated still further, and she nodded, smiling at Nate and exhaling with an “Aaah.”
Sarah ignored her, continuing the introductions. “Young ladies, say good afternoon to Lord and Lady Ashbury. Lady Ashbury is Lord Andrew’s sister.” She gestured to Ashbury’s two girls. “And these are Lady Mirabel and Lady Genevieve Ashbury.”