a kiss.
Dear God. The pleasure, the molten ecstasy summoned by his mouth, his long lean fingers …
She saw in the mirror that her lips were rosy and swollen from the harshness of his mouth. You must tell him that Katy is your dead sister’s child. You must ask him why Linette named him as she lay dying.
Not tomorrow. Not later. But now.
She pressed her palms to her hot cheeks. One thing was certain. She could not go on much longer in this hell of uncertainty.
She went downstairs slowly, wearing her old grey mantle. Alec was at the far side of the room and he barely glanced at her. Clearly, she realised with a lurching stomach, he regretted what had just happened every bit as much as she did. He said, ‘A few more minutes and we’ll be ready to leave. I told Garrett to pick us up at six.’
She nodded, realising he was going round extinguishing the candles. He’d taken off his fine coat and his shirt sleeves fell back to his elbows as he reached for the higher sconces, revealing strong brown forearms that rippled with muscle and sinew.
Rosalie was about to tear her eyes away, but suddenly, in the flickering half-light, she saw an ugly, jagged scar that snaked up from his wrist. ‘Oh, my goodness.’ The words burst out on impulse. ‘Whatever happened to your arm?’
He glanced at it almost casually. ‘That? A French bayonet at Vittoria.’
Her mind reeled. ‘But …’
‘It was the battle that finally drove the French out of Spain,’ he said tersely. ‘June 1813.’
‘I know.’ Her lips and tongue would hardly work. ‘I know … Alec, were you there?’
He let out a sharp laugh. ‘Don’t make a hero out of me. Any soldier who could hold a weapon was at Vittoria. We were outnumbered and it was a desperate struggle, full of scenes I hope you can’t begin to imagine.’
‘Were you with Wellington’s army all that summer?’
‘All that year,’ he answered shortly. ‘No home leave for the officers.’
The full implications of it tore through her whole being. Dear God. He was in Spain with the army when Linette was seduced. He could not be Katy’s father …
‘Alec,’ she whispered. What could she say? She knew what she should say. Alec, I have been so determined to misjudge you. I have wronged you grievously …
He turned to her and at that very moment she saw just a man, a brave man—a hero, whatever he said, for some reason in a state of utter self-loathing. Alec, I’m so sorry. She went deliberately towards his tense figure and placed her hand on that ugly scar.
He caught her hand and pushed it away. He was towering over her and she felt fear scudding through her again as he said roughly, ‘You have a liking for playing with fire, Mrs Rowland.’
She stood firm. He thought that her gentle caress—really an acknowledgement of her own fallibility—was just another attempt to entrap him. But now she knew. Now was the time to speak.
She lifted her head. ‘Alec, you told me that Katy and I would be safe with you. And I wish, how I wish, that I’d trusted you. I—I’ve been foolish, I’ve been wrong … But now I want to tell you that Katy was my sister’s child.’
He’d gone very still. ‘Linette,’ he breathed. ‘Linette was your sister.’
Her gaze flew up to meet his. ‘You knew already—how?’
He was rubbing his forehead as if some tight band enclosed it. ‘Damn it, I’ve been making my own investigations. I know you were only at the Temple for one night, but before then you’d been trailing all round London’s theatres, asking questions. Asking about someone called Linette.’ He pulled out a chair. ‘Explain.’
And her words began to tumble out.
‘Linette was two years younger than me, Alec.’ Her voice was so low, he strained to catch her words. ‘She left home three years ago. She became pregnant in the summer of 1813; Katy is her daughter, Alec, and Linette, poor Linette …’ her voice broke just a little ‘… died in abject poverty. I came to London to look for the man who did this to her.’
‘You should have told me,’ his voice rasped.
‘I could not,’ she breathed, ‘I could not, because at first I thought it was you.’
As she uttered those fateful words, Rosalie felt as if something within her had died. Every syllable condemned her more surely in this man’s eyes. Oh, how he would despise her now.
Explain, he’d said, and it all poured out: how Linette had whispered his name as she lay dying, how Linette had said he had a castle.
He had pulled a chair up for himself, and sat in the half-shadow from the dying fire, watching her. At last he said, ‘She was looking for a refuge, perhaps. Sometimes we take in homeless women as well as men at Two Crows Castle. You’ll have noticed them—often they help Mary with the housework, until we can find them somewhere better.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded, her throat still tight. ‘My sister whispered, “Take me to him, please”. I thought—I thought perhaps she’d loved you, but now I see that she’d not even met you, Alec. You don’t turn anyone away and Linette must have heard that. I realise everything now.’
Too late.
From first seeing him, Rosalie had been drawn to his—integrity, that was the word. Alec had maintained Two Crows Castle because he cared about those soldiers. He had rescued her from Lord Maybury because he was concerned about her and Katy. Katy had trusted him straight away. If only she’d done the same. He would never, ever forgive her for her stupidity.
‘Anyone would have told you I was in Spain with the army all through the summer of 1813,’ he said, only echoing her own bitter regrets. ‘And you were taking a great risk, asking your questions all around London.’
‘I thought I was being careful.’ She was defensive now and growing tired.
‘You’ve managed to alarm someone—badly. Don’t forget about that threat and the bribes offered to my men.’
She lifted her gaze to him. ‘Is Linette’s seducer behind it all?’
‘I would think so indeed,’ he answered quietly.
Oh, God. No word of reproach for her vile insults to him, her foolish actions, her multiple mistakes. She dragged air into her lungs. ‘Alec,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, to have so wrongly suspected you. I’ve been so stupid. Why are you being kind to me?’
He sighed, then got up and walked over to the mantelpiece to douse another flickering candle. ‘Perhaps because I don’t like injustice. And don’t be so hard on yourself. On the contrary, I think you’ve been rather brave, coming to London and undertaking the search on your own.’
‘Linette was my sister,’ she answered simply. ‘Wouldn’t anyone do the same for their family? Isn’t family loyalty perhaps the most basic human instinct
