and he has been nothing but kind to you. And my girls … This will ruin their chances of any union whatsoever if any of it gets out … you do know that?’
The weight of choice became heavier.
‘If you could find it in yourself to protect our family and to say nothing … to let a man well connected take his chances …’
‘There were people killed tonight, Diana. If he should be blamed for that, they would crucify him.’ Eleanor shook her head firmly and reached for the handle of the carriage, but already the horses were moving at some speed. She felt a new dread creep into her heart as the anger flashed in her sister-in-law’s eyes.
‘Then you leave me no choice whatsoever, for both my brother and daughters and for Florencia. And for you, too, Eleanor! One day you might even thank me for saving you from yourself.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Banging twice on the roof of the carriage, Diana looked at her sadly.
‘Unfortunately, my dear, you soon will.’
Cristo was thrown into goal, the baton marks on his shoulders protesting the movement. His legs were shackled and one of his eyes was swollen closed. The constabulary had come into the chaos and found him guilty, the blood on his clothes, the hysteria of Eleanor’s sister-in-law, the gathering group of onlookers who had all pointed him out as one of the French kidnappers.
The blood on his hands had convicted him, the garb he had donned for his sojourn in the heart of the docks doing the rest. No longer an English gentleman. Only a felon with scant regard for the letter of the law.
No light punishment. No careful handling. For six hours now he had been kicked and punched and hurt, and still Eleanor did not come.
Could not come, Cristo reasoned, the truth of all that had happened closing in on him. Could not come because to do so would ruin her reputation completely. It was only that thought that kept him silent. Only the thought of protecting what was left of her honour.
But for how long? The thought of Ashe and Taris worried him. When would they know of the night’s happenings?
Sitting on the cold stone floor, he nursed his right hand. Two fingers broken and his thumbnail gone; the jagged remains of what was left hurt like hell and he tore the final piece off with his teeth before sucking at the blood that welled.
His shirt was lost, too, and his shoes and the watch that his mother had given him when he was eleven. All around him the groans and shouts of other prisoners echoed, a reminder of other times when he had been bound and hurt and held.
But here in England it was different. His eyes skimmed the locks on the door. Two minutes and he would have them opened. Another five and he would be in fresh air. The fastening on his legs was such child’s play he might have released the chains in his sleep.
‘Ye’ll be wanting a drink, no doubt.’ The voice of the guard broke into his thoughts as a stream of water was thrown through the bars. The cold made him start even as training held him still.
‘Thank you.’
The curse was ripe and the cup hit him fully on the cheek, breaking open the skin. ‘With a noose around that pretty neck, ye may not be as polite.’
He refrained from answering and when the footsteps receded he stood, a dizzy lightness of head making him reach for the wall behind.
‘Steady,’ he said to himself and sucked at the moisture covering his arms. Even a little liquid was better than none at all and he needed his wits fully about him.
Florencia.
A daughter.
Their daughter.
Almost five. The same age as William and Alfred, Taris and Beatrice’s twins.
Part of a family. A big family. A child of Falder and of the Carisbrook line and the de Caviglione blood that he had inherited from his mother.
God! He had seen himself in her chocolate eyes and silvered hair, reflections of his own childhood in the determined set of her jaw and the sweep of her forehead.
Eleanor had been eighteen and pregnant when she had simply stepped out of his carriage into a European winter. How could that have felt, hemmed in as she was by ruin and by the mistake of identity shattering every single tenet of proper behaviour and righteous convention that she had no doubt been raised to believe in.
Slapping his hands against the stone, he pushed away from the wall. No matter what happened now he would protect her. Protect them. This was his responsibility. He would say nothing of the threat of kidnap or of the identity of Beraud and his henchmen until he knew exactly what it was that Eleanor wanted to be said.
She lay drifting between night and day, reaching for the sweet smell of something close.
‘Drink up, Lainie dear. It will help you.’ A feminine voice that she knew well. Diana? Leaning forwards, she did as she was told and the room swam into bands of colour. Pink and red and orange.
She laughed as the hues mixed together and the thoughts in her head that were difficult glided away on the edge of peace.
‘Florencia?’ A name that was important. She reached for the sound of it even as the mist rose up again, the close timbre of the voice receding into distance.
‘You killed these criminals in defence of a woman and her child, Cris. Tell the law of your relationship with Eleanor Westbury and the letters that were sent to her demanding money and that will be the end of it. They will believe you for who you are, and you can come home.’
Asher was there again. Had he been there already today? The minutes had turned into hours and then into more, as one day moved into two. Time skewered and bent into a never-ending stretch, the cold water, the careful bruising, shivering in black nights on a hard cobbled floor.
He had clothes now and food and while his brothers were about nothing untoward ever happened. He made it his mission in life not to complain about ill treatment and to never question the whereabouts of Eleanor Westbury.
Still, today Ashe had come armed with news. The Dromorne family had decamped into the country, to heal, it was rumoured, and to forget. One of their maids had let it slip to Beatrice’s servant. Eleanor had left before the others with her daughter and sister-in-law, her things packed up in her absence.
To forget.
About him.
Her choice had been made in the aftermath of the fury and he could do nothing save stand by it. He had seen the anger in her eyes and understood exactly what had brought it there.
The silver strands of his daughter’s hair flew like a flag of virtue in his face.
‘I could break you out.’ Ashe’s voice was low-whispered, the knife he carried slipped into the straw on the edge of Cristo’s cell.
