Eleanor had been fertile at Giraudon, then conception would have been the easiest thing in the world.
Nearly five. He counted back. Was the child his? Could he be a father? The heavy beat of his heart vibrated in his ears and he shut his eyes as he sat on the sofa.
‘Are you quite well, Cristo? Should I call someone?’
‘No, please don’t.’ His voice sounded like the string of some instrument tuned to the very last of its strength, a breaking point just waiting to happen as loss welled in his throat. Florencia. Even her name was beautiful. Swallowing, he made himself listen to Honour’s next words.
‘London has rules that would be ludicrous in the more passionate arena of Paris. What is acceptable there would not be here and there are many unwed and beautiful English girls just waiting for you to notice them, women without the ties of children and husbands. Let me introduce you to these girls of good family and unblemished name.’
He nodded, simply because to do otherwise would have incited question. His glance took in the clock on the mantel that showed up the hour of four and he wondered what outings little girls and their mothers went on in London at such a time. The park? The shops? The library on Bond Street?
When the hell had Eleanor met Martin Dromorne? He longed to ask Honour, but sense stopped him. He felt like he had at eighteen, abandoned by his family. No safety net. Unsettled. The very room swam with a hundred questions and just as many answers and everything was dangerous.
Florencia. Derived from the city of Florence in Italy? He listened as Honour prattled on about a list of possible candidates suitable in the marriage stakes.
Florencia. The word turned in his mind as Honour gave high praise to the three débutantes shortlisted in her attempt at matchmaking.
Florencia. His? A daughter conceived in lust in the high rooflines above Paris? If that was true, where had Eleanor birthed the child? Here? In France? Ruined from a husbandless pregnancy?
What of Martin Dromorne? Did he know this daughter was not his? Had she met him soon afterwards, perhaps, seizing the opportunity for redemption that marriage offered? Or was all he thought mere conjecture based on a groundless hope?
Eleanor and Florencia.
He dared not ask Honour another thing about either of them as a servant came in with a pot of tea and the conversation turned to more general things.
Taris arrived about ten minutes after Honour had departed. His man Bates was with him, though after seeing his master into the room he slipped out of it. His brother had a bright yellow flower threaded through his lapel.
‘You look festive?’
Taris lifted his hand up and smiled. ‘This is the handiwork of my oldest son, who is inclined to mischief. His twin brother enjoys the school lessons and yet all Alfred can think of is to escape his and head for the gardens.’
‘Ahh, the danger of comparisons. I never thought that you would make them.’
‘When you are a parent you do many things that you had not thought you would. But out of love, you understand. Only out of that.’
Parenthood! In the light of Honour’s visit the raw nerve of hope was exposed and Cristo was glad that his brother could not read his expression.
‘Ashe said that he had been to visit you and so I decided to do the same. He said that you seemed pleased to see him.’
‘Sickness has a habit of making one re-evaluate the usefulness of family.’
‘So cynical?’ Laughter rang around the room. ‘Our father always swore that you were stubborn.’
‘And did he ever tell you why?’ Cristo had suddenly had enough of all the secrecy. ‘Did he ever let you know that I was not entirely a Wellingham?’
When Taris’s face came up to his own with a slight flush Cristo suddenly knew that he had.
‘Alice never blamed him for his indiscretion. She told us that as she took her last breath. She also said that you were a gift she was meant to have. She kept track of you at Giraudon through your man Milne, you realise. The old valet at Falder was his brother and she never let him go.’
Cristo swore. What other confidences was he destined to hear this morning? A child who might be his? A mother who had never stopped loving him? Two brothers who had known he was not a full-blooded son of Falder and had treated him as one anyway? A feeling he had forgotten he knew was again budding. No longer alone. No longer just him against the world.
Shared secrets and trust, and beside a brother whose eyes saw what others never did, and with all the unexpected twists and turns Cristo found himself talking.
‘When I left England I thought to have seen the last of it.’
‘What changed your mind?’
His hands opened and then he smiled, because of course Taris would not see the gesture. ‘When the wild anger died there was only loneliness to replace it.’
‘Beatrice thinks that there might be a woman.’
‘She told you that?’
‘She thinks the woman to be Martin Westbury’s wife, Lady Eleanor Dromorne?’
Cristo stayed silent.
‘The mistakes of youth can come back to haunt even the most circumspect. The thing that I cannot quite determine is where your shared history took place.’
‘I met her in Paris five years ago.’
‘Before she was married?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you made no effort to take the relationship further?’
‘I think it had gone the furthest it could go.’
A ripe curse greeted this outburst.
‘If I could go back I would do things differently. In my defence, I might add that I did not know she was an English lady.’
‘Surely you could tell that by her clothes and her accent?’
‘She wasn’t wearing any clothes and she was speaking Provençal French.’
‘Lord, so that was why she fainted at the theatre? Does Martin Westbury know of any of this?’
‘I am certain that he doesn’t. He didn’t seem to want to kill me when we met at the Baxters’.’
Taris picked the marigold from his buttonhole and the stringent smell of it filled the air as he fiddled with the petals. Bright yellow pollen dusted the back of one hand.
‘Everyone has their battles. Martin Westbury, for example, is so ill some say it won’t be long before he loses his fight against whatever it is that ails him. Eleanor Westbury may then need a man who would not disappoint her.’
‘I doubt that she would trust me again.’
‘Well,
