was a quiet meeting at home, my love, and the woman is not as I expected her to be.’
‘How would you describe her then?’
‘Alone.’
The single word rang around the library, and the fury that had held Cristo ransom began to form into something else.
‘Doesn’t she have Dromorne’s family about her?’ He tried to make the query perfunctory.
‘The sister and her entourage never even came to the funeral and the cousin wants them out of the house before the end of July. He was always set to inherit the titles, it seems, and by all accounts is a greedy man. Eleanor Westbury’s immediate family died years back, so she is truly alone.’
‘Lord.’
‘She talks of moving to the country and buying an estate. Her child adores animals, it seems. She fell in love with a little black-and-white puppy whilst at the town house and the children allowed her to name it.’
Before he could stop himself Cristo asked the question. ‘What did she come up with?’
‘Patch. She said he reminded her of a pirate and I could not help but agree to the name.’
‘Has the dog found a home yet?’
‘No. Are you interested in giving him one?’
Again Cristo felt deception in the air. ‘Graveson Manor could do with the presence of a hound. One is as good as another.’
‘Then I shall mark him down as yours. He should be ready to take home next week, though I should probably warn you the dog is the runt of the litter and will need a great deal of attention. Have you had a pet before?’
‘No.’
That made Asher start. ‘Surely you did at Falder, Cris. We all did, for God’s sake.’
‘Ashborne decided I was not responsible enough to be given authority over an animal and never allowed it.’
Cristo smiled to take the sting away from the hurt. His father had been a man who was distant and reserved at best. When Alice was not there to intervene and when the older boys had gone off to school he had made certain that his bastard son understood exactly the sacrifices he was making to house him.
A by-blow from one moment of madness in a country he had never returned to. Only that! A son he had not had the inclination to truly know. Cristo frowned, thinking of something that had not occurred to him before. Was he doing exactly the same to his own daughter?
His mind raced ahead to the puppy. Florencia had loved it. Perhaps she might find out that it now resided with him and would want to come and visit.
He pushed such fanciful thoughts aside. Eleanor would never allow it.
‘Ashborne was a man to seldom show his feelings to anyone, Cris. Taris and I would talk about it often and see the difference with Jack’s papa. I can’t remember him ever laying a hand on me save in discipline, though Alice would say it was in his nature to be reserved. We were glad to go off to school.’
A chunk of ice fell from Cristo’s heart. Just like that. Drip, drip, drip. For he remembered exactly the same thing. A mantle of guilt dislodged anger.
‘I wish you might have said something to me at the time.’
Asher looked at him keenly. ‘You thought it was only you he was aloof with?’
Despite meaning not to, he nodded, the many years between his brothers and him compounding the problem. If he had been older they might have said something, included him more. As it was he had had the company of a younger sister and a bunch of wild friends at Eton. No wonder he had taken the track of least resistance. When Ashborne had shouted at him for the next unwise and hare-brained escapade at least he had looked him in the eye and known that he still existed.
Fact skewered fiction. Perhaps it was not the circumstances of his birth after all that had alienated them. Perhaps it was just Ashborne’s character that had left a truth unsaid. The softer edge of England reached around him and held him close.
The many lights of Falder could be seen on the hill beside Graveson and in the western horizon the new moon was low and huge.
Home and a place.
And a puppy now. Patch.
He would ask Milne to prepare a bed for the dog to sleep on in the small dressing room off his chamber. He only hoped Patch might effect the sort of joy in his daughter that he had a great wish to see.
He should not have brought the damn dog! He knew that the moment he had set foot in the carriage for High Wycombe and it had climbed upon his knee with its sad drooping eyes and been sick upon his lap.
A runt was no real description of the physical attributes of this animal and he wondered at his daughter’s decision to choose a dog with no thought for its future development. He was the size of a large kitten with a tail that defied gravity and if Emerald still insisted that the family King Charles spaniel had found another of its like then she had to be kidding herself.
This puppy looked like the result of a mongrel from the backstreets of east London taking one very lucky chance.
‘Sit still,’ he ordered the wriggling hound and was surprised when it did so and fell instantly asleep. He liked the feel of its breath against the back of his hand as the carriage hurled through the last of the countryside towards the house that Emerald’s friend Azziz owned.
‘Florencia. Where are you?’
A small giggle alerted Eleanor to the fact that her daughter now hid behind the oak tree at the far end of the garden and she made her way down the line of ill-cut box hedging.
‘Is she here? No. Could she be here?’ She lifted the leaves of a large plant that drooped across the garden. ‘No, not there either.’ The giggles began again and the skirt of Florencia’s dress was blowing in the wind outside the line of bark.
With a quick dash to the left she caught her daughter to her and swung her round, their hair catching together, undressed and falling long in the slight edge of sun.
It was how Cristo saw them first, laughing and entangled, a mother showing all the affection in the world to a child who plainly loved her. Eleanor was in black, though the lace at her bodice was loose and the swell of her breasts made the colour alluring in a way the pastel shades had never been. His daughter was wreathed in dark blue with a string of what looked to be her mother’s pearls draped in a single strand around her neck.
Interest replaced shock, which in its own turn was replaced by wariness. Had Eleanor fashioned this meeting?
When their eyes caught the rose in her cheeks was flushed high.
He stepped forwards and removed his hat, his fingers gripping the fabric so hard he wondered how it did not tear.
