it’s not true. You could have waited. I came today to tell you, but I see there is no need, your Mr Eldon has saved me the trouble of a confession.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘You did not trust me,’ she flung at him, her temper flaring. ‘And I did not lie to you, Nicholas. I may have misled you, but you were perfectly happy for me to do so.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You claim you were suspicious of me from the start. Suspicious enough to have someone investigate me. But you never asked me. You never said, Serena, I’m not sure about this story of yours.’
‘Would you have told me?’
‘Yes! No! Probably. It doesn’t matter, you didn’t ask because you didn’t want to know. And then when I found my papers, the same thing. I would have told you straight away, even before I had read them, if you had pressed me. But you did not. Instead you suggested a day’s grace.’
‘Which you were more than happy to agree to.’
She nodded and took a calming breath. ‘Yes. Yes, I was. It was wrong, I knew it was wrong, but I agreed because I wanted…’ She blushed, but forced herself to continue. ‘Because I wanted what happened in the barn. Now I know it was a terrible mistake.’
Her admission threw him. He reached for her, but she stepped back. ‘No, Nicholas. It’s too late now. I must go. I should have gone two days ago.’
‘Sit down, Serena,’ Nicholas said coldly, ‘you don’t get off so lightly. I want to hear it for myself. All of it.’
She would rather do almost anything, but she owed it to him, and he was mostly in the right, so she sat down, stiff-backed, hands clutched tight together in a bitter parody of their first meeting. Nicholas sat down too, his gaze unwavering. That look of his that made her feel he could read her mind.
‘Well, as you have obviously surmised, Papa made his money from gambling. Gaming salons, but I assure you he was neither a cheat nor a sharp.’As she sketched a picture of their life, she watched Nicholas watching her, but his face gave away nothing. ‘We followed the wars, for where there are wars there are officers and hangers-on and plenty of money,’ she continued. ‘Most recently we settled in Paris.’
‘And you, did you preside over the tables?’
Despite the circumstances, the very idea forced a smile from her. ‘Hardly. I’ve told you several times, Papa was extremely protective. He forbade me from entering the salons when they were open. I was his hostess at private parties—when he played for pleasure with his particular friends, all older men, respectable men. I played too, sometimes. And of course, I practised with him.’
‘A fine education for you!’ He was unaccountably angry on her behalf. ‘What about the dangers you must have been exposed to, the sights you must have seen, the type of men you must have met?’
‘It wasn’t like that. You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t. What did he intend for you, your sainted papa? You’re—what, twenty-two, twentythree? Did he not wish to see you settled?’
‘I’m almost five and twenty. Of course he wanted to see me settled, that’s why I am here. He would have brought me himself if it was not for the war.’
‘That is complete nonsense, he could have returned any time if he’d really wanted to. Your father sounds to me like a selfish bastard.’
Serena was silent. Papa had explained, but even then, through the grief of knowing he had only a few hours left to live, his excuses had sounded weak to her ears. It had been more than thirty years, after all. ‘You’re right, he was a little set in his ways. I suppose the truth was that he had grown used to his life and did not wish to be constrained by his responsibilities in England.’
‘His life as the Earl of Vespian.’
‘Yes, my father was Lord Vespian.’
‘Which makes you the Lady Serena—assuming, of course, that a marriage actually took place between your parents. Was there one?’
She cast him a wounded look. ‘Of course there was.’
He was unrepentant. ‘I’m only saying what everyone else will ask. Charles did say it was curious, your need to prove your identity.’
‘You told Charles all this? You had no right.’
‘Charles won’t say anything. He liked you.’
‘Well, I’m relieved to know that someone does.’ Serena reached for her reticule and pulled out a small leather pouch, which she handed to him. ‘I thought my father was being excessively cautious, but he insisted I should have this as well as the legal documents.’
Nicholas undid the ties. Inside was a ring, intricately worked in gold, a strange antique setting wrought around a large black pearl. Frowning, he traced a long finger over the pattern. ‘An heirloom, I presume,’ he said, returning the ring to its pouch and handing it back to Serena.
‘Another of his deathbed bequests,’ she said with intentional irony. ‘I’ve to give it to my uncle. It seems it is always worn by the heir to the earldom.’
Nicholas strode over to the window. In the brief time they had spent together the narcissi had started to fade, the cherry blossom to fall. In the distance he could see a horse and plough readying a field for planting. He had been beguiled, even Charles had spotted it. Locked away from the world, he had been careless of everything save the overwhelming attraction between them, the shared laughter, the gravitation of their bodies towards each other. He had been happy. And no matter what she claimed, he had also been duped.
A gust of rage seized him. ‘Tell me, Lady Serena,’ he said, turning back from the window to the beautiful deceiver sitting in front of the fire, ‘just why you felt it so necessary to keep your real identity a secret.’
‘You know why.’
‘I’d like to hear it from you.’
Her knuckles where white, so tightly was she gripping them. ‘Very well, if I must. I did not tell you because I knew that while you would be happy enough to dally with Mademoiselle Cachet of no particular place and no particular family, you would run a mile from Lady Serena Stamppe. I needed to find my father’s papers. You only helped because you were bored and you thought I was fair game. You would not have thought Lady Serena fair game, would you, Nicholas? And I would not then have found my father’s will. I don’t know why you’re making me say this—no doubt you wish to humiliate me. No doubt I deserve it—but do not paint yourself as whiter than white in this tawdry episode.’
‘I did not think you fair game, as you call it. How dare you!’
‘You hardly treated me as you would a respectable female.’
‘You hardly gave me grounds to do so. The first time I set eyes on you, you kissed me while I was half-naked in front of a crowd of spectators.’
‘You kissed me!’ She flung herself to her feet. ‘And then you kissed me again, here in this very room.’
‘You
