the door open just enough for her to peer inside. A candle had been left burning on the dresser and a fire burned low in the grate.
Joan was fast asleep. She was breathing deeply, little snores coming from between her parted lips. The child beside her was clearly distressed. On seeing Arabella he slid off the bed, wobbling towards her and holding out his arms. Not without human feelings and unable to resist an unhappy child, she knelt and looked into his tear-soaked eyes.
There was so much emotion in that face and the sobs coming from the little mouth wrenched her heart. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, she picked up the weeping child and cradled him in her arms. Taking up a spare blanket and murmuring words of comfort, she wrapped it about him, the ache in her breast as acute now as when her own child had died.
Holding him close, she crossed to the fire and sat down with him in her arms.
‘Shush,’ she murmured, placing her lips against his curly head. ‘You are safe now, so go to sleep.’
The silky head nestled of its own accord against the warm breast in a gesture so instinctively caressing that it took Arabella’s breath away. The child’s brooding dark-eyed gaze was working its way into her heart, and when a quiet, rare smile crept across his face it was a thing of such beauty that it wrung her heart. As though a window had been flung open, something inside her took flight and she was flooded with so much joy that it brought tears to her eyes. She remembered how it had felt to hold her own daughter so close and, remembering her loss, she experienced an emotion that was almost painful in its intensity.
Shoving his thumb in his mouth, after a short while Dickon quietened and his eyelids fluttered closed, his thick lashes making enchanting semicircles on his pink cheeks. The warmth of the fire and the security of her arms soon sent him to sleep. He was going to be handsome, she thought, just like his father. Instantly there was a resurgence in her of the magnetism that drew her whenever she saw Edward. It burned into her ruthlessly, making her heart turn over. Her eyes continued to caress the child—Edward’s flesh and blood—and she acknowledge him for what he was.
Reluctant to carry him back to bed, she relaxed with him in her arms. The curtains hadn’t been fully drawn and the moon shone through a break in the clouds into the room. She began to think of the strangeness of her life, of her marriage to John and how Edward Grey had come back into her life, a stranger to her in many ways. There had never been a physical closeness between them, but there had been a closeness in other ways. He had always sought her company, but because he was eight years her senior, she had sometimes felt shut out from his thoughts. Clearly she had disappointed him otherwise he would not have cast her aside for Anne Lister.
The tugging of her heart twisted into an ache that flared every time she remembered. She wanted to be more understanding about what he had done, that he had gone on to have a child while her own had died, but she couldn’t no matter how hard she tried.
Suddenly an image of John came to mind and a chill slithered over her flesh. Marriage to John had not been what she had dreamed of. There was no wild searing passion, which, as young as she had been, she had known she could feel for Edward.
* * *
Arabella did not hear the loose wooden floorboard on the landing creak, so absorbed was her attention on the child.
Edward stood in the doorway, transfixed at the sight of Arabella with his son cradled in her arms. There was something so intimate, so ethereal about the scene that he found it difficult to look at the expression of wonder on Arabella’s face. He hesitated a moment, watching as the flickering light from the fire shone on her hair, which hung loose and fell over her face as she bent over his son. He admired the colour and the texture. Her body had the requisite warm softness and she still had the firm-fleshed litheness of youth, the languid grace which awoke his all-too-easily-awakened carnality.
She was unaware of his presence until he walked quietly into the room and stood looking down at her. She started, clearly surprised to see him there.
‘Edward!’ she gasped, her eyes flitting from him to his son, hot colour springing to her cheeks, as though she had been caught out in some misdeed. ‘I—I heard him crying. His nurse is asleep and I did not wish to wake her. See, he is asleep now.’
A ghost of a smile lit his face—his expression softened slightly. ‘How could he not be, cradled in such soft arms? Here, let me take him.’
‘Don’t wake him.’
With infinite care Edward took his son from her and carried him to the bed, placing him beneath the covers. His face was creased with concentration as he performed his task. He stood looking down at him for a moment before moving back to Arabella.
‘Dickon is a lovely boy,’ Arabella said. ‘He favours you.’
‘Yes, I know. I thought I would look in on him before I go to bed. Arabella, I wish to apologise.’
Standing up, she studied him, her eyes, big and luminous in her pale face, inquisitive but cautious. Her head was raised proudly as she looked at him, keeping her hands folded tightly before her. ‘Apologise? For what? That you renounced your promise to me for another woman, or that you have disturbed me here at Bircot Hall?’
‘Both, I suppose,’ he said, combing his hair back from his brow with his fingers. ‘I wronged you, Arabella. I acknowledge it freely. I swear to you—’
‘Oh, no! Do not swear! When you came here you no doubt thought I was ready to forget and forgive what you did to me. In all that has happened in the intervening years, I believe I had forgotten—but you reminded me the moment you walked in the door.’ She gave him a level stare and, not knowing that her words were like knives being thrown at him, she said, ‘There was a time when I trusted you. I was so young and filled with girlish fantasies that I believed we could build a happy life together—something quite wonderful. But you, ruled by an overweening arrogance and pride, betrayed me. I can only say how glad I am that you strayed before we spoke our vows. It spared me a lot of heartache. I weathered the pity of my friends and family because I had lost my intended husband. The humiliation would have been intolerable indeed had you begun an affair when I became your wife.’
Edward had paled, the flesh drawn tight over his cheekbones. Her words created an agony inside him. He wanted to comfort her, to hold her, to say her name, for the thought of her suffering made him wish he hadn’t acted so foolishly over Anne and left her so brutally. ‘I would not have done that.’
‘How can you know how you would have behaved?’ she cried, the pain in her unconcealed. ‘Men make fools of themselves over beautiful women all the time. Anne Lister could not bear not being the centre of attention. Every man had to look at her. All she had to do was cast her eyes at you and you were ensnared.’
He shook his head. ‘Arabella, listen to me.’ Reaching out, he gripped her shoulders and stared down into her face before he went on. ‘With every beat of my heart I regret what I did. I know that you’ve had double your share of troubles for your years. But believe me, I would never wish you harm. Sometimes I can’t help wishing I could go back and do things differently—but then I wouldn’t have Dickon. We cannot change the past.’
She shook his hands from her shoulders and took a step back. ‘I know.’
‘I hurt you. I see that.’
‘I cannot pretend that I wasn’t hurt. I was—very much,’ she said, a sliver of remembered pain spearing her.
‘When I arrived at
