Unlaced by Candlelight. Кэрол Мортимер

you and two days after I returned to my regiment.” He smiled bitterly. “The wound incapacitated me, became infected, and I was out of my head with a fever for almost a week, and then weakened for many more.” He shrugged. “It is the reason I was unable to write to you. The reason for my delay in returning to you.”

      That is what Sylvie had thought he might say. What she had dreaded hearing. “You were coming back to me?”

      “Of course I was coming back to you!” He frowned. “How many times do I have to tell you that before you believe me? I had told you that I loved you and that I would come back to you as soon as I was able!”

      Yes, he had. And, despite the rumors of his behavior in London after he had left her, Sylvie had waited and waited for his return, until the babe she carried meant she could wait no longer and she had accepted the offer of marriage made to her by another man.

      And all the time she waited, Christian had been ill and fevered, cut down by a French saber. It was the reason he had not returned to England until it was too late; Sylvie had already been another man’s wife, and the babe she carried accepted as a child of that marriage.

      What had she done?

      * * *

      Christian frowned as Sylvie moved abruptly away to sit on the side of the bed, before standing up to cross the room and pull on his black brocade bathrobe he had draped across the chair beside the window.

      “Are you leaving already?” He kept his tone deliberately neutral as he sat up, knowing he had agreed, accepted, Sylvie’s decree that she would only stay with him for a few hours, but he had hoped, after the enjoyment of their lovemaking—Whatever he might have hoped, it was obviously not to be. “When will I see you again?”

      She finished fastening the belt of the robe before looking up at him with dark and guarded eyes. “I—I will send you a note tomorrow.”

      His brows rose. “A note...?”

      “Yes.” She turned away. “I will leave your robe downstairs in the library after I have dressed, and then let myself out—”

      “Give me a minute and I will come down with you.” Christian swung his legs to the side of the bed.

      “No! No,” she repeated more calmly, the dullness of her eyes appearing like dark bruises in the pallor of her face as she refused to so much as look at him. “I—We will talk again tomorrow.”

      “Talk?” he repeated sharply.

      “Yes,” she sighed. “We will talk. I—There is something—I must

      go!” She hurried to the door, wrenching it open before turning back to him briefly, her expression anguished. “Please believe that I—that I am sorry.”

      Christian tensed, stomach churning. “You are not ending our association already?”

      “No! I—” She gave a shake of her head, tears now glistening in the darkness of her eyes.

      Relief flooded him. “Then what are you sorry for?”

      “For everything!” she choked. “I am sorry for everything,” she repeated shakily.

      “I do not understand, Sylvie...” He gave a pained frown. “You are not ending our association and yet you are sorry. What—”

      “Tomorrow, Christian. I will explain all tomorrow,” she assured him dully. “Do not follow me now. I—It is for the best—Tomorrow,” she repeated before stepping out into the hallway, the door to the bedchamber closing quietly behind her.

      Christian had no idea what had just happened. One minute he and Sylvie had been lying satiated in each other’s arms after the most satisfying lovemaking Christian had ever known, and the next she had run from him as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.

      Tomorrow.

      Sylvie had said she would explain all tomorrow.

      And he hoped that explanation did not include the ending of their relationship, because having now made love with Sylvie again, that possibility was even less acceptable to Christian than it had been four years ago...

      “The Earl of Chambourne to see you, my lady,” Sylvie’s butler announced from the doorway of her private parlor.

      Sylvie ceased her restless pacing as she turned to him, the deep-brown gown she wore only emphasizing the pallor of her face. “Please show him in, Bellows.”

      After a sleepless and troubled night, Sylvie had written a note and had it delivered to Christian only an hour ago, requesting that he call upon her at his earliest convenience. She should have known, after the manner in which she had fled his home the night before, that Christian’s ‘earliest convenience’ would be almost immediately.

      Quite what she was to say to him, how to explain, was still not exactly clear to her. She only knew that she owed Christian an explanation. For her behavior both the previous night and four years ago...

      * * *

      Christian gave the standing and unsmiling Sylvie a searching glance after the butler left the two of them alone. Her golden curls were fashionably styled, her brown silk gown also the height of fashion, and yet—and yet there was an air of fragility about her, a translucence to the creaminess of her skin, and a haunted look in the dark depths of her eyes. “Tell me,” he demanded without preamble.

      She gave a shake of her head, not of denial, but as if she was at a loss to know quite how to proceed. She closed her lids briefly before opening them again, her chin rising as if for a blow. “There is something that I wish—no, something I must tell you.” She moistened her rosy-pink lips. “I have thought about this for most of the night, have considered all the consequences of—of my admission, but I can see no other way. No other honorable way,” she added huskily.

      Christian frowned darkly. “You are making me nervous, Sylvie.”

      She swallowed. “I assure you, that is not my intention. I—You see—”

      “Mama? Mama, Nurse says I may not visit with you just yet, that you are too busy this morning!”

      Christian had turned at the first sound of that trilling little voice as it preceded the opening of the door and the entrance of a little green whirlwind that launched itself into Sylvie’s arms before turning to look at him curiously.

      His eyes narrowed as he found himself looking down at a beautiful little girl of possibly three years old, dressed in a green gown, with dark curls and—and moss-green eyes...

      His own dark curls and moss-green eyes?

       Chapter Ten

      “Please say something, Christian,” Sylvie choked, having just returned from taking a reluctant Christianna back to the nursery and her flustered and scolding nurse. The tears streamed unchecked down Sylvie’s cheeks as she saw that Christian’s face still bore an expression of shocked disbelief. “Anything!”

      His throat moved convulsively as he swallowed. “What do you call her...?”

      Sylvie gave a pained frown. “I—Her name is Christianna.”

      His breath left him in a hiss. “You named her for me?”

      “Yes. Christian—”

      “Dear God, Sylvie, she is so beautiful!” The tension leached from his body and he dropped down into one of the armchairs, his face pale, his expression tortured as he stared up at her. “Is she—Can she be the reason you accepted Gerald Moorland’s offer of marriage four years ago?”

      “Yes.”

      Christian gave a pained wince. “And did he know—”

      “Yes, he knew. Oh, not who the father of my babe was, but I never tried to deceive him