The Complete Regency Bestsellers And One Winters Collection. Rebecca Winters

word budded within him like a prayer answered.

      But it was Cassandra whom he needed to think about now. In France they’d experienced lust and passion and avidity as they had made their way through the high mountain passes. Now she needed friendship. It was what she was asking of him, this quieter calm after a storm. Friendship, an emotion he held no experience of with a woman. Did it preclude touching? He moved back, for the expression on her face looked as uncertain as his, eyes shaded equally in worry and hope.

      Taking a breath, he smiled as he saw her hand shake when she pushed back the curls that had escaped from beneath her bonnet. ‘Does he have hair your colour or mine?’

      ‘Yours. I am constantly amazed that my sister does not see the resemblance and comment upon it.’

      ‘A St Auburn, then.’ The words slipped from him unbidden, and she sobered instantly.

      ‘A piece of paper all those years ago was easy to sign, but a father should be for ever. You will need to meet him first, Nathaniel, and understand what it is you offer.’

      ‘Then let me, Sandrine. Let me get to know both of you again in a way we did not have the chance of before. In fact, let us begin right now. I can tell you something of my life as a child and then you can tell me yours.’

      Her smile was tentative.

      ‘After my parents died my grandfather found it hard to cope. He left me in the hands of a nanny and myriad servants and went to Italy for three years. When he returned home I was sent straight up to Eton. From the age of nine to the age of eighteen I barely saw him. When I did I found he was a man I couldn’t like and I am sure that the feeling is mutual.’

      ‘Where is he now?’

      ‘At St Auburn. He rarely leaves the place and I seldom go there. Such an arrangement works for us both.’

      ‘You never had sisters or brothers?’

      ‘No. My mother had a difficult birth with me and could not have other babies. Perhaps that was a part of my grandfather’s dislike.’

      ‘Surely a grown man could not blame a small child for such a thing.’

      His smile widened. ‘My point exactly.’

      With the wind in his hair and the sun on his face Nathaniel Lindsay looked to Cassandra like the epitome of a wealthy and favoured lord of the peerage. He also looked maddeningly beautiful, a fact that worried her even more than the détente that they spoke of.

      She wondered if she could withstand such a thing and not give in to the feelings that swirled inside her. This time she was no ingénue with a hard-luck story as the unfortunate victim of crime. No, now she was the one who had betrayed honour and had the scars to prove it. With only the shedding of clothes would he see the living, breathing marks of treason branded into her right breast.

      Hence she moved away. From touch. From closeness. From temptation. His confession about his relationship with his grandfather was worth more to her than all the gold and riches in the world because for the first time she saw the child who had made the man.

      ‘I don’t know what it would be like to be an only child. Through all the years of our early childhood it was my siblings’ presence that made everything seem bearable.’

      ‘You think that Jamie needs a brother or a sister?’

      Despite meaning not to she laughed. ‘A gentleman should not mention such a thing, Lord Lindsay.’

      The dimple in his right cheek was deep and whilst he was speaking so candidly of his past she did not wish to waste the chance of knowledge. ‘What is St Auburn like?’

      ‘The house was built in the sixteenth century by a Lindsay ancestor and has been added on to ever since. It sits in the midst of rolling farmland and there is a lake it looks down upon.’

      ‘It sounds like a home that needs to be filled with family and laughter.’

      Nathaniel smiled. ‘Perhaps you are right. Are you always so wise, Cassandra Northrup?’

      ‘If I was, I doubt I would have needed to go to France in the first place. I might have recovered from my mother’s death like a normal child and been a proper lady of society with all the airs and graces.’

      ‘I like you better as you are.’

      The blush began as a small warm spot near her heart and spread to the corners of her body. Out in the air in the quiet winds of late summer it was so easy to believe in such troth.

      ‘You do not really know me at all, Nathaniel.’

      ‘Then let me. Come to St Auburn. Bring Maureen and Kenyon Riley. Bring whomever you like to feel comfortable, and come with Jamie.’

      The grey in his eyes was fathomless today, a lover who would show her only what he might think she wished to see. He was good at hiding things, she thought, the trait of a spy imposed upon everyday life. She wondered how easy that would be, to live with secrets that could result in the downfall of governments if told. Her own had been a hard enough task to keep hidden.

      When a group of well-dressed ladies accompanied by their maids walked into the park they were forced to return to the road, though once there awkwardness enveloped her. On the street she saw others watching him, a well-known lord with the promise of an earldom as a mantle around his shoulders. With Nathaniel Lindsay she could not afford to make a mistake or go too lightly into the promises that he asked of her.

      Jamie’s welfare rested on good decisions and proper judgement. No, she would rest on his suggestions for a while until she had mulled them over.

      * * *

      An hour later, Nathaniel sat in his leather chair behind the large mahogany desk in his study and looked about the room without really seeing anything.

      He had a son. Jamie. James Nathanael Colbert Northrup, she had said, his name sandwiched in between her own.

      He should have asked Cassandra other things, should have found out what Jamie liked and what he didn’t. Did he read, did he love horses, did he play with balls, did he have a pet?

      Almost four years old. For a man with little contact with children the number was difficult to get his head around. What could a nearly four-year-old boy do? Sitting back against the seat, he closed his eyes.

      God, he was a father. He was a father to a child conceived in the wilds of the Pyrenees above Perpignan.

      He took a silver flask from the drawer and unstopped it. Cassandra had been on edge, the usual flare of awareness between them doused by responsibility and worry. Did she think he might take their son away or insist upon the legality of their marriage?

      Legality.

      The child was a legitimate heir to the St Auburn earldom and fortune. Nat wondered just what his grandfather, William Harper Wilson Lindsay, would say to that.

      The past few days had been full of surprises. Yesterday in Wallingford he had discovered another girl had been murdered in the exact same way as those in London. He also had the name of the tall and well-dressed Londoner who had left his room at the inn the day the body had been discovered.

      Scrivener Weeks.

      Nat had spent a good few hours since last night trawling through the names of all those in society, but come up with nothing.

      His mind reeled with all that had happened and as he took a sip of his brandy he smiled.

       Chapter Eleven

      Jamie was sick, the temperature he ran more worrying by the hour, and Cassandra was increasingly beginning to panic, something she seldom did in any medical emergency.

      Her mind would not be still as she imagined all the possibilities and problems that could befall her son if the fever didn’t begin to abate. Maureen had helped her