Regency Society. Ann Lethbridge

was too special. All the others were for show and for the part I was playing of a dissolute and unrestrained lord.’

      Joy welled inside her. Special. Her finger ran across the red in the ruby and around the band of gold.

      ‘We will be married with all the family present, because I need to do this properly. As properly as everything so far between us has not been. I cannot wait a year, Eleanor, for your mourning period to be over, so perhaps we could repair to the Continent. Florencia will have a family with cousins and aunts and uncles.’

      Her euphoria died down a little. No mention of love, but all of duty.

      As he picked up on her uncertainty he dropped her hand, one eye on the door and the other on his watch. He wanted to be gone, from the room, from her and from the promise he had just made. She could see it so very plainly in his face.

      Her fingers closed around the golden ring as she wondered if he might ask her to rescind her promise. But he was a Wellingham and responsibility sat on his shoulder as a heavy load. He would do his best by her.

      When he leant down and kissed her on the forehead, she was almost reminded of Martin.

      ‘Thank you, Eleanor. You will not regret this decision.’

      He had handled that as badly as he had ever handled anything in his life, he thought, as he regained his upstairs chamber, but the raging lust in him was a terrible reminder of how he had hurt her last time. This time he wanted everything perfect. Not rushed or illegal or sordid. Eleanor deserved the very best from him and he was going to give it to her, no expense spared. If he had stayed for even a moment longer with the promises between them, he doubted he could have remained so controlled.

      Closing his eyes, he felt the line of his jaw tremble with desperation, his open hands balanced against the wall behind him.

      He loved her. He loved her bravery and her honesty and the way she had held him as she cried her heart out. Him, the man who had been the cause of everything in her life that had been difficult.

      Forgiveness. He deserved none of it and she might still refuse him. A lump formed in his throat.

      If he lost her … He shook his head.

      If he even touched her … He shook it again, not trusting the need that he was consumed with.

      A board on the stairwell creaked and he swallowed back pity. The material at his groin strained tight as Eleanor came into the room.

      With her cheeks blushing pink he thought he had never seen her look more beautiful and the danger of his wretched urgency mounted.

      ‘You should return to your bedroom, Eleanor.’ He grimaced at the harshness in his tone, but it was all he could do to stand there and not ravish her as every single particle in his body wanted to.

      She held her palm out towards him, the gold of Alice’s ring glinting in what little there was left of the firelight.

      ‘I have endured one marriage that was not a love match. I do not think that I could endure another one.’ Her voice trembled, but she went on. ‘Especially when I know that my heart would be completely broken.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘I love you, Cristo. I have loved you from our first night together and through all our years of separation. It has only ever been you.’

      ‘Lord.’ He stepped forwards. ‘There aren’t many things I’ve done right in my life, sweetheart, but having your love is one of them.’ He didn’t move a muscle but, looking into her eyes, he kept talking so that she might see his honesty.

       ‘“I brought a heart into the room But from the room I carried none with me.”’

      ‘John Donne?’

      When he nodded Eleanor smiled. ‘So it was not only for Florencia’s sake that you wished for us to be betrothed.’

      ‘You thought that?’

      ‘You left so quickly.’

      He grimaced. ‘I didn’t trust what I might do if I stayed.’

      Walking straight into his arms. she turned her face up to his. ‘I love you.’

      ‘I love you, too. Tout se pardonne quand on aime.’

      Where there is love there is forgiveness.

      She found him in the silence, the strength of him and the gentleness, a man fully aroused, but trying to show his patience and temperance.

      ‘There are only a few hours left until the dawn, Cristo. Why waste them?’

      ‘You are saying that you should not wish to?’

      ‘I am.’

      He pushed down the sleeves on her gown and undid the buttons left at the back. When the blue silk pooled at her feet she was full of neither shyness nor regret.

      ‘I thought you would want everything perfect after the last time.’

      ‘It is,’ she replied. ‘It is perfect because I have you.’

      Much later they lay naked against each other, a blanket pulled across them against the gathering dawn and Cristo’s fingers tracing shapes of a heart across her back.

      ‘I think Martin felt the kind of hatred for you that he had never felt about anyone before.’ Her hand laid out flat against his chest, her fingers splayed across his heart. ‘He was a good man who made a bad choice, but I think had he known what I truly thought about you he would have tried to mend it.’

      ‘You do?’ She could hear the doubt in his voice.

      He brought her close and she could feel his tongue against her shoulder and then her neck, the flare of affection almost making her forget how to breathe, but she had another question to ask him.

      ‘Who were the people who kidnapped us?’

      He took a moment to answer. ‘Colleagues from Paris.’

      ‘Colleagues?’

      ‘I worked as a gatherer of information for England and the Foreign Office and Beraud worked for the Secret Police in France. Sometimes his loyalties incorporated the selling of secrets, for substantial amounts of cash, you understand.’

      ‘You are saying that he would betray his own country?’

      ‘All patriots have their price, and a gambling addiction could not have been easy to manage on the wages Fouche offered.’

      ‘Did you have a price?’

      He merely shook his head.

      ‘How did they know about us?’

      ‘By chance. He must have seen us together in London and saw a way to make some money on the side.’

      ‘And Milne?’

      ‘Is completely trustworthy.’

      ‘Are there others who might harm us?’

      ‘If there are, I will make certain that they never come close enough.’

      The amber in his eyes darkened and there was a menace in his voice that she absolutely believed. The recognition of an agent of death was chilling.

      ‘But your work with the Foreign Office is finished?’

      ‘It was completed when I left Paris and I have had no contact since. With you there is something returning that I have not felt in a very long while.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Joy.’

      She laughed.

      ‘There. That is the joy I speak of.’

      She laughed again, and the release of gaiety felt like an opiate.

      With Cristo and