Regency Society Collection Part 1. Sarah Mallory

that?’

      The shadows in his eyes when he opened them again were bruised with both anger and want.

      ‘Yet by saying nothing you destroy me?’

      Her bottom lip quivered as the challenge registered. A choice, then? A man who had walked in the shadows of the world and whose sins were coming back to be visited upon those all about him, dangerous, perilous, the fortunate outcome of the evening’s happenings only decided by a miracle! He had killed two men right in front of her eyes and never blinked once.

      Pulling back, she broke contact, the guilt of another feeling sticking in her throat.

      ‘The man you killed was from the Château Giraudon. I remember him as the one who hurt my thigh.’

      He nodded. ‘Etienne Beraud. He was a French spy.’

      ‘As you were an English one? If anything had happened to Florencia because of our past … because of your past …’

      Reality crashed in and his eyes acknowledged her withdrawal. Already the sounds of others were coming closer, the real world of London and its people, running steps and voices of authority. The constabulary. She saw the shape of their hats even as Cristo Wellingham drew away.

      ‘Our coachman followed the carriage on foot to the docks after you were taken in the park, Lainie, and when he saw where they had stopped he came back to tell us.’ Her sister-in-law’s arms were firmly around her, helping her into the Dromorne conveyance, and settling a blanket across both her and Florencia’s knees once inside. ‘Martin was beside himself, of course, and had to be sedated, but I sent for the constabulary and we came straight here. I would not have believed it was Cristo Wellingham who took you until I saw him pulling at you, trying to make you stay. He will be hanged for this, of course.’ Diana’s voice was flat. ‘He will be hanged and drawn and quartered for the kidnap of a lady and her child, and God knows what it will do to the Wellingham family name.’ Barking out an order to the driver, she shut the door with a clang.

      ‘No. It was not him … it was not Cristo Wellingham who did this. He saved us, Diana. He came and saved us.’

      ‘Why?’ Her sister-in-law’s eyes had narrowed, the gleam in them deadened with the confession. ‘Why would he do that, Eleanor? Why would a man with whom you have had very little contact risk his life to save yours?’

      The truth was caught again in choice. Spare her reputation or save Cristo’s life.

      ‘I knew Cristo Wellingham intimately in Paris.’

      Florencia between them looked up as the silence lengthened, and Eleanor saw the very second that the truth of her daughter’s parentage dawned in Diana’s glance.

      ‘What have you done? Does my brother know any of this?’ Her question was full of horror as she comprehended what it was that was implied. ‘This sort of scandal will kill Martin and he has been nothing but kind to you. And my girls … This will ruin their chances of any union whatsoever if any of it gets out … you do know that?’

      The weight of choice became heavier.

      ‘If you could find it in yourself to protect our family and to say nothing … to let a man well connected take his chances …’

      ‘There were people killed tonight, Diana. If he should be blamed for that, they would crucify him.’ Eleanor shook her head firmly and reached for the handle of the carriage, but already the horses were moving at some speed. She felt a new dread creep into her heart as the anger flashed in her sister-in-law’s eyes.

      ‘Then you leave me no choice whatsoever, for both my brother and daughters and for Florencia. And for you, too, Eleanor! One day you might even thank me for saving you from yourself.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’

      Banging twice on the roof of the carriage, Diana looked at her sadly.

      ‘Unfortunately, my dear, you soon will.’

      Cristo was thrown into goal, the baton marks on his shoulders protesting the movement. His legs were shackled and one of his eyes was swollen closed. The constabulary had come into the chaos and found him guilty, the blood on his clothes, the hysteria of Eleanor’s sister-in-law, the gathering group of onlookers who had all pointed him out as one of the French kidnappers.

      The blood on his hands had convicted him, the garb he had donned for his sojourn in the heart of the docks doing the rest. No longer an English gentleman. Only a felon with scant regard for the letter of the law.

      No light punishment. No careful handling. For six hours now he had been kicked and punched and hurt, and still Eleanor did not come.

      Could not come, Cristo reasoned, the truth of all that had happened closing in on him. Could not come because to do so would ruin her reputation completely. It was only that thought that kept him silent. Only the thought of protecting what was left of her honour.

      But for how long? The thought of Ashe and Taris worried him. When would they know of the night’s happenings?

      Sitting on the cold stone floor, he nursed his right hand. Two fingers broken and his thumbnail gone; the jagged remains of what was left hurt like hell and he tore the final piece off with his teeth before sucking at the blood that welled.

      His shirt was lost, too, and his shoes and the watch that his mother had given him when he was eleven. All around him the groans and shouts of other prisoners echoed, a reminder of other times when he had been bound and hurt and held.

      But here in England it was different. His eyes skimmed the locks on the door. Two minutes and he would have them opened. Another five and he would be in fresh air. The fastening on his legs was such child’s play he might have released the chains in his sleep.

      ‘Ye’ll be wanting a drink, no doubt.’ The voice of the guard broke into his thoughts as a stream of water was thrown through the bars. The cold made him start even as training held him still.

      ‘Thank you.’

      The curse was ripe and the cup hit him fully on the cheek, breaking open the skin. ‘With a noose around that pretty neck, ye may not be as polite.’

      He refrained from answering and when the footsteps receded he stood, a dizzy lightness of head making him reach for the wall behind.

      ‘Steady,’ he said to himself and sucked at the moisture covering his arms. Even a little liquid was better than none at all and he needed his wits fully about him.

      Florencia.

      A daughter.

      Their daughter.

      Almost five. The same age as William and Alfred, Taris and Beatrice’s twins.

      Part of a family. A big family. A child of Falder and of the Carisbrook line and the de Caviglione blood that he had inherited from his mother.

      God! He had seen himself in her chocolate eyes and silvered hair, reflections of his own childhood in the determined set of her jaw and the sweep of her forehead.

      Eleanor had been eighteen and pregnant when she had simply stepped out of his carriage into a European winter. How could that have felt, hemmed in as she was by ruin and by the mistake of identity shattering every single tenet of proper behaviour and righteous convention that she had no doubt been raised to believe in.

      Slapping his hands against the stone, he pushed away from the wall. No matter what happened now he would protect her. Protect them. This was his responsibility. He would say nothing of the threat of kidnap or of the identity of Beraud and his henchmen until he knew exactly what it was that Eleanor wanted to be said.

      She lay drifting between night and day, reaching for the sweet smell of something close.

      ‘Drink up, Lainie dear. It will help you.’ A feminine voice that she knew well. Diana? Leaning forwards, she did as she was told and the room swam into bands of colour. Pink and red and orange.

      She laughed as the hues mixed