Wendy Soliman (11 page)

“Has your father ever admitted he was wrong and apologised to you?”

“Not precisely, and no more would I expect him to. But when he saw me that time at Aunt Serena’s, there could be no doubting that he was shocked by my condition. He said then that when I returned home nothing more would be said of the matter, and that I would not be required to marry Benson. That was as close to an apology as I have ever known him to come. But it wasn’t enough. I will never go back to him! Somehow I’ll find a way to survive without him, no matter what I must do.” With a defiant tilt of her chin she fell silent.

Felix stood, pulled her to her feet and into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder and, sighing, closed her eyes.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said. “It can’t have been easy for you.”

She offered him a wan smile. “No, but don’t forget that I’m a mother now. I discovered that night just what lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her children.” She moved slightly away from him, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “Anyway, talking about it at last has helped, you were right about that. If anything, I’m now more determined than ever to resist him. When all’s said and done, he’s only human, and therefore fallible.”

“We will overcome him, I promise you.”

“We?” She looked up sharply, convinced that she’d misheard him. “This isn’t your fight. I’m not asking you for assistance.”

“Do you imagine that I’ll allow you to fight him alone?” She looked up at him and was met with a fiercely determined expression. “Come, my dear. It’s late, and I should return you to Riverside House before your aunt accuses me of abducting you.”

“Yes, but you haven’t yet told me why you took a room with us when you knew it to be too expensive.”

He kissed the end of her nose. “I will tell you, I promise, but not until tomorrow. After luncheon perhaps I could take you and the twins for a drive? I’ll tell you it all then.”

“You make it sound very mysterious, but yes, all right, it would be pleasant to take an outing with the children for once. I can’t be absent for too long though.”

“Perhaps your fortunes are about to change?”

“That’s hardly likely. I gave up believing in miracles six years ago.”

S
ASKIA
W
OKE
F
ROM
H
ER
first good night’s sleep in a twelve-month, feeling as though a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Curled on her side in her narrow bed, she hugged herself, relishing the warm glow that spread slowly through her body as she recalled the events of the previous evening. She could scarce believe that she’d revealed all her secrets to a virtual stranger, and she waited for regret to overtake her. Felix would keep her confidence; that much she instinctively understood. But what price was his silence?

Feeling a surprising lack of fatigue, in spite of the lateness of the hour at which she’d retired, Saskia washed and dressed quickly and prepared to face the day in a buoyant mood. She chuckled as she recalled the chaotic scene that had reigned in the drawing room when she and Felix returned home. Fothergill, in a state of righteous indignation, was attempting to rouse a perfectly composed Aunt Serena to show some concern for her niece’s welfare. About to enter the room, Felix stayed her by placing his hand on her arm and, smiling at one another, they listened to Fothergill droning on.

“She disappeared from the ball with Beaumont before supper and no one has seen anything of her since then. Surely you comprehend my meaning, madam? I really think you should send word to her father’s house that she’s missing! After all, we can’t know what has become of her, and Beaumont is not at all to be trusted, in my opinion. I’m rather surprised, Mrs. Rivers, that you permitted the arrangement in the first instance.”

As Felix opened the door and ushered Saskia through it in front of him, they discovered that, predictably, Aunt Serena was having none of it. Living up to her name, she sat calmly in her chair beside the fire, refusing to be goaded into action which she deemed entirely unnecessary.

“Ah there you are, my dears!” She smiled brightly at Saskia and Felix.

“Where have you been?” Fothergill demanded.

“I beg your pardon?” Saskia used the tone she usually reserved for the twins when they’d been up to mischief. It had the desired effect, causing Fothergill to belatedly remember his manners.

“Your pardon, my dear, but it’s very late, and you left the ball so suddenly that we were most concerned for your welfare.”

“And why would that be, I wonder, when you knew that Mrs. Eden was in my care?” Felix asked with becoming languor, causing Aunt Serena to chuckle.

“Well, I really don’t see what else we could have thought? It’s so late and…”

He blanched under Felix’s ballistic gaze, and wisely refrained from sharing more of his cogitations with the company. Instead he cast a beseeching glance in the direction of his fellow guests, all of whom were still in the drawing room, delaying their retirement until they witnessed for themselves the outcome of this diverting battle of wills. For once, not one of them spoke up on Fothergill’s behalf.

“Well, no matter,” he said. “You’re here now, safe and sound, but I was most disappointed not to have the opportunity to dance with you a second time.”

Felix arranged himself in an elegant pose against the mantelpiece. “You’re predisposed to imagine that Mrs. Eden would have accepted you as a partner again?”

Aunt Serena coughed loudly, almost certainly to cover a spontaneous bark of laughter. Saskia, glancing in Felix’s direction, was the recipient of a collusive wink.

Fothergill tried hard to discover where Felix and Saskia had been for so long, and at such a late hour, but at the end of a quarter-of-an-hour knew no more than he had at first. The gentleman was forced to retire, unappeased.

After breakfast the next day, Saskia responded to a persistent knocking at the kitchen door, where she was confronted by a respectable looking young couple who claimed to have been directed to Riverside House, after making enquiries for work at the Dove Inn. Saskia could hardly believe her luck. It appeared that Molly and Jed Peters had worked for some years as parlour maid and gardener respectively at a large house outside Weymouth. Unable to suppress their passion they had secretly married without their mistress’s permission, causing her to throw them out without a character. They were therefore willing to work for not much more than their keep, if only they could remain together.

Saskia would have thought that the gods were finally smiling upon her, had not Felix made that casual remark last night about her staff problems perhaps being at an end. Even as she struggled to hide her delight with the couple, she knew with cold certainty that he was behind their sudden appearance, and was determined to find out just what he thought he was about. He would have a lot of explaining to do when they took their drive that afternoon.

With the enthusiastic assistance of the twins, Felix drove his curricle to the front door and helped Saskia into the seat. The twins piled in between them, with Hoskins sitting upon both of their laps at once. Again, Felix observed Fothergill’s disapproving features pressed against the drawing room window, but even he could hardly object to such a harmless outing on a Sunday afternoon, with the twins present and the livery yard groom once again up behind.

Felix drove for half-an-hour, singing songs with the twins. Between them, they persuaded Saskia to join in. Laughing at some of the sillier rhymes he made up for them, they finally pulled up at a pretty spot beside the river. Josh and Amy demanded that Felix play games with them. Saskia sat and watched, laughing, as her children tumbled all over him like excited puppies. Felix felt rather like an overgrown boy himself as he tussled with Josh and helped Amy to find ingenious places in which to hide from her brother and the groom.

Eventually Felix left the children flying their kite with the aid of the groom and flopped down next to Saskia. He stretched himself out to his full length, one elbow propped on the grass for the purpose of supporting his head.

“Whew!” He flapped his free hand in front of his face. “I’m getting too old for all this.”

“Nonsense, the children adore you and you’re very good with them. You will make a fine father one of these days.”

“Perhaps.” Felix’s tone discouraged further comment on that particular subject.

“Now then, sir, it’s your turn for an explanation.”

“I know.” But still Felix hesitated.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to tell you for fear of oversetting you.”

“You’re oversetting me already with all this mystery. Pray, just tell me. It surely can’t be that bad.”

Felix would have done anything to retain her trust. He knew, however, with disheartening certainty, that his disclosure would spoil the intimacy growing between them. There could be no avoiding the fact that he’d deceived her, not only about his identity, but also about his reason for being in Swyre; she would be grievously disappointed in him — rightly so. He’d spent a largely sleepless night trying to decide how much to reveal to her. Did she need to know it all?

She was looking at him now so expectantly, an inquisitive expression lighting her emerald eyes. Felix knew she deserved the entire truth. He couldn’t, in all conscience, honour her with anything less. Sitting up and turning toward her, Felix took her hand in his.

“Saskia, what I have to tell you will come as a great surprise. All I ask is that you listen to everything I have to say before forming a judgement of me.”

“I can safely promise you that much, at least.” But there was a wariness about her now.

“Firstly, I must apologise for deceiving to you as to my identity. I’m not Beaumont — ”

She wrinkled her brow. “Then who — ”

“My name is Felix Western.” He hesitated. “The Viscount Western.”

She was momentarily nonplussed. “But why the pretence, Viscount?”

“I thought we agreed you would call me Felix?”

“That was when I thought we were equals.”

He squeezed the hand which he still held in his. “We will always be equals, Saskia, nothing has changed there. My father is the Earl Western who owns the Western Shipping Line.”

“So this has been about my father all along.” She snatched her hand out of his grasp and glowered at him. “I should have known better than to trust you with my secrets. If you are the gentleman you claim to be, you shouldn’t have encouraged me in the way that you did.”

“Why do you say that it’s about your father?”

“Ships,” she said succinctly. “I’m not quite the nincompoop you consider me to be.”

“Yes, ships. Permit me to explain.”

He did. He related the entirety of a conversation he claimed he and his father had with the head of the Preventative Waterguard. Saskia was aghast that her father could be implicated in anything quite so abhorrent, but didn’t attempt to deny the possibility.

“I didn’t realize that he’d sunk quite so low,” she said reflectively. “But that still doesn’t explain your residency in my aunt’s house under an assumed name.”

“Yes, I know.” He looked ashamed and hesitated before continuing. “When Smithers told us of your abrupt departure from your father’s house six years ago, I jumped to a rather erroneous conclusion. You must understand, Saskia, that I didn’t know you at the time. Smithers was adamant that you and your father had been very close, and so we couldn’t imagine why you would have left him so precipitously. The only conclusion we could draw was that you were somehow in league with him.”

Saskia stood up, eyes blazing with anger. “How could you think such a thing of me?”

“Saskia, if it’s any consolation to you, I hadn’t been in Riverside House for one day before I realized that you were completely innocent. But you must see how it looked to us from the outside?”

“I see nothing, sir, but an arrogant assumption based solely upon a false premise.”

“You’re right to be angry, and I most humbly beg your pardon.”

“And I suppose all of last night, persuading me to tell you my innermost secrets relating to my father, was just your way of gaining further information.”

“No, not at all.” He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. “I appreciate that you’re seriously distressed, but I beg you believe me when I assure you that’s not the case.”

“I’ll thank you not to tell me what I should believe,” she retorted, her anger escalating as she considered how foolish she had been. Once again she’d placed her trust in a man who wasn’t what he appeared to be. She hugged her solar plexus as the pain hit her with a blow almost too savage to endure.

“I was already well aware by last night that you and your aunt have no involvement. Our evening together on the dunes was just what it seemed to be.” He paused, staring directly at her face but she refused to meet his gaze. “I wanted to be alone with you, Saskia,” he whispered. “How can you doubt it after what passed between us?”

“Now that I’m aware of your real reason for being here, I don’t see how you can expect me to believe anything you say.”

“Because I’m offering you my word as a gentleman.”

Saskia’s only response was a quelling glance as she turned the full force of her fury upon him.

“Thank you for the timely reminder,” she said sarcastically. “You have just offered me reason a-plenty to never believe anything a gentleman says. You forced your way into our house, ingratiated yourself with my aunt. Heavens, you even cultivated a false friendship with my children in order to get close to me. And that,” she said, glowering at him with icy contempt, “I will never be able to forgive.”

“Saskia, you know that isn’t so.” He placed his hand on her shoulder but she brushed it aside.

“Do I? How can I believe that? Just leave me alone.” She swung away from him, out of range of his hands. Those hands were dangerous, and she couldn’t afford to have him touch her. Even now, when she knew he was a fraud, his touch still sent shivers of excitement spiralling through her, distracting her, making her forget why she was supposed to be angry with him. “Don’t presume to touch me.”

“Saskia, please listen to reason. You must believe that my regard for your children is entirely genuine.” He looked directly into eyes now moist with tears. “As is my respect for you. Were it not the case, then what would I have to gain from revealing the truth to you? Or continuing with this conversation?”