Chapter Seventeen
He woke to pain. He woke to memory and dreams and a half-world he could not quite decipher.
He knew he was thirsty, but he was finding it hard to speak for the shivers ran through him in a constant stream of movement. A wet warm flannel came across his brow and he closed his eyes against the feel of it.
‘You are in the ducal town house, Nicholas, and you have been very sick. It is a week since the accident and we thought...’ Eleanor’s voice faltered and stopped.
‘That... I...would...die.’ Every word was difficult to get his tongue around. He felt as if he had a mouth full of cotton and so he swallowed and tried again.
‘Lucy?’
‘Is in her bed fast asleep and dreaming of the bravery of a father who came to save her.’
Save her? The words stuck dry in his throat. Save her from the danger he had placed them in in the first place? If he had not returned, none of this would have ever happened. He wanted to ask of Bowles, but didn’t, the effort too much to muster.
‘My...leg?’
‘The bullet punctured an artery and you were lucky to escape with your life. Frederick had seen the same thing on the battlefields of Europe and tied his neckcloth around the top of your leg.’
‘Useful...knowing a...soldier.’
She laughed at that and the sound warmed him as nothing else could have done.
‘You nearly lost your life for us, Nicholas.’
‘Worth...it.’
Then he closed his eyes and slept.
* * *
Next time he awoke he felt much better, more level headed, less dizzy.
Eleanor was still there by his bed, but dressed in other clothes now and the afternoon sun was coming in through the windows. How could that be? A few moments ago it had been night time. He lay perfectly still and watched her. Her eyes were closed and the pins in her hair loosened. One curl had slipped from its mooring and settled across the line of her breasts.
She was so beautiful she simply broke his heart.
As if she felt his gaze her eyes opened. Would he ever get used to the startling shade of blueness? he wondered, only to decide that it was very unlikely.
‘Hello.’ Her voice was soft with sleep. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better.’
‘Would you like a drink?’
He nodded and she brought a glass of lemonade to his lips, her hand behind his neck to help him as he leaned forward.
‘That is good.’ The liquid was like ambrosia to his dried mouth though she did not let him have too much.
‘The physician said that we were to offer this to you, but that I had to be careful about what you took.’
‘Physician...?’
‘He is retained by the Westmoors and has been earning his year’s stipend over the past week.’
Nicholas wiggled his toes just to make sure that the leg was still there, that he had not had the thing amputated or cut into whilst he had been asleep, but everything seemed in order save the sharp ache the movement brought forth.
‘You lost a lot of blood and there had been another injury in the same place which complicated things. But he says you should be able to start getting up after the next few days for the fever at least has gone.’
‘Fever?’
‘You burned with it for three days and nights.’
* * *
She had thought he would die as his temperature had soared. She imagined that a man could not last with such a sickness, the redness across his cheeks and his body building into rash.
She had been shocked by the scars he wore beneath his clothes for in the hard light of day they were far more extensive than she had thought them. Myriad injuries that crossed his back and his front, the worst of it being on the same thigh the bullet had passed through.
A history of violence written in flesh. She hated Nash Bowles with even more intensity than she had before. Sometimes she wondered just who she had become.
Were another threat to stalk Nicholas here in his vulnerable state she would have had no compunction but to squeeze out the life from any assailant. She wondered where the kindly polite sister of a duke had disappeared to in the face of all that had happened.
‘Where is... Bowles?’
‘In jail and he will be for a very long time. Oliver and Frederick took him to the constabulary after they had seen to you. Jacob stayed here and waited with me for the doctor.’
‘He is sick, I think...in the head.’
‘He wished he was like you. He wanted to run Vitium et Virtus. He kept yelling that out all the way across the park even as they took him away.’
When Nicholas nodded Eleanor thought he looked tired and she stopped speaking. He had been distant since the shooting, with an edge of anger. Did he blame her in some way for endangering Lucy?
As his eyes closed she brushed away the tears that had pooled in her eyes and threatened to fall down across her cheeks.
* * *
It was later the next day when Nick felt well enough to haul himself into a sitting position and dangle his legs off the side of the bed. At the beginning his heart hammered against his temples, but then it subsided. Perhaps he would not stand just yet, he thought, looking at the thick bandage wrapped tightly about his thigh.
A small noise at the doorway alerted him to the fact that he had a visitor.
‘Lucy?’
The child came further into the room. Not so close that she could not turn and run if she needed to, but closer than he held any right to expect.
‘Are you better?’ Her voice was tense. He could hear the vestige of fright from the incident at Hampstead Heath in what she said.
‘Nearly.’ His eyes went to the doll she carried and it had a sizeable bandage around its head.
‘Did your doll get hurt, too?’
‘Yes. By a speeding bullet. Mama says that for every three bullets that miss there is one that will find its mark.’
‘I am glad it didn’t find its mark with me, then.’
She smiled. ‘But it did.’
‘Not badly, at all,’ he replied, liking how she watched him, taking him in, tossing up whether or not he was worth the fuss as a father. ‘A leg is much better than a head or the chest to get hit in. Poor doll.’
At that she moved forward and set the doll down on his bed, removing the bandage deftly and retying it around a thin china leg.
‘Now she is just like you and getting better. Did you know Mama cries a lot when you are not looking?’
The truth of the words had him taking in breath.
‘I think she thought it was her fault that we were shot.’
‘I don’t think the fault was anyone’s except the man with the gun.’
‘Bowles. That was his name. Nasty Bowles.’
The words took him by surprise and he smiled. ‘You have named him well.’
‘And you are my papa. I have always wanted one. Everyone else has one and I never did.’
Again he smiled. Lucy had the same habit as her mother had of setting words down in a way that was unusual. He was glad of it.
‘When you are better would you like to play dolls with me again? I could show you how to dress them, too, and feed them. I could even bring the dolls’ house in here if you would want me to.’
‘I would.’
At that she smiled, a full real smile that lit her eyes and brought out her dimples.
A woman then came to the door, her face furrowed with a frown. ‘I have been looking everywhere for you, Lucy. I am sorry, Lord Bromley, I hope she has not been disturbing your rest.’
He watched as Lucy followed the woman out of the room and thought his daughter was every bit as beautiful as her mother.
He saw that she was wearing his locket around her neck.
Did you know Mama cries a lot when you are not looking?
Lucy’s words sliced right through him. It was well past time to let her see exactly who he was and wasn’t.
* * *
Eleanor came to see him just as the sun was setting. She had been in and out for small pieces of time, but always in the company of others, once with the doctor and then again with Jacob. The third time when she brought her grandmama to visit Nicholas wondered if she did not wish to be alone with him.
He could understand her reasoning. She had a daughter to see safe and so far all he seemed to have brought her was heartache and fear.
He had lived in the shadows for so long that he was now unfit to inhabit a better world, a brighter place. His presence in other good people’s lives was a dark influence, a grimy dimness that invited in danger and jeopardy.
Jacob had been civil but distant after the incident in the park. As the head of the Westmoor family he could probably see the foolishness of closer relations with someone who was tainted irreparably by such chaos.
That evening Nicholas had insisted on wearing his own day clothes instead of the nightgown and he felt more like himself with each passing moment. Stronger. Less like an invalid for he knew he needed to be gone from here as soon as he was able.
Tonight Eleanor was dressed in a soft blue, the fabric picking up the colour of her eyes, but also the dark shadows beneath them.
‘You look almost returned to normal?’ her words more a question as she stood against the mantel, the candle there lighting up all the shades in her hair.
‘The physician said that I should be able to go back to the Bromley town house tomorrow. At the end of the week I will go north to Bromworth Manor and I am not certain when I shall be back.’
‘I see.’ A frown lingered now and she bit her lip.
‘Eleanor...’
‘Nicholas...’
Their words collided and she smiled shakily before she bade him to go first.
‘I cannot be with you, Eleanor. If anything were to happen to you or Lucy because of me I would never forgive myself. There is no way I can foresee the future, but if the past is anything to go by, you would be well rid of me.’
‘And Lucy? You are saying she should forget her papa when she has only just found him?’
‘I am saying she needs to be safe. If there are more like Bowles out there then I will need to be wary and there are many others with their own reasons for seeing me gone. When we were searching for the culprit who was threatening me your brother and I made a list at Vitium et Virtus and there was more than a small amount of names there who held grudges against me. I cannot guarantee they will not come next, with their sharpened knives and loaded guns. It’s who I am, don’t you see? Tainted. Ruined. Perilous.’
He held his hand out as she began to speak because now that he was started he could not seem to stop.
‘It’s why I left after we...made love. It’s why I sent the note to tell you that I couldn’t and that I was sorry but... I will provide for you both financially for ever, but I think you should not tell anyone outside of the family that Lucy is my daughter. Who knows what other perils are lurking unbidden? The world is a far more dangerous place than you realise, Eleanor. Without me there might be a chance for safety. If I stay well away from you and from Lucy the gossip will die down and people might forget.’
Her eyes were full of tears as she stepped forward. ‘I love you, Nicholas, and so does Lucy.’ There was no hesitation in her promise.
He shook his head, hard. ‘No. You can’t say that.’
She kept coming closer, one hand placed across his arm now, her fingers holding on with all that she was worth. ‘I have loved you since the first moment I ever really saw you at the Vauxhall Gardens and I’ve loved you more and more each day since.’
He swallowed and placed his thumb across her lips to stop the words from coming.
‘I can only hurt you, don’t you see?’
‘You can hurt me by staying away, by believing that you are this person that you are not. We belong together, you and I and Lucy, and if there are challenges in the future we can meet them.’
‘Sometimes I dream of blood.’ His words held a flatness and a finality that made the back of his throat thicken. But he needed to say what he was, what he had been, what he had done. ‘The blood of the man whose neck I broke by the James River. Just a quick twist and he was gone into the water though his eyes watched me as he went. The blood of others I have hurt, too, in fights and in arguments, with knives and glass and wood. This is who I am, Eleanor. You must have seen the marks on me in the sickbed. In each and every one of those scars lies the ghost of fury or fear or just plain ordinary temper.’
‘Or the badge of honour? The bullet you took at Hampstead was in lieu of me and Lucy. You were trying to save us, Nicholas, by offering up your own life. I could see that in your face as you tried to draw Bowles away from the carriage.’
‘I should have shot him through the head when I had the chance. And I did have that chance. I had seen him through the trees when I first arrived at the Heath. It would have been so very easy to skirt around and come up behind him to take a shot at close range. Instead I left you and Lucy in danger and it could have turned out so very differently.’
‘No, don’t you see?’ Eleanor’s voice was stern. ‘Instead you tried to talk Bowles out of a course of action that was impossible. Even in danger you tried to help him, tried to defuse the situation so that he might come out of it alive. You are not a killer, Nicholas, and you never have been, but you have had to fight for your life, too, and there is no shame at all in that.’
Nicholas took in a breath at her words because he heard a truth in them that was undeniable and sweet.
‘You are free now to live how you want. There is no one else ready to spring out and hurt you. Please, Nicholas, please believe it is possible.’
* * *
She could see the terror in his eyes, but she could also see the beginnings of something else. Hope, if she might name it, and faith.
With his limp and his scars and his left arm still in a bandage, with all the old hurts beneath his clothes and a belief inside himself that he was damaged and dangerous and unknowable, Nicholas still looked beautiful to her. More than that, though, he was beginning to look as if he was realising it, too. Realising that she knew the worst about him and was still here, that no matter what he threw at her she would not be shifted in her belief in him and that the words she had given him, words of love, could even possibly be true.
‘You would want me like this, Eleanor? After Hampstead Heath and being in all that danger? After knowing who I am? Who I truly was?’
‘I want you for ever. I want to grow old with you and have more children with you and know what it is like to have years and years in each other’s company. That is what I want.’
She moved closer, only the smallest distance separating their bodies from what was and what could be.
‘If you love me, Nicholas, you will want that, too.’
Nicholas swore and his dam suddenly broke, she could see it in his eyes and on his face and in the way his body enveloped her own, his arms about her, drawing her in, his breath in her hair as he held her against the heavy beat of his heart. ‘I love you, Eleanor, but I cannot believe I deserve you.’
‘How much do you love me?’ She was smiling now, the joy in him chasing away the shadows.
‘With every fibre of my body, with every thought in my mind. With my heart and my breath and my soul I love you, sweetheart. And more.’
‘Take me to bed again at your town house. I promise I will be gentle with all your wounds.’
When he laughed she heard the sound of freedom and she knew that a healing had begun.
‘Perhaps we should be married first?’
She smiled at his question and nodded.
‘Is your brother home tonight?’
‘Yes. He is in his library.’
‘Stay here, then. I won’t be long at all. Don’t move.’
* * *
He got down the stairs on the wings of elation for this time everything would be done in the correct order. This time he would not fail Eleanor as he had before. This time he wanted everything to be exactly as it should be.
Jacob was reading in his old leather armchair by the fire.
‘Nicholas.’
The restraint that had been a part of their relationship since he had sent the note separating himself from Eleanor could be easily heard in his name.
‘I need to ask you something, Jacob, but I also need to tell you things that you might not wish to know.’
Jacob stood and crossed to pour them both a drink, holding a glass out to Nick after he had done so and pulling another chair closer to the fire, gesturing for him to sit.
When he did so he felt at odds as to where to begin, but was pleased as the brandy fortified his resolve.
‘I love your sister, Jake, and I want to marry her. I want to care for her and protect her and Lucy. I want to make certain that they are always safe.’
‘And the part I might not wish to know?’
‘I have killed a man, and done things in the Americas and here that I have no reason to be proud of. Bowles perhaps was a part of that, too, along with an arrogance and recklessness that came back to haunt me.’
‘You have always been the most dissolute of the four of us, Nicholas, but then I always knew, too, that you had a good heart. I still do know that. Rose says you are like a plant, untended and wild, and that Eleanor with all her gardening skills will make certain that you grow in a way that is perfect.’
‘I like your wife, Jake.’
‘I like her, too.’
‘Will you give your blessing on our marriage? I haven’t asked your sister yet because this time I need to do things properly and I know Eleanor would like her family’s support.’
Jacob stood as Nicholas did.
‘More than a blessing, Nick. I want to be your best man. But right now you had better let me help you back upstairs to bed for you look as though you might keel over.’
* * *
It was late and the fire in the hearth was well banked.
They had been married for six hours and the ring on Eleanor’s finger shone in the light of the flame, where two unmatched diamonds sat in a clasp of rose gold.
‘It is the most beautiful piece of jewellery I have ever seen, my love,’ she whispered, her cheeks flushed from their recent lovemaking and desire.
‘The large one is for you and the smaller one is for Lucy. The two jewels of my heart.’
They were lying on his patched quilt in front of the fire, as naked as the day they were born. The bandage on his leg had been removed yesterday and she traced the thick red line on his thigh with care.
‘Does it still hurt?’
‘Only a little,’ he returned, his fingers coming across the fullness of her breast, ‘and not a bit when I touch you.’
The edges of his mouth were turned up, his hair soft around his face but his eyes held only an unsated need of her body and spoke a language that heralded no words at all.
Today in the tiny chapel in Mayfair they had sworn a troth to each other in front of their family and close friends. Tonight they were sealing the promise in flesh.
‘Let me love you, sweetheart,’ he whispered and she opened her legs to his touch, the wetness there attesting to his other ministrations and endless want.
He came in slowly this time, none of the desperation of the first hours apparent, but a quiet and languid joining. And he watched her with his velvet eyes and his smile, watched as she was pushed over the edge of reason on to the slippery slope of passion and down and down to the river of release.
This was love. This was life. This is what she had dreamed of in all the years of her sadness.
‘Love me for ever, Nicholas,’ she finally whispered when her breath was back.
‘I will, my darling. I promise.’