On a Midnight Clear Read online

  He nodded, his gaze once more focused on her face. She willed herself not to squirm beneath the scrutiny. “What of the other circumstances that made you flee to the country?”

  “I’d rather not say.” She dropped her gaze to the flames, for she had no reason to trust him, and she didn’t want to put him into unnecessary danger. Cecil was retired. He didn’t deserve more intrigue.

  “Fair enough.” When she looked into his face with a slight frown, his gaze was once more assessing, questioning, searching. What did he wish to find in her? And did she wish to provide it? “Have you a beau or a husband who is currently away, perhaps in the military?” His tone and expression gave her not a clue as to his thoughts on the matter.

  “No.” She ignored the heat in her cheeks. “I didn’t want to marry again, but my uncle wished to be rid of his responsibility toward me.” How much of herself to give away? In the end, she wanted him to know why she’d come to rest here. “He tried numerous times to arrange meetings with eligible men. Once he attempted to bring about an engagement.” A shiver fell down her spine and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

  Memories of that man flitted through her mind. He’d been her husband’s best friend; they’d been inseparable. Of course, after the fact, she knew why, and it had nothing to do with friendship. Owen had always been an intense man, and when he’d indicated a romantic interest in her, she felt more wariness than desire for him. Especially after she received that last letter Alexander had posted. It had arrived after he’d died, with a warning about Owen.

  Add that to the fact Alexander suspected Owen of traitorous behavior. In his letter, he’d sent troop numbers, supply line locations, weak points in one of the French armies Wellington himself was chasing. She’d hidden it all, especially after Owen came calling with unusual interest.

  Then the bastard had talked with her uncle the baron, asked for her hand, put forth some gammon that they were in love. Her uncle had agreed, but neither he nor Owen had counted on her stubborn refusal to wed again, and most certainly not to a traitor who would probably kill her once he got his hands on the information she had.

  Thank heavens her pregnancy had made itself known when it had, for it had given her the excuse she’d desperately needed. If fate were kind, she’d remain hidden.

  Cecil cleared his throat, and she snapped her attention back to him. “And now, Sarah?” The softly spoken question tugged at her. “Do you still shun the married state?”

  Why did he wish to know? Her heartbeat kicked into a faster rhythm. “I’m not certain. Haven’t thought about it in recent years.” She looked at him, took in his ravaged face and wondered at his story. “Why did you never wed? No doubt there were ample opportunities, for you’ve always been quite the catch.”

  She’d had certainly been captivated by him that night. Had circumstances been different...

  He returned his attention to the fire, his shoulders squared, his spine straight, his posture proud—the man she’d once known intimately and thoroughly. “I didn’t want to put a woman through grief if I didn’t come back to England.” A strangled sort of sound left his throat and only then did he bow his head. “Or if I returned too mangled... a monster.”

  “You aren’t that, Cecil.” Sarah blinked a few times to keep the tears from her eyes. His injuries, his scars obviously bothered him. “You will never be that.” Is that why he wished to hide here? To hope the world would forget about him, what he used to be, what he thought he was now? Her heart squeezed in empathy. Perhaps they weren’t on such different sides after all.

  Cecil grunted. “I have not formally introduced myself to the village; only visited one shop, so yours is the only opinion I have to go by.”

  “Then take it as truth.” Sarah frowned. Did he know how many lies she’d already told though? Would it affect his thoughts of her? “Do you feel like a monster?”

  “No.” The word sounded pulled from a tight throat, and still he kept his focus on the fire. “I’m grateful to have survived, but I alternately hate myself for doing exactly that.” Panic and loathing filled his voice. His fist tightened on the mantle. “Better men than me deserved to come home, but they didn’t. Instead, here I am, a man whose future isn’t certain, a man disfigured by war.”

  Silence reigned for long moments in the room. What was there to say? She could only reassure him so much. It was his responsibility to believe it for himself.

  Finally, she could take the quiet no longer. “Cecil.” When she went to rise from the sofa, her courage deserted her, and she remained settled. “Perhaps you should take what fate has given you and forget the rest. There are times when the future is the only thing we have to live for.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Some. It’s a process.”

  Then, he turned, and his countenance was a thundercloud, his eyes as fierce as a summer storm. “I have one last question before this interview is over.”

  She knew, deep down in her heart, what the question would be, and she trembled from the force of what it would unleash for them both. “And that would be what?”

  “Is Simon my son?”

  Sarah’s ears rang with those four words. Her world tilted once more, thanks to this man. The lies she’d told to protect herself, protect the boy, had now come due. This was hardly how she’d wished to usher in the Christmastide season. Perhaps after this admission, she’d do so with her arse on the street, her possessions in a pile beside her.

  What am I supposed to do now?

  Chapter Seven

  Though Cecil suspected the truth, he needed to hear the confirmation from her.

  “He... I...” Sarah floundered with confusion clouding her rich, chocolate eyes. Her face had drained of all color and she looked for a moment as if she might faint, but he didn’t offer comfort of any kind. Not now, not when a mere touch might change the dynamics of their relationship, and he didn’t know if he wanted that.

  “I’m waiting on an answer, Mrs. Presley.” His pulse pounded hard in his temples while the air around them seemed to hush as if waiting too.

  Finally, she nodded. “Yes.” The delicate tendons of her throat worked with a hard swallow. “You are Simon’s father.”

  Damn and blast! The anger he always carried spiked in a white-hot wave, rising steadily through his chest until he feared he might choke on that scalding tide. “I knew it.” He shoved a hand through his hair, pulling the bit of leather from the strands. In a fit of pique, he threw the tie into the flames. “You deliberately withheld this from me.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No!” The low-pitched exclamation echoed through the room like a gunshot. Then she covered her face with her hands, and when he assumed she would cry or otherwise attempt to gain his sympathies, she drew a shuddering breath. Her hands fell away, and she looked at him with high color blazing in her ivory cheeks. “I wanted to write, so many times, but I didn’t wish to distract you from your mission.”

  “I’ll wager that’s a lie.” Did she not understand how vital word from home was to a solider? After what they had shared that night, didn’t she feel something for him that would have prompted her sharing the news?

  “It’s not.” Sarah shook her head so vigorously, a few strands of dark brown hair slipped from the pins to cling to her neck in enticing curls.

  Cecil dashed away any reaction he had to her, for what she’d done was egregious. “Explain.” He crossed his arms at his chest and leveled a glare on her. How had that one glorious night landed them both in such contretemps and intrigue?

  “I both feared this day would come and hoped it would, merely to have the secret out,” she said in a whisper. The silence that followed was broken by the snap and crackle of the fire. Her gaze fell to her hands that were tightly clasped in her lap. “Over the years, I started numerous letters, but I didn’t have the heart to finish them.”

  “Why?” He would have the history and finally be done with it. Then he’d make the decision of what to do wi
th her and the boy.

  Sarah shook her head. “As I said, I didn’t wish the news to become a distraction while you were fighting.”

  “Yet such a thing would have been welcomed, would have given me hope to continue,” he admitted in a soft voice, surprising himself. “You did both yourself and me a disservice with your silence.”

  “Perhaps, but I cannot go back and change the past.” Briefly, she raised her gaze to his. Too many emotions crowded those rich depths for him to pull out just one. “So, time went by, and I continued to dither, for what would I say then, that you and I had a two-year-old son?”

  “It was the truth.”

  “Yes, but a truth you didn’t need.”

  “You should have left that for me to decide.” Anger rode every word of the response, and once more he turned his back to her and stared into the flames, both hands gripping the stone mantle.

  “I realize that now.” After a swath of silence, she spoke again. “A man like you, a solider of much acclaim, wouldn’t wish for the inconvenience or the burden of a child born to a lover.”

  He cringed. Put in such bald terms, what they’d shared sounded bawdy and cheap. Knowing their coming together out of mutual need and passion for that one night had resulted in a child only made the story more sordid, and one that happened to many women. “I would have wished to know if only to send funds that would help with the raising of the boy.”

  “I didn’t want your assistance.” A trace of bitterness wove through her words. “Asking for such, or accepting it had you sent it, would feel too much like an obligation or a payment for something that came from a beautiful indiscretion.”

  Did that mean she often thought of what they’d shared? It softened his anger, but only slightly. “Please continue.”

  “That one night wasn’t a lifetime and it certainly wasn’t a future. I refused to make demands upon your return, especially when we probably wouldn’t suit.”

  “Why do you think so?” Cecil faced her once more as shock swirled through his chest. Had she wished to align herself with him? “There was no way to tell after a couple of bouts of bed sport, regardless of how well we came together.”

  A blush infused her cheeks. “You were a soldier, and a career one at that. A few years after Simon was born, I realized that if I married again, I wanted security and to know the man I wed was out of harm’s way, perhaps would grow old with me.” Her shrug pulled her simple wool dress tight across her bosom. “The years passed, and so did the stack of unfinished letters. At that point, had I written, it would have seemed I was grasping, trying to trap you into something you didn’t want.” When she caught his gaze again, moisture had welled in her eyes. “I was too fiercely independent for all of that, as were you.”

  Cecil reeled with her admission, for the problem had grown over the years, and she was right. No longer would a letter contain the news of merely him fathering a child. There was so much more attached, and a man on the march could only do so much. “I suppose a child shouldn’t be given the hope of a father and then have that hope destroyed if said man was killed.”

  “Yes.” The word sounded pulled from her. A tear slipped to her cheek and she dashed it away. “Simon grew, looked so much like you I couldn’t help but think of you whenever he smiled at me in a certain way. Eventually, I let the matter drop with yet another unfinished letter, for the war continued and there was no word of you returning to London.” She sighed. “I had to let you go. There were other things to consider and live for that took my attention.”

  “You’re like all the rest, forgetting about the men fighting when they grow inconvenient.” The anger that had faded as he’d listened to the dulcet tone of her voice flared once more into a raging inferno. In the end, she’d thought so little of him that she excluded him from knowing he’d fathered a child. Now they would forever be linked from that night when life had been near to perfect for a few hours. “It was my right to know. I won’t change my stance on that.” How the devil had she forgotten about him over the years, as if what they’d shared didn’t matter? When he’d kept her face in his memory as a muse, an angel, to guide him through the darkest times on the battlefield.

  Bloody hell, returning to a civilian life was worse in some ways than surviving the war.

  “I’m aware, but...” Her words trailed off. She bit her lush bottom lip and his gaze fell to her mouth, those glorious lips he’d kissed with abandon that night, that mouth which had explored his body as he’d done to hers. “Without word, I assumed...”

  “...that I died or was lost.” It happened more than he’d like to admit.

  She nodded and wiped away another tear. “I had to move forward—for Simon. It was vital I provide him a stable life.”

  While he could see the issue from her point of view, his ego was bruised, and her betrayal on top of everything he’d already endured the last seven months merely added more fuel to his own personal rage. “You dishonored me—my memory—by letting the boy think someone else fathered him.” Bitterness surged in a wave that smacked into him. “I expected better from you, Sarah.”

  A muffled sob escaped her, and he closed his heart to her distress. “You didn’t know me.” She moistened her lips as her gaze fell. “There are things you still don’t know about me...”

  “That much is obvious.” He chopped the air with a hand. To have a child when he never expected to reproduce? It was a life changing event. Now that child would never know who he really was. That was the more unforgiveable crime. “You are certainly skilled in weaving lies.” This time she didn’t hide her tears, and he didn’t care. The gall of this woman!

  “You don’t know what it was like for me being left behind with a babe in my belly and no recourse.” Her voice rose and she glared at him, now on the defensive. “I did what I had to do.”

  Cecil ignored the guilt that had moved in to keep the anger company. “I wasn’t given the chance to know.”

  “Oh, don’t turn this back to me.” Her ire was palpable as she shot up from the sofa to stand before him, nearly toe to toe. “At least I didn’t do you or Simon the disserve of marrying just to give the boy a name, when I didn’t want just any man for his father.” Though she kept her voice low, it shook with anger. Perhaps they both had demons they needed to exorcise. “What I did, what I said, will be enough.”

  “Yet, here I am. Must be one hell of an inconvenience for you.” He refused to back down.

  “No more than I’ve already become accustomed to.” She wouldn’t give quarter. In this, they were perfectly matched, damn her eyes. In that moment, the woman he’d known so intimately that night years ago came through, only the passion she exhibited now was funneled into a much different expression.

  Tension fairly crackled through the sudden silence as they stared at each other.

  “Bah!” Cecil, needing action and to remove himself from the temptation she represented, threw himself into pacing in front of the massive hearth. Words populated on the tip of his tongue, for he’d had months to think about some of the thoughts plaguing him. “The French people didn’t want the war. Neither did the English, and I didn’t wish to fight in it, but I did. I did my duty, did what was asked of me. Never once questioned anything, for I was a soldier.” How to explain his feelings to her when he wasn’t sure of them himself?

  “Because you love that life,” she said quietly, her anger apparently gone like mist before the sun. Would that he could learn that simple trick, for he’d been stewing in his for years.

  “Perhaps a little. Twenty years is a long time in a soldier’s life.” He shrugged, conceded the point to her. “I wanted to defend all I held dear here at home, in England, and now that home has turned its back on me.” Cecil shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe how badly I was treated when I returned, as if the whole of the war was my fault.” He burned with the slights hurled at him at each posting inn, at the looks of disdain cast on him as he’d walked around Bath, at the rock a little girl had thrown at
him. No one knew the cost of what he’d paid for their freedom, yet he’d do it again if asked. “As did you, Sarah. You’ve turned your back on me with your silence.”

  “That’s not fair!” Rosy color bloomed once more in her cheeks. Apparently, her ire wasn’t quite spent after all. Her chest heaved as she stared at him. “I had no choice but to make the decisions I did.”

  “Neither did I!” Her anger ignited his own. Perhaps what he needed was a right proper row to clear the air and his emotions. He paused in his pacing and once more drew close to her, welcoming the pain of ripping off the bandages from his scarred soul. “Don’t you think I would have done the right thing by you—by him—if you’d told me?”

  Sarah blew out a breath. “I didn’t want your pity or your obligation.” Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. “I didn’t want you while your heart belonged to the war.” She lowered her voice as he struggled to take in her words. “I refused to be a widow twice over. It was hard enough the first time, but it would have broken me the second... I couldn’t lose you permanently. At least in the life I chose, there was the hope that you still lived.”

  That stopped him cold and he stared at her with a bit of awe. She’d considered a suit from him, but then rejected it for logical reasons? Did that mean she had once cared for him over and above the tryst? He’d not considered that before and it sent him bobbing on a wave of confusion. At all costs, he had to hide his emotion from her, for it left a man vulnerable. “I cannot listen to anymore.” Then he strode to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Somewhere that you are not, madam.” Cecil wrenched open the door and made certain it slammed behind him when he left.