Page 65 of A Secret Consequence for the Viscount

Go slow, his mind warned. Do not frighten her. He held his want in such check that he trembled with the effort and was glad when the small cuckoo clock chose that moment to beat out the hour, breaking the pressure into fragments that were less sharp and more manageable.

‘It’s never worked properly.’ His words, falling into the silence. ‘My grandmother bought it for me years ago.’

‘Ten minutes late is not too late, I should imagine.’

He swallowed away thickness. She often phrased her words like no one else did.

An image of the piano came, her fingers across his and tears in her eyes. And then left. The suddenness of it was shocking.

Bits. Pieces. Nothing.

Putting down his glass, he ran one hand through his hair, trying to soothe the ache that was building in his temples, trying to right the imbalance.

‘It was here we slept together?’ He could hear the truth of it in his own question.

‘Only once.’ Her answer.

And once had been enough. Lucy. Eleanor’s enforced widowhood and years away from theton. She had been eighteen and alone, the kind and obedient only daughter of a duke when he had come into her life. One night had demanded a large payment.

‘Was anyone with you for the birth?’

‘Grandmama. Lucy was born at Millbrook.’

‘I should have been beside you.’

‘The midwife was a great believer in the idea of men being nowhere near a birthing room.’

‘Was Jacob at the manor?’

‘Yes.’

A stab of jealousy pierced his equanimity.

‘My papa was there, too, and he thought Lucy a miracle. Mama had died the year before and his sadness was lessened by her coming. A new life, I suppose, and new hope for the future, despite the circumstances.’

‘Was she a little baby?’

Eleanor nodded. ‘Small and perfect. She had blonde hair and then it turned darker on the ends so that she looked like a porcupine with its quills sticking out.’

He drank up such words like a man who had been lost in the desert for days without water, imagining.

‘She walked when she was ten months. She simply stood up and took six steps. Two weeks later she was almost running.’

‘Clever girl.’

‘Her first word was “dog”. Then she said “Mama” and she has never stopped talking since. She is learning the piano. She loves to dance. She puts on shows for us and we all buy little tickets to watch. Vic is one of her main players.’

Nervousness always made Eleanor talk and he smiled, liking every single thing he learned.

The silence re-gathered.

‘Does she have a middle name?’

‘Christine. After my mother.’

* * *

Please, God, do not let me cry.