His mood alarmed her, all the more because he had himself so tightly under control. She carefully replaced her half-full coffee cup on the tray lest her shaking hands betray her. Nicholas had not touched his. The clock ticked.
‘Alone at last, Serena,’ Nicholas said, looking positively predatory.
She managed an uncertain smile.
‘I’ve given Hughes instructions to deny me to any callers. What with Farmer Jeffries and then Charles, I think we’ve had too many interruptions lately, don’t you?’
Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips. ‘Nicholas, I…’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Nervous, Serena? There’s no need to be. Surely our experience in the barn was sufficient to prove that the conclusion to our little idyll here will be pleasurable—on your part, at least. We have yet to determine how I will like it.’
Colour flooded her face and drained just as quickly, leaving her ashen. ‘Why are you being so beastly?’
‘You’re tense. We should do something to help you relax. A game of piquet, perhaps? Or what about dice? I’m sure Papa taught you how to load the bones as well as how to fix the cards.’
‘I don’t cheat.’
‘Oh, but you do, Serena. You have been cheating me since the day you turned up on my doorstep.’ He stood, the tension in him blatantly obvious now, in the way he clenched his fists by his side, the way he held his shoulders rigid. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a letter. ‘I had this from Frances Eldon, my man of business, yesterday. Combined with your uncle’s announcement in the Morning Post and your own revelations, it has helped to make a lot of things much clearer.’
She realised at once that it was too late. If he knew from someone else what she should have told him from the first, he would never forgive her. ‘You had your man of business investigate me,’ she said flatly.
Nicholas coloured. ‘Since you were so sparing with the truth I had no option.’
She stood up shakily. ‘Don’t say you had no option, it’s not true. You could have waited. I came today to tell you, but I see there is no need, your Mr Eldon has saved me the trouble of a confession.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘You did not trust me,’ she flung at him, her temper flaring. ‘And I did not lie to you, Nicholas. I may have misled you, but you were perfectly happy for me to do so.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You claim you were suspicious of me from the start. Suspicious enough to have someone investigate me. But you never asked me. You never said, Serena, I’m not sure about this story of yours.’
‘Would you have told me?’
‘Yes! No! Probably. It doesn’t matter, you didn’t ask because you didn’t want to know. And then when I found my papers, the same thing. I would have told you straight away, even before I had read them, if you had pressed me. But you did not. Instead you suggested a day’s grace.’
‘Which you were more than happy to agree to.’
She nodded and took a calming breath. ‘Yes. Yes, I was. It was wrong, I knew it was wrong, but I agreed because I wanted…’ She blushed, but forced herself to continue. ‘Because I wanted what happened in the barn. Now I know it was a terrible mistake.’
Her admission threw him. He reached for her, but she stepped back. ‘No, Nicholas. It’s too late now. I must go. I should have gone two days ago.’
‘Sit down, Serena,’ Nicholas said coldly, ‘you don’t get off so lightly. I want to hear it for myself. All of it.’
She would rather do almost anything, but she owed it to him, and he was mostly in the right, so she sat down, stiff-backed, hands clutched tight together in a bitter parody of their first meeting. Nicholas sat down too, his gaze unwavering. That look of his that made her feel he could read her mind.
‘Well, as you have obviously surmised, Papa made his money from gambling. Gaming salons, but I assure you he was neither a cheat nor a sharp.’As she sketched a picture of their life, she watched Nicholas watching her, but his face gave away nothing. ‘We followed the wars, for where there are wars there are officers and hangers-on and plenty of money,’ she continued. ‘Most recently we settled in Paris.’
‘And you, did you preside over the tables?’
Despite the circumstances, the very idea forced a smile from her. ‘Hardly. I’ve told you several times, Papa was extremely protective. He forbade me from entering the salons when they were open. I was his hostess at private parties—when he played for pleasure with his particular friends, all older men, respectable men. I played too, sometimes. And of course, I practised with him.’
‘A fine education for you!’ He was unaccountably angry on her behalf. ‘What about the dangers you must have been exposed to, the sights you must have seen, the type of men you must have met?’
‘It wasn’t like that. You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t. What did he intend for you, your sainted papa? You’re—what, twenty-two, twentythree? Did he not wish to see you settled?’
‘I’m almost five and twenty. Of course he wanted to see me settled, that’s why I am here. He would have brought me himself if it was not for the war.’
‘That is complete nonsense, he could have returned any time if he’d really wanted to. Your father sounds to me like a selfish bastard.’
Serena was silent. Papa had explained, but even then, through the grief of knowing he had only a few hours left to live, his excuses had sounded weak to her ears. It had been more than thirty years, after all. ‘You’re right, he was a little set in his ways. I suppose the truth was that he had grown used to his life and did not wish to be constrained by his responsibilities in England.’
‘His life as the Earl of Vespian.’
‘Yes, my father was Lord Vespian.’
‘Which makes you the Lady Serena—assuming, of course, that a marriage actually took place between your parents. Was there one?’
She cast him a wounded look. ‘Of course there was.’
He was unrepentant. ‘I’m only saying what everyone else will ask. Charles did say it was curious, your need to prove your identity.’
‘You told Charles all this? You had no right.’
‘Charles won’t say anything. He liked you.’
‘Well, I’m relieved to know that someone does.’ Serena reached for her reticule and pulled out a small leather pouch, which she handed to him. ‘I thought my father was being excessively cautious, but he insisted I should have this as well as the legal documents.’
Nicholas undid the ties. Inside was a ring, intricately worked in gold, a strange antique setting wrought around a large black pearl. Frowning, he traced a long finger over the pattern. ‘An heirloom, I presume,’ he said, returning the ring to its pouch and handing it back to Serena.
‘Another of his deathbed bequests,’ she said with intentional irony. ‘I’ve to give it to my uncle. It seems it is always worn by the heir to the earldom.’
Nicholas strode over to the window. In the brief time they had spent together the narcissi had started to fade, the cherry blossom to fall. In the distance he could see a horse and plough readying a field for planting. He had been beguiled, even Charles had spotted it. Locked away from the world, he had been careless of everything save the