After a sleepless and troubled night, Sylvie had written a note and had it delivered to Christian only an hour ago, requesting that he call upon her at his earliest convenience. She should have known, after the manner in which she had fled his home the night before, that Christian’s ‘earliest convenience’ would be almost immediately.
Quite what she was to say to him, how to explain, was still not exactly clear to her. She only knew that she owed Christian an explanation. For her behavior both the previous night and four years ago...
* * *
Christian gave the standing and unsmiling Sylvie a searching glance after the butler left the two of them alone. Her golden curls were fashionably styled, her brown silk gown also the height of fashion, and yet—and yet there was an air of fragility about her, a translucence to the creaminess of her skin, and a haunted look in the dark depths of her eyes. “Tell me,” he demanded without preamble.
She gave a shake of her head, not of denial, but as if she was at a loss to know quite how to proceed. She closed her lids briefly before opening them again, her chin rising as if for a blow. “There is something that I wish—no, something I must tell you.” She moistened her rosy-pink lips. “I have thought about this for most of the night, have considered all the consequences of—of my admission, but I can see no other way. No other honorable way,” she added huskily.
Christian frowned darkly. “You are making me nervous, Sylvie.”
She swallowed. “I assure you, that is not my intention. I—You see—”
“Mama? Mama, Nurse says I may not visit with you just yet, that you are too busy this morning!”
Christian had turned at the first sound of that trilling little voice as it preceded the opening of the door and the entrance of a little green whirlwind that launched itself into Sylvie’s arms before turning to look at him curiously.
His eyes narrowed as he found himself looking down at a beautiful little girl of possibly three years old, dressed in a green gown, with dark curls and—and moss-green eyes...
His own dark curls and moss-green eyes?
“Please say something, Christian,” Sylvie choked, having just returned from taking a reluctant Christianna back to the nursery and her flustered and scolding nurse. The tears streamed unchecked down Sylvie’s cheeks as she saw that Christian’s face still bore an expression of shocked disbelief. “Anything!”
His throat moved convulsively as he swallowed. “What do you call her...?”
Sylvie gave a pained frown. “I—Her name is Christianna.”
His breath left him in a hiss. “You named her for me?”
“Yes. Christian—”
“Dear God, Sylvie, she is so beautiful!” The tension leached from his body and he dropped down into one of the armchairs, his face pale, his expression tortured as he stared up at her. “Is she—Can she be the reason you accepted Gerald Moorland’s offer of marriage four years ago?”
“Yes.”
Christian gave a pained wince. “And did he know—”
“Yes, he knew. Oh, not who the father of my babe was, but I never tried to deceive him into believing the child was his,” Sylvie assured huskily. “Please believe—I did not know what to do when I realized I carried your child, and although Gerald’s life had been dedicated to the army, and he had never shown any inclination to marry, he nevertheless offered—Gerald was a friend of my father’s—”
Christian looked at her sharply. “Your parents know—”
“No.” She gave a sad shake of her head. “They have always believed that Christianna was a seven-month babe.” Sylvie twisted her fingers together in her agitation. “Only Gerald knew she was not. And he was too much of a gentleman to ever reveal the truth to anyone.”
“And—and did you grow to love him...?”
She gave a slow shake of her head. “Not in a romantic way. But he became my closest friend.”
“You were not—It was not a physical marriage?” Christian prompted sharply.
Sylvie smiled slightly. “Gerald did not think of me in that way. He did not think of anyone in that way,” she added softly as she saw Christian’s incredulous expression. “He really was married to the army. Although I never had any doubts that he cared for both Christianna and me. For the short time he was alive after Christianna’s birth, he was a wonderful father to her.”
“I am glad of it.” Christian nodded.
“You do not really mean that!” Sylvie groaned.
“Of course I do.”
“How could you? Because of my lack of faith in you, in myself, I have denied you the first three years of your daughter’s life!” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “And I am so sorry for that, Christian.”
“Why did you not write to me?”
Sylvie closed her eyes briefly. “After you left me, there were rumors on your estate of the women you had been seen with in London before you rejoined your regiment—”
“They were untrue.” He looked at her bleakly. “I did not so much as look at another woman. Why would I, when it was you I wanted? You I intended to return to? You whom I loved?”
Sylvie looked at him searchingly, seeing the truth in the bleakness of his expression. As she heard the past tense in his last statement. “I am so sorry, Christian. So very sorry that I ever doubted you.” She turned away to stare sightlessly out of the window overlooking the garden. “I cannot bear to think of how much you must now hate and despise me!”
Christian rose abruptly to his feet to cross the room in three long strides before grasping Sylvie’s shoulders and turning her to face him. “I could never hate or despise you, Sylvie,” he assured her gruffly as he cupped either side of her face to brush his thumbs across her cheek and erase the tears. “How could I when I fell in love with you the moment I saw you swimming half-naked in that river four years ago? And it is a love that never died, Sylvie. Never,” he assured her fiercely as her eyes widened incredulously, hopefully. “Yes, I felt angry and betrayed when I returned to England and found you had married another man. And I behaved abominably for the next four years—”
“So I believe.” She smiled sadly.
“I am not proud of those years, Sylvie,” he acknowledged. “How could I be? But I did not know how else to get through the pain of loving you and knowing you were so far out of my reach, that you belonged with another man. And all this time!” He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. “Was the reason you agreed to become my mistress, but with that proviso that we meet in my home and not yours, because you wished to protect Christianna from me?”
“Partly,” she acknowledged.
Christian looked at her closely. “And the other part?”
Sylvie released her breath in a sigh. “The other part was that I only had to see you again, to be with you again, to know, despite denying it to myself, wishing it to be the contrary, that I still had feelings for you.”
He stilled. “As I only had to see you again the night of my grandmother’s ball to know that I have never stopped loving you.”
She gasped. “You believed I had married Gerald for his money and title—”
“And it made no difference to the love I still feel for you!” he admitted fiercely. “I knew that night that I wanted