“I hope very much that you will,” he said in a tone of voice that wasn’t anything like his earlier lighthearted banter. His eyes darkened as he spoke. She swallowed and looked away. Her cheeks warmed under his gaze.
He returned to his matter-of-fact explanation. “Wife number two, my widowed sister-in-law, Celia, is a constant drain on my patience and my pocket. She was left a very generous jointure—part of the marriage settlements—which should easily support her and the girls, but the woman is the biggest pinchpenny I have ever met and resentsspending a groat, especially if by nagging she can get two out of me. She refused to live in the dower house and won’t share the Mayfair house with Grandmama—to say they don’t get on is an understatement—so I offered her a house in Richmond, which she decided was just acceptable.”
“I see. And your sister? How can she possibly be called a wife?”
“Ah yes, Dorothea.” He smiled, as you would for a fond memory. “Her case is quite different. She fell madly in love with Sir Frederick Strangham. She adores him and he adores her back—but though he comes of good family, he’s as poor as a church mouse. Everybody opposed their marriage—Papa, Grandmama, even my late brother, Ralph—but Dot stood firm, refusing to look at anyone else.”
She was intrigued despite herself. “So what happened?”
He chuckled. “My sister, Dot, bids fair to becoming as indomitable as Grandmama, only a lot nicer. She took matters into her own hands and told Papa and Grandmama that she had lain with Fred and that she was to bear his child. Swore it was true—it wasn’t—but they weren’t going to risk it. They washed their hands of her, and she married Fred by special license. And gave birth to their first child more than a year later. They scraped by for a few years on Fred’s pittance, but when Papa died and I inherited, I handed one of my estates over to Fred and Dot. He’s now learning to become a farmer, the estate is starting to turn a profit and they’re as happy as grigs.”
There was a long silence. He rose, stirred the coals in the fire and shoveled in some more coal. He turned to face Zoë. “So, there you are, Vita my love, my three wives and their three houses explained. To your satisfaction, I hope?”
Vita my love?
She put up her hand as if to hold him off, or to block his words. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
She looked up at him, at his tall, spare figure limned by firelight, just as it had been so often in France. But they’d been two different people then. Living a fantasy.
“Your truths are very…twisty,” she said finally.
“Perhaps, but this one isn’t. I love you, Vita.”
“My name is Zoë.”
“I love you, Zoë.”
She shook her head in denial.
He took two steps toward her and took her hands in his. Hers were cold, his were warm. So much for “cold hands warm heart,” she thought irrelevantly.
“It’s marriage I’m offering you, Vita—Zoë, whoever you are.”
She pulled her hands away, rose and moved behind her chair. She gripped it tightly, as if she needed it to support her. “I can’t, you know I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She shook her head again. “I’m illegitimate, you know that.”
“So?”
She sighed at his obtuseness. “You are an earl.”
“Heavens!” He looked down at himself. “So I am.”
“Don’t! Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not, love,” he said apologetically. “But you’re being very foolish.”
“I’m not.” She gave him a desperate look. She’d have to tell him everything. “You guessed it earlier, I’m not the French cousin—I’m Clarissa and Izzy’s illegitimate half sister, but it must never get out, or the scandal will affect them, and they’ve been so kind to me. I could never hurt them that way.”
“Very well, we won’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, stop it! It’s not so easy. Or so simple. I’m not French at all—I was born in the back streets of London. In a slum.”
He eyed her solemnly, his blue, blue eyes no longer dancing.
