It Happened One Midnight (PG8) (28 page)

“They told us there would be before they took us to the mill. Just oatcake, guv, and a bit of milk. Nivver tea. Nivver butter. Never anything else. Dinna tease me guv. I’ll eat the oatcake.”

Oh, God. Lies on top of lies on top of lies had been used to exploit these children.

Jonathan looked up at Klaus and gestured with his chin. Klaus turned on his heel and disappeared into the back room, where they kept the food.

And Jonathan contemplated Charlie. And he felt it again: that swooping sense of vertigo, the consciousness of what a perilous condition childhood truly is. And that willingness to trust . . . it was a gift. In a way, a child’s trust blessed anyone to whom it was given.

What a heinous crime it was to exploit it.

You and I can only help one child at a time.
He’d hated hearing those words from Tommy.

But she was right. One at a time just wasn’t enough.

“Charlie . . . listen to me. You will work and sleep here, but you will have a comfortable bed of your own. You will have three meals a day and more. You will have bread and cheese and tea, and you will have cakes now and again. You will listen to Klaus and do as he bids and learn to be a gentleman and you will never be hungry. And you will learn to play cricket.” Jonathan had added that impulsively. Because Charlie was fast, and wouldn’t it be fun to teach a cocky, quick little boy how to play cricket? “Do you believe me? I will never lie to you.”

Jonathan hoped
that
was true. He’d never tell a big lie, anyway. An important lie.

And he realized everything he’d just said was tantamount to a sacred vow. There was no way he could say these thing to this child’s face and not somehow remain a part of his life.

The idea, he realized, wasn’t repellant.

Klaus emerged with tea and what appeared to be cheese and bread on a tray.

“We shall eat, all right, Charlie, and come to know one another? And then I will show you how to help me here.”

Jonathan raised questioning brows at Charlie.

Charlie nodded. He opened his mouth to say something, and belched. And giggled.

Jonathan sighed. “He’s all yours, Klaus.”

O
DD TO REALIZE
that it required considerably more of her nerve to go in the front door of this enormous building than it had to slip through a wrought iron gate at midnight, creep around the back, and spy through French windows.

Tommy’s palms were icy inside her gloves. She gave herself a little shake, to rouse her bravado. She inhaled deeply and exhaled, and then she did again.

She squared her shoulders.

One would think meeting one’s father for the first time was an athletic event.

If
he would see her.

She suspected her name, if anything else, when she presented it to the butler, would at least rouse the man’s curiosity.

She watched, as if in a dream, her hand reach up and grip the knocker.

And she watched, as if in a dream, as she stood waiting for the door to be answered rather than turning around and
fleeing
down the stairs again after she’d rapped the knocker.

She jumped a little when the door swung wide. “May I help you, miss?”

The butler was a tall, gray, impassive man with a spine rigid as a ship’s mast. It was clear from the swift professional sweep of his eyes over Tommy that he hadn’t the faintest idea how to place her. She was well dressed, but not ostentatiously so. She was young, but she wasn’t the bred-within-an-inch-of-her-life aristocrat with whom he’d be familiar.

She cleared her throat. “I wondered if I might speak to his Grace, the Duke of Greyfolk?”

He didn’t blink.

“And who may I say is calling upon him?”

She hadn’t a card, of course, and this would reveal more about her station to the butler than her clothing.

“Tell him, if you would, that it’s Miss Thomasina de Ballesteros. And that my mother’s name was Carolina de Ballesteros.”

“If you would please wait here.”

She stood on the steps, and couldn’t decide what she wanted more: to be let into the house, or to be told to leave.

The choice was taken from her.

“If you would come with me, please, Miss de Ballesteros.”

And she was inside, and the door was closing behind her.

Her head felt a bit as if it was floating above her body as the butler led her through the house. It smelled of wealth, of wax candles and linseed oil and profligately burned wood. Light ricocheted from the aggressively polished furniture, which looked as though no one sat upon it. The house was probably filled with dozens of parlors similar to that one.

She craned her head as they passed a room of heart-stopping grandeur, carpeted in swirling gray and blue. Over a white marble fireplace that climbed nearly to the soaring ceiling was a painting of the duke. In it he was slim and dark haired, as he must have been when her mother had been his mistress. He wore an expression of proud satisfaction, while a beautiful blond woman rested her hand on his shoulder, and two little blond children, a boy and a girl, leaned against his knees.

She tripped over her feet. Then righted herself as the butler glanced behind him, one brow upraised.

Her heart in her throat, she craned her head toward the portrait as she was led up a marble staircase to a room.

“Miss Thomasina de Ballesteros, Your Grace.” The butler bowed low, and ushered her inside.

He was seated behind a desk vast as a ship. She could see herself in it, and what she saw made her straighten her spine.

It was a moment before she remembered to curtsy.

He rose at what appeared to be his leisure and bowed only slightly. A begrudging bow, as if he’d only a limited supply of them to spare.

“Have a seat, Miss . . . de Ballesteros.”

It was the first time she’d heard his voice. His Spanish—the liquid rolling treatment of that “r”—was impeccable. He’d served in Spain. She wondered if he spoke Spanish to her mother, and her heart gave a little leap at the thought.

“My father’s voice is very commanding, with a gruff edge. Exposure to gunpowder in the war, you know. He won a medal for distinguished service.”
She imagined saying this to friends and acquaintances.

Her thoughts were jerked back to the portrait in the other room.

He’d had a family the entire time. Another whole family. She had
siblings
.

She stared at him. It seemed impossible he was real, that she would no longer need to—or be able to—simply imagine him. He
did
have green eyes. Pale, not quite like hers, but nevertheless. He was a hard handsome man. The lines of him—chin, cheekbones, nose, lips—were all clean-drawn and unforgiving. As if life had worn away any softness he might have once possessed.

And there was no denying the voice was as impersonal as the cold wind she’d bundled against.

She sat, slowly, gracefully. She’d dressed carefully, in a gown with a subdued neckline, covered in a pelisse of brown, all of which nevertheless flattered her coloring.

“My daughter is lovely,
” she imagined he might say to someone else.
“She looks well in brown. She has my eyes
,
but her nose is her mother’s.
”

He studied her across the mirrored surface of his enormous desk. He was positively motionless.
Not a man who fidgets,
decided Tommy. He’s very controlled, my father. He assesses a situation and then—

And then she saw that his knuckles were white against his desk.

She slowly looked up into his face, schooled to stillness.

He was afraid of her.

“I’m told I have your eyes,” she said.

And at those words, he seemed to stop breathing.

And slowly, before her eyes, high, angry color flooded into his face.

“What do you want?” His voice was even and cold.

Her hands folded together even more tightly. “She named me for you. My name is Thomasina.” The faintest bit of desperation in her voice now.

“What do you
want?
”

“I wanted to meet you.”

The ensuing silence did nothing but turn her stomach into a cauldron. He did have a dent—a dimple—in his chin. It suddenly struck her as astonishing that anything could have dented the granite of this man’s features.

The pendulum on the clock behind him swung with maddening steadiness. Emphasizing a silent few minutes.

“ ’I’ve heard your name, Miss de Ballesteros. I’m given to understand that you’re a courtesan of some type.”

The shock blanked her mind for a moment. For a moment she couldn’t feel her limbs. She felt heat rush over the back of her neck, over her collarbone.

“I fear you’ve been misinformed.”

“Have I? How is it that you make your way in the world, then?”

“I’m an investor.” Thank you, Jonathan, for the ability to say that.

He smiled, slowly and unpleasantly. “And what do you invest? The funds from wealthy, gullible men whom you’ve blackmailed or otherwise coerced into giving you money?”

She flinched. This was his strategy: attack.

And her strategy was to charm. It was nearly impossible to smile in the face of his smile. It had frozen her face, as surely as if she’d walked into a snowstorm.

“I know this must come as a surprise to you, but I swear to you that I’m here only because I wanted to meet you. I grew up without a father, and
surely
you can understand my curiosity . . . the desire to meet my . . .”

To know whether I have your eyes, or your chin, or your way of moving, or whether you have a facility with words, or if you can bend your thumb all the way back because I can, or if anything that is good about me is because of you. To feel as though I’m anchored to this world by a family.

And she’d never stammered in her life. He’d reduced her to a child. She failed to remember who she was before she walked into his office. Such was his power.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And that’s when her temper slipped its tether. And she spoke with a clenched jaw.

“You left
her
. You left us. She was loving and lively and she taught me not to think badly of you. I
loved
her. She fell ill and died in penury and left me alone when I was seven years old.”

She might as well have been shouting into a storm. Her words seemed carried away by the cold wind of his entitled indifference.

“Taught you not to think
badly
of me? Miss Carolina de Ballesteros and I had a business arrangement, which I concluded when I no longer had need of her services. What she allegedly taught you about me is none of my concern.”

Services
. Her mother had
serviced
this man, in his point of view. I’m a result of a
service,
Tommy thought furiously.

There was no give in him. She could feel herself almost physically weakening, winded as though she’d spent the last ten minutes pushing and pushing and pushing against something immovable. A continent, a glacier. He was a man used to shaping circumstances to suit him. Circumstances probably generally
vied
for the honor of pleasing him.

I saw you pull your trousers from your crack, you nasty old sod.

Two could play at staring.

“Do I look like her?”

And she saw it then: a flicker of memory heating the back of his eyes, a twitch, a darkening, a memory.

But he said nothing.

“Do I
look
like her?” This time she said it through clenched teeth. The arms of the medal dug into her palm.

Another of those supercilious smiles appeared. “Miss de Ballesteros, if that is indeed your name or who you are—”

She abruptly thrust out her hand, palm up. He flinched infinitesimally.

She kept her hand outstretched. She was proud of its steadiness.

He cautiously leaned forward and peered. Then adjusted his spectacles and stared.

She saw the recognition, surprise, flicker over his features. But what a very controlled man he was. Or perhaps it was just that his emotions were no longer elastic; he’d no choice but to snap back into coldness.

He leaned slowly back again. “Where did you get that?”

Just those words, delivered slowly and heavily, sounded like a threat.

“From you, essentially. For you gave it to my mother, didn’t you? Because you loved her once. Didn’t you? And when she died, she gave it me. She told me to come to you if I ever—”

She halted immediately. Her pride prevented her from saying anything more, because she suddenly knew exactly how the duke would hear it.

A cynical gleam was already dawning in the duke’s eyes.

“Miss . . . whatever your name might be. I am hardly in the business of acceding to the wishes of opportunistic whores. It’s very clear you want money. I will never give you any, because in my experience your sort would never be satisfied with asking just once. If you attempt anything remotely resembling blackmail, I assure you that things will go very badly for you, indeed. I sincerely hope for your sake you do not intend to trouble me
or
my family again. Now, if you will return my possession to me.”

She took every one of those words as if they were slaps.
Opportunistic. Whore.

My family.
The pride and possession he’d imbued those two words with.

Her skin felt stung. As though the mill overlooker had taken a stick to her.

A heavy silence ensued. He was quite satisfied he had, in fact, vanquished her. He was clearly equally confident she’d give the medal to him.

“It isn’t your possession any longer. You gave it away. You could always, of course, try taking it from me.”

She got up abruptly enough for him to flinch just a little. She stood looking down at him, the desk between them, and she calculated how quickly he could lunge.

And she knew he wouldn’t.

“I thought not. I find it ironic that the hero who faced down his enemies in war and won this”—and she dangled it before him—“is so very afraid of me.”