Page 56 of A Secret Consequence for the Viscount
‘You may have some lemonade, sweetheart, but only a little as it is nearly bedtime.’
She was amazed her voice sounded so normal, so sensible, so very parental. The footman behind them half-filled her daughter’s glass and then stood back.
‘London suits you, Eleanor.’ Ilona said this and her husband nodded his head. ‘I said to Frank this afternoon how very relaxed and content you look. I think you are losing years rather than gaining them.’
‘It must be the Christmas season then, Ilona.’ Her smile was tight and false. ‘I always enjoy it.’
‘It’s a Huntingdon tradition to treasure family gatherings for the connections and discoveries they foster.’ The darkness in Jacob’s voice made Eleanor stiffen.
‘We all of us enjoy it.’ Rose added this quickly in a completely strained tone and the way she sat up so straight gave a clue as to how tense she really was.
‘Jacob was informing us before your arrival this evening of your recent return from the Americas. Did you celebrate the Yule season abroad, Lord Bromley?’
‘I lived mostly in the country, Mrs Rogerson. Christmas did not have a big presence there.’
‘But you have been away a very long time?’ The implication in Ilona’s voice told Eleanor that her cousin’s wife knew a lot more about his absence than she was letting on. Another problem. She was certain that the gossip of the Viscount’s return had been as damaging and false as that of the talk of her own mysterious husband’s death, embellished so much that even she had sometimes found the tales amusing.
‘Too long, it seems.’ Nicholas Bartlett’s voice held a harshness she’d never heard from him before.
She felt a further rush of red come to her cheeks and caught the Viscount’s glance at exactly that moment, the anger in his eyes clearly visible.
Anger. Of course he would be furious, but she had not even thought of that. She’d imagined questions or even joy. Such rage had her straightening in her seat and taking a breath. Two could play at this game and if he thought it had been easy for her all these years to be the sole parent of a child without a father then he had another think coming.
She would not cower.
So when Frank told a funny story about one of his childhood Christmases she made sure to laugh loudly and look as if she was enjoying the tale immensely. The wine helped, of course, and she was on her fourth glass before she saw her brother shake his head at the footman who came to refill it.
There was a bottle already left on the table of a fine red so she helped herself to the rest of that instead.
* * *
It was becoming easier, this charade, as time marched on and when Lucy’s nanny came to retrieve her for bedtime at seven Eleanor made a show of kissing her daughter on the forehead and looking like the most congenial of parents.
‘Say goodnight to everyone, darling.’
She had expected Lucy to simply bid the table adieu and was surprised to see her cross to each person and kiss them on the cheek. When she came to Nicholas she hesitated.
‘Goodnight, Lucy.’ He said the words quietly, the deepness of his voice filled with regret. Whether it was this or the wounds that he carried, but her daughter simply fell into his arms and kissed him twice.
‘That one is for your hand to get better and that one is for your face. Mama always kisses my hurts better.’
‘Thank you.’
Shame flooded her. Her small five-year-old daughter had acted with more grace than she had and as sorrow began to take over from false animation, all Eleanor felt was an endless tiredness.
She was careful to place her glass down on the table before standing, the wobble in her voice presumably as noticeable as that in her gait. ‘I think I should probably retire as well, as I have drunk far, far too much, so I wish you all a good evening.’ She made a point not to look in Nicholas’s direction at all.
Then she was free, walking out into the lobby and up the stairs, following her daughter to the nursery.
She could not talk to Nicholas tonight. Not like this. She needed to understand what she might say, needed to know just what she wanted from him as a father and as a man.
‘He was nice, wasn’t he, Mama? The man who came last. The one who played dolls with me.’
‘He was, darling.’
Well, at least she had the answer to one of the questions she had posed herself earlier in the evening.
Her daughter liked Nicholas a lot.
