Seventeen

I t was, without even the smallest doubt, Liam thought, the worst thing that could have possibly happened to him. Never had he felt more defenseless or physically and emotionally vulnerable, yet there he was, returning again and again to the very place he should have avoided, as often as time and circumstance would allow, while he bided his time until the Lockhart ball.

Liam was first and foremost a soldier, a man married to the notion of service to his king while others stayed home and sired children. And it was a fact that he had not and never would have, in a thousand or perhaps a million years, believed himself capable of falling in love.

Yet that was precisely what he had gone and done, falling like a rock down the side of Ben Nevis, gathering dangerous velocity as he hurtled toward a certain crash into the pit of love. Ill-advised? Yes. Ridiculously lacking in self-control? Yes. Possible to abandon? Not even in hell. How could a man deny himself such bliss as this? How could a man possibly stay away from a woman such as Ellie, even knowing that he must eventually complete his mission and return to Scotland?

He would return to Scotland—that was inarguable. There was his career to think of, first. He had signed on to the Gordon regiment, and would be off to the Continent and points abroad within a matter of months, if not weeks. Second, there was his family to think of. Without the bloody, blasted beastie, they would certainly lose Talla Dileas. They were depending on him, and he would not let them down. And then there was Ellie—sweet, beautiful Ellie. An Englishwoman, the daughter of a noble. As gentle and fragile and exquisite as the roses he took from Hyde Park—precisely the sort of woman who was bred to be anything but a soldier's woman.

No, no, it was inconceivable to think anything should ever come of this unprecedented feeling of devotion, of this extraordinary feeling of tenderness toward another human being. It was, Liam at last decided, something he should avoid thinking of altogether for the time being, which was precisely what he was trying to do. With Farnsworth away and Miss Agatha only mildly suspicious, and Follifoot suitably silenced with a generous banknote, Ellen and Liam spent as much time together as possible in the course of the next few days, thinking nothing of consequence, nothing but the glittery feeling between them.

They met in Hyde Park each morning, walked among the privileged of London like an old married couple with Natalie scampering around them. They talked of nothing, really, and yet everything. They laughed privately with one another at the antics of the Quality around them, admired horses and dogs, and remarked on the more colorful of walking costumes.

Each night Liam would wait until he knew Agatha had retired to her own bed somewhere far away, and then would steal up the stairs with whatever fowl or game he had managed to catch that day. As Natalie played with her dolls or drew her pictures, he and Ellie would roast it while the cook's offering sat untouched in the corridor. Over the course of supper, while the lass prattled on about her Laria, Liam and Ellen stole glimpses and smiles from one another and tried desperately to respond to the girl.

It went without saying that Liam's favorite moment came when Natalie was put to bed and he and Ellie were alone (not that he was such a bloody dog as to think of that constantly, which he did not…not constantly anyway). He very much enjoyed Ellie's company, and in quiet moments of reflection he fancied the two of them had been fashioned by God's hand for one another, their temperaments perfectly suited. In addition to that terribly important fact, Liam was tearfully thankful to discover that his Ellie had quite a lustful and varied appetite that pleased him enormously.

It also astounded him. Granted, he had never been with a lady before. But he had heard some English officers speak of marital relations, and had privately wondered how a man was to exist if his wife was as prudish and sodden as he had heard the officers bemoan. It seemed to him that a man might as well give over to his very own hand rather than expend so much energy on a lifeless lump of flesh as some English women appeared to be. And it was Liam's long and avid opinion that a man needed to release the lusty demons within him in order to maintain a certain level of discipline required for soldiering, a fact all Highlanders knew to be true. So he considered it his great fortune indeed to have found a woman who seemed to need that primal release as much as he did. Whatever his imagination could produce, Ellie was game to try, and better yet, had some rather provocative suggestions of her own.

Their lovemaking was the stuff of dreams, unconventional, free-spirited, and always tender. That was because he loved Ellie, adored her with every fiber of his being, and he wanted to take as many memories of her as his heart could hold .

He truly believed Ellie wanted the same, but there were moments when he would catch her looking pensively into the fire or staring blankly out the window, and in those precious few moments, he wondered what she was thinking, wondered absently if he really knew her at all. It was the soldier in him, he supposed, the part of him relentlessly conditioned to trust no one and suspect everyone. For the first time in his life, he despised that untrusting part of him, did not want to question her motives. But there it was, that small seed of fear that, unchecked, could spread like wildfire.

Yet the desire to be with her was even more powerful, and in those moments he thought he should stop coming to her suite altogether, that he should spare her any pain from his ultimate departure—he never proved strong enough. He despised that about himself, despised that he should be so smitten and so weak. Ah, but then Ellie would smile and light that fire in his heart, and he'd forget everything he had ever known, including his common sense.

It was in that state of blissful, magical repose on the eve of the Lockhart ball, and the need to know every inch of her, every thought, that Liam asked Ellie what had happened to her. He had been thinking of their dance and the way she looked, how gracefully she went about, expertly falling into his rhythm, and he could imagine her dancing through thousands of fancy balls. He had even asked her to attend with him, but she had laughed, shaking her head.

"Why no'?" he had asked.

"I can't leave Natalie alone, and besides, I was not invited. It would be terribly gauche."

That was when Liam had realized that she never went anywhere or did anything, really. Until now, he had supposed that was because she was a widow, but even that thought led to the more inevitable question of what had happened to her, and perhaps more important, to Natalie's father.

"Who?" she asked, sitting naked on the edge of his bed in his sparse rooms (their change of venue something she had suggested), his plaid barely covering her thighs, the heat of their lovemaking still warming them both.

"Him," Liam said, one arm behind his head, the plaid also draping his groin. "Natalie's father."

Ellie flashed him a smile over her shoulder. "Ah…so you would know my story, would you, Captain Lockhart?" She twisted on the bed and faced him. "Should I tell you?"

"Please."

"And why should I? Will it change anything?"

"No. Never," he said emphatically, and reached out to stroke the smooth skin of her arm. "There is naugh' that could ever change the way I feel about ye, Ellie."

She smiled and folded her arms beneath her bosom. "You're very certain of it, are you? Perhaps you should wait before you avow it so strongly, sir. Mine is not a happy tale."

"I had gathered. But neither can it be so bad, Ellie."

She smiled enigmatically and traced the tiny path of hair that led from his stomach to his groin. "Actually, it's rather lurid," she whispered, and suddenly moved to straddle him, letting his plaid fall to the floor as she braced herself above him, letting her hair form a silken curtain around them. "Are you certain you want to know?"

"If I could, mo ghraid, I'd climb inside that wee head of yers and wander about until I knew everything about ye, I would."

Ellie laughed, collapsed on his chest, and sighed, her breath warm across his nipple. "All right," she said at last. "I'll tell you. But I warn you, you may not view me so favorably when I am done." With that, she pushed herself up, leaned over Liam and the side of the bed, and picked up his plaid from the floor, wrapping it tightly around her shoulders. With her flaxen hair wildly mussed from their enthusiastic lovemaking, her skin still softly glowing, she settled beside him.

"The story of Ellen Frances Farnsworth begins in the summer of her eighteenth year…when I was one of the more favored debutantes in London," she said simply, without pride. "During the Season that year, I was invited to so many routs and balls and supper parties that I could scarcely keep up with them all. My mother helped me, but she often said that if an invitation to an event was worth having, I was the first to have it." She laughed sheepishly. "It was true that I was quite popular. I was something of a free spirit, really, enjoying the attentions of all gentlemen, and none in particular. I loved life and parties and pretty things."

Liam nodded, pushed himself up so that he was leaning against the bare wall behind him, already fascinated by the image of this youthful Ellie, dancing her way from ball to ball, laughing, smiling, and tearing young men's hearts to pieces.

"My cousins—I never really knew them, actually, for they never came to town during the Season. Some sort of falling-out with my father, if I recall correctly," she added with an inadvertent roll of her eyes. "But that year my cousins Malcolm and Lettie came to town along with their particular friend—" Ellie coughed, cleared her throat. "Um…with their friend, Mr. Daniel Goodman. From Cambridge."

Her voice was a bit unsteady; she looked away from Liam to the brazier and the embers there. "Mr. Goodman was…frighteningly charming. He was the son of an academician, and he had been educated abroad, and he was fun-loving and, oh, such a terribly good da ncer," she said wistfully. "Everyone thought him particularly handsome, and all the girls were wild for him. I confess that the moment Mr. Goodman was introduced to me, there was an instant attraction between us."

Liam thought that was as it should be, if the man had half a brain…but hearing it from Ellie's lips was nonetheless unsettling.

"We began to see quite a lot of each other—we were always invited to the same supper parties, always taking as many dances as we could. I suppose I fell quite alarmingly in love with him, and I thought he was in love with me."

Now Liam simply despised handsome Daniel Goodman, would just as soon wring his neck than hear his name again, and mentally kicked himself for having asked the question in the first place. Worse, he heard a ring of familiarity that bothered him— I fell quite alarmingly in love with him, and I thought he was in love with me…

"In fact, we were so in love that we began to think of ways to meet at the Season's events and sneak away so that we might be alone," she continued, her voice gone flat now. "Daniel was very clever and a rather persuasive man. And…and I loved him desperately. I loved him like I had never loved anyone or anything in my young life. So, then, one thing led to another, and well…you can think what you will, but we became lovers."

She said it so softly that he had to strain to hear her correctly. Instant and intense jealousy swept through Liam. Of course he knew Ellie had been with a man before him, but in his na?veté, he had somehow assumed it to be perfunctory. Not passionate. Not love.

Ellie did not seem to notice the sudden tension in him; she was looking at her hands now, a habit, he had come to learn, that meant she was perplexed or uncertain. "I was so stupid, Liam, so frightfully na?ve. I thought the sun rose and the moon set by him. I counted every hour until I could be with him again. I felt my entire body light up when he walked into the room, and I thought I should be with him always. Of course I did, or I would never have risked so…so much…" She paused then, looked away for a moment.

"Did he hurt ye? Did the bloody bastard—"

"Liam," she whispered softly, and without looking at him put her hand on his, silencing him. "My parents were very much against him. Father didn't think he was suitably credentialed to marry me, and thought even less of his income. My mother, well…I don't think she ever found him particularly genuine. I thought she was just going along with my father, but looking back now, I know that she must have seen what I couldn't." With a regretful shake of her head, she continued, "But I refused to stop seeing him. Then, one day, my parents announced that we were away, all of us, me and Eva, too, to the country, to visit friends for a week or so. My mother said it was time that Mr. Goodman and I had a bit of a respite from one another.

"But her plan didn't work in the least. I scarcely ate, I scarcely thought of anything but Daniel, and I sat in my room and watched the hands of the clock move, almost minute by minute, counting them down until I could return to my true love. Oh, I put on a good front so that my parents would not suspect I was pining so—I joined in all the lawn games, and the board games, and I danced after supper, and I played the pianoforte and sang cheerful songs. I did all the things a carefree debutante was supposed to do, so that finally, after a week, my parents determined it was quite all right to return to London."

Ellie looked up to the bare ceiling, her eyes focused on some distant recollection. "When we arrived in London, I was the first to reach our door, and I sought out our butler, who assured me a handful of letters had been put on my bed, awaiting my return. I rushed to my room, found the letters, and there it was—the letter from Daniel I had been seeking. I pulled it open, tearing a corner in my haste, only…" She paused; Liam could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. "Only it was not the love letter I had been expecting. Quite the contrary, actually. It was a letter telling me that Daniel had gone away indefinitely, as his father had fallen ill in Belgium. There was no mention of love, of quietly dying until he could lay eyes on me again. Nothing. Just ‘I've gone away indefinitely.' "

It was a poignant story to be sure, but it confused Liam. "But…but what of Nattie?"

Tears suddenly sprang from her blue eyes. Ellie was crying now, tears running silently down her face that she unthinkingly swiped with his plaid. "Oh, Natalie, my darling, dearest child! How can I begin to say it all?" she cried. "I did not know I was with child until perhaps a fortnight after I returned to London. I tried desperately to find Daniel, but he'd left no direction. My cousin Malcolm did not know where he had gone, said only that he had left in the night. My cousin Lettie had returned home, and no one in all of London seemed to have any knowledge of him! I wrote letter after to letter to Cambridge, hoping one would reach him somehow."

"Do ye mean to tell me, then," Liam asked low, his heart suddenly heavy, "that the man doesna know of his own bairn?"

Ellie shook her head no. "I never saw him again. To this day, I have no idea what became of him."

Goddamned Englishman! Now Liam was incensed—of course he had known Natalie did not know her father, not really, but he had naturally assumed the poor man had died. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that Ellie had engaged in some illicit love affair and borne a child out of wedlock. And miraculously, while he found that news somewhat disconcerting, it did not change his opinion of Ellie. It did, however, produce a desire in him to kill one bloody English coward.

Fury and pain propelled Liam up off the bed, and he began pacing, oblivious to his nakedness. "Bloody bastard, he is. A coward. I'd slice off the man's balls if I had half a chance—"

"Liam!"

"What sort of man would leave a woman as bonny as ye, Ellie, after he'd compromised ye so completely? What bloody bastard would take yer virginity and run away when there's a chance of having planted his seed in ye?"

Ellie said nothing, just bowed her head, avoiding his hard gaze.

Instantly contrite, Liam moved to his knees before her. "Ah, Ellie, I speak harshly, I know, but I swear on the grave of William Wallace, I'd kill a man for such cowardice—"

"You mustn't blame him, Liam!" she exclaimed through her tears. "There were two of us just like there are two of us here! I was a willing participant and it was my foolishness that has brought me here to live like a prisoner in my father's house!"

"Ye're no' a prisoner!" he scoffed.

Ellie laughed sardonically and pushed him away.

"Look around you—surely you've noticed! I've no acquaintances, save my sister. I've no engagements! Farnsworth has never forgiven me and he never will!"

Yes, of course he had noticed, but he had not understood why. How devastating—she had loved him, loved him enough to have trusted him. Jesu! the very thought sent a knife through Liam's gut, and with a groan he pressed his forehead against her knee.

Ellie's fingers curled in his hair. "My father hates me, Liam. By the point I realized I had been jilted, it was the height of the Season, and my parents, blissfully unaware of my condition, had begun to shop for potential suitors to marry me. Of course, I had to tell them the truth about my plight. Farnsworth was furious—he disowned me then and there, said I was no longer his daughter. My mother was devastated. She was so ashamed she could scarcely look at me. After a wretched two days of arguing, my parents determined that the scandal would be too great for us to bear in London, particularly as popular as I was, so my father sent my mother and me to Cornwall. I protested quite strongly—I didn't want Mother to be punished, too—but he was quite adamant that he'd not risk my whoring about again. My parents never slept in the same house again. I lived with my mother in Cornwall, where Natalie was born, and there we remained until Mother died. Eva remained in London, but Farnsworth had lost what little heart for fathering he'd had, and he married her off to the first potential suitor that came along. I daresay she's never forgiven me either."

"If he hates ye as ye say, then why are ye here?"

"I don't know! When Mother died, Farnsworth sent for me. I hoped that perhaps time had softened his opinion of me, but if anything, his opinion had worsened. He abhors me, Liam, and the only reason he keeps me at all is because of his fear of scandal. He would rather have me under his own roof then chance I should"—she looked up at Liam through wet lashes, bit her lower lip—"that I should dishonor him," she whispered. "And Natalie, my poor innocent child…well, you've seen what's become of her. "

It seemed impossible to absorb it all; it shocked Liam, but left him sympathetic at the same time, for had not the very same thing happened to him of late? Nonetheless…"Ye're a grown woman, Ellie. Why do ye no' leave?"

She laughed derisively. "One day I will. My father gives me precious little to live on, and I have no income of my own. But I scrimp every pence I can, and when I have sufficient funds, I will go someplace where Natalie can live without the shadow of my actions hanging over her head. I swear it."

Ah God, if only he had the means, he'd give her the sun and the moon and the stars…but he was only a soldier, and his pitiful stipend was already devoured by his family. Liam could do nothing but gather Ellie in his arms and hold her.

They fell asleep that way, drifting off with their private thoughts.

Sometime before dawn, Liam awoke to find himself alone.