Rebecca Hagan Lee (47 page)

Remember that while I'm gone I'll be thinking of you every minute. No more misunderstandings. I am not now, nor will I ever abandon you."

"Just you remember that I'll be counting the days. No more delays."

"Understood," he said.

Cristina nearly choked on the word, but she managed to smile in spite of it. "Understood."

"Good. Now don't worry. I'll be back before you know it. Remember, Cristina, I love you. Always."

The heart has its reasons which

reason does not know.

--BLAISE PASCAL 1623-1662

*Chapter Twenty-nine*

Cristina waited until the sound of his footsteps disappeared before she threw herself on the bed they had shared for the past two days and nights and allowed the flood of tears to escape. She cried until her eyes were swollen and dry, then walked to the adjoining bath and filled the tub.

She soaked in the hot, comforting water and thought about Blake and the woman back in England who bore his name. She knew Blake was going back to London to secure a future for the two of them, but she also understood that Meredith would fight it. Blake had never said it aloud, but that knowledge hung in the air between them. Cristina was positive that there was something more at stake than just a divorce petition; much more than Blake would admit aloud.

And she was just as sure that someone else in New York City knew exactly what it was.

She bathed quickly, stepped out of the tub, dried herself, and dressed in the same dress she had worn to the hotel for the luncheon with Roderick. She passed the front desk and was on her way to the front door of the hotel when the desk clerk called out to her.

"Madame."

"Yes?" Cristina turned and accepted the white envelope he held out to her.

"Your husband left this for you."

"Thank you." Cristina stared in amazement, then tore open the envelope and withdrew the message written on hotel stationery. There were three words: Love always, Blake. And the heavy gold wedding band engraved with climbing roses.

Cristina slipped the ring onto her finger, pocketed the precious message, and marched out the door filled with stubborn determination.

She didn't stop until she reached her father's Wall Street office. Cristina slipped past the clerk outside her father's door, knocked once, then entered before William could grant permission. He was busy at his desk and didn't look up.

Cristina slammed the door to gain his complete and undivided attention.

William jumped at the noise and looked up to find his daughter the culprit.

"Good God, Cristina! Where did you get your penchant for slamming perfectly good doors off their hinges?"

His daughter ignored the question and asked one of her own. "Have you seen him?"

William took one look at the determination written all across her lovely face and didn't bother to pretend. "I haven't seen you in two days. But, yes, I did see Blake briefly this morning after he left the hotel."

"Then you know he's on his way back to England?"

"Yes."

"And you know why?"

"I'm sure he told you why," William answered.

"He told me part of it," Cristina admitted. "But he didn't tell me all of it. There's more at stake than his divorce. I feel it and I think you know what it is."

"I can't tell you, Cristina. I promised Blake I wouldn't."

"Then I'll have to book passage on the next ship to London and find out for myself."

"I can't let you do that, either, Cristy."

"Why not?"

"I promised Blake that I would keep you here with me where you'll be safe."

"Where I'll be safe?" Cristina's ears pricked up. "I am safe. Meredith doesn't want me. She wants Blake. Is he in danger? Tell me. I have to know what's going on."

"Cristina..." William had never seen his daughter truly angry, but he recognized all the traits.

"Tell me," Cristina demanded. "Or I'll leave on the next ship. You won't be able to stop me and how will you explain that to Blake?" It was blackmail, pure and simple, but it worked.

"Blake won't like it," William conceded reluctantly.

"I won't tell," Cristina smiled angelically.

"Sit down," William removed a stack of papers from the safe beside his desk and handed them over to Cristina. They were letters from Blake Ashford addressed to William Fairfax. "Those should explain everything."

Cristina sat in the chair her father indicated and began to read. Blake had left nothing out of his letters to her father. Each one consisted of several pages and the first one was dated nearly two years earlier. In the first letter Blake thanked William for agreeing to meet with him on such short notice and for being completely candid with him. He wrote that he had decided to accept the post in Vienna the queen had offered in order to be closer to Cristina. He wrote that he hoped to see her and promised to write William as soon as he arrived in Vienna and arranged a meeting with her.

The second letter was dated after Blake's arrival in Vienna. He had written to give William the news that he was going to be a grandfather. He apologized for not telling him in person, then went on to express his concern about Cristina's tenuous position in Vienna.

Cristina continued to read the letters and found that Blake had written to her father with vivid descriptions of the apartment on the Ring, each stage of her pregnancy, and Leah's gradual acceptance of him. He wrote of their plans for Christmas, and later, about the bombing and the subsequent birth and death of Nicholas. She wept softly as she read the tear-blotched letter that poignantly described her courage during her long, exhausting labor.

She knew instinctively that Blake had written it that same night. And she became furiously angry when Blake wrote his deepest suspicions concerning Meredith and the Austrian cavalry officer named Oskar von Retterling.

Oskar von Retterling. Cristina gasped aloud and the letter slipped from her trembling fingers. The name conjured up the imagine of the man in the shiny boots pointing the gun at her head as she lay injured and unable to move on the frozen Vienna sidewalk. And fifteen months later, the name still had the power to frighten her. She remembered the sound of each syllable as the other man shouted von Retterling's name and she remembered the look in von Retterling's eyes. That look would haunt her until the day she died. Von Retterling. Cristina hated the man and his name and everyone around him with a hatred that was frightening in its intensity. He had tried to kill her and he had succeeded in killing her baby. Her precious, innocent baby. And Meredith had hired him.

The very idea chilled Cristina to the bone.

She bent and picked the fallen page up from the floor of her father's office. She placed it on the stack beside her and continued to read as Blake poured out all of his feelings of anger and frustration and grief in the letters to William Fairfax. As Cristina read each one, she realized the reoccurring and underlying theme of every letter was his love and concern for her.

It took two hours to read all the correspondence and when she finally put down the most recent letter, Cristina turned to her father. "Papa, Blake writes about his plan in every letter after the baby died, but he never explains it. Do you know what it is?"

"Yes, I know," William answered rather stiffly. "That's part of the reason I invited Blake to come to New York. I didn't know what his plan was at the time, but I had the feeling it was something drastic and I hoped I could talk him out of taking any radical measures."

"Is that the only reason you wrote him?" Cristina couldn't quite meet her father's knowing gaze.

"I confess that I wanted you to see him again before you found someone else you might want to marry. I knew all about your affair with Blake from his letters and it was perfectly plain to me that he was completely in love with you. I wanted to give you a chance to explore your feelings for him. I knew you didn't love anyone else, but I was afraid that you might not love Blake as much as he loved you."

"And I thought I was sparing you by not telling you and all the time, you knew about our relationship." Cristina spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. "Papa, I never wanted to cause you any embarrassment. I never meant for you to find out that I planned to become the mistress of a crown prince or that I had had an affair with a married man, even if it was done in innocence.

I didn't want you to think I had turned out just like Mother. I didn't want you to despise me. I couldn't stand that because I love you, Papa."

William blinked at the sudden tears that blurred his vision. "I could never despise you, Cristy, for any reason. And certainly not for loving someone with all your heart. You are my flesh and blood, Cristina, all I really care about, and I was a fool to believe your mother's lies."

"She did lie, didn't she, Papa?"

"Yes, she lied. She was jealous of my closeness to you and she wanted to destroy it. She wanted to hurt me. Did she destroy it, Cristina? Is that why you felt you couldn't tell me about your love for Blake? Do you still blame me for the things your mother did while I was away?" He searched her face intently. She had every reason to blame him. He remembered the way his daughter had looked when she reached New York. He had met her at the harbor and after taking a good look at her, he knew Lawrence had done the right thing in sending her to him. The girl at the harbor was a mere shadow of the youthful Cristina he recalled so vividly, but she was still Cristina. His Cristina. His daughter. There wasn't a doubt in his mind about that. She was tall, only two or three inches under six feet and far too thin for her height, but he could see her beauty and something else he had failed to see all those years ago. Cristina was made in his image--a softer, more feminine image than the one he viewed in his shaving mirror, but with her bright copper tresses, green eyes, and too-firm chin, there was no doubt about her paternity. William saw it all so clearly and he could have kicked himself for all the wasted time. He was deeply indebted to Lawrence for having the wisdom to send Cristina to New York so that she might experience the depth of her father's love.

Lawrence had sent a pale ghost of the girl he had known in Vienna, but William had welcomed the challenge of bringing the real Cristina back to life, knowing he would have the opportunity to surround her with love and constant care and to make amends to his daughter for failing her years before in London. He had given Cristina's body time to heal, then he had begun to heal the rest of her by keeping her too busy to dwell on her tragedy. First there were shopping trips and dress fittings, gradually followed by afternoon teas and charity work at St. Michael's Orphanage and when he finally felt she was strong enough, he had introduced her to society and filled her world with endless rounds of soirees and balls. He lavished love and attention on Cristina and she couldn't help but respond to it all after having lost so much. She had begun to pull herself together and enjoy her life in New York.

And it was almost as if he had arranged for her to have another debutante season. A second chance. And Cristina came close to forgetting about the first one. Almost, but not quite. She gave a very good imitation of being completely recovered, but William knew she hadn't gotten over the death of her baby or her heartbreak over Lawrence. One never got over the death of a child or the loss of a lover by pretending it had never happened.

Cristina kept her emotions tightly controlled. She was always nice, always polite, always above reproach and always carefully restrained with the people around her. And William understood, even if Cristina did not, that her healing process would never be complete unless she faced the past and allowed herself to feel again.

He decided then to give her a chance. He had written to Lawrence and invited him to Cristina's twenty-second birthday party.

The months of love and care he had given her since she had come to live with him could never make up for the months they had lost when he abandoned her at the boarding school, but William hoped that she would learn to forgive him--that she had forgiven him, or at least stopped blaming him for the pain Patricia had inflicted. But he had been too afraid to ask. Until now....

"Do you still blame me?"

"I never blamed you, Papa," she said. "But after Nicholas--after I came to live with you, it hurt too much to think about Blake or the baby. I couldn't talk about it, so I waited for Blake to come and get me and when he didn't, I gave up hoping. I thought he had decided to live without me. I never knew, never guessed any of this." Cristina indicated the stack of letters beside her. "I never dreamed he was planning anything. Papa, couldn't you talk him out of it?" Cristina asked, hoping her father had accomplished an impossible task, yet knowing in her heart he had not.

"No," William answered slowly. "He presented me with the finished product as soon as he arrived. There wasn't anything I could do to stop him. I might as well have argued with a stone wall. He wouldn't change his mind. He's convinced this is the only way. But he isn't looking for revenge on Meredith, but protection for you. Protection for the both of you."

"I don't understand."

He smiled grimly and handed her another stack of papers. Not letters, this time, but legal documents. "You know everything else, Cristina, you might as well read these, too. I think you'll understand after you've read them."

Cristina pored over the papers, carefully studying the tiny script and the unfamiliar legal phrases. Blood rushed to her head as the meanings behind the Latin words sank into her brain and she realized exactly what the documents were.

The full implications of Blake's sacrifice cut deep into her heart and with tears welled up in her emerald eyes, she looked up at her father and whispered, "Papa, tell me this isn't what I think it is. Tell me he wasn't foolhardy enough to risk his life this way. Tell me Blake didn't do all this for me."

Did you think the lion was sleeping

because he didn't roar?

--JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

1759-1805

*Chapter Thirty*

Two months later Cristina's words were echoed in horror by a woman an ocean away from New York City.