Tallie's Knight (38 page)

“There is plenty of
time to teach him his manners.”

Magnus relaxed.

The door flew open
and Harris entered, carrying a trifle —a staggering confection of cake and
cream and jelly that had young Richard-Ricardo’s eyes popping. The very thing
to appeal to a young boy, thought Tallie delightedly, making a mental note to
thank Cook for her thoughtfulness later.

“M’lord’s favourite,”
Harris announced. “Cook prepared it especially.”

Tallie glanced at her
husband. He looked almost as pleased as Ricardo, though he was trying not to
show it. She hid a smile. All these months and she hadn’t realised he had a
secret sweet tooth.

There was a long break
in the conversation as the trifle was treated with the respect it deserved.
Tallie, whose own sweet tooth had disappeared during her pregnancy, watched her
husband and her brother attack the towering confection with gusto. She was hard
put to it to decide which one of them enjoyed it the most, but she could see
which of the two had never tasted trifle before.

Her little brother
was still dressed in his ill-fitting clothes. There would be time enough
tomorrow to find more suitable attire. But he looked a great deal cleaner in
the face and the hands, at any rate.

Tallie smiled as she
observed the ecstatic expression that passed over the thin, vivid face with
each sweet, gooey mouthful.

He looked so much
like her, she mused. There could be no doubt in the world that they were
brother and sister. It was an utterly wonderful thought —people would look at
them and know they belonged to each other. But it was such a peculiar feeling,
to be looking across a table at someone and seeing a miniature version of oneself.
The same curly hair in a dozen tawny shades. The same freckled, pointy nose —only
his didn’t turn up, like hers. And the same eyes. The same eyes! The thought
hit Tallie like a bombshell. Ricardo and she had the same eyes. And she had
Papa’s eyes. And Papa’s curly streaky hair. And Papa’s nose. And so did
Ricardo.

Ricardo was Papa’s
son!

Papa had been wrong.
Her brother was her true brother. He wasn’t a bastard. Relief and joy poured
into her. Bastardy would have made no difference to her, nor, apparently to
Magnus, but it was a huge handicap in the eyes of the world. It would have
affected his acceptance in society, his chance of making a good marriage, of
making his way in the world. Her little brother had had a difficult enough beginning;
she was glad, so very glad, the rest of his life would not be so hard.

She could not keep
the wonderful news to herself.

“Magnus!” she said in
a low, excited voice.

He turned to her.

“Ricardo looks
exactly like me, does he not?”

Magnus glanced from
the boy back to her, and nodded. “But you are prettier.”

She blushed with
pleasure.

“Thank you, but that
is not the point. I am held to be the image of my father!”

He made the
connection instantly.

“So your father was
wrong. Delighted to hear it.” He reached out and lifted her hand to kiss it. “Excellent
news for all concern—” He broke off with an oath, staring at her hand.

“Why the devil have
you been chewing at your nails again?”

Tallie flushed with
embarrassment. She tried to tug her hand from his grip. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes scanned her
face intently.

“Has something been
upsetting you? Or someone? Tell me instantly and I will see to the matter.”

Tallie blinked and
stared at him in disbelief.

“Tell me at once,
Tallie. There is no point in hiding it.” He brandished her ragged nails in her
face and ran his thumb over them. “These are testament enough. If someone has
been upsetting you I intend to get the matter sorted out immediately. I do not
like you to be upset. Did you not speak to Freddie about it —surely he could
have sorted the matter out for you?”

Tallie tugged on her
hand, feeling no small degree of irritation. Who did the stupid man think had
upset her —the cook or the butler? Did he think he could just disappear from
her life with a cold, horrid formal note and not upset her? She wrenched her
hand from his and stood up.

“It is time to get
that boy into a proper bath and then to bed,” she said.

“Do not change the
subject, wife,” growled Magnus in a low voice.

“There is a time and
place for everything,” she retorted, “and this is neither. Now, Harris, could
you arrange hot water for his lordship, and also for young Master Ricardo’s
bath?”

Ricardo looked up,
grinning, recognising nothing in the speech except his name.

“Si, Ricardo.” He
gave Magnus a triumphant look. “No Richard,” he repeated, and allowed Tallie to
take him by the hand and lead him from the room.

“He is asleep.”
Magnus stood at the doorway of Tallie’s bedchamber.

Tallie nodded. “Good,”
she whispered. And you? She thought. Where are you going to sleep?

“You were right; the
puppy did the trick. They’re both tucked up in bed together.”

Tallie nodded again.

“Good idea that.” He
stood in the doorway, staring at her, the burning heat of his gaze at odds with
the casual diffidence of his voice.

“Um… I like what you’ve
done to this room.”

Tallie nodded again.
There was a lump in her throat, making it difficult to talk. Chit-chat, like
one had with a guest or a stranger, not a husband.

“Like a garden in the
bottom of the sea,” he said.

“Very light and airy,
all that green… muslin, is it? Nice.” He gestured to the gauzy window drapes
and then to the curtains surrounding her bed. He strode across the room and
caught a bunch of the fine soft fabric in a fist.

He stood there,
running it through his fingers for a moment, and then said diffidently, “I
thought to sleep in here with you tonight. Do you mind?”

Tallie stared at her
husband. Did she mind? Was the man totally blind to her feelings for him? She
supposed she had not been as blatant as she’d thought. But how often did one
need to tell a man you loved him before he took notice?

“I mean—” he said
awkwardly. “Er… I know we can’t… You can’t… Oh, Hell!” He dashed his hands through
his hair and said in a rush, “I know we cannot make love, but if you do not
mind, I want very much to hold you tonight.”

You do not mind? She
couldn’t answer, just shook her head dumbly and held out her arms to him. He
reached her in two strides and pulled her into his arms. His mouth came down on
hers. Tenderness. Leashed hunger. Possession.

After a while he
lifted her onto the bed and sat down. He sat there looking at her, devouring
her with his eyes. He reached up to smooth her tumbled curls away from her
face, delicately, clumsily, his big hands trembling slightly.

“There were times
when I thought I would never do this again, never see—” His voice cracked and
he pulled her tight against his chest.

“Me, too,” she
whispered, rubbing her face against his freshly shaven chin.

He pulled his head
back and stared at her in surprise.

“You thought you’d never
see me again? But you didn’t know where I was.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then how—?” He
frowned. “Why on earth would you think I wouldn’t return? You weren’t to know I’d
gone back to
Italy
,
that I was behind enemy lines. I distinctly told you I’d gone to
London
on business.”

Tallie scanned his
puzzled face in utter disbelief.

“I know what you told
me,” she said, unable to disguise the edge in her voice. She knew his horrid
letter off by heart.

“So then…?”

She stared at him. He
seemed genuinely confused.

Magnus stared back at
her.

“You sound upset.”

“Of course I am
upset!” she snapped.

“How did you expect
me to feel when I got that letter?”

“I didn’t want to
worry you, so—”

“Didn’t want to worry
me! Didn’t want to worry me!” Her voice rose in indignation. “You great
mutton-headed man! You dumped me here like an unwanted cat and slipped away in
the night like a criminal, leaving me a note that said you had important
business elsewhere and that I was to get on with my life! How did you expect me
to feel?”

Magnus’s mouth gaped
open. A frown furrowed his brow.

“But it wasn’t like
that at all,” he said slowly.

“It was exactly like
that!” Tears quivered on her eyelashes and she groped for a handkerchief. “Oh,
drat it. This always happens,” she mumbled, and reached for one of the muslin
bed curtains to dry her eyes.

He lifted her
trembling hands from her face, holding them gently in his, and gazed into her
swimming eyes.

“You thought I had
abandoned you?” he said slowly.

Tallie nodded.

“That I didn’t care?”

She nodded again.

His grip shifted and
he lifted her hands, the ragged nails showing stark and ugly between his
fingers.

“Then these…” he
stroked them with his large tanned thumbs, “are all my fault.”

Tallie said nothing.
She bit on her lip.

“Oh, God,” Magnus
groaned. “I never dreamed you would take it like that.”

“What did you expect?”
she whispered. “I told you I loved you.”

“But—”

“But what?”

“Women say that sort
of thing all the time,” Magnus said after a moment. “I was not sure you really
meant it.”

Tallie closed her
eyes, unbearably hurt. After a time she managed to say, “Well, I did. I’m sorry
if you don’t—”

“Hush!” he murmured, and
drew her into his arms. A long silence passed with only the sound of two
heartbeats to fill it.

“I have heard more ‘I
love you’ than I care to remember. Starting with my mother,” he began in a low,
roughened voice.

Tallie drew back a
little, regarding him with heavy eyes.

“But I thought—”

Magnus gave a hard
little laugh.

“Only in company, of
course. Then she pretended to dote on me. As for the rest… She couldn’t bear
the sight of me.”

“But why?”

“God knows. I started
by ruining her figure; I remember that accusation.” He shrugged carelessly, but
Tallie could sense the ancient wounds in him. They had cut very deep. She
stroked his cheek.

“Oh, it’s all water
under the bridge now,” he said, “but I suppose it made me hesitate to… to trust
a woman. I have known a number of women,” he continued. “Birds of paradise, Cyprians,
that sort of thing. Each one told me they loved me.” He shrugged. “Always when
they wanted something —a bauble of some sort, usually… Although sometimes it
was because they had betrayed me and were trying to placate me with their lies.”

Tallie continued
stroking his cheek, loving the faint rasp of whiskers beneath her skin. He was
telling her he could never love her. She could deal with that, she thought
sadly, as long as he continued to hold her, as long as he let her love him.

“And then I married
you,” he said softly, and his voice changed. “I hadn’t planned to. I’d planned
to ask one of Laetitia girls.”

“Why did you change
your mind?” whispered Tallie, wondering if he’d tell her the truth, as she’d
overheard him tell Laetitia that night in the library.

“I think it was the
puppy.”

Tallie pulled away to
stare at him.

“The puppy!” She felt
vaguely offended.

He drew her back into
his arms and tucked her head under his chin.

“I saw a small boy
whose puppy had got them both into trouble. The puppy was to be destroyed as a
punishment for the child’s disobedience.”

Tallie sighed, remembering.

“I knew exactly what
it was like to be that little boy. My father destroyed a number of my own pets
for the same reason —in our family it is called ‘making a man of the boy’,” he
added bitterly. “I watched that boy, knowing grief was inevitable.”

He hugged her tighter
and rubbed his jaw against her hair.

“And then out from
nowhere sprang a young lioness to defend the cub, a lioness who risked her own
insecure position in the household to save a boy-cub who was not even her own.”
He planted a kiss on her ear. “She even saved the puppy…”

Tallie lay against
his chest, her eyes wet once again at the thought of the boy Magnus and how
little he had known of love and joy.

“I wanted that young
lioness for my own children,” he said at last. “I knew it was too late for me,
but my children would grow up knowing what it was like to be… to be…” His voice
shattered into dry splinters.

“To be loved, Magnus.
Loved.”

He nodded, overcome.

“And they will be, I
promise you,” Tallie whispered, placing both their hands on her belly. “This
one already is.”

She cupped his face
with her hands.

“And so are you,
Magnus. It isn’t too late for you at all. I love you.” She gazed into his
tormented eyes and said softly, “I love you so much, you have no idea. You are
everything I’ve ever dreamed of, you know.”

She smoothed his hair
and said again, “I love you, Magnus. Even when I was so hurt when you left, and
so angry with you, I still loved you. I think I will always love you. It doesn’t
matter if you don’t love me back; I’ve enough love for both of us.”

“But—”

“Hush, it doesn’t
matter,” she said, and kissed him.

He kissed her back,
ravenously, but after a moment he drew back with a groan.

“But it does matter—”

“No—”

“Let me finish,” he
said, kissing her again, a brief, hard kiss. “I… I never expected marriage to
be like this. I thought… thought I could just pick a suitable woman and
continue my life, almost unchanged. It was the children I was thinking of.”

“An heir.” She
nodded.