“Miss Linnie Cosgrove?” he queried, bowing slightly and still struggling to reconcile the earthy, beddable creature before him to the paragon he had placed on a pedestal. A chore, that.

She nodded, face ashen, bloodless. “Cross,” she murmured. “It’s Mrs. Cross now.”

That’s right. She claimed widowhood. A ruse to protect herself from ruin, he felt certain.

Nodding, he drew his body taller. Focusing his gaze just above her head, he spoke the words he’d traveled here to say. “With heavy heart, I regret to inform you of the death of Lieutenant Ian Holcomb.” A nerve ticked near his eye, his only surrender to emotion.

He continued, his words ripping fresh the pain he had lived with ever since burying his cousin. “I believe you were . . . acquainted.”

Acquainted. A gentle euphemism to apply to the girl who’d borne his cousin’s bastard. If, in fact, she had. He’d yet to confirm that matter. Her father made no mention of a child, and he was not so bold or thoughtless to inquire.

“Y-yes,” she stammered.

He dropped his gaze to her face again. Her unyielding exterior had vanished. She looked ready to crumble. Stepping forward, he clasped her elbow. A spark shot through him at the contact. He scowled at the unwanted sensation.

Clearly, she was not unaffected either. She gasped. Or perhaps his scowl distressed her. His glares had been fierce enough to inject his soldiers with a healthy dose of fear on more than one occasion.

With an inward curse, he released her and motioned to the settee. The last five years of his life had been in service to the crown. He’d forgotten how to conduct himself in Society. He possessed little in the way of social grace. None was needed on the battlefield. He could scarcely recall the last occasion he’d stood in a lady’s parlor.

She sank down with a sigh. “When . . . how?”

“He died at Balaclava.” Still standing, he fished the pouch from his pocket. “He wanted you to have this.” He unraveled the bit of soiled lace handkerchief from the pouch.

She accepted it, her thumb brushing the EC embroidered in faint pink thread at the corner. “I remember this,” she murmured, barely audible.

He grimaced at the blood on it. “I tried to clean it—” He shrugged. “He carried it with him always.” Accusation laced his voice. “He never forgot you.”

Clutching the scrap of fabric, her eyes snapped to his. “Is that so?”

He blinked at the bright fury there. It amazed him that Ian never mentioned her eyes when he extolled her many attributes. He had never seen such a clear blue before. Like sun glowing off the Baltic.

“If he cared enough to carry this, why did he not care to write me then?”

Incredulity tore through him, gnawing at the grieving wound in his heart. His fist knotted at his side. “Surely you jest! Ian wrote you. Tirelessly.” He shook his head with a growl. “Clearly you moved on, forgot Ian.” He nodded once. Hard. “Very well. The least you owed him was a letter of explanation. Every week, he wrote you. To his death.” His voice sharpened to a razor’s edge. “Even when he received no word from you, he still wrote.”

Angry splotches of color filled her face. She closed her eyes and shook her head in weary motion. “Of course. They would . . . do that.”

“They who?” he demanded.

“My parents.”

“What did your parents—”

“Keep his letters from me, of course. They thought him the worst sort of reprobate and wished for me to break all ties with him.”

His lips pressed into a grim line.

She continued, “He would have sent correspondence to my parents’ residence.” The statement brought a sudden frown to her face. “How did you find me?”

“I called on your parents in Surrey. They directed me here.” His lips tightened. “Your father scarcely granted me a moment in his study before telling me where to find you. He seemed most eager for me to leave.”

She tugged on her lower lip, twisting the tender flesh until it turned a deep, provocative pink. Sudden desire licked through him at the innocuous gesture, and he looked sharply away, inhaling a deep breath and barely registering her murmured, “Yes. He would be uncomfortable at your presence.”

He glanced back at her, watching as she folded the handkerchief into a tiny square with trembling fingers.

“I must know. Did you bear Ian’s child?”

Her shoulders pulled back and a militant gleam came into her eyes. “It would seem Ian told you a great deal. How good of him to gossip with the soldiers of his regiment—”

“Ian,” he broke in, his voice falling with the sharp clap of command he’d grown accustomed to using with his men, “was my cousin. Upon his death, he charged me with the welfare of his child.”

The color bled from her cheeks. “Cousins?”

“On my mother’s side. Ian purchased a commission in my regiment so we could serve together.” He cocked his head. “Did he never mention me?”

She was back to tugging her lip again. “Um, that would seem to be the case.”

His gaze narrowed on her pale face. Knowing Ian, he had been too busy trying to get beneath her skirts. Shaking the thought free, he focused on the only thing that mattered, the one thing that demanded his presence in her parlor.

“The child. Did you bear my cousin’s child?”

“Yes.” The word escaped her in a breathy rush. “Nicholas will be four in April.”

“And I gather you’re really not a widow.”

Her chin lifted, blue eyes sparking in a way that made his gut tighten. “What else should I have done? The world is unkind to whores and bastards.”

He flinched. “You’re not a whore.”

“But the world would view me as such.”

He gave a single nod. “I don’t fault your actions.”

She clutched her hands around the small, folded handkerchief and smiled almost cruelly. “How kind of you to approve.”

Impudent chit.

For a long moment they stared at one another. A curious tension washed through the air between them. He longed to wipe free the cruel edge of mockery curving her lips. The longer he stared, the stronger the impulse . . . and the warmer his blood heated.

Inhaling through his nose, he recalled himself and forced coldness inside him where the heat stirred. “I would like to see the boy. I’m certain you understand I have a stake—”

“No.”

“I will see him.”

She sucked in a deep breath. He watched the rise of her chest and decided she might not be lacking all curves. Her br**sts appeared to be more than a handful beneath the straight fall of her ghastly pinafore. A fact of which he did approve.

She shook her head fiercely. “I thank you for coming here. You’ve honored me in journeying this far to deliver the news, but you must know your presence puts me in jeopardy. It puts Nicholas in jeopardy. You bear a striking resemblance to him. The last thing I need is speculation on—”

“Rest easy. I have no wish to expose you. But that said, I’ve a stake in the lad and I’m not leaving until I’ve seen him.”

She moistened her lips. Her fingers tapped the arm of her chair as she weighed his words.

He arched a brow, waiting.

“Very well. Might I prevail on you to call later? I would like time to prepare him accordingly.”

“Prepare him?”

“Introducing him to you will lead to questions. I must consider what to tell him—”

“Why not the truth? I am a relation to his father. That might also relieve outside speculation—”

“Or feed it.”

He shrugged. “An unlikely risk.”

“A risk nonetheless.”

He shrugged again. “The boy is my kin. I’ll take any risk to assure myself of his well-being.”

She bristled, the color high in her face. “My son is well loved.”

“There are considerations greater than love.”

Her nostrils flared ever slightly. “Trust a man to believe that.”

He felt the corner of his mouth lift in a sneer. Before he could stop himself, he shot back, “Trust a lady well and truly compromised to set store in notions of love rather than the practical matters of life that require attending.”

A shocked breath crashed from her lips. The hand in her lap twitched as though she wished to strike him.

It certainly had not been his intention to provoke her, and yet he was doing just that. He said nothing more, merely held her brightly defiant gaze . . . and tried not to stare at the alluring way her dark lashes fringed those barely slanted eyes.

After some moments, she nodded stiffly. “Very well.”

He gave a curt nod. “I will call on the morrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she returned.

Even as she agreed, he sensed more behind her acquiescence. Something lurked in the guileless blue of her eyes.

If he was not mistaken, he thought it might be fear.

Chapter 4

For one brief, panicked moment, Evie considered packing her family and belongings and fleeing. Then sanity returned and with it the cold reminder that she possessed no funds and had nowhere to go. Certainly, she could not rely on her father to save her. He could scarcely support himself since Linnie’s death.

Hopping from the settee, she darted to the parlor window, watching as the devilishly handsome gentleman who had crowded her parlor and overwhelmed her senses rode away.

Spencer Lockhart. Ian’s cousin. Nicholas’s cousin. Her stomach knotted and she shivered as the ramifications of his arrival settled over her like a cold blanket of snow.

Should the truth come to light—that she was no widow, that she was not Nicholas’s mother . . .

The prospect shook her. Her knees suddenly felt weak and trembly. She reclaimed her seat, pressing a hand to her twisting stomach.

A pariah of Society and poor as a church mouse. A magistrate would well see fit to hand Nicholas over to Spencer Lockhart. The mere thought sent her pulse racing at her throat.

Ease yourself, Evie. You don’t know that he even wants the boy. He just wants to see him. Meet him. Understandable.

She drew a deep breath into her lungs, letting it cool her panic.

“Evie?” Marguerite entered the room. “Did your guest leave?”

She nodded mutely as her friend sank down beside her.

“I saw him pass. A handsome man.”

Handsome? Bitter laughter escaped her. “Indeed,” she choked. A relation to Ian, was it any wonder? Her sister had often blamed her weak will on Ian Holcomb’s face. Now a witness to such masculine beauty herself, she could almost understand why Linnie had succumbed. She frowned. It was more than Lockhart’s handsome face and broad shoulders that unnerved her. He looked at her as no man had. As though he knew her intimately. Or would like to. His eyes mesmerized.

Marguerite’s warm hands closed around one of her tightly fisted hands. “Who was he?”

She pressed her lips into a tight line, afraid to speak, afraid that if she opened her lips she would break, shatter into pieces.

“Evie, you’re frightening me. Please say something.” Marguerite’s sherry-brown eyes searched her face, kind and encouraging. She always had that nurturing way about her.

“The gentleman who just left was cousin to the man who compromised Linnie.” She inhaled before continuing. “He came to inform me that Ian died with the Light Brigade.” Another deep breath. “And he wants to meet Nicholas.”

“Does he know?” Marguerite quickly asked, her clever mind instantly grasping the situation, knowing where danger waited.

“No. He believes I’m Linnie. That I’m Nicholas’s true mother. The name Linnie can just as well be a nickname for Evelyn.”

Marguerite’s hands chafed over hers. “Don’t fret then. There’s no reason he should suspect you’re anyone else. Correct?”