Chapter Twenty-One

      Laura listened to the sound of Avery’s footsteps dying away, then she heard the door to their bedchamber open and close and she ran down the stairs, jerking to a walk when she reached the hallway.

      ‘I couldn’t find them,’ she said to the footman. ‘Never mind.’ She had to get out of there before Avery realised she had been in the house. ‘I couldn’t find them,’ she repeated to Alice and sank back against the squabs as the carriage moved off.

      Was Avery insane? He knew she had no hope of setting up a separate household with Alice. He could simply walk in and claim them both, order them back home. She had no legal power and, now she was married, virtually no money either.

      Then she realised. He was perfectly sane, perfectly logical. He genuinely thought she would snatch Alice away from him to hurt him. To punish him for Piers, for the things he had said about that letter and for taking her daughter in the first place. He thought she would do something so rash simply to wound him, make him suffer. After all, she had jewels, pin money, so she could, she supposed, vanish and manage for weeks, if not months, before he found her. If she told the child the truth about her parentage she might be able to do it in such a way that Alice would come to regard Avery as some kind of monster, so that when he eventually caught up with them Alice would hate him...

      ‘Mama, are you all right?’ Alice bounced across to sit beside her. ‘You look frightened.’

      ‘Do I?’ Laura conjured a smile from somewhere. ‘Not at all. I was just...thinking.’

      Pretending to be Caroline Jordan had been a dreadful mistake. But there was no going back from it, even if it proved fatal to her marriage. Avery condemned her for entrapping him, lying to him and she could not find it in her to blame him. Somehow she had to convince him that he could trust her and hope he might come to understand why she had done what she had. Would he ever forgive her? She had no idea, but she had to try, she loved him too much not to.

      Laura swallowed panic as Alice prattled happily about the shops as they passed and she contemplated the desert in front of her, the arid marriage of her own making. She had fallen in love with Piers with all the impetuosity of a girl, heedless of consequences, unknowing of what love truly meant. Now she loved Avery with a woman’s understanding and a woman’s heart. The heart that would be broken when he cast her off, for surely that would be what would happen unless somehow she found a way to reach him.

      * * *

      The realisation of what to do came to her as she helped Alice choose ribbons. ‘The blue to match your new dress and the green for the new bonnet,’ she agreed, her mind half a mile away where one tall, brown-haired gentleman dealt with his correspondence and perhaps contemplated ways of ridding himself of his untrustworthy wife.

      The answer came with a jolt as she gave Alice the coins to pay for her purchases. Tell him the truth. Tell him everything, however painful it is, however it reflects on Mama and Papa. Be utterly and completely open without trying to work out whether it will make things better or worse. If he forgives me, I will tell him I love him, tell him the new secret that is still just a hope. If I tell him first he will think I am trying to wheedle him into forgiveness.

      And I will forgive him, however hard it is. I will learn to understand and forgive, for Alice and because I love Avery.

      * * *

      ‘Avery?’

      Avery turned from the bookshelves he had been staring at for the past ten minutes. ‘Laura.’ She was the last person he wanted to see, not while he was wrestling with his conscience over what he had said to Miss Pemberton. It was probably a sensible precaution, a rational part of him said. You love her, his heart urged. Trust her.

      ‘You want to talk to me?’ He pulled a chair round so she could sit, but she stood in the middle of the floor, her hands clasped in front of her like a defendant in the dock.

      ‘Yes, I want to talk.’ She was very pale, but her voice was steady. ‘I overheard you speaking to Miss Pemberton.’

      ‘Hell.’ He did not try to justify himself or to touch her. There was a core of inner steel there, he realised as he met her steady gaze. It was not hostile or tearful, just...strong.

      ‘I had thought that we were...that things would be all right. It wouldn’t ever be perfect, but we could be a family even if you did not love me, even with everything that had happened in the past. But I did not realise until I overheard you how little you trusted me, how little you understood why I had lied to you, why I had trapped you into marriage.’

      ‘There are things you have not told me. There are still secrets,’ he said and Laura nodded, slowly, accepting the accusation. ‘But I should not have spoken to Miss Pemberton.’ Her eyes widened at the admission, but he pressed on. ‘I should have talked to you instead.’

      ‘I did not trust you with everything I need to tell you. And you do not trust me and I cannot blame you for that.’

      Avery turned away sharply, one hand fisted in the silk window curtain, his back turned, unable to meet the honest pain in her face. If he touched her now he would kiss her, lose this chance of honesty in the flare of passion that overcame him whenever he felt the softness of her under his hands, caught the scent of her in his nostrils.

      ‘I would happily die if that would make Alice happier or safer,’ Laura said. ‘I do not know how to make you understand what I did and allow me to be a proper mother to her. I want us to be a family, a happy one,’ she added, her voice a whisper he had to strain to hear.

      Avery unclenched his hand from the curtain, leaving it criss-crossed with creases like scars. ‘Tell me what happened when you knew Piers was dead.’

      Behind him there was the rustle of silk as Laura crossed to the chair and sat down. ‘I told my parents I was with child. They were...aghast. Will you forgive me not repeating what they said? It is very painful.’

      ‘Of course.’ His voice sounded rusty.

      ‘We agreed that I would pretend to be ill and go to one of our country estates to recover. Luckily there were all sorts of fevers going around that year. I coughed and moped for two weeks, then apparently succumbed to the infection.

      ‘It was a healthy pregnancy.’ Her voice trailed away, then she said, almost angrily, ‘You want to know why I waited six years to find her, don’t you? That is what you cannot understand or forgive.’

      ‘I can forgive if I understand,’ he offered and turned.