To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(65)

She frowned down at her hands. “Perhaps it would’ve been better if I had tripped.”

He asked quietly, “What happened?”

“He was kind,” she said simply. “He came and talked to me a little, even smiled. I thought at the time that he was being gracious to a nervous young girl, but of course it was more than that even then. He admitted quite freely later that he wanted me as his mistress from the first.”

“And you went skipping into his arms?” he asked cynically.

She cocked her head. “It was a bit more complicated than that. Our first conversation was very brief. Papa came down from the dowager duchess’s rooms, and we left for home. I chattered all the way about His Grace, but I think I would’ve forgotten him eventually had I not seen him again on our next visit. I thought it an odd coincidence that I would meet him again so soon when I’d been accompanying Papa to the duke’s mansion for almost a year without meeting him. Lister had engineered it, of course. He made sure to enter the sitting room where I waited only after my father had gone to see Her Grace. Lister sat and talked to me, ordered tea and cakes. He flirted, although I was too unsophisticated to realize it.”

She walked to one of his display cases and peered inside, her back to him. He wondered if she was hiding her face from him. “There were several such tête-à-têtes, and in between he sent me secret letters and small gifts—a jeweled locket, some embroidered gloves. I knew better. I knew I was not supposed to accept such gifts, wasn’t supposed to let myself be closeted alone with a man, but I… I couldn’t seem to help myself. I fell in love with him.”

She hesitated, but he simply watched that curving back. Even at this moment, he could feel desire for her— perhaps more than desire.

“Then one afternoon we did more than talk,” she said to the glass case. He could see her reflection, ghostly in the glass, and she looked remote and cool, though he was beginning to realize that the appearance she projected might not be real. “We made love, and afterward I knew that I couldn’t go back home with Papa. My world—my life—had changed completely. I knew vaguely that Lister was married, that he had children not much younger than I, but in a way that only fed my romantic fantasy. He didn’t mention her often, but when he did, Lister described his wife as cold. He said she had not let him into her bed for years. We could never be together as husband and wife, yet I could be with him as his mistress. I loved him. I wanted to be with him always.”

“He seduced you.” Alistair knew his voice was cold with suppressed rage. How could she? How could Lister? To seduce a young, sheltered girl was caddish behavior beyond the pale of even the most dissolute of rakes.

“Yes.” She turned and faced him, her shoulders back and her head high. “I suppose he did, although I was more than willing. I loved him with all the fervor of a young, romantic girl. I never truly knew him. I fell in love with what I thought he was.”

That he didn’t want to hear. He pushed away from the desk. “Whatever your motives when you were seventeen, it doesn’t change anything now. Lister is the father of your children. He has them. I don’t see anything you or I can do.”

“I can try and get them back,” she said. “He doesn’t love them; he’s never spent more than fifteen minutes at a time with them.”

He narrowed his eye. “Then why take them?”

“Because he considers them his,” she said, not bothering to hide the bitter tone in her voice. “He doesn’t care for them as persons, only as things he thinks he owns. And because he wants to hurt me.”

Alistair frowned. “Will he hurt them?”

She looked at him frankly. “I don’t know. They are no more than a dog or a horse to him. Do you know of men who whip their horses?”

“Dammit.” He closed his eye a second, but he really had no choice. He opened the bureau drawer again and took out the pistols. “Pack one bag. Be ready in ten minutes. We’re going to London.”

HE WASN’T TALKING to her. Helen swayed as the carriage Alistair had rented in Glenlargo jounced over a rut in the road. He’d agreed to come with her, agreed to help her find and rescue the children, but it was obvious that he wanted no more to do with her beyond that. She sighed. Really, what had she expected?

Helen gazed out the tiny, rather grimy carriage window and wondered where Abigail and Jamie were now. They must be frightened. Even if Lister was their father, they didn’t know him very well, and he was a cold man besides. Jamie would be either very still with fear or nearly ricocheting off the carriage walls with nervous excitement. She very much hoped it wasn’t the latter case, because she doubted Lister would take well to Jamie in high form. Abigail, in contrast, would probably be watching and worrying. Hopefully, she wasn’t saying much, because Abigail’s tongue could be quite tart at times.

But wait. Lister was a duke. Naturally he wouldn’t be taking care of the children himself. Perhaps he’d thought ahead and brought along a nanny to take care of the children after he snatched them. Perhaps she was an older, motherly woman, one who would know how to handle Jamie’s high spirits and Abigail’s sullen moods. Helen closed her eyes. She knew this was all wishful thinking, but please, God, let there be a nice, motherly nanny to keep the children away from their terrible father and his temper. If—