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He leaned forward, moving so his elbows rested at his thighs and his fingers were loosely clasped in front of him. ‘I know there is a chance you might have my child in you. I could not let you go if you had a babe that was mine. I could not leave it for another man.’
‘I could lie to you.’
‘Will you?’ His face turned to hers and the firelight flashed one side bright.
She knew she shouldn’t have said those words. He’d had enough lies with his wife, but if she’d not said them, he would have wondered anyway.
‘I don’t know. With a dowry, I could marry before the baby would be old enough to know otherwise, but I would be like you, I think. I would always be seeing your face in the child.’
‘I would hope you would not feel quite the same way as I do concerning that.’
‘No.’ She moved sideways, so she could put a palm flat on his back, feeling through the clothing to the skin, and through the skin to the beating heart beneath. She’d had to touch him. Had to feel him.
‘A little higher and you’ll be touching the scar.’
She ran her hand over his back and could feel the thin ridge running a slice across his shoulders.
‘It doesn’t mar you enough on the outside to matter.’ She let her fingers linger. ‘It’s the betrayal you feel.’
‘I suppose.’ He lowered his face, letting his head rest against his hands. ‘I’m thankful that I will no longer have to worry about the past, yet the knowledge I have doesn’t rest easy with me.’
He breathed and the movement calmed her worries.
Melina ran her finger to the side of his face, feeling the cheekbones and trailing down the roughened jaw. ‘I wish you could have been sculpted. I would like a likeness of you to have with the one I found. To keep for ever.’
‘You have an imagination.’
‘I don’t need one when I look at you.’
He leaned back, letting his arm lie along the back of the sofa, and his other hand touched her. Swirls of warmth swirled inside her caused by the circling of his fingertips along her shoulder. ‘I am the same with you, Melina. I would have liked to have been a pirate, hunting treasure, and when I found you on Melos, I would have taken you and kept you. I would have left any jewels, or rocks, or carvings behind. Because I wouldn’t have needed them, if I had you.’
She moved into the hollow of his shoulder, hoping that she could always hold his memory alive enough to feel his touch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
At first light, Warrington sat at his desk, penning the letter to Sinclair. The sooner Willa started her new life, the better she would be. She was young. She’d forget soon.
He wondered if his memories would fade, as well. He only hoped they moved to a part of him that didn’t feel rage.
He dashed the words across paper, wishing he’d not been blinded by Cassandra’s appearance. She hadn’t minded if she’d destroyed him, or his entire family.
He touched his fingertips to his forehead. He’d been so ill. And when he heard she’d taken Jacob, he’d been grateful for his son to be safely away. Never knowing Jacob would have been in the most precarious hands of all. His mother’s.
He held his own hands out, looking at them. They were as guilty of his father’s death as if he’d brought a viper into the house and it bit his father. He didn’t deserve someone such as Melina.
Warrington put his pen in the holder and left the room, feeling a gnawing sense in his stomach. His whole world had changed—thanks to Cassandra. She’d taken his father from him and put a child in his house who didn’t belong. He went to the nursery to see his sleeping son.
‘Jacob,’ he called out when he opened the door. He saw Jacob’s face, thankful Cassandra had never considered Jacob a chore. ‘Put on some trousers and a rough shirt. Chesapeake is missing us. I’ll send Broomer for him.’
Jacob rolled out of bed, moving with a slippery speed.
The boy stopped, bare legs showing from his nightshirt, and his eyes alight. ‘I bet I ride fast now.’
‘No. We’ll not race.’
‘Fast walk?’
‘Perhaps.’
Jacob gave a confident nod of his head, fully agreeing with the statement. He turned, running to get his trousers.
Warrington strode to the library and waited, only to have Melina walk in. Her hair in a glossy knot, a rushed glow to her cheeks, and he felt desire—even when she wore the hideous tea-coloured gown.
