behind enemy lines, his regret over leaving her had haunted him. When he'd come home, grateful to have survived, he'd vowed to claim more from life than the hell of war, and if possible, to do it with her. There was no way to discover if they had a future together except to see her again.
He stopped before her, towering a good head over her petite yet curving figure. She eyed him with the same hesitation mixed with longing as the night they'd slipped upstairs to her room and made love before he’d left for Spain. He yearned to caress her cheek and banish the uncertainty hovering between them like the smoke in the pub’s common room but he kept his hands at his sides, still uncertain if she’d welcome his touch or his return.
“Mary, it’s wonderful to see you again. I thought about you while I was away.” The words were inadequate to express how he’d clung to the memory of her during the long and cold nights in the forest when he and his men had hidden from the French. But standing here before her at last, he tried to feel her out as he would a peasant whose loyalties in Spain were unclear.
“I thought about you too.” She glanced at the small boy who clutched her aunt’s hand and studied Charles with wide brown eyes. His amber eyes and round face marked him at once as Mary’s child.
Charles opened and closed his fingers at his side as all the dreams he’d carried through the darkest nights in Spain shattered. No wonder she hadn’t answered his letters. He’d lost her to another man while he’d been away.
Covering the crumbling of his imagined future beneath a shield of good natured confidence, he smiled at the boy and bent down to greet him. "And who is this fine lad?"
Mary exchanged a wary look with her silver-haired aunt. The noise of the pub patrons rushed in to fill the pause before it seemed to recede with her answer.
"He's your son."
CHAPTER TWO
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me I’d gotten you with child? I had a right to know, to take responsibility for him and you.” Charles thundered as he strode back and forth across the empty private drinking room.
Mary’s cheeks burned with shame. She wasn’t proud of having deceived him, and everyone, but it’d been necessary. “In a way you did. When I discovered I was with child, father and mother decided to tell everyone we’d married before you’d left and that you’d died in Spain. They said it would keep us from having to explain your absence in case you never came back.”
“Which is why you didn’t answer my letters. You didn’t want me to reappear and ruin your ruse.” At the far end of the room, Charles stopped and whirled to face her. The men’s laughter in the common room drifted through the closed door. “No wonder they cheered when I walked in. It’s not every day a woman’s husband is resurrected. Were you hoping the French would shoot me and guarantee I didn’t return?”
“No!” To imagine him lying lifeless in a Spanish field made her shiver. “I didn’t want to lie but I had to pretend we were married so the customers wouldn’t call John a bastard or shun the pub because of me. We couldn’t afford to lose business, especially not after father died.”
Charles’s stern expression softened. “I’m sorry about your father’s passing, and your mother’s.”
She nodded her thanks. It’d crushed her to burn his letters and with them the comfort of his affection. In his arms, she’d forgotten herself for a while, but their time together had been as big a mistake as her mother's poor choice of Paul, her second spouse. “I also had more freedom as a widow than a wife to protect the pub. If I’d decided to marry later, the right to pass it on to John without a husband interfering would have been mine.”
“Then why didn’t your mother do the same and give you the Marquis of Granby to run instead of remarrying?”
“I begged her to, but she wanted someone to take care of her and the
He stopped before her, towering a good head over her petite yet curving figure. She eyed him with the same hesitation mixed with longing as the night they'd slipped upstairs to her room and made love before he’d left for Spain. He yearned to caress her cheek and banish the uncertainty hovering between them like the smoke in the pub’s common room but he kept his hands at his sides, still uncertain if she’d welcome his touch or his return.
“Mary, it’s wonderful to see you again. I thought about you while I was away.” The words were inadequate to express how he’d clung to the memory of her during the long and cold nights in the forest when he and his men had hidden from the French. But standing here before her at last, he tried to feel her out as he would a peasant whose loyalties in Spain were unclear.
“I thought about you too.” She glanced at the small boy who clutched her aunt’s hand and studied Charles with wide brown eyes. His amber eyes and round face marked him at once as Mary’s child.
Charles opened and closed his fingers at his side as all the dreams he’d carried through the darkest nights in Spain shattered. No wonder she hadn’t answered his letters. He’d lost her to another man while he’d been away.
Covering the crumbling of his imagined future beneath a shield of good natured confidence, he smiled at the boy and bent down to greet him. "And who is this fine lad?"
Mary exchanged a wary look with her silver-haired aunt. The noise of the pub patrons rushed in to fill the pause before it seemed to recede with her answer.
"He's your son."
CHAPTER TWO
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me I’d gotten you with child? I had a right to know, to take responsibility for him and you.” Charles thundered as he strode back and forth across the empty private drinking room.
Mary’s cheeks burned with shame. She wasn’t proud of having deceived him, and everyone, but it’d been necessary. “In a way you did. When I discovered I was with child, father and mother decided to tell everyone we’d married before you’d left and that you’d died in Spain. They said it would keep us from having to explain your absence in case you never came back.”
“Which is why you didn’t answer my letters. You didn’t want me to reappear and ruin your ruse.” At the far end of the room, Charles stopped and whirled to face her. The men’s laughter in the common room drifted through the closed door. “No wonder they cheered when I walked in. It’s not every day a woman’s husband is resurrected. Were you hoping the French would shoot me and guarantee I didn’t return?”
“No!” To imagine him lying lifeless in a Spanish field made her shiver. “I didn’t want to lie but I had to pretend we were married so the customers wouldn’t call John a bastard or shun the pub because of me. We couldn’t afford to lose business, especially not after father died.”
Charles’s stern expression softened. “I’m sorry about your father’s passing, and your mother’s.”
She nodded her thanks. It’d crushed her to burn his letters and with them the comfort of his affection. In his arms, she’d forgotten herself for a while, but their time together had been as big a mistake as her mother's poor choice of Paul, her second spouse. “I also had more freedom as a widow than a wife to protect the pub. If I’d decided to marry later, the right to pass it on to John without a husband interfering would have been mine.”
“Then why didn’t your mother do the same and give you the Marquis of Granby to run instead of remarrying?”
“I begged her to, but she wanted someone to take care of her and the
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