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—
“What about your family?”
She opened her eyes at Alistair’s rasp. “What?”
He was frowning at her from across the carriage. “I’m trying to think of possible allies we can recruit to help fight Lister. What about your family?”
“I don’t think so.” He simply sat staring at her, so she reluctantly explained, “I haven’t spoken to them in years.”
“If you haven’t spoken to them in years, how can you know they won’t help?”
“They made it quite plain when I went to the duke that I was no longer a part of the Carter family.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Carter?”
She felt her face heat a little. “That’s my real name—Helen Abigail Carter—but I couldn’t use Carter when I became Lister’s mistress. I took the name Fitzwilliam.”
He continued to stare at her.
Finally she asked, “What is it?”
He shook his head. “I was just thinking that even your name—Mrs. Halifax—was a lie.”
“I’m sorry. I was trying to hide from Lister, you see, and—”
“I know.” He waved away her apology. “I even understand. But that doesn’t stop me from wondering if anything I know about you is true.”
She blinked, feeling oddly hurt. “But I—”
“What about your mother?”
She sighed. Obviously he didn’t want to talk about what was between the two of them. “The last time I spoke to my mother, she said she was ashamed of me and that I’d tainted the family. I can’t blame her. I have three sisters, all of whom were unmarried when I went to the duke.”
“And your father?”
She looked down at her hands in her lap.
There was silence a moment before he spoke again, and now his voice had gentled. “You went with him on his visits to patients. Surely you were close?”
She smiled a little then. “He never asked the others to go with him, only me. Margaret was the eldest, but she said visiting patients was boring and sometimes disgusting, and I think my other sisters felt much the same. Timothy was the only boy, but he was also the youngest and still in the nursery.”
“Was that the sole reason he took you?” he asked softly. “Because you were the only child interested?”
“No, that wasn’t the sole reason.”
They were passing through a small village now, the stone cottages worn and ancient-looking. It may have stood thus for millennia—unchanging, uncaring of the outer world.
Helen watched the village go by and said, “He loved me. He loved all of us, but I was special somehow. He’d take me on his rounds and tell me about each patient—their symptoms, his diagnosis, the treatment and if it was progressing well or not. And sometimes if we were coming home late in the day, he would tell me stories. I never heard him tell them to the others, but when the sun was beginning to glow with sunset, he’d tell me stories of gods and goddesses and fairies.”