“I hear you were splendid,” he said softly.

“I came back to find you,” Lizzie said. Her voice was shaking, too. She looked down at the bundle in her arms. “I…Somehow I became diverted.” She smiled suddenly, dazzlingly. Nat’s heart lurched with love. “This is Elizabeth,” she said shyly.

“Elizabeth?” Nat said. He felt his heart catch as he looked down into his wife’s face. “Lydia named the baby for you?”

Lizzie nodded. “Elizabeth Laura Alice Cole,” she said.

The whoops from the hall behind them became louder as Josie and Mrs. Lister and the servants started their fifth bottle of brandy and with it a round of elaborate toasts to the babies. Alice came over and took the baby from Lizzie’s arms.

“I will take little Beth back up to her mother and sit with Lydia a while,” Alice said, holding the baby in the crook of her arm. She smiled at Miles.

“You are an expert already,” Miles said, his eyes gleaming as they rested on her and the sleeping child. “Hmm. If you wish us to set up our own nursery, Alice, you need only say the word and I am at your service.”

“Actually…” Alice said, blushing peony-red, “I think I might already-”

Miles caught her and kissed her hard. “Don’t squash the baby!” Alice chided, as she emerged ruffled and even pinker from her husband’s embrace.

Nat grabbed Lizzie’s hand and pulled her through the door into the library. And suddenly it was quiet and it was just the two of them and the rest of the world was shut out.

“Lizzie,” Nat said. His voice sounded rough to his own ears. He closed the distance between them until she was less than a heartbeat away. “You came back.”

“Yes,” Lizzie said. “Nat, I need to tell you-”

“Let me speak first,” Nat said. He felt as though his heart would burst with everything he wanted to say to her, with all the love he had for her. “Please, Lizzie.”

Lizzie waited. Her face was white. Nat could hear her breath coming quick and light.

“I don’t care what’s happened,” Nat said. He felt as though he was teetering on the edge of a precipice, fearful that with a single wrong word she would be lost to him forever. But he had to say what was in his heart. “You came back to me,” he said. “I love you. I don’t care about John Jerrold. I don’t care what happened with him. All I want is you, Lizzie.”

“Nat,” Lizzie said. She sounded shaken to her soul. “Oh, Nat.”

“Don’t say anything,” Nat said, catching her hands and drawing her to him. He could feel them both shaking. “You must understand. I made a terrible mistake in not trusting you with the truth about Tom’s blackmail and I am sorry for it. It was entirely my fault. I was trying to protect you, but instead I drove you away. But you must believe that I never sought revenge through you, Lizzie.”

He gripped her hands tighter. “I want only you and I love you for yourself alone,” he said. “When you were in your fever you spoke of love, Lizzie. You said that you wanted someone who would love you forever and would never leave you nor betray you.” He sought her gaze with his. “I am that man you once spoke of, Lizzie. I am the one that you wanted, and if you trust me I will never hurt you ever again. I swear it on my life.”

“Let me speak now,” Lizzie said. The tears were running down her face, huge tears that plopped onto Laura’s worn carpet, making the colors bright. “Nothing happened with John Jerrold, Nat.” She gulped in a breath. “I only turned to him because I was so unhappy. Then I realized that I couldn’t go through with it, I wasn’t like my mother after all. I could not accept second best because all I wanted was you. The only man I ever loved was you.” She freed herself, resting her palms against his chest and looking up into his face with candid eyes. “I realized then that I had to come back and talk to you,” she said, “and find out the truth about Tom, because I could not throw away the most precious thing I ever had.”

Relief and sheer, blazing joy smashed through Nat and then his arms went about her and he kissed her, pressing feverish kisses across her cheek and brow, until he found her lips at last and she gave a little sigh and melted closer into his arms. And then all was quiet between them for a very long time and not even the sound of the increasingly drunken revels outside the door could penetrate their happiness.

LATER, LYING COCOONED IN their bed in the aftermath of lovemaking and in the hot darkness of the Fortune Folly summer night, they talked. They lay as close as when they had made love. For a while they had both drifted from fulfilment into sleep but they awoke together and Nat held Lizzie with proud possession as well as love.

“I was such a fool not to tell you about Tom’s blackmail,” Nat said. “I only gave into it in the first place to protect Celeste and my parents, and because I could see no way out. I kept it from you because I wanted to protect you from this latest example of Tom’s wickedness and instead I gave him the means to ruin our happiness.”

“I suppose Tom seduced Celeste, the blackguard,” Lizzie said. She was feeling so light and free, so blissful that nothing could touch her happiness now, and yet she still had space in her heart to feel Celeste Waterhouse’s pain. She rested her head on Nat’s chest and felt the warmth of his body and his love envelop her. There were no doubts or fears now. They had banished them forever.

“I could not understand how a man like you could succumb to blackmail,” she said, “but I can see that you had to protect your family.”

“I thought so,” Nat said. He shook his head. “Perhaps I was wrong in what I did. But Tom did not seduce Celeste, Lizzie. He found her in a compromising situation-a very compromising situation-with another debutante. He had witnesses, and such scurrilous and damning tales of what they were doing together that I…” He shrugged uneasily. “Well, it would have been the scandal of the season had it got out and I know it would have killed my father. I simply could not allow that to happen. I love my sister and I have to protect her.”

“A woman,” Lizzie said. She could see what Nat meant. Such things were never spoken of outside the brothels and bawdy houses of London. It was as though they did not exist, though everyone knew that they did. For such a scandal to take place in the Ton would have been the most shocking, the most outrageous piece of tittle-tattle for years.

“Poor Celeste,” she said softly. “Poor, poor girl.”

Nat drew her closer to his body and Lizzie stretched, luxuriating in the warmth and intimacy of their connection.

“In some twisted way I think I have been trying to make up for failing Charlotte all those years ago,” Nat said softly, after a moment. “I felt that I could never allow myself to fail again. I had to protect everyone-Celeste, my parents and you, too.” He cupped Lizzie’s face in tender hands. “I thought that if you knew of the blackmail, of this latest piece of cruelty on Tom’s part, you would be utterly destroyed,” he said. “You had already lost Monty, scoundrel though he was, and even before you told me how you felt about your family, I knew that you cared deeply for your undeserving brothers. Love has no rhyme or reason-” He pressed a kiss on her hair, moving one hand softly over her tumbled curls. “And I could not bear for Tom to injure you even more. So I kept quiet, wanting to shield you from harm. And in the process I hurt you very much because of my apparent lack of trust in you. I am sorry, Lizzie. Will you accept that I never married you to revenge myself on Tom and that I wanted more than anything to care for you?”

Lizzie raised her hand to his lean cheek, feeling the stubble rough against her fingers. “I do accept it,” she whispered. “I knew in my heart that you were honorable, Nat, but I felt so shocked and deceived when I overheard you talking to Tom.”

“I was trying to buy time,” Nat said, “so that I could tell you myself about the blackmail. I was terrified Tom would blurt it all out to you first and that you would misunderstand and hate me for it.”

“I did,” Lizzie said, “but not for long.” She brought his head down to hers so that she could kiss him. “Enough of the past,” she said gently. “We can let it go now.”

They washed the memories away with kisses, soft and sweet. The drowsy press of Nat’s body against hers was the most tender thing Lizzie had ever experienced. Nat brushed the hair away from her brow.

“Miles told me I was a fool,” he whispered, “and he was right. I have loved you for so long, Lizzie darling, and I could not even see it. All I ever wanted was to care for you and protect you. I admired you. I was so proud of you and I could not see all my feelings were but facets of my love for you.” He drew away a little. “I am sorry about the baby,” he said gruffly. “I wish you had told me.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Lizzie said. “I can wait. Now I know I have you.”

She remembered telling Alice she had wanted a child to bind her closer to Nat, but now that she knew his whole heart, that his whole life was hers, she felt strangely serene and patient. It was a new sensation. There was no hurry. She could see that now. Whatever came to pass, she had Nat beside her, and that was the only thing that mattered now. Perhaps in time she would be able to build the family she wanted; the one that she herself had been denied. She did not know, but she had Nat and he loved her and that was more than enough.

“Although,” she added thoughtfully, moving her hand over the flat plane of Nat’s stomach and down, “I do not mind trying to make a baby whenever you wish…”

Nat rolled over lazily, drawing her beneath him. His mouth moved from her lips to the line of her throat, gentle kisses that caressed her even as his hands roamed over her body worshipping every curve and hollow. Previously there had been nothing but passion between them and Lizzie had understood that, but this felt different. Now there was a need to give and give again with generosity and love. She felt it for Nat and knew he felt the same for her, and at last she experienced the depth and power of his love for her.