have made it very clear that you have no interest in exposing me. What is in it for me?’
His lordship spoke belligerently, but Christopher was not fooled. ‘You will do as I ask because, bluntly, you will do whatever it takes to be rid for ever of the living breathing evidence of your youthful folly,’ he responded coldly. ‘You are fortunate that I ask so little, and though I am not a gentleman like yourself, you may trust my word when I say it is all I will ever ask of you.’
His words hit the mark. Lord Armstrong resorted to bluster. ‘Aye, all very well, but it’s no simple matter to obtain such papers. It will take time. There are channels to be gone through, questions to be answered. For a start, how am I to explain the purpose of your visit?’
Christopher struggled to contain his impatience. He didn’t want to wait, not another minute, let alone days or weeks or months, before taking action. The sooner the amulet was returned, the sooner he could wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Years of negotiating with Egyptian pashas who, like Lord Armstrong, valued knowledge and power even over wealth, provided him with inspiration. ‘You ask what is in it for you. I will tell you. While I am in Arabia, I will carry out a survey for you.’
Lord Armstrong pursed his mouth. ‘What kind of survey?’
‘A survey of the commercial landscape of whichever parts of Arabia my quest to return the amulet compels me to visit. I will compile a dossier of which kingdoms are open to trade with the west, the valuable natural resources they possess, potential trade routes, who is allied to whom—information which I imagine would be very much welcomed by Lord Liverpool. Our Prime Minister is very eager to promote international trade and bolster Britain’s coffers, and would, I am certain, look favourably on anyone who can provide him with such intelligence. Do you really need me to spell out the potential benefits?’
Two thin eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘No, you most certainly do not. Now that Napoleon is safely confined on Elba, the opportunities for Britain to expand her influence in the east—’
The lord of the realm who was his father broke off, rubbing his hands together. Smiling for the first time since Christopher made his surprise entrance, he got to his feet and held out his hand. ‘I will not offend your sensibilities by saying you are a chip off the old block, but you have yourself a deal, sir.’
‘The only thing we have in common is a desire never to set eyes on each other again,’ Christopher said, pointedly ignoring the proffered handshake for the second time that day. ‘I have written my temporary London address on the back of my card, you may have all the relevant papers and contact information sent there. I do not expect we will have cause to meet again. I bid you farewell.’
Arabia—August 1815
‘The encounter I have just described took place nine months ago,’ Christopher concluded. ‘You understand now why it mattered so much to rid myself of the amulet. It was blood money. It symbolised the lie that my life had been, living with the people whose son I thought I was.’
‘Fordyce.’ Tahira furrowed her brow, trying to clear her mind. ‘The name of the man who was with you when you found the Roman coin we have just buried. The man who shared his own love of the past with you and his profession too, yet he hid the amulet away all those years. He didn’t sell it. I wonder why.’
‘Guilt, most likely. Or maybe he was afraid. An ordinary hard-working man, a priceless artefact—it would have raised suspicions. I don’t know why he didn’t sell it, and I don’t care. It’s buried now, back where it came from, and all those lies with it.’
Christopher had been distraught at the start of his story, shaken to the core by how close they had come to making love. So very close. Tahira shivered, appalled by her own utter abandon, appalled to discover that she was not as relieved as she should be that he had had the willpower to stop before it was too late. The desire to be one with him, to unite with him in the way only a husband and wife should be united, had been so instinctive that she hadn’t questioned her actions, driven only by that fierce need—no, it was not a need, it was a certainty. There was nothing more right than making love to him.
And nothing so wrong. Christopher knew that, even if she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. But his mood had changed during his confession, he had become angry. He still was. She could see it, a repressed fury, evident in the tense way he held himself, the rigidity of his shoulders, the tightly clasped hands, his set expression. Only his eyes were bleak, with hatred for the English aristocrat who had fathered him, and for the two people who had raised him. He was wrong, surely he was wrong, to think that they did so simply because they were paid? Those childhood memories, not just of the Roman coin but of the snow, the sledding—they had been happy times. It tugged on her heartstrings to see him so tortured, for it was clear that he had not permitted himself to mourn either his lost history or the loss of his putative father, the kind surveyor.
Christopher thought it was all buried and forgotten with his amulet. Did he truly believe that? He desperately wanted to, and they had so little time, a matter of hours, before they parted for ever. Though he resisted when she tried to take his hand, she determinedly twined her fingers with his, pressing a lingering kiss to his knuckles.
‘I don’t want your pity, Tahira.’
‘I am shocked, and I am angry on your behalf, and very sorry indeed for your poor mother, but what I feel for you is not pity. Why would I pity a man who has for the last six months faced untold dangers, taken breathtaking risks, to do what he thought was right? A man who could easily have taken advantage of the connections which the likes of this Lord Armstrong could have given him? A man with such courage, such integrity, such honour, who has taken so much trouble to make our nights together so perfect. I don’t pity you, I feel...’
Overwhelmed she blinked furiously, bending her head to press another, more passionate kiss on Christopher’s hand. What she felt for him made her heart lurch. What she felt—no, she couldn’t let herself feel that. The ultimate taboo. The intensity of this night had whipped her emotions into a shape she mistook for something utterly inappropriate, which would unravel in the cold light of day. ‘I don’t pity you, Christopher Fordyce,’ Tahira said.
‘I don’t have the right to that name,’ he retorted curtly, though his expression had softened, and he no longer tried to escape her touch. ‘And as a bastard, I have no right to that other—nor any desire to claim it.’
‘What about your mother’s name? You chose not to ask it, Christopher, but...’
‘I already know more than enough of my mother to torture myself. She was sixteen,’ he said. ‘The same age as our princess. And he, Lord Henry Armstrong, was four years older, a man of experience, a man who should have known better. If you could see him, Tahira, so full of himself, so utterly callous, so completely untainted by his sin.’
‘But didn’t you say that it was he who arranged for these kind people to raise you as their own?’
‘And buy their silence. If my mother had not died, how different might things have been!’
‘What can you mean?’
‘You understand now why I compare you with her, surely? Her father and mine, arranging her life for her, forcing her to comply. Would she have surrendered me, had she lived? Are not the feelings of a mother so powerful, the duty of a mother to a child more vital than her duty to her family?’
‘As an unmarried mother,’ Tahira said gently, ‘she would have been cast out of the society in which she had been raised, and her shame visited on you.’
‘The shame was not hers. It was her seducer who should have been shamed,’ Christopher said tightly. ‘The man who bequeathed me my bastard blood.’
‘You must know that whatever blood flows in your veins, it does not change the man you are.’
He jumped to his feet, his face set. ‘I thought that knowing how I came into this world would ensure that I would never, ever act as my father did.’
‘You did not seduce me!’ Tahira exclaimed