Henry said huskily, “I had to leave London with Caroline and the children quite suddenly. Caroline was very ill—cancer of the breast.” He rubbed at his chest with the heel of his hand. “I got home early one morning—after our last night together—and she was waiting for me with the news. She asked me to take her back to Wiltshire straightaway.” He paused, swallowing hard before he added, “And she asked me to give you up.”
He glanced back at Christopher who was staring at him with a stunned expression.
“I had no idea,” Christopher said faintly. “I heard she’d passed away a few years ago, but I had no notion it was so soon after you left town.”
“She died only a few months after we returned to Wiltshire. I’ve never come back to town to live since then. I only visit from time to time.”
Christopher looked stricken. “Christ, Henry. That must have been awful.”
Henry blinked, unsure how to respond. “It was… sudden,” he said. “She found the tumour in her breast, and it grew very quickly. We knew how things would likely go. Her mother had died of the same disease.” He came to a halt, a shard of old grief piercing his heart.
“I’m sorry,” Christopher said, his eyes soft with sympathy. “I know how much you loved her.”
He had loved her, but somehow, those words from Christopher’s lips filled him with another old pain. An old pain that threw up memories of Christopher; how he used to look when Henry arrived at the little house in Paddington Green, eyes shining with happiness and anticipation. The old pain of losing that. Of losing Christopher.
The pain of Caroline asking him to give Christopher up.
“It is time to put your toys away. We must think of the children now.”
In the months—hell, the years—that followed, Henry had felt like a selfish cur every time he’d thought of Christopher. Every time he’d missed him. Every time he’d longed for him.
“Take lovers by all means—but don’t lose your head over them, Henry.”
Love was only for his family. For his wife and children.
But the truth was, he had loved Christopher too. And what did that say about him? What did it say about him that he’d still longed for Christopher, when his wife and children needed him so?
He hadn’t even had the decency to walk away without looking back. He’d written that letter for Parkinson to deliver, practically begging Christopher not to forget him. Even as he’d promised Caroline to leave his lover behind, he’d still wanted to keep some tiny flame of hope alive for himself.
And now it turned out that Christopher had never received the letter. That he’d never even known how grieved Henry was over leaving him.
“So,” Christopher said into the silence. “Caroline asked you to give me up?”
“Yes,” Henry said, his voice raw now. “I’d promised her I would, you see, if she asked.”
Christopher didn’t say anything, only watched Henry with his clear, green gaze.
Henry continued, “I told Parkinson to make the house over to you and pass you a bank draft for three hundred pounds, just as we’d agreed. And—I gave him a letter for you.” He took a deep breath. “I always thought, until I spoke to Jean-Jacques a few days ago, that you had got everything that was due to you.” He gazed at Christopher. “Did you at least get the bank draft?”
Christopher met his gaze. Slowly he shook his head.
Henry groaned and closed his eyes. “God damn him.”
Christopher was silent.
When at last Henry opened his eyes again, he forced himself to meet Christopher’s gaze. The man’s face was quite unreadable. He’d changed in that respect, Henry thought. He used to wear his heart on his sleeve.
“What did Parkinson say to you?” he asked.
“Not much,” Christopher admitted. “He gave me fifty pounds and told me I had to get out by the next day.”
“What?” Despite everything, Henry was still shocked to hear that.
“He wasn’t unpleasant about it. Simply factual. He said you were finished with me, and I was to leave.” He tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he tried to remember the long-ago conversation. “I think I said, ‘But we have a contract.’ He laughed at that part. As though I’d lost my mind. And then he said—and this part I do remember quite well—‘People like you do not have contracts with dukes.’”
Henry stared at him in horrified disbelief. “But we did,” he breathed. “And he knew that I fully intended to honour that agreement. Back then, he knew all my business.”
“Back then?” Kit echoed. “Doesn’t he work for you anymore?”
“He died years ago,” Henry replied. “Soon after it was discovered that he’d been stealing money from me, and from my father before me. My father had taught me to trust him, and Parkinson himself had never given me any reason to doubt him.” He paused, then added, “I’m only surprised you took no action against me. Isn’t that how these things normally work?”
Christopher flushed and turned away. He muttered, “I was a fool back then. I wouldn’t let Mabel—Madame Georgette, that is—do anything to you. The money from Parkinson was enough to pay her most of her cut, so she agreed to leave you be.”
Henry’s gut clenched. “You gave her the fifty pounds?”
Christopher sighed. “Yes. Like I said, I was an idiot. Later I wished I hadn’t been so stupid, but at the time I was convinced it was the right thing to do.”
Henry was almost afraid to ask the next question, but he made himself do it. “And what did you do after that? How did you manage?”
Christopher shook his head.
“Please tell me,” Henry pleaded. His voice was hoarse.
Christopher’s face, when he turned back to face Henry, was furious. “I was a whore! What do you think I did?” He shook his head. “Anyway, what do you care, Henry? You left. You had no intention of returning and you didn’t return. You never checked up on me once, till now, or likely gave me a second thought. It’s all water under the bridge.”
“I did think about you,” Henry said in a low, driven tone. “Too often, in truth, when I ought to have been thinking of others.”
“I understand,” Christopher interrupted tersely. “You had to put your family first. It’s not as though I didn’t always know that was the case. What eludes me is why you are here now, all these years later, when, to be frank, it’s too late for apologies.”
“I want to make it up to you.” Henry reached into his coat and drew out the papers Reid had drawn up for him. “Here,” he said, thrusting them into Christopher’s hands.
Christopher opened up the folded pages and stared down at the lines written there, his brows pleated in confusion. “What’s this?”
“My solicitor wrote it up. It explains that I’ll either transfer the Paddington Green house over to you with the sitting tenant so you can collect the rent, or pay you the equivalent value. You’ve only to decide which you prefer. And of course, I’ll pay you the three hundred pounds you ought to have had, and the back rent you’ve missed.”