Page 48 of After the Spy Seduces

Kit could well believe that, knowing how the War Department worked.

“One of the Company’s officers was less than willing to accept my father’s input at first. It took the general months of entreaty to win the man over.” She paused. “It took me far less time to win his heart.”

She stopped in front of the fireplace. As if needing to keep herself busy, she reached to run her trembling fingers across a small music box sitting on the mantelpiece.

“He was handsome and dedicated, with so much ambition and character… How could I not fall in love with him? No one saw it coming, especially not us.” Her head was turned just enough that he could see a sad smile tugging at her lips. “But we did, and my parents approved of him. He was a soldier, after all, with a bright future with the Company. Exactly the kind of man a general’s daughter is meant for. We became engaged and planned to marry the following spring.” Then her smile faded into grief, and she blinked hard. Once. “But he was killed that winter in an accident.”

Kit said nothing, even as his chest tightened in sympathy. And with something else that took him several jarring heartbeats to recognize, because he’d never before been jealous of a dead man.

She whispered, “Six weeks later, I discovered that I was with child.”

She opened the lid of the music box and gazed inside at the delicate brass mechanism, but Kit knew she wasn’t seeing it. She was lost, four years ago and half a world away.

“I didn’t know who to grieve for—John, me, or the baby who would grow up without a father. A baby I could never claim as my own.”

Jesus.The hell that must have descended upon her… To have gone through that and survived—

She was the strongest woman he’d ever met.

“I could never have given my baby to relatives or strangers to raise. Other women have, and I would never criticize their choice to do what they think is best for themselves and their babies. But I couldn’t. I justcouldn’t. To lose both John and my baby…” Her voice trailed off, and she inhaled a deep breath to find the resolve to continue. “It would have ended me.”

He ached to reach for her, to pull her into his arms and soothe away the pain and grief. But he knew better. She had to move through this on her own. And when she was finished, he would be right here for her, with open arms.

“Can you understand?” Finally, she looked over her shoulder at him. She met his gaze for only a moment before turning away again, but the anguish he saw in her eyes sliced into him like a blade. “Every day of my life would have been spent wondering how she was, what games she liked to play, if she looked like me or John…But raising her as my own child would have ruined my father’s career and reputation, destroyed all he’d worked a lifetime to achieve. I could never have done that to him.”

No, she wouldn’t. If there was one thing he knew about her for certain, it was how fiercely Diana protected her family.

He said quietly, “So you pretended that Meri was your sister.”

She nodded and reached up to the music box to trace a fingertip delicately over the little brass plate. “We all agreed…the general, Mama, even Garrett. We would keep secret what happened and raise Meri within our family. They all protected me.” She blinked rapidly, not daring to look at him now. “So many sacrifices! Including the general’s career.”

Four years ago… “That was why the general retired so suddenly.” No one had expected it. He was a man at the height of his career, who could have given another decade of service to England.

“We had to act quickly, you see, before it became apparent that I was increasing. Because I was still grieving for John, Mama and Papa didn’t want to send me away, and where would I have gone? We were in India. Every bit of the place was watched by Company men, all of them looking for any opportunity to shame the general and, by extension, the army. Mama and I couldn’t simply travel to the coast and return with a babe in arms. Everyone would have known that I…” She turned to face him, with a plea in her eyes for sympathy and understanding. “But if Papa resigned his post—well, we were fortunate, because the trip home from India can take up to six months if you go by sea, because ships have to go all the way around the tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope.” For a moment, she found the strength to smile in black amusement, before it faded and the grief returned. “The trip was filled with anything but that.”

She reached trembling fingers for the tiny brass key at the back of the music box and gave it a slow twist to wind it. She could just as well been twisting his gut, so viscerally did Kit feel it.

“So we sailed. My growing waist was hidden beneath loose-fitting dresses, and any illness due to the baby was blamed on seasickness.” She lowered her face and placed her hands over her belly, as if feeling for the babe she’d once carried there. “When the baby couldn’t be hidden anymore, we stopped at one of the last ports in Morocco and left the ship, where we rented a little house. And where I gave birth.”

The metallic notes dinged softly and slowly from the music box, one by one, beneath the turning disc.

“When the baby and I were well enough to travel on, we boarded a ship for London. My mother carried the baby in her arms from our rented house to the docks and up the gangway, and just like that, my child had become hers.”

The pain in her voice pierced him, and he fought back the increasing urge to reach for her.

“Everyone believed the baby was hers. Why wouldn’t they? My parents had a loving marriage, one that would make a pregnancy believable, and my mother was the general’s second wife, much younger than he was. At thirty-seven, she was still young enough to have a child. And because it had been over six months since we’d left Delhi, that was plenty of time for people to believe that she’d discovered en route that she was expecting a surprise baby and then gave birth before arriving in England. No one would ever know the truth.” Her voice cracked. “Not even Meri.”

“Diana,” he whispered hoarsely, breaking his silence.

“I insisted that I would name her.Iwould give my daughter her name, even though Mama and Papa didn’t want me to.” Her hands drew up into little fists that she jabbed toward the floor in grief and anguish, unintentionally emphasizing the struggle she’d gone through. “Iinsisted—so that she would be named after her father…Captain John Meredith.”

She clenched and unclenched her fists now at her sides, and Kit resisted the urge to grasp her hands and hold them tightly in his.

“She would never know who her real father was, but at least I could give both of them that gift, no matter how small. The world would never know, but—” She choked off, and she swiped a trembling hand at her eyes. “But the angels in heaven know,” she continued, her quavering voice no louder than a whisper, “which means that John knows. And he knows how much I love her, even if I can never show her.”

With that anguished whisper of loss, he lost the battle to keep away and stepped forward to encircle her in his arms.

He murmured her name and pulled her against him, holding her close. Each tremble and shudder that swept through her as she struggled not to cry swept into him like a tidal wave. He squeezed his eyes closed and whispered soft words of reassurance, although he couldn’t have consciously said what he was murmuring to her, except that he wanted to give her solace. His own heart grieved for her and all she’d lost, burning painfully in his chest.