The Earl's Practical Marriage Read online

  As she spoke Beatriz stirred and looked around, saw them. She made as though to rise.

  ‘You are right, I will have to try to contain this.’ His voice was tight with what she had no trouble, this time, as interpreting as anger. ‘It is not what it seems. Wait for me, please, Laurel.’ He took her hand, squeezed it, then strode towards the alcove.

  Wait for him, stand around while he soothes his...whatever she is. I will do no such thing.

  The moment his back was turned, Laurel made her way as quickly as she could to the entrance. So early in the evening it did not take long to retrieve her cloak, or to send for the carriage.

  * * *

  Laurel was home within half an hour of walking away from Giles.

  ‘A migraine,’ she told Binham who, fortunately, was still up. ‘My head is splitting. I will go straight to bed if you can just help me out of this gown.’

  When the maid had left Laurel locked the bedchamber door and retreated to her bed. She had to think because she did not believe she could manage to speak calmly to Giles, not yet.

  Always assuming, she thought miserably, he wants to talk to me, calm or not. Always assuming he comes home. I trusted him.

  * * *

  It felt as though he had received a heavy blow to the back of the skull. He was still conscious, on his feet, moving and hearing words, but even when he put them together into sentences that made sense, the meaning was impossible.

  Beatriz in London? Beatriz talking to Laurel, telling her he was intending to elope with her?

  And yet there she was, her beautiful face turned to him as he came closer, a desperate, foolish, hope in her eyes.

  ‘Giles! She was lying to me, lying. Was she not? She is your mistress, sim?’

  ‘Não,’ he said forcefully. ‘No. She—Laurel—is my wife.’ He sat down next to her, picked up a discarded wine glass and tried to keep his expression bland and open, as though this was simply a casual conversation. ‘What are you doing here, Beatriz? Why have you been saying those things to my wife? You know perfectly well that there is nothing between us and never was, beyond a little flirtation. Nothing. Nada,’ he repeated when she just stared at him blankly.

  ‘But in Lisbon you made love to me with your eyes. You were so kind, you help me, you hear how impossible is this marriage that they want to make with me and this...this sapo.’

  Toad, Giles translated with that part of his brain that was not screaming, Run!

  ‘I understood why you must leave, why you cannot speak to me. At home I am too much guarded and besides, Papa has so much influence. You could have been arrested or worse. But I am here now. Papa has a post of the most important with the diplomatic mission. Here in England we can run away—go to this Gretna Green I have read of and there we can be married.’

  ‘But I am married.’ He found he wanted to shake her. How could she not understand? ‘And you are betrothed and your father would never accept our marriage. And besides—I am sorry, Beatriz, but I do not want to marry you. I never did.’

  She fixed those lovely eyes on him, her lower lip, sweetly curved, that looked as though it must taste of cherries, trembling. ‘But I do not understand. You love me.’

  ‘No, I do not. I never said such a thing. I never kissed you or wrote to you or did anything other than flirt with you and let you weep all over me.’ It was like wading through deep water trying to make her understand. ‘I know you are upset about the man they want you to marry, but this is no answer. Imagine the diplomatic row if you do anything rash—think how angry your father would be. It could harm relations between our countries. Beatriz, you cannot think only of yourself. I am married and you, in a way, are representing your country. You must stop this.’ He felt like a brute, but she was not going to accept that her foolish fantasy of escape was not reality unless he forced her to.

  ‘You do not love me.’ Her voice was low, shaking, as she turned away. ‘You betray me.’

  ‘Damn it, Beatriz. Grow up.’

  But she had turned her shoulder to him and, in the midst of a royal reception, there was absolutely nothing he could do. He would have to leave her, although it felt like abandoning her. If they attracted notice with her on the brink of tears, the talk would be appalling and her father would be furious with her all over again. And there was Laurel to consider.

  Laurel. My wife. He stood up, scanned what he could see of the room. It was crowded now, noisy and hot. He began to quarter the room systematically searching. Laurel would be—what? Upset hardly seemed to be adequate, confronted with what appeared to be damning evidence of her new husband’s philandering with an innocent young lady. Distressed, angry, deceived. Betrayed. Hurt. That was what mattered. Laurel would be hurt to discover that she could not trust him and he found that the thought cut like a knife.

  Giles made his way to the entrance, discovered that Lady Revesby had collected her cloak and summoned her carriage not twenty minutes before. Was that all it was—a few minutes? It had seemed like an hour in there with Beatriz.

  He was within minutes of home so he walked, thin evening pumps painful on the uneven flagstones as he strode along, his evening cloak swirling around him.

  A woman stepped out of an alleyway in front of him. ‘Looking for a good time, sweetheart?’

  She recoiled when he snarled at her, his pulse thudding as he relaxed his hand on the hilt of the thin knife he carried in the lining of his coat. Not a footpad. That would have put the crown on the evening, arriving home battered from a fight.

  The front door swung open as he ran up the steps. ‘Her ladyship has retired, my lord. The decanters are—’

  ‘Thank you. You can lock up now.’ He made himself walk calmly up the stairs. If the footman had not noticed anything wrong with Laurel then there was hope that no one else had either, although it was really impossible to keep things from the staff.

  There was a thread of light under Laurel’s door. He scratched on a panel and tried the handle. Locked. He tapped. ‘Laurel, it is Giles.’ No answer.

  He could fetch a master key. He could pound on the door and demand to be let in. He could even put a shoulder to it. All of those would make him feel better for a moment and would make Laurel feel worse. Giles went to bed.

  * * *

  Laurel got up at five and unlocked the door before there was any chance of Binham coming in. Although when she looked in the mirror at her face and then saw the bed, churned into a tangle of sheets by a sleepless night tossing and turning, the maid would have to be working with her eyes closed not to notice that something was amiss.

  Giles had tried the door last night, had knocked, but had gone away without trying to speak to her when she had made no reply. Perhaps he, too, was trying to hide this from the servants. At least he had come home very soon after she had left him. He had not been somewhere with his Beatriz.

  Cold water splashed on her face made her feel more alert. Was Giles awake? Had he, like her, lain sleepless all night? Her robe was on the floor, kicked there during the night. Laurel put it on, jammed her feet into her slippers and went across the landing. She was not going to skulk in her bedchamber, waiting for Giles to produce whatever explanation, or ultimatum, he was planning on. Either he was feeling at least as bad as she was, or he was asleep and she would wake him, catch him unawares and get the truth out of him that way.

  Then she stopped, went back and sat on the bed and twisted her wedding ring, shiny and new, round and round on her finger. Once she had believed the worst of Giles and had so nearly ruined lives as a result. She had sworn to herself to trust him, so this time she would, she resolved, getting to her feet. She would listen and she would talk and she would understand. And then she would judge, because she loved him and love, surely, did not condemn.

  The door was unlocked and she did not knock. Giles was out of bed, sitting slouched in a low armchair by the window, tossing
some small object from hand to hand. He was wearing a heavy green-silk robe, his feet bare and she sensed that he had not slept. Perhaps he had been there all night.

  She could have sworn she made no sound entering, but he looked round and came to his feet in one rapid, fluid movement, stuffing the thing he had been playing with back into a pocket. ‘Laurel.’

  ‘Giles.’ She closed the door and went to sit on the window seat, her back to the light. There was no reason why she should let him read her expression, not yet, and she was very interested to see his. As she tucked her feet up on to the cushions and pulled the skirts of the robe around her she wondered a little at her own calm. Shock, perhaps.

  ‘Are you—? No, of course you are not all right.’ He stayed on his feet, facing her, the chair between them.

  ‘I would like you to explain, please.’

  Giles stared at her, his eyes narrowed as though trying to pierce the veil of shadows hiding her expression. ‘You want me to explain? You sit there calmly giving me the opportunity to explain?’ He looked not just puzzled by her behaviour, he seemed...hurt?

  As though I have wounded him, she thought and suddenly understood.

  ‘You think because I am not weeping or shouting that I do not care? That because I seem calm, then this is of no importance to me—that you are of no importance?’

  Yes, that is just what he thinks, the idiot man.

  He was braced, ready for her reproaches, her anger, his shoulders rigid, like a soldier facing a firing squad. He had slept no more than she had, to judge by the dark smudges under his eyes, the colour of his skin, pale under the fading tan.

  ‘You have every right to be distressed, angry, hurt and to say so. I have never known you to hold back before from telling me your feelings. I can only assume you do not care enough. And I cannot blame you. I rushed you into this marriage, I told you nothing of my past in Portugal.’

  ‘Nine years ago I rushed to a conclusion and caused a catastrophe. I hope I can learn from my mistakes, Giles.’ Somehow she was keeping her voice steady, which surprised her. Perhaps because this was simply too important to let anything stand in the way of honesty between them. ‘When I promised to marry you I also promised myself that I would trust you. I am trusting you now to tell me the truth and then you can rely on me to tell you how I feel.’

  ‘Hell.’ Giles scrubbed both hands up over his face. ‘I do not deserve you, Laurel.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘No, you do not deserve me,’ Laurel agreed readily and surprised a twitch of the lips out of Giles.

  ‘I met Beatriz at the Court in Lisbon. She was very heavily chaperoned, but my credentials were good, I was with the British Mission, I was acceptable as a dance partner. She is a very graceful dancer, she is beautiful, she was fun to flirt with.’ He sat down in the chair, facing her, letting her study his face and weigh his words. ‘She is very young, of course, and sheltered and, I fear, rather silly.’

  Laurel blinked. ‘Rather silly’ was hardly a lover’s expression.

  ‘She had been betrothed since she was an infant to an aristocrat of the royal blood. Unfortunately they never met, so she was able to tell herself it was not a reality—until the day when she finally encountered him. The poor man is hardly a very prepossessing specimen and much older than she is. She was violently upset, all her romantic ideas and daydreams shattered. I cannot say I blame her, any young woman would find him a disappointment.’

  ‘I do not understand how you come into this.’

  ‘I had flirted with her, talked to her, made a bit of a pet of her, I suppose, unwisely. It never occurred to me that she might be getting...attached. One evening I found her in the conservatory in floods of tears, tried to comfort her, ended up with an armful of sobbing, distraught female. Her mother found us, me doing nothing more lascivious than attempting to mop up her tears with a large square of best Irish linen, but she was seriously worried that there was something else going on.

  ‘I had a most uncomfortable interview with her father, but I did, thankfully, convince him that nothing untoward had occurred. I could always leave the country, but if her reputation was tarnished it would have been appalling. It never crossed my mind that what she felt for me was anything more than a silly fairy story she had told herself as an escape from the reality of who she had to marry, because of course I had to stay right away from her. And, thank heavens, the French were defeated, part of the Mission was sailing for England and I got permission to go with them.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her?’

  ‘I thought it was all past, a storm in a teacup. I had no idea that Dom Frederico might come to this country, let alone that he would bring his family with him. Certainly not that we would find ourselves living virtually next door to them. I did not believe that it would do any good to rehearse my past.’ He shifted, looking uncomfortable. ‘Besides, I did not want to talk about the poor girl, however foolish she was and however blind I was to how she might feel about me. It did not feel right to speak of her unhappiness.’

  ‘No. I can understand that.’ And she could and admired him for it. Another man, someone less secure in themselves, could have made an amusing story out of the foolish girl’s desperation and infatuation, but he had not.

  ‘I would not have wanted to hear about it unless I had to,’ Laurel said. ‘It was her secret. You are right—you should have been more alert to her feelings, more cautious. But telling me all about it would have been rather like those married men who are unfaithful just once, then feel they have to confess all to their wives which eases their conscience and makes their wives utterly miserable. Not that you were being unfaithful to anyone, of course.’

  ‘That is remarkably understanding of you,’ Giles said drily. ‘I had expected anger and hurt.’

  ‘I am not exactly happy,’ Laurel countered, equally dry. ‘But I cannot see what good it will do either of us for you to be wallowing in guilt over something that you should not feel guilty about. Your intentions in Portugal were innocent and you acted honourably to retrieve the situation and you married me in good faith. The only thing I do not understand—’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Never mind.’ It was tactless in the extreme and it was her fault for falling so easily into a frank exchange. The relief of finding that Giles would speak of this with openness had made her careless.

  ‘No, tell me, Laurel. We are stripping the truth to the bone this morning, are we not?’

  She grimaced at the brutal analogy. ‘It is just that... I expect that Beatriz is finding it difficult to cope with a strange country and language as well as the shock of finding you are married and that is why she is behaving rather...foolishly.’ It was impossible to think of a less pejorative word, but it was, she supposed, better than idiotic, which is what came to mind. It did make things worse, the realisation that the adult Giles had been as enchanted by a lovely face as his adolescent self had been.

  He recognised that Beatriz was, as he put it, rather silly, but he had still flirted with her because she was beautiful. The fact that she, Laurel, was now accounted good looking was no balm to the remembered hurt of the plain girl that she had been. Beatriz appeared to be a type that attracted Giles—was that why he had proposed to her, because she looked very much the same?

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, wary now.

  Speaking of her own youthful insecurities was both damaging to her pride and pointless. Laurel braced herself for the reaction to her apprehension about Beatriz. ‘She could not seem to grasp that as we were married then there was nothing she could do about it. That you had, quite properly, broken off contact with her and that just because she was now in England it did not make things any different. It was like talking to a toddler, trying to reason with them and explain that no amount of crying and screaming was going to make things different from what they are.’

 
‘Hell. You think she will create trouble?’ Giles scrubbed his hands over his face again, the rasp of his morning stubble just audible, they were sitting so close.

  I love the feel of that roughness on my skin first thing in the morning. Oh, Giles, just when I thought that marriage was going to be straightforwardly delightful. I am the foolish one.

  ‘I thought it was just me,’ he admitted suddenly. ‘I thought that I was so shocked that I could not properly take in what she was saying. But she was talking about Gretna Green and refusing to listen when I told her that I was married. You are right, this could stir up one hell of a storm.’

  ‘She is young and she is sheltered and spoilt, no doubt. She must have thought that any man would be bewitched by her because she is so very beautiful. I expect that you are the first thing she has wanted that she could not have.’ She imagined Giles flirting with Beatriz, ignoring her foolish chatter because she was so lovely. Her spirits, which had begun to rise as they talked, plummeted again.

  ‘She looks like you,’ Giles said.

  ‘She looks like I would if my nose was not a little crooked and my teeth were perfectly even and if my chin was not quite so pointed and my eyebrows arched more and my deportment was perfect. Her eyelashes are much longer,’ Laurel said sharply, horrified to see that her fingers were curling into talons. She straightened them out as she tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘Is that is why you kissed me on the Downs? Because I looked like Beatriz? Is that why you wanted to marry me, because you had always known that she was not for you, but I am an acceptable substitute for her?’

  Giles’s face seemed to tighten as though the skin had contracted over the flesh beneath. She had hit a nerve, it seemed. ‘No.’ Giles made a sharp gesture of denial with one hand. ‘I swear to you, on everything that I hold sacred, that is not why I asked you to marry me.’ He knelt before her, caught her hands in his, held on when she tried to push him away, annoyed as much with herself for her foolish suspicions as she was with him.