The Earl's Practical Marriage Page 23

  Laurel backed away across the soft silk of the Chinese carpet, one hand to her mouth, the other groping behind her for the door.

  ‘I may have damned myself, but I will—’

  Then she was outside, its heavy door panels closing on the sound of her husband calmly discussing deceiving her. Laurel stood and breathed.

  In and out. In and out. I will not cry or faint or rush in and shout at him. I love him. I trust him.

  But she had just heard, with her own ears, that he had deceived her. At what point did trust become foolishness?

  Evidence. You do not throw away what you have without evidence. You do not condemn without evidence.

  Laurel scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, although they were dry, she found. How strange, she thought she had been sobbing. There was a footman in the hallway and she smiled at him. It was probably rather thin, but he bowed and hurried forward.

  ‘My lady?’

  ‘Remind me the way to his lordship’s study, would you? I have to find some papers for him. And please give Mrs Finlay my apologies and tell her that I must postpone our tour.’

  * * *

  The Marquess, like her father, kept a vast, old-fashioned desk with rows of pigeonholes for documents that could be shut off behind locking doors. And, like her father, he left them unlocked, it seemed.

  Of course, the evidence she was looking for might well be with his solicitor, or shut away in the steward’s office, but it sounded as though the matter was very much on his mind, something he would want to keep to hand.

  Laurel closed the door and sat down at the desk. It was outrageous to be searching someone else’s private papers, but it seemed this was a matter that concerned her, to put it mildly. If Giles and his father were hiding things from her, then she could sink her scruples and pry.

  It did not take long to see a large folded document with her father’s hand clear on the outside. She pulled it out, flattened it open on the desk and began to read.

  * * *

  She was reading it through for the third time—it was easier to keep reading than to have to think what to do next—when the door opened.

  ‘Laurel?’ Giles looked, and sounded, appalled. And he looked as guilty as hell.

  ‘I overheard you talking,’ she said. ‘So I came to see for myself. Why did you not tell me, Giles?’

  ‘Would you have married me?’ He was quite calm, his eyes watchful, only the tic of a nerve in his cheek betrayed feeling.

  ‘No. Not at the beginning. No.’

  ‘So. There is your answer.’ It seemed he would not defend himself, or apologise.

  ‘You lied to me.’

  ‘I never lied. Prevaricated, perhaps, avoided answering directly, yes. But I would never lie to you, Laurel, upon my honour.’

  ‘Your honour?’

  That brought the colour up on his cheekbones, but Giles said steadily, ‘That is what this is all about—honour. Do I see my father crippled by shame, do I see our name sink into the obscurity we rose from? Or do I fail to tell a lady the full truth while I offer her the marriage and the position she was destined to have? Where does my duty lie, Laurel? Because my honour depends on me doing my duty, does it not?’

  When she did not answer he smiled, a bitter twist of the lips. ‘I should never have told you I loved you.’

  Laurel folded her father’s letter and slid it back carefully into its place, then stood up. She found she had to hold on to the edge of the desk. How humiliating. ‘I do not think I can talk to you now. I will go and let you get on with whatever you came to do.’

  ‘I came to get that letter and then I intended to take it to you. I have damned myself, I know, and I see no reason why you should believe me, but I could not stand deceiving you any longer,’ Giles said.

  Liar. The word was almost out of her mouth when she remembered the last words she had heard before she closed the door. ‘I may have damned myself, but I will—’

  Laurel sat down again, jarring her spine. ‘What do you mean, you have damned yourself?’

  ‘I should have told you about the letter, the debt, the trust, my father’s debts, the reasons I asked you to marry me. Then I should have told you I loved you. Not the other way around.’

  Of course I want to marry you. I want nothing more than to marry you...it is the sum total of my ambition to marry you, and only you... Trust. You believed him when he told you he loved you. He had no reason to say it. She had known from the beginning that something was amiss, that Giles was hiding something, was uneasy in his mind. This was it.

  For better, for worse... I swore.

  ‘Tell me now.’

  * * *

  Giles told the story as though he was giving evidence in a court of law. The facts, only the facts. It was past the time for emotions or justifications. For pleading.

  Laurel sat silently listening to him, that lovely brown gaze wide on his face, giving nothing away. But he knew her and she was hurting, she felt betrayed. She was betrayed because he had done what he had judged to be the right thing, the least worst thing.

  ‘I left him for nine years,’ he finished. ‘Because of my pride and my temper and because I had not seen how much he loved me under all that bluster, how hard it was for a man like him to understand his only son and heir who was so very different from him. I could betray him or I could deceive you by giving you the thing you had always been destined for. And it was not until I realised I was in love with you that I saw it was not only deception, it was another betrayal.’

  ‘I was very angry with you when we met again,’ Laurel said, her voice rigidly controlled as though to prevent the tears spilling from her brimming eyes He had put those unshed tears there. ‘You were angry with me.’

  ‘And you forgave me when you understood.’

  ‘And you? I was the reason you left the country, after all. Did you forgive me?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I desired you and I liked you, and I forgave you—in that order, I suspect.’ Was that just the tremor of a smile? ‘But I was too wrapped up in the deceit of what I had done to allow myself to understand that I love you.’

  Laurel lowered her head and the tears spilled. She made an impatient gesture, brushed the back of her hand across her cheek and he could stand it no longer.

  ‘Laurel. My love.’ Giles knelt beside her, dug in his pocket for a handkerchief and began to dry her cheeks.

  This was Laurel—the tears stopped immediately and she gave an inelegant, defiant little sniff. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t think when you touch me,’ she said shakily. ‘I need to think. I had worked it all out that all I needed was to trust you this time and it would all be perfect again. I didn’t realise that I needed to understand as well.’

  ‘Neither did I.’ Giles sat back on his heels to give her distance. Not too far. He was beginning to hope again. ‘It wasn’t you I needed to understand, it was myself. Why I had left the country like that, why I didn’t come back before. Why, when I did, I felt so damn guilty. I am not certain it is all clear now, too much adolescent emotion at the time, too much pride, too much selfishly enjoying myself. I know why I felt guilty about my father and that guilt spilled over into the way I was thinking about you.’

  He reached out his hand and she put hers into it, without hesitation. ‘I don’t know why you should believe a word I say,’ he said, holding on to the lifeline of her fingers.

  ‘I always believe you.’ It was definitely a smile now. A little shaky, a trifle watery, but a smile. ‘I know you never lie to me, I just have to get better at understanding this cunning male skill of avoiding the truth. Cousin Anthony has it, too, now I recall how he told me about Malden.’

  ‘Laurel, come to bed.’

  ‘Now?’ The clock struck eleven.

  ‘Now. I want to make l
ove to you and I have something to give you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘This is part two of the honeymoon. The part where the blushing bride is convinced, quite rightly, that the staff know exactly what is going on every time she and her husband disappear.’

  ‘Idiot,’ she said shakily and leaned towards him for his kiss.

  * * *

  Giles locked the door behind them and kissed her. Kissed her while he undressed her, kissed her while he fought off his own clothes, kissed her as they stood, naked in each other’s arms.

  Laurel began to back towards the bed, but he stopped her, lifted his head. ‘I have something to give you. Something of yours to return.’

  ‘Mine?’ Intrigued and impatient she followed him to the dresser and watched as he opened the leather box with his studs and pins and rings. A small, grey, crudely shaped lump of metal sat amongst the gems and the gold.

  ‘What is it?’ Laurel took it when he held it out, flat on his palm.

  ‘You gave it to me to look after for you, that night at the fair. I’ve looked after it ever since.’

  Laurel rubbed her thumb across it. ‘It is the heart, the golden heart I wanted so much and Stepmama refused to buy for me. So you bought it and I realised I couldn’t keep it. But, Giles, that was years ago.’ It had been gold then, all those years ago, gilded with cheap paint that had rubbed off to reveal the pewter beneath.

  ‘You gave me your heart to keep safe and I have.’ He took her hand and pressed her fingers to the callouses she had noticed on his right hand. ‘I kept it in my pocket, tried to wear it out, but it was too strong for that. I wanted to keep it, but it is right that you have it again. Besides, I have you now, I have your real heart beating against mine.’

  There were too many things to say, none of them that she had the words for. He had kept her heart safe.

  ‘Make love to me, Giles.’ Her hand closed around the token as he lifted her high against his chest.

  His arms felt strong and safe and his weight as he came down over her on the bed was a claiming as positive as his kiss. Giles rested his forehead against hers as they lay, not moving, simply breathing each other in, letting the fear and the anger ebb away and the love and the trust fill them again.

  Laurel opened her hand. ‘Will you take it back and look after it for me again?’

  Giles took the heart, closed his fingers tight on it. ‘Shall I have it gilded again? Real gold this time.’

  ‘No.’ Laurel looked into the lapis-blue eyes and shook her head. ‘That heart is how you shaped it. How I feel about you has shaped me. Neither the heart nor I am perfect, but we are true to you, just as we are.’

  ‘And I have come home,’ Giles said as he moved against her, sheathed himself in her. ‘Not to a house or an estate or a title. But to you. And to love.’

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story,

  you won’t want to miss these other great

  Regency reads by Louise Allen

  SURRENDER TO THE MARQUESS

  MARRYING HIS CINDERELLA COUNTESS

  A ROSE FOR MAJOR FLINT

  BEGUILED BY HER BETRAYER

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A WEDDING FOR THE SCANDALOUS HEIRESS by Elizabeth Beacon.

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  A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress

  by Elizabeth Beacon

  Chapter One

  You’re three and twenty, Isabella Alstone, and far too old to hide in the dark. You should stay in the ballroom and pretend to be happy, not creep out here as if you’re planning to steal the silver.

  Isabella was tired of being the perfect lady, though, so she stripped off her gloves and waved them in front of her overheated face, ignoring the voice of her conscience. It was hot even outside on this sultry late summer night and she wasn’t going back until she was cooler, calmer and more resigned... No, not more resigned, more collected. Yet promises so logical and right when voiced to a friend seemed strange and wrong now and how could she be calm about that?

  ‘Now, why is a lady of quality lurking in the shadows with the likes of me? Better go back to being belle of the ball instead of getting caught out here in bad company.’

  The voice from the shadows startled Isabella from her reverie. The sound of his velvet-and-darkness voice told her he was right, but she was in the mood to be reckless.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded, peering into the gloom to try to see through the shadows.

  His gruffly masculine voice had a pleasing hint of danger along the edge of it she shouldn’t want to know more about, but she had left safe, respectable Isabella inside and it was wonderful to be a different person altogether for a few stolen moments. She could be the sort of female who’d dive into wild encounters in the dark, as if she was put on this earth to be foolish and bold with the first rake she stumbled on in the shadows. Her fantasy of being a brash and sophisticated lady who took what she wanted from life and laughed at the future, as if it wasn’t heading towards her at the speed of a runaway horse, was too alluring to turn her back on just yet.

  ‘Because I’m here,’ the mysterious voice explained, as if that was all she needed to know to send her running. She stayed exactly where she was, refusing to scuttle inside like a scared rabbit, and heard him sigh, as if he couldn’t believe how stupid she was not to listen and do as she was bid.

  ‘You’re no debutante, so the Bond Street Beaux must have told you how beautiful you are by now and that will make everything worse if we’re caught in the moonlight together.’

  He stepped forward so the light from the few hundred wax candles could illuminate his face and form and show her how right he was. With a face too much his to match any ideal of classical perfection, he wasn’t the most handsome man Isabella had seen. He wasn’t the tallest or broadest or most obviously powerful male she had ever met either. Of course, he was leanly fit and quietly muscular as well as deeply, darkly intense. And uniquely formed to make her shiver in her dancing slippers with an unexpected and delicious anticipation of something she’d hardly dared think about until now and usually shuddered away from when she saw that feral light in other men’s eyes. Only seconds ago she’d been hot and weary and now she felt so alive there could be air and stardust under her feet instead of solid York stone. If this was how being irresponsible felt, it certainly topped being her usual sensible and reasoned self.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea who you are, so if you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working. A
lthough you’re right about one thing,’ she said as lightly as she could when the world seemed to have stopped and they were the only two people left moving. ‘I have been out for a long time now and know false flattery when I hear it.’

  ‘I don’t flatter, Mrs...’ he shot a steely gaze at her ring finger ‘...apologies, Miss, and there’s no need to pretend to be middle-aged,’ he said with a wry smile that did hot and disturbing things to her insides. ‘We’ll both be old soon enough.’

  ‘We will?’ she echoed in a breathy whisper that must have given him doubts about that maturity, but she did feel like a giddy girl when he took her gently by the arm and urged her further into darkness and away from the pool of golden candlelight spilling out of a ballroom that now seemed almost as remote from her as the Arctic.

  ‘Will someone come dashing out to find you any moment now, ready to usher you away?’ he asked with a smile, but she felt a tension in his sleekly powerful body that made her frown briefly.

  ‘No,’ she told him like a silly debutante desperate to be ruined by a rogue. ‘My family trusts me to behave,’ she added with a late tilt at sophistication and a flutter in her heartbeat that suggested they shouldn’t tonight.

  ‘They don’t consider the basic needs of the human heart often enough, then, or, in my case, even baser masculine ones you’re better not to know about until you really are a Mrs Belle,’ he replied with a cynical thread in his voice that made her frown for another sensible, bone-jarring moment before the darkness and scent from some exotic hothouse flower nearby wafted it clean away.

  ‘So you’re not to be trusted?’ she heard herself ask like the fledgling idiot she’d never allowed herself to be in polite society.

  Nobody was ever going to lure her in with showy good looks, false promises of love and passion, and heady nights like this one. She remembered her eldest sister, Miranda, falling for evil, charming Nevin Braxton at seventeen and all the horror her elopement and ruin had brought down on her family’s lives too well for that. Isabella had shuddered away from rakes as if their kisses would poison her ever since. This man hadn’t flattered and flirted and fawned on her, though. He seemed to see beyond her golden looks, exquisitely fashioned gown and neat figure and was speaking to the real Isabella.