The Earl's Practical Marriage Page 9

  They sat and sifted through the correspondence. Laurel had, by some miracle, a letter from Jamie, sent from the Solent where he boasted of a lack of seasickness, told her a number of unintelligible things about navigation and the use of a sextant, whatever that was, and complained of a shortage of woollen stockings. She had sent him off with a dozen pairs, so goodness knew what he had done with those.

  There were a number of invitations for them both, passed across by Phoebe, and Laurel began sorting them out by date. ‘This one looks most impressive.’ She held up a heavy gilt-edged card. ‘“The Duchess of Wilborough requests the pleasure of the company of Lady Laurel Knighton at a reception...” It is tomorrow night and the address is the Royal Crescent. Do you know the Duchess, Aunt Phoebe? And why am I invited and not you? It seems very short notice.’

  ‘I already have my invitation. Then it occurred to me to let her know you had arrived and so she has invited you. We were at school together when she was only obscure Miss Barrington with no important connections and some of the girls were top-lofty about it and looked down on her. But I liked her and we were friends and she has not forgotten that. I always receive invitations whenever she is in Bath.’

  Phoebe’s smile held just a touch of smug self-satisfaction at the thought of her influential friend and Laurel thought she could hardly blame her. She felt quite excited herself at the thought of attending such a fashionable event. Her new life was here in Bath and amongst its society and thinking of that, living it, was what she should do in order to put her muddle of feelings over Giles into perspective. At least the misunderstanding was over, she had been forgiven, he seemed to understand. It was the best she could hope for.

  * * *

  ‘What progress, eh? What does the chit have to say for herself?’

  Giles closed the door behind him and took the seat opposite his father. ‘Good morning, sir. How is your foot today?’

  ‘Better, better. Never mind my confounded foot—what about Laurel Knighton? Still as plain and scrawny as she was as a child, poor girl? Still, can’t be helped if she is, you’ll have to make the best of it. All cats are grey once the bedchamber candles are snuffed out.’

  Giles managed not to rise to the bait. ‘She has developed into a very handsome young lady, although she still has a sharp tongue and a temper. I danced with her at the Assembly Rooms the night before last and we managed not to come to blows in the middle of a set, although she made no bones about not being pleased to see me. The aunt, Lady Cary, seems to be offering me encouragement.’

  ‘You think so? Interesting.’ His father nodded. ‘Very interesting. The woman appeared to have the brain of a peahen on the occasions I met her, but I suspect she is sharp enough when it comes to marrying off young ladies. So what else have you done? One dance won’t fix her interest.’

  ‘I took her walking in Sydney Gardens yesterday. I explained my part in that fiasco nine years ago, she gave me the benefit of her thoughts on our past history—I may have bruises somewhere, although no actual bleeding wounds—and we parted on moderately good terms.’ If his father thought he was going to receive a blow-by-blow, or even a kiss-by-kiss account of this courtship he was much mistaken.

  ‘Have you kissed the chit yet?’ Yes, that is what he expects.

  ‘I am hardly likely to discuss a young lady in those terms with anyone, Father, even you.’ Giles found it was easy to keep a perfectly expressionless face. That kiss had been both memorable and disturbing.

  The Marquess grunted. ‘So you have kissed her and it was not a great success.’

  His father could obviously read him more accurately than he had hoped, although he would have described the experience as confusing rather than unsatisfactory. Giles checked his pockets, found his worry piece and began to turn it between his fingers.

  ‘Confound it, Giles—enough of these namby-pamby attitudes. Get on and seduce the girl if that’s what it takes.’

  ‘I will do no such thing,’ he snapped back. ‘Do you think I want to begin married life having entrapped my bride into wedlock?’

  The Marquess erupted from his seat, fetched his bandaged foot a sharp blow on the edge of the toppling gout stool, swore violently and subsided back into the chair. ‘Get down off your high horse. I am not suggesting you ravish the girl. Damn it, in my young day we managed our courtship with rather more verve and considerably more finesse.’

  Giles resisted the urge to enquire if, by verve, his father recommended throwing a lady over his saddle bow and riding off with her. He picked up the gout stool, set his father’s bandaged foot on it with sufficient emphasis to provoke a muffled curse and sat back. ‘I am courting Laurel and moving as fast as honour will allow,’ he said, contriving to sound infuriatingly starchy, even to his own ears.

  ‘So why are you still here, damn it?’

  ‘Dancing attendance on you, sir, as ordered,’ Giles said. Provoking his father seemed to do the older man the world of good. It certainly stopped him brooding about his investment losses.

  His father narrowed his eyes dangerously, then barked, ‘In!’, when there was a tap on the door.

  ‘The post, my lord.’ It was the landlord, silver salver in hand.

  ‘I’ll be off then, Father.’

  ‘No, wait. There should be something about the Home Farm—yes, here it is.’ The Marquess thrust a thick document at him. ‘See what you think. It’s about time you involved yourself with estate matters.’

  ‘Sir.’ Giles took the papers to the table and began to read a complicated tale of leases, under-leases, collapsing field drains and uncooperative tenants.

  On the other side of the room his father rustled papers, muttered, swore and occasionally gave a snort of laughter as he scanned the rest of his correspondence. Then he said, ‘Aha!’

  Giles looked up. ‘Everything all right, sir?’

  ‘Hermione Wilborough’s back in Bath and she is throwing one of her receptions tonight. Do you no harm to attend, get back into the swing of things. She’s up in Royal Crescent. Make a call as soon as you’ve finished with those documents and she is certain to invite you.’

  ‘She has written to you?’

  ‘No, a mutual acquaintance mentioned it.’ He folded up the letter. ‘Now, what do you think to that under-lease? Renew or not?’

  Chapter Nine

  Phoebe bent to check her appearance in the mirror of the ladies’ retiring room set aside for the reception. She patted a curl into place with an expression of some complacency. ‘We both look very fine, do you not think, Laurel? What a marvellous evening this will be.’

  ‘I agree that you have worked a miracle in two days, Aunt.’ Laurel squeezed in next to her to study her own reflection. ‘Your dressmaker has rescued my gowns from complete countrified dowdiness—and to be able to produce this one at such short notice is incredible—and your hairdresser has certainly given me a new touch, but I cannot be quite as relaxed as you about a reception at a duchess’s mansion.’

  Laurel viewed her new gown with approval and her new hairstyle with some wariness. It did seem exceedingly short in places but that, she had been assured, was all the crack. Prodding at it was not going to make her any more comfortable with the effect. She moved to the window and looked out over the spectacular view across Bath, not quite believing that Phoebe had managed to secure her an invitation to such a select gathering.

  ‘Nonsense. Dear Hermione keeps the most welcoming of establishments. It will merely be a friendly soirée, you will see.’

  * * *

  An hour later Laurel had to agree with her. The reception was lavish but the tone light-hearted and she found that she could cope perfectly well on simple good manners and common sense. No one had laughed at her for being a country mouse who had never had a Season, or even travelled to London, and she had managed not to make any dreadful faux pas when introduced to a dowager duchess, a
bishop and a general in rapid succession.

  It was all very elegant and novel and she had eaten several delicious lobster patties and drunk at least one too many glasses of champagne, but Laurel could not help but feel remarkably flat despite the glamour of the occasion. Perhaps she had overtired herself and had not yet recovered from the journey. Or perhaps it was a night of broken sleep and uneasy dreams.

  Or perhaps I am missing someone, she admitted to herself.

  Giles was confusing and infuriating, but, having found him again, now she missed him. She wanted to talk to him as she had once done every day. Not about anything of huge significance, just to exchange ideas and jokes and confidences.

  Everything seemed extraordinarily flat. She had failed Giles with her lack of trust and she had let her judgement be clouded by jealousy.

  What if he had been killed in the Peninsula? Stop it. He could have stayed at home and equally easily have been killed in a riding accident or crossing the road...

  And then a small group near the entrance moved aside, laughing. The sound caught her attention and she looked across and there, framed between two gorgeously liveried footmen, was Giles. She should not be happy to see him, but she was. Laurel told herself that it would give her the opportunity to put him firmly in his place if he took any more liberties after that kiss in the labyrinth, for one thing, which might also serve to calm her own rather overheated imagination. And there was the undoubted satisfaction of having both a smart hair style and a gorgeous gown of silver net over a pale aquamarine underskirt and no longer looking like a country cousin. That was all it was, perfectly justified feminine pride.

  She watched Giles talking to a group near the entrance. The men were laughing, the ladies smiling and flirting their fans, quite at ease. She had no experience in dealing with men, not handsome men who seemed to find her attractive. Giles should be feeling as wary of her as she was of him with their truce and understanding so new between them, yet he had kissed her, paid attention to her, in a way that confused and excited her even as she told herself that she should not want his admiration or his kisses. And perhaps he would not want to offer either if he knew just how she had felt, that long-ago summer’s afternoon.

  But I still want him. The thought was like bubbles of champagne rising through her blood. I do not know this adult man, I do not know if I should risk my heart by getting any closer, but...

  Common sense went straight out the door as though a footman was holding it wide for that very purpose. Laurel stepped forward, knowing that it was not at all the done thing for a lady to walk towards a gentleman across a crowded room. She should wait patiently, pretending not to notice his presence until he sought her out, but knowing that perfectly well did nothing to fix her disobedient feet to the spot. They took her diagonally across the floor towards Giles as he walked towards her. They met in the middle, already laughing at each other, and he caught her outstretched hand in his.

  ‘My dear Lady Laurel—what have you done to your hair?’

  With the laughter in his voice all the years apart vanished like smoke. She was still the girl who had wanted him for ever, he was still the young man who had teased her, been kind to her, been her friend. Only now they were adults. Laurel had no idea what Giles felt about her, but she knew that she wanted him in a way that girl had been too young to understand. She could not have him, of course. He might flirt, he might forgive, but he would be seeking a bride from the new crop of girls making their come-out next Season.

  But that was in the future and this was now and she was just light-headed enough to disregard the consequences to her own heart when the evening was over. ‘Do you not like my new style, Lord Revesby? It is all the crack.’

  ‘It is ravishing, my lady. Simply ravishing.’ He came close and lowered his voice to little more than a murmur so that she had to lean towards him to hear. ‘I especially like the way it is cut short at the side of your neck. It exposes so much soft white skin. I want to bite it,’ he whispered, so close now that his breath burned trails of sensation across her skin, as intimate as his fingertips would have been.

  Against the fine lawn of her chemise her nipples tightened and fretted, the sensation so insistent that she glanced down, certain that they must be visible through chemise and bodice lining and silk. When she looked up, blushing, Giles was watching her face, and she knew he had let his gaze drop to her bosom as he imagined the effect his words were having. She might not be able to read his mind, but she could read his desires very plainly indeed.

  ‘Is there a terrace here?’ he asked.

  ‘I... Yes, there must be, don’t you think? The French doors are open all along that back wall. Why?’ She knew perfectly well why—this was Giles up to mischief, but very grown-up mischief.

  ‘Because I want to make love to you out there,’ he murmured. ‘Because I want to find a shadowed corner, lit only by the reflected glitter of the lanterns on a pool of water. I want to strip off your gown and take your breasts in the palm of my hand and lick your nipples until you—Good evening, your Grace. I was just saying to Lady Laurel what an exquisite room this is.’

  ‘Wicked man.’ The Duchess fetched Giles a sharp rap on the knuckles with her fan. ‘You were telling Lady Laurel how her beauty enhances my room. At least, I hope that is what you were saying to account for that blush.’

  ‘Your Grace is, of course, correct.’

  The Duchess raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Flim-flam, you are humouring me, don’t think I do not know it. Just like your father—and I am sorry to hear that he is laid low. It must be bad if the poor devil is reduced to drinking spa waters.’ She looked Giles up and down. ‘You’ve changed, Revesby. Still, as you were a scrubby boy when I last saw you, that is no surprise. Has your time in the Portuguese Court taught you more than how to do the pretty with duchesses? I seem to have heard rumours that you were a very dangerous young man. Lady Laurel, I caution you to beware.’

  ‘As Lady Laurel is English, not French, she is in no danger, I assure you, your Grace.’

  ‘Not from your weapons made of steel, that is true.’ The look that the Duchess gave Giles was unmistakably flirtatious. She gave him another tap with her fan and moved on, chuckling a little.

  ‘Was she referring to—?’ Laurel searched for an acceptable phrase and failed to find one. ‘Parts of your anatomy?’

  ‘I believe so. Please rest assured that I am completely disarmed tonight.’

  ‘Even on the terrace?’ Why was Giles flirting with her when there were so many other younger, prettier women in the room, or when older, very attractive ladies such as the Duchess seemed so very willing to trifle with him?

  ‘You are in no danger from me, Laurel.’

  ‘No?’ she murmured, suddenly chilled. She realised that she had been too overwhelmed by finding him again to wonder too deeply about his kisses. He’d had her explanation of what had happened that long-ago day and he had been concerned about his father and, perhaps, disorientated by being back in England after so long. All those things could explain why he had forgiven her so easily for the misunderstanding, had wanted her company, her kisses.

  But now he had no anxieties about the Marquess, he was clearly at home and comfortable in society, so why was he apparently so pleased to see her and so passionate in his whispered flirtation? Had Giles come back from Portugal the libertine she had so falsely accused him of being, or was it possible that he had other motives for paying attention to the woman who had sent him into exile in the first place? Revenge, for example. She could hardly blame him.

  ‘Laurel? Is anything wrong?’

  ‘No. No, of course not.’ She was being foolish. This was Giles, for goodness’ sake, her old friend restored to her. He could not have changed that much—and she owed him her trust above all else. ‘I am simply not used to all of this.’ She waved a hand around the crowded reception room, with its beautiful, chat
tering, laughing, confident people in their silks and superfine and their jewels. ‘I am a country mouse, used to little local assemblies and domestic entertainments. And I am not used to flirting.’

  ‘I am going too fast,’ he said, almost to himself.

  ‘Giles? Too fast for what?’

  ‘For you, of course.’ His smile was rueful. ‘I should have remembered that society events might be a trifle overwhelming at first. You are older, more mature than the girls making their come-outs and I am treating you as I would a married lady, out for several years.’

  ‘You kiss the breasts of married women on terraces, do you?’ She felt the need of the Duchess’s technique with her fan.

  ‘Laurel, I cannot pretend that I have been a good boy for nine years. I have not. But here I am, as I am, and I would very much like to get to know you again, as you are now, a grown woman. And while I am doing that I can promise you that married women, in fact any women, will be out of bounds to me.’

  What did he mean? Once she would have asked him directly, but now something held her back. Did he mean that he wanted to enjoy a flirtation with her for as long as it suited them both? That he wanted to be her lover? Or that he was courting her? That possibility almost brought her train of thought to a shuddering halt. No, it was simply her foolish fantasies. Why her, the country spinster, virtually on the shelf, when there would be so many fresh young beauties to choose from? She realised why she dare not ask him outright. He would probably laugh, assuming that she was in jest.

  I cannot trust him to tell me the truth about something so personal any more. I misjudged the youth and I know this man even less well. I cannot trust myself either.