The Bride Hunt (25 page)

Prudence gave up. “What happens to truffled eggs?”

He shook his head. “Once you’ve tasted them I’ll tell you. Let us go in to dinner.” He took her hand and laid it firmly on his proffered arm.

All right, Prudence decided, if he wouldn’t talk business then they would discuss something else. “Does Sarah live with you all the time?”

“Yes,” he said, escorting her across the hall.

“It’s somewhat unusual, isn’t it? Girls tend to live with their mothers in such circumstances,” Prudence persisted.

“That would be a little difficult in this situation, since I have no idea where Sarah’s mother is.” He ushered her into a square dining room.

“How could that be?” Prudence demanded, no longer concerned that she might be prying. She
was
prying, in fact, but in the face of these bland responses she had little choice.

“When Sarah was three, Harriet ran off with a horse trainer.” He pulled out a chair for her to the right of his own at the head of the table.

“And you’ve not heard from her since?” Prudence couldn’t conceal her shock at this cavalier explanation offered in a tone that was so matter-of-fact it sounded almost bored. She stood holding the back of her chair, looking up at him.

“Not since the divorce. She remembers Sarah’s birthday, that’s sufficient for me . . . and it would seem for Sarah too. Would you please sit down?”

Prudence did so. “Divorce must have been difficult,” she persisted. He had to have some emotional response to this.

“Nowhere near as difficult as realizing that you hadn’t noticed that your wife had developed interests elsewhere,” he said aridly.

Prudence was quiet for a moment. However dry his statement, it had revealed some indication of hurt. If his noncommittal attitude earlier had been a simple defense mechanism, then it would be unforgivable to dig at a still-open wound.

Soft candlelight lit the room and a round bowl of the same red camellias that Sarah had put in the guest room formed a fragrant centerpiece. Again Prudence was struck by the feminine touches, the delicate lace edging to the table napkins, the silver bowl of potpourri on the sideboard.

“Sarah has a nice touch with flower arrangements,” she observed. “At least I assume it’s Sarah.”

“With a fair amount of help from Mary,” Gideon responded. “Mary, for all her suffragist leanings, doesn’t disdain the gentler arts of her sex. You’ll meet her soon, I’m sure. You’ll like her.”

“I’m sure I shall,” Prudence said carefully. He was making some very broad assumptions, she thought with a prickle of apprehension. It seemed as if he was expecting her part in his life to become larger, as if it was going to be quite natural for her to become friends with Sarah’s governess, as if it was quite natural for her to help the girl with her homework, or have a tête-à-tête dinner in his house. A dinner that he himself had cooked. As if somehow this was not in his eyes the brief fling she had so casually called it when talking to her sisters. And if it was more than a brief fling, then what happened to the bride hunt? Not to mention their working relationship.

If Gideon noticed anything unusual about her abrupt silence, he gave no sign. He rang a small handbell at his elbow before pouring champagne into two glasses, and said conversationally, “I think champagne works best with the eggs, but if you dislike champagne with food . . . some people do . . .”

“No, not at all,” Prudence hastened to reassure him as the door opened softly and a maid entered with a tray.

“You gave them just three minutes in the bain-marie, Maggie?” the barrister asked, sounding uncharacteristically anxious.

“Yes, sir, exactly as you said.” The maid set a small dish in front of Prudence and the second in front of Sir Gideon. “And the melba toast is just out of the oven, cooked nice and slow, just as you said.” She set a toast rack between the diners. Her tone, Prudence thought, was rather soothing, as if she was accustomed to her employer’s culinary anxieties.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Thank you.” He took up a tiny silver spoon.
“Oeufs en cocotte aux truffes,”
he announced. “The secret lies in getting them to set to exactly the right consistency.” He dipped the tip of the spoon into the dish, and Prudence hesitated, waiting for the verdict.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Perfect.”

Prudence took this as permission to taste her own. She dipped her spoon and conveyed its contents to her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “Ah,” she said. She gazed at him. “Unbelievable.” Her tongue roamed around her mouth, catching every last elusive hint of truffle and caviar.

He smiled a most self-satisfied smile. “It will do.” He passed the toast rack towards her. “Melba toast.”

Prudence could not imagine that the astounding dish in front of her could benefit from toast but she bowed to the expert and took a fragile crisped piece. She broke off a corner and dipped it into her dish, following her host’s example.
Oeufs en cocotte aux truffes
definitely needed melba toast.

She sipped her champagne and savored every tiny spoonful of the delicacy in front of her. It struck her that this was not a suitable moment for conversation of any kind, let alone of the business or personal varieties. This was a moment for awe and reverence. And it was over all too quickly.

She looked sadly into the empty
cocotte
and gave a little sigh that was part utter delight and part regret. “I have never tasted anything like that.”

“Good,” said her host, refilling her champagne glass. “The sole will be a few minutes.” He smiled at her and laid a hand over hers.

Prudence twined her fingers in his. She hesitated, but without the distraction of culinary delight, her restless mind had turned back to the personal. She desperately needed to know the full story of his marriage. “How did you fail to notice that your wife had interests elsewhere?” she asked finally.

Gideon sipped his champagne and then gently but deliberately disengaged his hand. “I suppose you’re entitled to ask, but in general I prefer not to talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But it seems very important to me to know.”

He nodded. “I didn’t notice for the same reason that Harriet found outside interests. I was too busy, too engrossed in my profession.” He shook his head. “A barrister doesn’t make KC without sacrifices, certainly not before his fortieth birthday. Harriet, with some justification, resented my absorption. She was—I assume still is—very beautiful. Very desirable . . . and the only man who failed to acknowledge that was her husband.”

“But she had a child.”

“Yes, but motherhood didn’t suit her enough to substitute for the lack of a husband’s attentions.”

He looked across at her. “I blame Harriet for very little. She gave me a divorce without a murmur. I keep her in some of the luxuries that the racehorse trainer can’t quite manage, and I prefer that her contact with Sarah be limited to birthday cards. Can we leave it at that now?”

He rose from the table, went to the sideboard, and took up a bottle of Chassagne Montrachet. “This will go very well with the sole. I have a fine Margaux for the quail. I trust you’ll approve.”

Prudence sat back as he filled her white-wine glass. “I didn’t mean to open old wounds,” she said, then fell silent as the maid reappeared to clear away the first course and place delicate fillets of Dover sole in front of them. She placed a sauceboat at Prudence’s elbow.

“Champagne sauce,” Sir Gideon said. “I can’t take credit for this dish. It’s one of Mrs. Keith’s specialities.”

Prudence dribbled sauce onto her fish. “I imagine you had your hands full with the cocotte and the quail.” She took up her fish utensils and cut into the fillet. He had asked her to drop the subject, and without being insensitive to the point of discourtesy she could only accede. “To produce this in addition to a full day at work is impressive, to say the least.” She smiled at him. “Were you in court today?”

“I was. Quite an interesting case. A property dispute. Usually I find them rather tedious, but this had some unusual aspects.” He talked about the case, making relaxed and urbane conversation throughout the remainder of dinner.

“The quail were wonderful. And that gâteau basque . . .” Prudence set down her spoon and fork with a little sigh of repletion. “I have no idea how you could put something that delicious on a table.”

“Cooking is not your forte, then?” he teased.

Prudence shook her head. “I’m afraid, unlike Miss Winston, that I lack many of the gentler arts of my sex.”

He looked at her sharply, as if hearing a note of criticism in her repetition of his description of Mary Winston.

She continued, with an attempt at lightness. “My forays into the kitchen are usually only to discuss with Mrs. Hudson the cheapest way to put a meal on the table that will satisfy my father and not arouse his suspicions that we’ve cut corners. It’s not easy to do.”

“No, I can imagine,” he said. He laid his napkin on the table. “Let’s return to the drawing room for coffee.” He pushed back his chair and moved behind hers, pulling it out for her.

“Can we talk business now?” Prudence asked as they entered the drawing room. She headed for the mantel and her handbag.

Gideon sat down on the sofa and patted the seat beside him. “Show me what you’ve got.” He leaned forward to pour coffee from the tray set ready for them on the low table in front of the sofa.

“The good news or the bad news first?” She sat down beside him, opening her bag.

“Try me with the good.”

She handed him the documents she had liberated from the safe-deposit box and began to explain, but he waved her into silence with one of his gestures that so exasperated her.

“Let me come to my own conclusions, Prudence. Drink your coffee and help yourself to cognac if you’d like.”

“No, thank you,” she said.

“Then pour me one, would you?” He didn’t look up from his reading, either as he made the request or when she set the goblet in front of him.

Prudence took up her coffee cup and wandered over to the bookshelves. She felt dismissed as an irrelevancy, and although she now assumed that hadn’t really been his intention, it was annoying nevertheless.

Chapter 17

P
rudence remained with her back to the room, scanning the titles on the bookshelves, doing her best to appear nonchalant. It seemed her only defense against the feeling of being irrelevant to proceedings that touched her so nearly.

“Well,” Gideon said at last.

Prudence turned very casually. “Well what?” She went over to the table and set down her empty coffee cup.

“I’ll put Thadeus onto discovering the legal standing of this Barclay Earl and Associates first thing tomorrow,” Gideon said, tapping the sheets that he still held on his knee. “You did well.”

“Praise indeed,” Prudence said with a sardonic little curtsy. “I’m overwhelmed to have satisfied the exacting standards of the most famous barrister in town.”

“Wasp,” he accused. “How did I just put your back up?”

Prudence folded her arms. “I suppose it didn’t occur to you that I might have gone through hells of conscience getting that information. I had to falsify authorization from my father, deceive the bank manager, and then dig into Father’s most private papers.”

“But without it your case would have been lost,” he pointed out. “Needs must, my dear.” He tapped the papers again. “With this I can promise that the earl of Barclay will be squirming on the stand. I think you’ll find the unsavory methods you had to use worth it then.”

“So it will serve?” Prudence looked at him closely.

“I believe so.” He put down the papers. “And it came none too soon. The trial date has been set for two weeks tomorrow.”

“Two weeks!”
she exclaimed. “Can we be ready by then?”

“We have no choice,” he said. “I trust you can perfect the French maid imitation in that time.”

“At least it doesn’t give them too much more time for snooping,” Prudence murmured, half to herself. Her stomach seemed to be turning somersaults, not a good response to truffled eggs and quail.

Gideon watched her for a second, guessing at her reaction. What had been a long-distance threat was now present reality. No wonder she looked a little green. He stood up. “Come here. I’ve been longing to kiss you all evening.”

“You’ve been too busy eating to think of kissing,” she retorted, but she allowed him to tilt her face up to his.

“There is, as I’ve so often told you, a time and a place for everything. Now is the time for kissing.” He brushed her lips lightly with his own, tantalizing her with a sudden flick of his tongue into the corner of her mouth.

An instant before she was lost in the scent of his skin, the taste of his tongue, the firm yet pliable feel of his lips, Prudence pulled back her head. “No, Gideon. Before we get into this, what are we to do about the letter to
The Mayfair Lady
offering information for the case? It’s so urgent now. Should we answer it?”

He frowned down at her, his fingers still closed over her chin. Then he shook his head as if in resignation and said, “I would suspect a trick.”

“But supposing it
is
genuine?”

“You must do what you think best.”

“That’s not very helpful,” she said, stepping back from him. “I need a better answer before we can move on to other things.”

Gideon groaned. “How could I have fallen for a veritable Lysistrata?”

Fallen for?
Prudence steepled her hands, pressing her fingertips against her mouth. There was no reason to be alarmed by such a statement, she told herself. Of course, he was not the kind of man to make delirious love to any woman who crossed his path. Any more than she was the kind of woman to fall into any man’s bed. There was an attraction between them. The attraction of opposites, if nothing else. Silly to read more into it than that.

“Give me your answer,” she demanded.

“Don’t touch it with a barge pole. It’s not worth the risk. Even if it is genuine and there is some information out there, we don’t need it,” he said crisply. “Now, could we go back to where we were, please?”

“Yes, sir. At your service, sir.” Prudence moved into his arms, putting her own around his neck as she lifted her face imperatively. His mouth was wonderfully hard on hers, his lips at first closed then opened, pressing her own apart as his tongue drove deep into her mouth with a predatory possession that sent arrows of lust darting through her loins. In the still-sensible recess of her mind, she knew this would have to stop soon. There could be no logical conclusion to this kiss in Gideon’s house, with his daughter asleep upstairs, but she was too hungry
now
to worry about the inevitable letdown to come.

The banging of the front door knocker, loud and imperative, broke their private, passionate circle. Gideon raised his head, frowning, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Who the hell could that be? I’m not expecting anyone. The staff have gone to bed.”

The banging came again. He strode out of the drawing room. Prudence followed, standing in the drawing room entrance as he opened the front door. She couldn’t see anything in the shadows of the hall, where all but a single lamp had been doused. There was a long silence.

There was a quality to the sudden silence that made her scalp crawl. Slowly she took a step into the hall.

“Harriet,” Gideon said without inflection. “This is a surprise.”

“I thought I’d better surprise you, Gideon,” a woman’s voice said with a little trill that sounded nervous to Prudence. “If I warned you I was coming, you might have refused to see me.”

“Hardly,” he said in the same expressionless tone. “You’d better come in.”

Gideon’s ex-wife stepped into the hall. She wore an opera cloak of black velvet. As she glanced curiously around, she raised a gloved hand to her black taffeta hat, adjusting one of the white plumes. Her eyes fell upon Prudence, standing now in the light streaming from the drawing room at her back.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re entertaining, Gideon. How inconsiderate of me not to have warned you of my arrival.” She crossed the hall towards Prudence. “Good evening, I’m Harriet Malvern.”

Prudence took the extended hand belonging to one of the most classically beautiful women she had ever encountered and shook it. “Prudence Duncan,” she said.

“Oh, Gideon, could you find someone to take up my valise?” Harriet said over her shoulder. “I was sure you wouldn’t mind if I stayed for a few days. I do so want to see Sarah. Where is she? She’s not in bed yet?”

“It’s nearly midnight,” Gideon said in the same expressionless tone. “Where did you think she would be?”

“Oh, don’t be disagreeable, Gideon,” Harriet said. “I don’t know what time children go to bed, and she must be almost grown up now.”

“Go into the drawing room, Harriet,” Gideon instructed. “I don’t know what’s going on here, and you’re certainly not seeing Sarah until I find out.”

Harriet pouted a little. “He’s so stern sometimes, have you noticed?” she said in a conspiratorial undertone to Prudence.

This was not a conversation Prudence was about to have. She stepped around the elegant figure and said formally, “It’s time I left, Sir Gideon.”

“Oh, don’t go on my account,” trilled the visitor. “I’m so tired anyway. I’ll just go up to my room. Perhaps Mrs. Keith—You do still have Mrs. Keith?—could bring me up a little soup.”

“Mrs. Keith is in bed,” Gideon said. “Now do as I say.” His lips were very thin, his eyes hard. He turned to Prudence. “Would you mind waiting in the library for a few minutes? This won’t take very long.”

Prudence looked at him in astonishment.
Won’t take very long.
He was intending simply to dismiss this woman, the mother of his child, who’d just turned up on his doorstep with bag and baggage. He was prepared to give her a few minutes of his time, and then presumably send her on her merry way.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m leaving now. You have other things that require your attention.”

“Daddy?” Sarah’s girlish treble came unnervingly from the head of the stairs. “What’s all that banging?”

“It’s nothing, Sarah. Go back to bed. I’ll come up in a minute,” he called, laying an arresting hand on his ex-wife’s arm as she made to move past him towards the stairs. “Not yet,” he said through his teeth. “Go into the drawing room.”

And this time she obeyed. Gideon turned back to Prudence. “Let me deal with this. It won’t take a minute.”

“What do you mean, it won’t take a minute?” she demanded in an incredulous undertone, aware of Sarah now awake and curious upstairs. “That’s your ex-wife, or am I mistaken?”

“No, you’re not,” he said wearily. “I just need to find out what she’s doing here.”

“Yes, you do,” Prudence said, making for the guest room and her coat and hat. “And I cannot imagine how you can do that in three minutes. This is no time for me to be here.” She picked up her coat from the bed and then stood in front of the mirror to put on her hat. Her hands were trembling and she hoped that Gideon, who was standing rather helplessly in the doorway, couldn’t see them.

“Excuse me.” She walked past him towards the front door, stepping around the pile of valises that seemed to indicate a stay of a more than transitory nature.

“Prudence.” He came after her, catching her arm as she stepped out through the still-open door. “This is not your affair. It doesn’t concern you at all. Leave now if you must, but nothing’s changed between us.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t concern me?” she demanded, trying to keep her voice low. “We’ve spent an entire night in bed together. That woman is a part of your life. The mother of your child. How could you possibly be so obtuse, so . . . so insensitive . . . as to dismiss her
and me
as somehow irrelevant to your own concerns? Are you suggesting we simply carry on as if nothing has happened?”

She shook her head in disbelief, shook off his arm, and waved at a passing hackney carriage, its driver nodding sleepily on the box. “Good night, Gideon.”

The cab drew to a halt at the bottom of the narrow flight of steps. Gideon made no further attempt to stop her. He waited until she was in the cab, then turned back to the hall, his expression grim.

Prudence sat back against the cracked leather swabs and tried to sort out what had just happened. It wasn’t Gideon’s fault that Harriet had arrived, but how could he possibly think he didn’t have to deal with it . . . that in a few minutes everything would be back to normal?
What kind of man was he?

How was Sarah going to respond to her mother’s abrupt reappearance? Surely he had to realize that that would take more than a few minutes to deal with.

It defied belief.

Prudence was as incredulous the next morning as she had been when she had finally fallen asleep. Recounting the incident to Chastity had not helped to clear her mind, and neither had the hours of restless tossing in hot sheets. She awoke headachy and as tired as if she had not slept a wink.

A bleary-eyed look at the clock told her it was barely seven. She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but without success. A knock at the door surprised her.

“Miss Prue?” Jenkins called softly.

“What is it, Jenkins?” She sat up.

The door opened, but instead of Jenkins, Gideon walked in, dressed impeccably in morning coat and waistcoat, carrying an attaché case. Clearly on his way to work, Prudence thought, even as she stared at him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said, setting his attaché case on a chair.

“Sir Gideon insisted on coming up, Miss Prue,” Jenkins said apologetically. “He said he would open every door until he found you if I didn’t show him up.”

“That’s all right, Jenkins,” Prudence said. “I know how very
persuasive
Sir Gideon can be. Could you bring me some tea?”

“At once, Miss Prue. Should I fetch Miss Chas first, though?”

“I don’t need a chaperone, Jenkins,” she said. It was a little late for that, but she kept that reflection to herself.

Jenkins left, leaving the door half open. Gideon closed it, then turned back to the bed. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

He swung a chair around to face the bed and straddled it, resting his arms along the back. “You don’t look very refreshed,” he observed.

“I’m not. Where’s your ex-wife?”

“In bed and asleep, I assume. Harriet is not in the habit of greeting the day until the morning’s well advanced.”

“In bed in your house?”

“Where else?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. His eyes narrowed. “Not in my bed, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Just why did you run off like that, Prudence? I told you I had everything under control. All I needed—” He broke off as Jenkins came in with a tray of tea that he set down on the bedside table. He gave Gideon something approaching a glare and left, again leaving the door ajar.

Gideon got up and closed it.

“There seems to be only one cup,” Prudence observed, taking up the teapot. “Jenkins does not look kindly upon intruders at any time of the day.”

“No matter. I prefer coffee anyway. As I was saying, I needed to find out what had brought Harriet to my doorstep so that I’d know what I was getting into. Then you and I could have discussed it openly and we could at least have had a civilized good-bye. Why did you just up and run like that as if there was something to run from?”