The Earl's Untouched Bride (27 page)

'Robert!' she cried, running up the steps and bounding to his side. 'You are better today, yes?'

'Just sitting out enjoying the fresh air,' he groused. 'Don't go pestering me to go anywhere today, because I have no intention of stirring from this terrace. Which is mine, by the way.'

'How do you mean, yours?' She sat on a wooden bench next to him, her eyes alight with curiosity.

'I mean just that. The windows behind me lead directly into my rooms. Nobody is supposed to disturb me out here. Do you know you have to walk across I don't know how many lawns to get to those steps you ran up?'

'Only too well!' she snorted. 'For I have walked across them. Oh,' she said, suddenly registering what he had said, 'you wish me to leave you alone.' From his eyes she met the hostility of generations of Waltons. 'I understand.'

Leaping to her feet, she ran back down the steps and, Without knowing where she would end up, headed away from the house. Anywhere, she fumed, blinking back tears, as long as she was out of everyone's way! She blundered through a dense shrubbery to emerge on the lip of an embankment. To her amazement she discovered she had come out just above the curving carriage drive, and that beyond it a flower-sprinkled meadow undulated down to the lake.

Perhaps the grounds were not so large as she had first assumed. She would never have guessed, when she had driven along this particular stretch of the drive the day before, that she was so near the house.

She eyed the ruined tower on the island in which she had imagined Charles might lock her away. He might just as well. The servants had despised her on sight, and now even Robert, whom she thought of as a brother, had said he wanted her to stop pestering him.

Very well! She would not pester Robert to teach her to drive after all. She would get one of the grooms to do it. And prove to Charles that she did not need him
—
no, not for anything.

And then he could go back to London and forget all about her.

And she...no, she would never forget Charles. She would spend every minute of her long, lonely exile wondering what he was doing.

And who he was doing it with.

Charles paused in the doorway of the state dining room, which tonight was looking its most magnificent. The staff had polished the massive epergnes to mirror-brightness, filling them with banks of freshly cut flowers that filled the air with their perfume. A footman was going round lighting the candles already. Once he had finished, the china and crystal would glitter like jewels set against the yards of spotless damask linen tablecloth.

'It all looks splendid
—
as ever,' he said to his housekeeper. Within a week of his arrival Mrs Lanyon had reminded him that he always sent out cards of invitation to his neighbours. It was just one more tradition he wished he had never allowed to become set in stone. 'Though in future you should expect Lady Walton to oversee events of this nature.'

Fortunately for her, Mrs Lanyon refrained from making the comment which would have brought her instant dismissal. Though the way she pursed her lips told him exactly what she was thinking. Heloise had played no part in the organisation of this dinner whatsoever. Whenever Mrs Lanyon had consulted her, she had replied she must do exactly as she wished.

Though it hurt to think she disliked him so much she could not even pretend to show an interest in his social life, he could not be angry with her. Being on display for his neighbours would be an ordeal for a woman of her shy, retiring disposition. If he could only have thought of a way to cancel the dinner without insulting his neighbours he would have done so. But in the end he had decided it would be better to just get the thing over with as soon as possible. Far better for them to find out that his wife was a little gauche than for them to imagine she was unfriendly.

He had never been so irritated by the number of obligations his position brought him before. But since they had come down to Wycke every chance he might have had to get closer to Heloise had been thwarted by estate business in one form or another.

Still, he had dealt with all the most pressing business now. And once this annual county dinner was over he could devote himself almost exclusively to wooing her.

As he went along the corridor to the red salon, he wondered what lay behind her decision to get Grimwade, the head groom, to teach her to drive rather than Robert. Strolling to the window that overlooked the carriage drive, he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. To his knowledge, Robert had not stirred from his rooms since his arrival, although Linney assured him his master was recov ering nicely from the journey. He barely repressed the urge to fling the window open. Though the room felt stuffy, the air outside was even hotter, and heavy with the threat of an approaching storm. He hoped it would not break too soon. The last thing he wanted was for his guests to be stranded, so that he would be obliged to offer them hospitality.

'Do I wear the Walton diamonds?' Heloise was anxiously asking Sukey. 'Or will it look as though I am showing off?'

One did not dress so elaborately in the country. Even she knew that. Which was why she had chosen the simplest evening gown she had. But, since she had no other jewellery, it was either wear the Walton parure or nothing. She did not think Charles would wish her to look dowdy.

Though how could she look anything else? She had neither Felice's emerald eyes, nor the voluptuous figure of Mrs Kenton. With a small cry of distress, she whirled away from the mirror.

'Don't be nervous, my lady,' Sukey said brightly. 'You are the highest-ranking lady in the district, and nothing anyone might think will alter that.'

She was right. The women she'd seen wearing the Walton diamonds in portrait after portrait might disapprove of her, but she was as much the Countess as any of them. Because Charles had married
her
. Not the graceful Felice, nor the experienced Mrs Kenton, but plain, naive little Heloise Bergeron.

Anyway, these hard cold stones were all she had to prove this marriage was real. Especially since the arrival of her monthly courses, a few days earlier, had robbed her of even the faint hope that she might have conceived a child during that one brief coupling.

Straightening her shoulders, she walked across to the table on which the ancient jewel case squatted. 'I will wear the diamonds,' she said. 'All of them.'

She did not care if anyone thought she was overdressed. She clipped the earrings to her earlobes with a grimace. Though she wanted to make a good impression on the people who would form her new social circle, she had an even greater need to bolster her flagging self-esteem.

Before long she was ready to join Charles in the red salon, where Mrs Lanyon had told her he always greeted his dinner guests.

He looked magnificent in his evening clothes. He was always so immaculately dressed, so correct in all his behaviour. She itched to reach up and tousle his neatly brushed hair, to mar that perfection which threw all her own faults into stark relief. When his guests started to arrive, and saw them standing side by side, they were bound to wonder at the Earl having made such a mismatch.

The breath hitched in Charles' throat as she trailed slowly across the room to join him beside the empty hearth. She was so lovely. The simply cut gown she had chosen became her slight figure far more than some of the fussy creations he had seen adorning the so-called leaders of fashion in London. And with the diamonds glittering about her throat and wrist she looked every inch the Countess.

He was on the verge of telling her so, when she began to twist her hands together at her waist. He had got used to seeing her drooping disconsolately about the place, but this new symptom hurt him abominably. She could not bear to come within three feet of him!

He turned from her abruptly. It took him a moment or two to get himself in hand. And then he found he was standing by the sideboard. He did the only thing that came to him which might just help her. He poured a small glass of Madeira and carried it back to her.

Heloise tossed it back, wondering in what way she had failed to measure up this time, for him to walk away from her with such a grim expression. Had it been a mistake to wear the full parare? Had it reminded him of how very nearly she had lost part of it? Or did he just think she was overdressed? And if he thought so what would his guests think? Perhaps she should run back upstairs and change? Oh, but there was no time. The front door was being opened, she could hear Giddings greeting someone, and already there was the sound of more wheels crunching over the gravel drive.

Her heart pounding against her ribs, she held out her empty glass to Finch.

'Get me another,' she pleaded, avoiding her husband's gaze. It was bad enough knowing she disappointed him without encountering the full wintry blast of his eyes.

The room rapidly filled with about thirty people who had known Charles and each other all their lives. There was only one person amongst them who did not totally overwhelm her. Her name was Miss Masterson, and her father was a retired colonel. Heloise empathised with the way she sought out a corner away from the more ebullient guests, and made sure the circulating footmen did not overlook her. When Charles had gone back to London she would call on the girl, who looked as if she was of a similar age, and see if she could make a friend of her. If, that was, she could bear to enter the house of the Colonel and his bulldog-faced wife.

'Hoped to be able to meet your long-lost brother,' Colonel Masterson was booming at Charles, as though he was yards away across a parade ground. 'Military man, ain't he? Was hoping to have a jaw with him about developments in the Low Countries. Wellington's been given charge of the allied armies, d'you know? Got it from Viscount Brabourne on his way through to his hunting box in Wiltshire. Damned shame we're at war with your wife's country again. Though I'm sure,' he said turning towards her, 'you want to see Bonaparte brought to book, eh? Must support the Bourbons. Walton wouldn't have married you unless you was a Royalist, now, would he?'

'You are mistaken,' she replied, cut to the quick by his barely concealed speculation as to what on earth could have induced an Earl to marry her. 'I am very far from being a Royalist.'

She did not realise that she should have taken the time to explain she despised fat Louis and his inept government almost as much as she detested Bonaparte's ruthless efficiency until she heard the Colonel confide to his wife, in what he must have thought was a whisper, as they were processing to the dining room, 'Outrageous! He's brought a Bonapartist amongst us!' His wife managed to hush him, but she could not stop him casting suspicious looks her way throughout the meal.

Lord Danvers, who was sitting to her right at the foot of the table, opened the conversation over the soup by enquiring if she hunted.

She made the fatal error of confessing that she could not ride at all.

'Not ride?' He looked at her as though she had confessed to a crime.

Swiftly she tried to vindicate herself. 'It is considered unpatriotic, in my country, to keep a horse. Like our sons and brothers, they belong to the army of France.' The malevolent glare this comment drew from Colonel Masterson suggested he now believed she must have come to England for the sole purpose of winkling state secrets from her husband. Now he would never allow her to befriend his daughter.

After that, the conversation at the foot of the table became painfully stilted. And yet Heloise dreaded the moment when she would have to rise, signalling it was time for the ladies to withdraw. While they were confined to their seats and occupied with their food only the nearest handful of guests could attack her. She had the feeling that once she got to the music room it would turn into a free-for-all.

Lady Danvers fired the opening salvo.

'Do you play the pianoforte, Lady Walton?' she cooed. 'Or perhaps the harp? Or have you arranged something particularly French
—
' she tittered '
—
to entertain the gentlemen when they join us?'

'No,' she replied bluntly. She did not ride, she did not play any musical instrument, and she did not have a lively personality. She sighed. And if only it were true that she had ensnared her husband by the sort of French naughtiness this abominable woman implied.

With a triumphant gleam in her eye, Lady Danvers went to the sofa where Lady Masterson was sitting, settled beside her, and murmured something in her ear that caused the older lady to regard Heloise with even deeper hostility.

'Perhaps our dear Countess has other talents,' suggested the vicar's wife. 'We are all good at something. Even if it is only the art of putting the poor at ease when visiting. Or the clever arrangement of flowers. Or embroidery. Or...' Looking more and more desperate as Heloise shook her head at every suggestion the kind lady put forward, she eventually subsided.

'You mean to tell me you have no accomplishments whatever?' Lady Danvers drawled.

'I do not tell you that at all,' Heloise snapped, her patience finally running out. 'I am an artist!'

'An artist?' Lady Danvers quirked one eyebrow in distinct mockery. 'You mean you dabble about with paint?'

'No, I draw,' she replied, her heart suddenly plunging to her dainty satin slippers. Charles would hate it if these people ever found out she had tried to make money from the sale of her work. Work of which he strongly disapproved.