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Authors: Julie Anne Long

BOOK: The Secret to Seduction
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“Of course,” she repeated, her voice faint. She turned her head away toward the window again. He thought he saw despair shadowing her face briefly; it was gone again as swiftly. It echoed his own, played upon his guilt. And guilt made him angry, both with himself and with her.

Bloody hell.

But he had done the right thing. He wouldn’t be the first man to have a marriage foisted upon him, and she wouldn’t be the first dissatisfied woman.

How on earth would they get beyond this awkward moment and go on with the rest of their lives?

“I think it shall be clear for the next few days. No snow. The Special License should arrive in a timely way,” she said finally, surprising him.

“How can you know?”

“I’ve learned a thing or two in Tinbury.” She said it with a wry smile, almost to herself.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A
ND SO WHEN Sabrina finally saw her father an hour or so later, she was engaged to be a countess.

Mrs. Bailey, who seemed to know all, directed her to the room where her father sat. She paused in the doorway and watched him a moment turning as he slowly scanned the glories of the wallpaper, the vases, the fireplace carvings. Sabrina smiled as she watched the vicar shake his head slowly to and fro in bemusement.

And then he turned and saw her. He hesitated a moment before stepping forward to kiss her on both cheeks, then held her hands in his. They settled side by side on the settee.

“Papa…are you ashamed?” She burst out with it, needing his forgiveness, his comfort.

The Vicar Fairleigh looked at the young woman he’d raised from a very little girl so many years ago.

“Oh, my dear Sabrina. How could I ever be ashamed of you? I confess I
was
surprised to find you here at La Montagne, and . . .” He couldn’t quite finish his sentence, so Sabrina finished it for him in her own mind:
standing on your toes and kissing an earl.
“But I only wish for you to be happy. I never dreamed you’d one day be a countess.”

“Nor did I, Papa. It isn’t what I thought I wanted.”

“But is
he
who you want? This earl?”

It would only make her father unhappy to tell him the truth. Surely she would be forgiven this one little lie.

“He is what I want.”

The relief on the vicar’s face was her reward. Sabrina suspected the relief was rather like that on the faces of the audience when she’d made her first pianoforte mistake: now that the mistake was over and done with, the strain of
anticipating
the grand mistake was over, too.

The thought of the pianoforte made her ask her next question. “Papa?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“I have a memory…of standing near a pianoforte near a woman I think is my mother. And I’ve a memory of other little girls. It’s all very blurry, now, you see. That’s all I know.”

“You’ve never told me this before, child.” The vicar smiled gently.

“Do you truly know nothing at all about my mother?” It was a formality, really. She knew he’d told her all there was to tell.

She could tell he was searching his mind for something, anything to tell her. She was on the brink of the rest of her life, and wanted to know something of her mother.

“Well, her name was Anna, as your miniature says,” he began.

“Yes,” she confirmed. This she knew.

“And we can surmise other things about her, too, Sabrina, by just looking at her daughter. That she was beautiful, and kind. Perhaps she played the pianoforte well.”

Perhaps she was proud and passionate. Perhaps she had a temper.

Sabrina smiled at her father. He’d never complimented her so specifically before; he had always been careful to guard against vanity. Apparently now that she was about to be a married woman and a countess she could feel free to become as vain as a peacock.

But all her life Sabrina had sensed her sheer conspicuousness had made the vicar nervous. All Vicar Fairleigh had ever wanted was a quiet life. Perhaps all along he’d suspected she wasn’t destined for anything ordinary.

“And the night I was brought to you?” she urged.

“Shall I tell you that story again?”

“Please, if you would, Papa.”

It was a very short story as there was little to tell, and Sabrina knew it well, like a much-loved bedtime story. A man, a well-dressed, grieving, gray-faced man, had brought Sabrina to him. He was not a handsome man, the vicar said. But he’d seemed quietly determined.

“Was the man my father, do you suppose?”

“I wish, my dear, I could tell you. But he looked not at all like you. And you never once called him ‘Papa.’ You were crying for your mama.”

And suddenly, though Sabrina had no memory of that moment, she felt like that little girl. On the day of her wedding, she would have liked her mother to be with her.

Her father honored her silence a moment longer.

“I don’t know how I will do without you, my dear, but your husband has been a generous man.” The vicar was wry. Poverty was the besetting trial of nearly every vicar in all of England. “I hope you will be happy, my dear.”

“I shall be, Papa.” She had no way of knowing if this would ever be true, but these words were her gift to Vicar Fairleigh for taking her in so long ago.

Later, Sabrina’s future husband would remember the days that followed the kiss in the library in terms of a series of excruciating conversations, each one life-changing.

From Sabrina, he’d immediately asked Mrs. Bailey to locate Signora Licari. He wasn’t quite certain what he would say to
her,
either, but he was certain he needed to do it quickly.

Ironically, Rhys realized that he and Sophia had conducted their affair, such as it was, more or less like an opera. It had always been dependent upon emotional crescendos for its momentum, which were linked by passages of relative, if somewhat wary (on his part, anyhow) calm, during which they shared tastes in the arts and ironic conversation about members of the
ton.
But now Rhys felt a bit like an actor who had toppled from the stage into the audience, and he almost felt like apologizing. Not for being a cad and compromising another woman entirely under his own roof during a house party to which he’d invited her, but for interrupting their ongoing performance—which had suited both of them—with an unscheduled bit of clumsy reality.

And because their relationship was comprised primarily of strategy, Rhys strolled into the yellow sitting room a good hour after he’d asked Mrs. Bailey to send Sophia there.

He found the singer arranged on the settee, slim fingers drumming a leisurely tattoo against her velvet-draped thigh. This drumming might have been an indication of pique, which would be slightly gratifying, as keeping people waiting was typically Sophia’s specialty. Or it might simply be her way of keeping time to whatever music she was listening to in her head. One never knew with Sophia.

She rose gracefully when she saw him and extended her hand, one eyebrow winging upward in sardonic appreciation. She knew why he was late.

Rhys bent over that immaculately kept hand, struck by a memory of how soft and skilled her hands were in general. They’d roamed his body on numerous occasions; he’d bent to kiss them formally countless more times. Odd how he hadn’t truly given them a thought for days, though those skilled hands had, in part, been the reason he’d invited her to the country at all.

The jewel that hung around her neck now—a jewel he hadn’t given to her—was evidence that her hands roamed
other
bodies, too.

“I’m going to be married,” he said when he was upright again.

He hadn’t meant to say it quite so directly, not really. But once the words were out, he was glad he’d done so. He watched her, genuinely curious to see how she would respond.

She didn’t even blink. “Most men of your station do marry.” She sounded amused.

And this irritated him irrationally.

“I am going to be married to Miss Sabrina Fairleigh as soon as a Special License arrives. I shall be wed within days.” He said it curtly.

Ah. A swift widening of the eyes. Her lips parted a little.

And then silence, as Sophia fully absorbed that he wasn’t jesting. Briefly she turned her head away, then turned it back again.

For a moment he regretted his curtness, because he wouldn’t take pleasure in hurting her feelings. Still, he wasn’t certain whether he
could,
in fact, hurt her.

He waited. He watched the thoughts moving over her face, and then saw her draw conclusions about his announcement. Sophia was worldly, and knew his temperament. And as she knew he was not one to become overcome with
love,
she would also know he must have been overcome with something else altogether. And he must have been caught at it.

In short, she could probably guess exactly what had happened.

That’s when he actually felt himself flush.

“My congratulations,” Sophia said finally, softly. She regarded him evenly. He could have sworn she was even a little amused.

“Sophia—,” he said swiftly.

He stopped. He didn’t know how he intended to finish his sentence. He hadn’t intended to hurt her or even wound her pride, as she was a proud woman, and rightfully so. And she didn’t appear to be hurt. Then again, it was often impossible to know what Sophia was thinking. All the delicious, dramatic spikes of their relationship had spared them the necessity of honest communication. Which, in part, was why the relationship had suited them both.

“I shall depart straightaway,” she said briskly.

He didn’t argue with her. “It might be best. You may use my carriage.”

She nodded. She had taken this for granted, of course.

“And I will see you in London?” She smiled. This she took for granted, too.

Relieved that at least some things would continue as always, Rhys’s smile was warmer. “Of course. Very soon.”

He raised her hands to his lips as a promise.

And so there passed several days that taxed the manners of all present, but everyone seemed to tacitly decide that the most comfortable solution was to forget that Sabrina had been caught kissing the earl and had perhaps dashed the hopes of another man, and to rejoice in the approach of a wedding. After all, an earl, even a notorious one, was a much better catch than a curate, and even the curate—soon to be vicar—in question was expected to accept this.

Geoffrey had removed himself to the vicarage at Buckstead Heath. The pleasant collective delusion did not extend to expecting him to perform the wedding ceremony, or attend it, for that matter. Apparently he had quite graciously accepted the living extended to him by his cousin. Another clergyman from a town some distance away from Buckstead Heath had been pressed into service, as her father would be a guest.

Her husband’s alleged mistress had also discreetly disappeared, returned to London for an important singing engagement, or so the rest of the company was told.

Sabrina saw her future husband only at dinners with the other guests, where he was politely solicitous but not attentive, and where much discussion of the weather (cold) and the house (pretty) took place, and very little was eaten by the bride-to-be.

Sabrina both wished she knew what the Earl of Rawden, Rhys Gillray, her future husband, was thinking, and was glad she didn’t know.

Being an earl had its distinct advantages, and despite the bad weather, the Special License arrived quickly. The wedding, small and quiet, was held early in the morning at the ancient church at Buckstead Heath. Sabrina wore a walking dress, and in her bodice she’d tucked the miniature of her mother, for she would have liked her mother to attend her wedding. The groom wore fawn-colored trousers, tall boots, and a dark coat that somehow made his eyes more vivid, his face more pale.

And of her wedding day, Sabrina knew she would remember this: his blue eyes fierce but otherwise enigmatic, his warm hands gripping her cold ones, keeping them from trembling. A ghost of a rueful smile on his mouth as he looked down at her. He never did look away from her, in fact. It was such a little thing, but it somehow gave her strength, for he alone perhaps understood what moved through her mind at the moment, as similar things doubtless moved through his.

And then the words were said, and it was over, and she was a countess.

She’d always thought her wedding, when it was held, would be held in spring, with the air soft and warm, and blossoms just beginning to break out on the trees. Not this still, cold day, with a sky so blue it made one blink to look at it, and snow becoming muddy and gray lining the roads, and the branches of the bare trees surrounding the church looking as complicated as snowflakes. The winter had indeed come early and hard.

Another thought crossed her mind: It
had
been an omen.

Silly as it was, she felt somehow vindicated.

“Don’t go, Mary.” Sabrina knew this was a futile request, and didn’t precisely mean it. Still, out the sentiment came. Mary’s trunks were being packed for her by a competent maid, so Mary stole some time alone with Sabrina after the wedding breakfast.

“Oh, Sabrina. You know I cannot stay. You’re a wife now.
And
a countess,” she added with relish. “I must say I’m awfully pleased to be on such intimate terms with a countess.” Mary squeezed her hand. “Where is your handsome husband?”

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