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Or was it? There was something in her eyes—something he would not identify. Something in the set of her jaw.
God, she was so beautiful!
No. The guillotine came down again with practised familiarity. He was not to look at her. Not to see her. Not to see the outward beauty that masked a nature that was without principle or scruple.
His stepfather was speaking. ‘Xavier—what can you mean? It is all arranged. Short notice, I grant you, but—’
The priest was speaking, too. ‘Monsieur Lauran, I do assure you everything is in order. I have dispensation to conduct the ceremony here because of the particular circumstances—’
Xavier cut across him, not listening. What the priest said was irrelevant. What his stepfather said was irrelevant.
‘Armand can’t marry this girl. It is out of the question!’
His mother’s face took on an agitated expression. ‘My darling, don’t. This isn’t like you. Yes, there are difficulties, of course, but—’
His hand slashed down. ‘Difficulties? There are more than difficulties. There are impossibilities.’ His eyes flashed around them all. He took a deep breath. This was going to be hard, punishingly hard, but it had to be done. He had to tell his parents, and his brother, just why Armand could not marry Lissa Stephens. It would be painful, embarrassing, distressing—but it had to be done.
‘This marriage cannot take place,’ he said flatly, ‘for one overwhelming reason. A reason I will disclose to my brother.’
His eyes went to Lissa. She had paled, but she was looking very calm, very composed. Yet there was a shimmer of tension about her, like an aura. His gaze held hers. It was hard to make it do so, but he did it because he had to. He had emptied his eyes, to make it a tiny fraction easier.
Her gaze, too, was blank. Stonewalling him. Daring him.
Daring him to cause dissension in his family, to rend his relationship with his brother when he told him the truth about the woman he was on the point of marrying. Daring him to stop her.
He called her bluff.
‘What do you think?’ he asked, directing his speech to her. His voice was soft, deadly. ‘Do you think this marriage should proceed? Do you think my brother’s bride will make him happy?’
Now he was daring her—daring her to lie through her pearl-white teeth, and so condemn herself when he exposed the truth about her to his brother, his family.
She was speaking, and as she did his breath caught with the shamelessness of what she said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think this will be a very happy marriage.’
Her voice was steady, composed. Her eyes held his. Unblinking, expressionless. Except deep in their recesses there was something …
He paid it no attention. Instead, his eyes narrowed. His voice was even more lethal as he spoke again.
‘You think so? You think my brother will be happy, married to a bride who is nothing better than a—?’
The double doors to the hall beyond the drawing room opened suddenly. Xavier whipped around, his accusation broken off. And as he turned, he froze.
Armand was coming into the room. But slowly, very slowly. It was because he was holding out his arm to the figure beside him.
She was very slender, ethereally fair. She was wearing a long white dress, very simple in design, and her pale hair was loose, wreathed with a narrow band of blossom. One thin hand was resting on Armand’s crooked arm, pressing down on it.
She walked haltingly, limpingly forward, dragging eac
h leg, one step at a time.
She was very pretty, but her face was etched with lines of strain and pain. Intense concentration and effort sat in her eyes as one step at a time, Armand led her forward.
There was complete silence in the room.
Then, as if at an unspoken signal from Armand, his father lifted forward an armchair and his son guided the girl into it. She sank down, the stress ebbing from her face as the weight was taken from her legs. She looked up at Armand.
‘I told you I would do it,’ she said, her voice soft, low and intense. ‘I told you I would walk to my own wedding.’
