Chapter Eleven
Vanessa paced the earl’slavish sitting room while she waited for her audience with the countess. Every gilt chair leg and yard of brocade proclaimed she did not belong here.
Even the butler had looked down his nose at her, as though she wore a sign that proclaimed her low class and an actress, despite the carefully polished manners and upper-class speech she’d worked so hard to cultivate and the hours she’d spent agonizing over her appearance.
She remained waiting for over half an hour before the countess finally deigned to put in an appearance. However, Adrian’s mother was not the formidable harridan she’d expected. Instead, the countess was a slender, lovely blonde with an air of fragility surprising in someone with so much power.
As the countess entered the room, Vanessa scrambled to her feet and executed her best curtsey. “Good morning, my lady.”
The countess barely acknowledged her presence before wilting gracefully into a gilt chair. “My son is such a trial to me,” she announced, in a fadeaway voice. “Apparently, he expects me to arrange a wedding in little more than a month, and to such an... unsuitable woman.”
Flushed heat rose to Vanessa’s cheeks, but before she could protest or say something in her defense, the countess continued, “I never expected any better from Adrian, though. What sort of woman besides a fortune-hunting actress would marry the beast?”
Beast?Vanessa stared at the countess in stunned horror, shocked that the woman would speak of her son in such a manner. No wonder Adrian hid from the world. If this woman, who should’ve loved him more than anyone, chose to shun him, then how could he expect more from anyone else?
“He is not a beast,” Vanessa told her future mother-in-law furiously. “He’s beautiful and brilliant. Any woman in the world would be lucky to have him.”
“Such passion.” The countess seemed to look at Vanessa for the very first time. “Is it possible you actually care for him and aren’t just an opportunist?”
“Of course, I care for him,” Vanessa snapped, wishing for the thousandth time that she’d handled things differently that day in Adrian’s study. When he’d admitted he was Prometheus, she should have simply thrown herself into his arms, instead of continuing with her harebrained scheme of blackmailing him.
“Well, he’ll only break your heart,” the countess warned. “Such a strange boy. I don’t believe he’s capable of loving anybody.”
You’re wrong. Vanessa thought of the flash of betrayal she’d seen in his eyes when she’d made her underhanded proposal, of the fire and passion in his kiss, and knew he had the ability to love very deeply. She only hoped she hadn’t destroyed whatever tenderness he’d felt for her.
“I was half in love with you.”
Dear God, she couldn’t bear it if he ended up hating her. She promised herself she’d do everything in her power to regain whatever ground she’d lost if he’d only let her.
“Fittings for your gown will begin tomorrow,” the countess said, suddenly all business. “We’ll have an engagement party in two weeks. There will be a terrible scandal, and I’m sure the papers will make much of the beauty and the beast angle, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”
Clearly, planning parties was the countess’s forte. She forged ahead ruthlessly, completely ignoring any comment or suggestion Vanessa dared make. She seemed to enjoy being a martyr and would probably have been somewhat disappointed had Adriannotchosen to marry an actress.
From comments she made, Vanessa sensed she’d gotten much sympathy from her friends for the trials and tribulations she’d been forced to endure thanks to her strange and reclusive son.
For her part, Vanessa was content to let the countess do the planning. She had no doubt the entire event would be flawlessly executed in the countess’s hands, and she didn’t trust her own judgment. The last thing she wanted was to embarrass Adrian in front of his friends and family.
Two exhausting hours later, she was finally dismissed with orders to return the next day for her first fittings.
She was waiting in the foyer for Adrian’s coach to be brought round when she sensed someone watching her from the top of the graceful staircase.The earl.
“Miss Bourke,” he called when she lifted her gaze. “May I have a moment of your time?”
He was slightly older than Adrian but every bit as attractive. His hair was perhaps a bit darker, black instead of warm sable, and his eyes a deeper blue, but there was no mistaking the family resemblance. Her heart sank as he strode toward her down the stairs. She didn’t think she could bear yet another interrogation. Her nerves were already frayed to the breaking point.
“My lord,” she murmured, dropping into a belated curtsey. “Of course.”
He gestured toward an open door to the right. “Shall we speak in the conservatory?”
She nodded apprehensively and followed her future brother-in-law into a glass room with soaring ceilings and an abundance of greenery and flowers. An oppressive heat and humidity hung in the air, but the scent of lavender calmed her. He gestured to a stone bench, but when she sat, he continued to stand, glowering down at her.
