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‘You are getting Alice, but you are also getting a husband who is going to hate you—and he didn’t care for you too much to start with!’ Mab knelt to roll on the stocking, tutting over Laura’s swollen ankle.
‘Avery will not show his feelings for Alice’s sake,’ Laura said, praying she was correct. ‘And I will make him a good wife.’ Somehow I must make amends.
‘He’ll not forgive you,’ Mab warned. ‘He’s a proud man used to having his own way, used to being in control. You’ve trapped him in a net of his own honour.’ She stood and began to stick pins into Laura’s tangled hair with emphatic force. ‘You’ve got a tiger by the tail, my girl. Let go and he’ll eat you alive.’
*
Avery waited until Laura had been bundled out of the room by her maid, waited until Darke put his head round the
door and retreated, wary and silent, to fetch hot water, and then swore viciously and inventively until he ran out of words. When he looked down, the sheet between his hands was ripped across.
Thank heavens he had not asked her to marry him before she had revealed her true nature, not let her glimpse the feelings he had not been able to acknowledge to himself until those moments when he had held her in his arms and thought he had read truth and pain and some stirring of emotion for him as a man.
Now his questions had been answered. He could not trust her, she was as manipulative and deceitful as he had feared. She had told him yesterday evening as clearly as it was possible that the thing she wanted most in the word was the thing that had been stolen from her. Alice. Avery smiled, with a bitter kind of satisfaction. Laura thought she had trapped him, cock-led him into matrimony. All that had happened was that she had betrayed herself, armed him thoroughly against her future wiles. There was nothing she could negotiate with now and he had what he wanted, a mother for Alice whose devotion to the child was assured.
Darke eased himself in from the dressing room and cleared his throat. ‘Your shaving water is ready, my lord. Will you require me to shave you this morning or…?’
‘I will shave myself.’ Avery looked down at his clenched hands. ‘No, you do it, Darke.’
*
Twenty minutes later he sat back in the chair, chin raised while Darke negotiated the tricky sweep around his Adam’s apple, and resumed the outward calm that had seen him through one duel and numerous diplomatic crises. Laura Campion was just one more crisis to be dealt with.
‘My lord!’ Darke stepped back, the razor dangling from his hand. ‘My lord, I almost… I am so sorry, I do not know what came over me.’
‘My fault, I moved abruptly.’ Avery dabbed gingerly at his throat and regarded the bloodstained towel with a rueful smile. ‘I hope you can dress the cut or the guests are going to assume I would rather cut my own throat than wed.’
‘Hah, hah,’ Darke rejoined, clearly uncertain whether that was a jest or not. ‘I am sure no one could think such a thing. A very delightful young lady, if I may be so bold as to offer my congratulations, my lord.’
‘Yes, thank you, Darke.’ Avery sat back in the chair and allowed the nervous valet to complete the shave. Laura. He had thought himself armoured against her—it seemed his nerves were not as steady as he had thought.
*
Avery went down for breakfast with a dressing on his throat under his neckcloth and an expression of complete blandness on his face. The breakfast parlour was almost full of house guests all eating very, very slowly in the hope of catching the scandalous lovers when they came down.
He smiled amiably, returned mumbled Good mornings with studied calm and sat down. ‘Something of everything,’ he said to the footman. ‘And coffee.’
‘You have a good appetite this morning, Falconer,’ Simonson said and then blushed when two ladies giggled and several gentlemen cleared their throats noisily.
Avery regarded him steadily for a moment. ‘Indeed I have. This excellent country air, I imagine.’
Lady Birtwell entered and the men got to their feet as she cast a repressive glance around the table and announced, ‘The carriages will be at the front door at ten for morning service. For those who wish to walk, it takes twenty minutes and one of the footmen will direct you.’
From the expressions around the table it was obvious that the fact this was Sunday had escaped almost everyone, swept up in the delicious scandal bubbling in their midst. Avery accepted a plate of eggs, bacon, sausage and kidneys and made himself eat. He could not recall ever being so purely angry.
There had been fury mixed with grief and guilt over Piers’s death, he had been more than annoyed when he discovered Laura Campion in London and realised what she was doing, but now he was conscious of little else but a desire to shake her until her sharp white teeth rattled in her head. It did not help that some of the anger was directed against himself.
He made himself converse with his neighbours on topics that were suitable for a Sunday which, eliminating horse racing, royal scandal, the latest crim. con. cases in the courts and most plays, none of which would have been approved by their hostess, rather restricted discussion.
There was a desultory exchange underway about the death of an ancient royal cousin and whether court mourning would be decreed when the door opened and Laura came in, leaning heavily on the arm of one of the footmen. The gentlemen rose to their feet and then sat again when she took her place, reminding Avery of a flock of lapwings, alarmed at a passing hawk, rising off a ploughed field and then settling back.
‘Good morning,’ she said generally, then, ‘Tea and toast, please,’ to the footman.
‘You are very pale this morning, Lady Laura,’ Lady Amelia said with sweet smile. Avery regarded her with dislike. How the blazes had he thought this sharp-tongued cat might have made a suitable wife? Laura’s judgement had been quite correct.
‘My ankle is very painful,’ Laura said. ‘How kind of you to be so concerned.’
Avery almost smiled before he recalled how furious he was with her. The wretched woman looked, pallor aside, completely calm. Actress, he thought. No shame, not an iota.
