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‘Certainly, my lord. Peter, show Lady Laurel and her woman to the Rose Suite and see to the luggage. Michael, assist his lordship’s man. Hot water will be sent up directly, my lord.’
Laurel followed the footman with a pleasant smile for the staff that she passed. Her back was straight, her manner perfect. Giles let out a sigh of relief he had not realised he had been holding. She had grown up in a fine house, was used to servants and to formality, but she had been living quietly for years and this was the first time he had seen her faced with a difficult situation where her poise and confidence would be tested.
She had every quality he would have been looking for in a wife, he told himself—he could thank the Fates that the loss of the land and the debt had not forced him into a marriage with an unsuitable woman. What if he had been driven to marry the daughter of some wealthy merchant or industrialist looking to buy his family into the aristocracy? Worthy men, he had no doubt, but their daughters would not have been raised to be mistress of large estates.
He could offer Laurel a setting in which all her natural talents, and her character, could shine. This was a good match for her, too, but his conscience would not allow him to be easy. There was too much he was hiding from Laurel, too much he could hardly bring
himself to face.
‘...a diplomatic gentleman. Or should I say, nobleman.’ Downing had apparently been speaking for some time.
Giles pulled himself back into the present. ‘I am sorry, Downing, my attention strayed. You were saying?’
‘Lord Trencham’s house next door but three has been let to a foreign nobleman, I understand, my lord.’ Downing was efficiently directing the flow of footmen and luggage around Giles as he stood in the middle of the hall like a boulder in a stream.
With a murmur of apology he stepped aside to let the staff do their work. ‘Do we know who he is?’
‘A diplomatic gentleman is all that I have been able to ascertain, my lord. A most convenient address for his purposes, no doubt.’
‘No doubt.’ They were so close to St James’s Palace that it could be reached on foot in a few minutes, not that anyone attending Court would ever be so casual about their status. A carriage would be used, even if the wheels hardly turned two-dozen times from door to door. Which reminded him, he would need a town vehicle for Laurel and a riding horse for her. Arthur, his own grey, had come with the curricle. The practicalities of marriage would be a welcome distraction from the less tangible elements. Emotions, for one thing.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Our minds are in tune, it seems,’ Laurel said as she came into the small dining room where supper had been laid out. ‘I was going to apologise for my dreadful informality, but I see you have decided on comfort, too.’ She had changed into a simple morning dress in amber lawn with a darker ribbon trim and had caught up her hair in a more elaborate arrangement. Giles thought how well the gown suited her and how much better the less ornate style that she favoured suited her, in contrast with the frills and ornament that the Portuguese ladies of rank inevitably wore. Laurel’s beauty could speak for itself, whereas Beatriz’s loveliness had to compete with ringlets and jewellery and fringed trimmings.
Stop thinking about Beatriz.
That had been an appallingly close shave. If Dom Frederico had not been so understanding—or perhaps had not been so determined to see the arranged match go through and therefore desperate to avoid talk about his daughter—Giles could have ended up facing either an enraged father or outraged fiancé on the duelling field or causing a diplomatic incident. He wasn’t sure which would have been worse.
‘Thank you, Downing. We will serve ourselves. I will ring if we need anything.’ As the door closed behind the last of the footmen he pulled out a chair for Laurel and took the one opposite at the oval table. ‘Soup?’
‘It smells divine.’ She lifted the lid of the tureen in front of her. ‘Potage Crécy. May I serve you some?’
They ate slowly, too tired for more than a little soup and a breast of chicken with lightly cooked greens. Laurel shook her head when Giles offered her a confection of whipped cream and glacé fruits. ‘Will I mortally offend your cook if I do not? I must send my apologies for my poor appetite.’
‘You are tired. Mrs Pomfret will not expect us to demolish this feast—but she feels she would lose face if she does not serve enough for a regiment. Her nose is always vastly out of joint when Papa is in residence and he brings Anton, his French chef, with him. Laurel—’
How do I put this? Best to be quite frank.
‘The Rose Suite is opposite mine. I do not want you to feel uneasy about that. I will not be disturbing you tonight, or tomorrow night.’
‘You will not?’ Laurel looked disappointed, which was flattering, he supposed. ‘Why not?’
Why not?
‘You are tired tonight.’ That was the truth. ‘And I feel we should wait until our wedding night.’ Perhaps she would be tired then as well. It would be an emotional day. He was trying to find excuses not to sleep with her, he realised. He wanted her, wanted her in his bed, wanted her lips on his, wanted to be inside her, to be one with her. But once he had done that then she was his wife, irretrievably his wife.
And who are you attempting to fool? You are going to marry Laurel whatever your conscience is telling you. You are not going to confess to knowing about her inheritance. You are not going to tell her that it was the reason you courted her. You will marry her and you are not going to entertain some fantasy about not consummating the marriage because that would give her a way out of it. That is not an easy way to reduce your sense of guilt.
‘I do declare that you are a romantic, Giles Redmond.’ Laurel’s smile heaped more coals on his conscience. Now she was finding something likeable in his prevarications.
‘I must be. You have found me out,’ he said with an attempt at lightness.
‘I will enjoy finding out all the things about the adult Giles that are different from the youth. What other secrets are you hiding from me?’ Laurel smiled back with such warmth that he felt insensibly soothed.
‘Let me see... My three other wives, my career as a pirate captain, the fact that I snore...’
‘No! We must call it off at once. I am quite prepared to tolerate the other wives, if they are amiable, and the piracy sounds exciting, and doubtless profitable, but I cannot marry a man who snores.’
