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‘I do beg your pardon, ma’am.’ Laurel sidestepped and, inevitably, the other woman did, too, so they were still face to face.
But surely I know you?
The words were almost out of her mouth before she realised that the reason the stranger seemed familiar was because she looked like Laurel, although several years younger. Dark hair, dark brown eyes, decided eyebrows, a full mouth, close to the same height. But this was not a mirror. The other woman was far more of a classical beauty than Laurel—her nose was just the right length, her brows arched more elegantly, her mouth was not quite so wide.
‘We are neighbours,’ she ventured, then hesitated when instead of the expected polite smile or greeting she received a stare of unmistakable suspicion. ‘Good day to you.’ Laurel turned on her heel and marched up the steps, smarting at the snub.
There was no sign of Giles in the front hall, but he had apparently only just come in, for Downing was holding his hat and cane.
‘Well, really! The rudest woman has just come out of a house next door but two, Downing. Did you see her? We were blocking her path, so I apologised and smiled and said something about us being neighbours and she looked at me as though I had insulted her and cut me dead. And the ridiculous thing is, she looks just like me—it gave me quite a start. Mind you,’ she added, ‘I would not be seen in that poisonous shade of pistachio green with so many flounces. Who lives in that house, do you know?’
‘That must be a lady from the newly arrived foreign gentleman’s household, my lady. I believe they are Spanish. It was a most regrettable encounter, my lady. I do not like to think of anyone treating you rudely, let alone a neighbour. It does not bode well for the tone of the Square if new residents are not courteous.’
Laurel shrugged. ‘It cannot be because she disapproves of me, because she cannot know anything about us. Probably she was piqued because my walking dress is so much more flattering to our colouring than hers is.’
Downing made a sound that was possibly agreement. ‘His lordship is in the drawing room, my lady.’
She opened the door and glanced inside. Giles was engrossed in a letter, sitting with one hip hitched on to the table, the rest of the post scattered beside him. She watched him for a moment, enjoying the way the sunlight from the undraped window showed off his profile and picked up the sun-bleached highlights in his hair.
That hair, the golden colour of the southern sun that his skin still held, set off a train of thought that she did not quite understand. She was uneasy, she realised.
Laurel stepped back into the hall, pulling the door gently closed behind her. ‘Downing, do you think you can find out exactly who is living in that house? Their nationality and, if possible, their name?’
‘Certainly, my lady. I have in fact just despatched Peter on just that errand.’
‘With what excuse? He can hardly march up to the front door and demand to know who lives there.’
‘He will go down the area steps and knock at the tradesman’s entrance. He is a bright lad with, if you will excuse me mentioning it, my lady, rather a way with the girls. He will find an excuse for calling and then, shall we say, charm his way inside, have no fear.’
‘Good. It is not that I mind that woman’s hostility, exactly, but it is disturbing. And Lord Revesby was in the Peninsula and not all the inhabitants would be exactly friendly... Many of the Spanish sided with the French, for one thing.’
‘And with his nuptials imminent we do not want his lordship disturbed. I quite agree, my lady.’ Downing permitted himself a faint smile.
Laurel went back to the drawing room, making enough noise as she entered to make Giles look up from his letter. He tossed it on to the table and stood up.
‘Did you succeed with the licence, Giles?’
‘Yes, there was no problem with it, thankfully. There was something of an interrogation and I had to take an oath, but it seems I look respectable enough to convince a clerk in holy orders that I am who I say I am and that you are of age and willing to marry and so on and so forth. I will send one of the footmen to collect it later today—apparently the actual document is a parchment the size of a small tablecloth and encumbered with a seal and ribbons and goodness knows what else, so they do not hand them out there and then. I called on the vicar of St James’s, close by on Piccadilly, and he is willing to marry us tomorrow morning at ten, if that is not too early for you? He says we should have the church to ourselves and can provide a verger and his clerk as witnesses.’
With a special licence they could have married at the house but, much as she wanted to avoid fuss, that seemed rather hole-and-corner to Laurel and she was glad Giles had not suggested it.
‘It never occurred to me that there might be a difficulty, but I suppose you have been out of the country for so long that you are not generally recognised. It is very trusting of them to hand out licences so easily with only the man there. After all, for all they know, you might be an unscrupulous fortune hunter tricking me into marriage.’
There was a deadly little silence, then Giles said, ‘I believe my family is sufficiently well known for there to be no question of that in their minds.’
‘Yes, of course. An ill-chosen jest on my part,’ she said hastily. What was wrong with Giles? She had never known him to get on his dignity like that—he had positively snapped at her. Was he regretting their match, or their decision to virtually elope? Or perhaps it was simply the apprehension that anyone might feel before making such a drastic change to their lives.
It occurred to Laurel that she, too, was making a drastic change, one even greater than Giles’s. After all, she was not used to high society and town life. Perhaps he was concerned that she would struggle to become a fitting countess, let alone, eventually, a marchioness. Strangely she felt no apprehension about it. She was well educated, reasonably intelligent, raised to be a lady—she would learn the details of her new life soon enough.
Perhaps soothing an irritable husband was a necessary skill. And he would soon see that she could rise to whatever occasion she was confronted with, even if she had spent nine years as a rustic wallflower. That conjured up a picture of the straggling wallflowers that seeded themselves into any nook and cranny of brickwork around the garden.
‘What is amusing you?’ Giles had recovered himself again. He was tired and anxious that she was all right and the wedding would go well, that was all, she told herself.
‘Just a foolish image as I followed a train of thought. Now, let me wipe that smile from your lips by recounting the tale of my shopping expedition. As you have not told me what my allowance is to be, I have spent as I pleased, have opened accounts all over the place and have told them to send all the bills to you.’
‘I will inform my banker to brace himself,’ he said with a grin. ‘Now, a late luncheon is ready, I believe.’
Laurel remembered that she was hungry and found that the cook was as capable of producing a delicious cold collation as she
