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Laurel got up at five and unlocked the door before there was any chance of Binham coming in. Although when she looked in the mirror at her face and then saw the bed, churned into a tangle of sheets by a sleepless night tossing and turning, the maid would have to be working with her eyes closed not to notice that something was amiss.
Giles had tried the door last night, had knocked, but had gone away without trying to speak to her when she had made no reply. Perhaps he, too, was trying to hide this from the servants. At least he had come home very soon after she had left him. He had not been somewhere with his Beatriz.
Cold water splashed on her face made her feel more alert. Was Giles awake? Had he, like her, lain sleepless all night? Her robe was on the floor, kicked there during the night. Laurel put it on, jammed her feet into her slippers and went across the landing. She was not going to skulk in her bedchamber, waiting for Giles to produce whatever explanation, or ultimatum, he was planning on. Either he was feeling at least as bad as she was, or he was asleep and she would wake him, catch him unawares and get the truth out of him that way.
Then she stopped, went back and sat on the bed and twisted her wedding ring, shiny and new, round and round on her finger. Once she had believed the worst of Giles and had so nearly ruined lives as a result. She had sworn to herself to trust him, so this time she would, she resolved, getting to her feet. She would listen and she would talk and she would understand. And then she would judge, because she loved him and love, surely, did not condemn.
The door was unlocked and she did not knock. Giles was out of bed, sitting slouched in a low armchair by the window, tossing
some small object from hand to hand. He was wearing a heavy green-silk robe, his feet bare and she sensed that he had not slept. Perhaps he had been there all night.
She could have sworn she made no sound entering, but he looked round and came to his feet in one rapid, fluid movement, stuffing the thing he had been playing with back into a pocket. ‘Laurel.’
‘Giles.’ She closed the door and went to sit on the window seat, her back to the light. There was no reason why she should let him read her expression, not yet, and she was very interested to see his. As she tucked her feet up on to the cushions and pulled the skirts of the robe around her she wondered a little at her own calm. Shock, perhaps.
‘Are you—? No, of course you are not all right.’ He stayed on his feet, facing her, the chair between them.
‘I would like you to explain, please.’
Giles stared at her, his eyes narrowed as though trying to pierce the veil of shadows hiding her expression. ‘You want me to explain? You sit there calmly giving me the opportunity to explain?’ He looked not just puzzled by her behaviour, he seemed...hurt?
As though I have wounded him, she thought and suddenly understood.
‘You think because I am not weeping or shouting that I do not care? That because I seem calm, then this is of no importance to me—that you are of no importance?’
Yes, that is just what he thinks, the idiot man.
He was braced, ready for her reproaches, her anger, his shoulders rigid, like a soldier facing a firing squad. He had slept no more than she had, to judge by the dark smudges under his eyes, the colour of his skin, pale under the fading tan.
‘You have every right to be distressed, angry, hurt and to say so. I have never known you to hold back before from telling me your feelings. I can only assume you do not care enough. And I cannot blame you. I rushed you into this marriage, I told you nothing of my past in Portugal.’
‘Nine years ago I rushed to a conclusion and caused a catastrophe. I hope I can learn from my mistakes, Giles.’ Somehow she was keeping her voice steady, which surprised her. Perhaps because this was simply too important to let anything stand in the way of honesty between them. ‘When I promised to marry you I also promised myself that I would trust you. I am trusting you now to tell me the truth and then you can rely on me to tell you how I feel.’
‘Hell.’ Giles scrubbed both hands up over his face. ‘I do not deserve you, Laurel.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘No, you do not deserve me,’ Laurel agreed readily and surprised a twitch of the lips out of Giles.
‘I met Beatriz at the Court in Lisbon. She was very heavily chaperoned, but my credentials were good, I was with the British Mission, I was acceptable as a dance partner. She is a very graceful dancer, she is beautiful, she was fun to flirt with.’ He sat down in the chair, facing her, letting her study his face and weigh his words. ‘She is very young, of course, and sheltered and, I fear, rather silly.’
Laurel blinked. ‘Rather silly’ was hardly a lover’s expression.
‘She had been betrothed since she was an infant to an aristocrat of the royal blood. Unfortunately they never met, so she was able to tell herself it was not a reality—until the day when she finally encountered him. The poor man is hardly a very prepossessing specimen and much older than she is. She was violently upset, all her romantic ideas and daydreams shattered. I cannot say I blame her, any young woman would find him a disappointment.’
‘I do not understand how you come into this.’
‘I had flirted with her, talked to her, made a bit of a pet of her, I suppose, unwisely. It never occurred to me that she might be getting...attached. One evening I found her in the conservatory in floods of tears, tried to comfort her, ended up with an armful of sobbing, distraught female. Her mother found us, me doing nothing more lascivious than attempting to mop up her tears with a large square of best Irish linen, but she was seriously worried that there was something else going on.
‘I had a most uncomfortable interview with her father, but I did, thankfully, convince him that nothing untoward had occurred. I could always leave the country, but if her reputation was tarnished it would have been appalling. It never crossed my mind that what she felt for me was anything more than a silly fairy story she had told herself as an escape from the reality of who she had to marry, because of course I had to stay right away from her. And, thank heavens, the French were defeated, part of the Mission was sailing for England and I got permission to go with them.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about her?’
‘I thought it was all past, a storm in a teacup. I had no idea that Dom Frederico might come to this country, let alone that he would bring his family with him. Certainly not that we would find ourselves living virtually next door to them. I did not believe that it would do any good to rehearse my past.’ He shifted, looking uncomfortable. ‘Besides, I did not want to talk about the poor girl, however foolish she was and however blind I was to how she might feel about me. It did not feel right to speak of her unhappiness.’
‘No. I can understand that.’ And she could and admired him for it. Another man, someone less secure in themselves, could have made an amusing story out of the foolish girl’s desperation and infatuation, but he had not.
