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‘I would not have wanted to hear about it unless I had to,’ Laurel said. ‘It was her secret. You are right—you should have been more alert to her feelings, more cautious. But telling me all about it would have been rather like those married men who are unfaithful just once, then feel they have to confess all to their wives which eases their conscience and makes their wives utterly miserable. Not that you were being unfaithful to anyone, of course.’
‘That is remarkably understanding of you,’ Giles said drily. ‘I had expected anger and hurt.’
‘I am not exactly happy,’ Laurel countered, equally dry. ‘But I cannot see what good it will do either of us for you to be wallowing in guilt over something that you should not feel guilty about. Your intentions in Portugal were innocent and you acted honourably to retrieve the situation and you married me in good faith. The only thing I do not understand—’
‘What is it?’
‘Never mind.’ It was tactless in the extreme and it was her fault for falling so easily into a frank exchange. The relief of finding that Giles would speak of this with openness had made her careless.
‘No, tell me, Laurel. We are stripping the truth to the bone this morning, are we not?’
She grimaced at the brutal analogy. ‘It is just that... I expect that Beatriz is finding it difficult to cope with a strange country and language as well as the shock of finding you are married and that is why she is behaving rather...foolishly.’ It was impossible to think of a less pejorative word, but it was, she supposed, better than idiotic, which is what came to mind. It did make things worse, the realisation that the adult Giles had been as enchanted by a lovely face as his adolescent self had been.
He recognised that Beatriz was, as he put it, rather silly, but he had still flirted with her because she was beautiful. The fact that she, Laurel, was now accounted good looking was no balm to the remembered hurt of the plain girl that she had been. Beatriz appeared to be a type that attracted Giles—was that why he had proposed to her, because she looked very much the same?
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, wary now.
Speaking of her own youthful insecurities was both damaging to her pride and pointless. Laurel braced herself for the reaction to her apprehension about Beatriz. ‘She could not seem to grasp that as we were married then there was nothing she could do about it. That you had, quite properly, broken off contact with her and that just because she was now in England it did not make things any different. It was like talking to a toddler, trying to reason with them and explain that no amount of crying and screaming was going to make things different from what they are.’
‘Hell. You think she will create trouble?’ Giles scrubbed his hands over his face again, the rasp of his morning stubble just audible, they were sitting so close.
I love the feel of that roughness on my skin first thing in the morning. Oh, Giles, just when I thought that marriage was going to be straightforwardly delightful. I am the foolish one.
‘I thought it was just me,’ he admitted suddenly. ‘I thought that I was so shocked that I could not properly take in what she was saying. But she was talking about Gretna Green and refusing to listen when I told her that I was married. You are right, this could stir up one hell of a storm.’
‘She is young and she is sheltered and spoilt, no doubt. She must have thought that any man would be bewitched by her because she is so very beautiful. I expect that you are the first thing she has wanted that she could not have.’ She imagined Giles flirting with Beatriz, ignoring her foolish chatter because she was so lovely. Her spirits, which had begun to rise as they talked, plummeted again.
‘She looks like you,’ Giles said.
‘She looks like I would if my nose was not a little crooked and my teeth were perfectly even and if my chin was not quite so pointed and my eyebrows arched more and my deportment was perfect. Her eyelashes are much longer,’ Laurel said sharply, horrified to see that her fingers were curling into talons. She straightened them out as she tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘Is that is why you kissed me on the Downs? Because I looked like Beatriz? Is that why you wanted to marry me, because you had always known that she was not for you, but I am an acceptable substitute for her?’
Giles’s face seemed to tighten as though the skin had contracted over the flesh beneath. She had hit a nerve, it seemed. ‘No.’ Giles made a sharp gesture of denial with one hand. ‘I swear to you, on everything that I hold sacred, that is not why I asked you to marry me.’ He knelt before her, caught her hands in his, held on when she tried to push him away, annoyed as much with herself for her foolish suspicions as she was with him.
‘Listen to me, Laurel, please. I flirted with Beatriz and I had affaires with ladies at the Court who were looking for the same uncomplicated relationship that I was. I came back to England having ended the current liaison amiably, believing that Beatriz would be marrying her princeling and knowing, too, that I must do the expected thing and marry. And you came back into my life. And I found I must wed you and no one else.’
She looked deep into those blue eyes. The blue took her back so far into the past, almost as early as she could recall, back to Giles looking at her as he was now. Giles making promises, Giles reassuring her, Giles making her laugh. He was telling her the truth now, she sensed.
Or he is telling it as he understands it, a cynical little voice murmured in her head. He does not consciously believe he married you as a substitute for that lovely girl, but very likely he did. But then, what did you expect of this marriage? A fairy tale?
‘I believe you.’
And I love you, which probably makes me as foolish as Beatriz.
He got to his feet, her hands still in his, and tugged gently until she stood. ‘Laurel. You are my wife and I will always be faithful to you, I swear.’
He believes it, so I must also, she told herself, because once trust cracks and wavers it crumbles and falls away entirely.
* * *
Laurel’s wide brown gaze was steady on his face as though she was reading a document.
Perhaps she is, the evidence in my trial. She seems prepared to find me innocent.
He had not lied to her, but he had not told her the truth about why he married her either. But was that something he felt increasingly compelled to confess to for the sake of his own scruples or because she would want his honesty? That remark about unfaithful husbands easing their own consciences by sacrificing their wives’ peace of mind was telling.
‘Laurel, I want you. Only you, for ever and here and now. Twenty minutes ago I would have said that I was fit only to sleep, once we had spoken. Now I find that the bed is calling me, but not for sleep.’ And it was true. He was quite painfully aroused and her swift downward glance confirmed that she realised it, too.
‘We will keep each other awake,’ she said, the old wicked smile suddenly there on her lips.
