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‘You are squashing me, rather, Giles.’
‘I am sorry, love.’ He slid off the delicious warmth of her on to the cool, rumpled sheet.
She turned her head away abruptly. ‘It doesn’t matter, although breathing was a challenge.’
He came up on one elbow facing her as she turned back to him. He must have imagined that momentary reaction. ‘My lady, you should have woken me sooner.’
‘No. I like being that close to you, it makes me feel...’ She shivered. ‘I can’t explain. Giles—we are all right, aren’t we?’
‘I hope so.’ It was a long time since he had felt real fear, the sort that gripped the guts and sent the pulse wild and clouded the brain. The last time had been when he had flattened himself inside the hollow trunk of an olive tree with a French patrol leaning against it, sprawled in its shade, settling down for a siesta in the heat of the day. He had
been in civilian clothes, quite enough to have him shot out of hand as a spy if they had found him, or tortured to wring every last drop of intelligence from him.
Somehow he had kept still, silent, unmoving except for the constant turning of the worry piece in his pocket, over and over, rubbing against the callouses it had formed, calming him, slowing his breathing, helping him endure. The fear had resolved after two hours when the patrol had ridden off. When he had seen Laurel come into his room that morning he had felt the same sick apprehension, not of torture and death, but of discovering that he had lost her, hurt her.
‘Yes,’ he said, reaching out to touch her face. ‘We are all right, you and I. There might be some repair work to be done.’
‘With Beatriz, I am certain of it. We cannot leave things as they are. With us, I do not think so. I never stopped trusting you, Giles. You have never lied to me, I know that now. I will never leap to conclusions about you again, I have learned my lesson. It was a horrible night, last night, I will admit it. I was angry, which was why I locked the door because I could not risk saying something hasty, in temper. I had to calm myself, think it through, but I knew that somehow you would be able to explain.’
I never stopped trusting you.
Hell, if she ever discovered just how little he was to be trusted with her feelings, how he had proposed to her simply for gain, then he would have broken something unique and irreplaceable. It felt like walking on a knife edge over a precipice.
* * *
‘Where are you off to in that very fetching hat?’ Giles asked as Laurel looked round the edge of the study door after luncheon.
‘Just along the Square. I am going to pay a call on the ladies of Dom Frederico do Cardosa’s household.’
Giles got to his feet, scattering pages of a letter around him. ‘After last night?’
‘Especially after last night. You cannot possibly go round there until he is reassured that he had not been wrong to believe you innocent of anything beyond some light flirtation. And she needs to realise that no amount of pouting and dramatising herself is going to restore you to her. After that, then I am hopeful that we can all meet without fireworks going off.’
He looked so dubious that she went right into the room and kissed his cheek. ‘It will be all right, you’ll see, my—my dear.’
You called me my love this morning, so casually. I wish I could say the word as easily to you.
Laurel gave herself a brisk talking-to. There were fences to mend and bridges to build and possibly, to carry her muddled metaphors to the limit, dams to construct. She had asked Downing to send Peter to establish when the Portuguese ladies would be receiving and he had reported that, so far, they had only the smallest social circle and tended to spend the afternoons at home without visitors. That gave her hope that they would receive her, if only to break the monotony of their day.
Her card was received and she was ushered through to a reception room while the English butler established whether the ladies were At Home, but she had hardly seated herself when he reappeared to take her through.
Senhora do Cardosa was seated between two girls who must have been her daughters from their resemblance to Beatriz. She was short and stout within severe corsetry, but her hair was still glossy and black and her eyes had retained their beauty. She rose to shake hands. ‘Lady Revesby, you are kind to call. My younger daughters, Cecilia and Daniela.’ The girls rose and bobbed curtsies and sat down again without saying anything. From their expressions Laurel guessed that was shyness, and perhaps limited English, rather than any hostility.
‘We are neighbours, senhora,’ Laurel said. ‘I felt I should welcome you to London, especially as my husband knew yours in Lisbon.’ Now what would happen? She was braced for almost any reaction.
Chapter Twenty
There was no actual hostility flowing from the woman opposite her, just a great deal of reserve, but that might be normal for her. ‘He spoke of Dom Frederico’s diplomacy and...understanding.’
Ah, yes, there was a reaction, a slight tension, a flickering glance towards an embroidery hoop lying on a chair to Laurel’s right, out of reach of the two daughters.
‘I had hoped to meet your daughter Beatriz again. We spoke briefly yesterday evening, but she was not well, I think. I do hope she is not indisposed?’
Senhora do Cardosa said something in rapid Portuguese to her daughters who immediately got up, curtsied and left the room. She turned back to Laurel, lips pressed together, and looked at her for a long moment. ‘You look very like my daughter, Lady Revesby.’
‘Yes, I noticed that. She has far more perfect features than I do though, senhora.’
‘She is a foolish girl.’ Her look now was questioning.
