The Earl's Practical Marriage

by Louise Allen

  ‘I have no doubt that those with unpleasant imaginations will be counting the weeks until our first child is born,’ Laurel said coolly, ignoring her stepmother’s outraged expression. ‘I see no reason why we have to make a great parade of our wedding for the curious. Provided the Marquess does not require the town house, of course.’ Honeymooning with her new father-in-law would be nearly as embarrassing as sharing the house with Stepmama.

  ‘No danger of that. Parliament is not sitting, of course, so my father will stay at Thorne Hall for the summer. Our engagement has improved his health wonderfully—I expect he will be out riding the estate and making life hideous for his steward before much longer. I am certain that he will be delighted to assist you in any way with your move to the Dower House, Lady Palgrave.’

  ‘When shall we go?’ Suddenly the prospect of marriage to Giles was a reality, whereas before it had seemed dreamlike. He had made love to her, he had agreed to elope with her, he understood her. All those doubts, all the little niggling suspicions that he was holding something back, that he was not being completely open with her, seemed to have evaporated.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ he asked. He was laughing at her, she realised. Not mocking her, but amused by her excitement, just as he had laughed with her when they were children. So often she had been the one to have the madcap ideas, but it had been Giles—quiet, studious, apparently un-dashing Giles—who had put them into operation and had made them work, just as he was doing now. Although where that quiet, studious boy has gone...

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Tomorrow. I can be ready if you can.’ She threw it out almost as a challenge.

  ‘But your clothes!’ Her stepmother seemed to be wringing her hands.

  ‘London has no shortage of excellent shops and is full of modistes who would be delighted with the prospect of creating Lady Revesby’s new wardrobe just at a time when the city is quiet,’ Giles pointed out. He leaned closer and whispered, ‘Besides, you will not need clothes on honeymoon.’

  ‘I wash my hands of both of you,’ Lady Palgrave said, as she virtually tossed her pen into the tray. ‘You will at least keep me informed of your plans to return here?’

  ‘Of course, ma’am. If London becomes too hot as the summer progresses we may go to the coast—but rest assured, you will have at least three months to remove to your new home.’

  * * *

  The next morning Laurel felt a certain longing to have at least three days to relocate to her own new home. Binham had enlisted every maid in the house to assist with packing and the footmen had been staggering up and down stairs until well into the evening, but the big travelling coach was finally loaded with trunks and bandboxes. Binham herself, rigidly disapproving of both this informality and haste and the company of Dryden, Giles’s manservant, was sitting amidst the luggage clutching Laurel’s dressing case as though that might protect her from whatever the valet had in mind to pass the journey.

  Bridge followed on, driving Giles’s curricle with another groom on one riding horse and leading Arthur, and the cavalcade was led by an elegant travelling chaise borrowed from the Thorne Hall stables.

  ‘This must be the least discreet elopement in history,’ Laurel commented as Giles handed her into the chaise. ‘So much for slipping away to be married with no fuss.’

  ‘A procession like this would certainly be somewhat incongruous on the road to Scotland,’ he agreed, settling beside her on the blue-plush upholstery. They waved to Lady Palgrave and the staff lined up on the steps to see them off and then sank back with perfectly co-ordinated sighs of relief. ‘Alone at last,’ Giles said as the carriage turned on to the road that led towards the turnpike.

  ‘Mmm.’ Laurel stifled a yawn. ‘Goodness, I hardly got a wink of sleep last night. We were packing until eleven and then I kept waking up thinking of things that I had forgotten.’

  ‘Sleep now.’ Giles put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close to his side. ‘We’ve a long way to go...’ His voice faded as she closed her eyes. Safe and secure... Giles was there, the old Giles, the friend she had always relied on, the new Giles who was her lover...

  * * *

  ‘An excellent journey, thank you, Downing, but I confess I am glad to have stopped moving and I suspect that Lady Laurel is, too.’

  The butler bowed to Laurel, who was smiling gamely as she looked around her with an air of bright attentiveness which must surely be feigned. She had slept most of the morning, then dozed again after luncheon and for the last two hours had been clearly biting her tongue so as not to demand when they were going to arrive. Not the most patient of travellers, his bride-to-be, he recalled from their encounter at Beckhampton.

  The St James’s Square house was kept in constant readiness for the family and a swift glance round told Giles that their unannounced arrival had not found Downing and his staff wanting. Only the merest hesitation on the butler’s part revealed his surprise at seeing the young master arrive with an unmarried lady on his arm and a mountain of luggage in train.

  ‘Laurel, this is Downing, our butler. Downing, Lady Laurel Knighton and I are eloping.’

  ‘Indeed, my lord? My felicitations, my lord, my lady,’ Downing said with a fair attempt at his usual unruffled dignity. ‘Which suites would your lordship wish me to prepare?’

  ‘I will have my usual rooms and Lady Laurel will be most comfortable in the Rose bedchamber, I believe. Here is her woman now. You really do not want my late mama’s suite, Laurel, trust me. Gloomy rooms, they need redecorating and besides, they are on the floor below. Yes, Downing?’

  ‘Might I enquire if your lordship’s presence in London is widely known? Will you be receiving visitors, for example, my lord?’ Downing gazed at a spot about a foot above Giles’s head. ‘The Marquess is...’

  ‘The Marquess knows all about it, so does Lady Laurel’s stepmother. We are not so much eloping as avoiding a large wedding. Let me see—if I can get the licence tomorrow, then we can be married the day after and I’ll send out the announcements. Until then I suppose we had best not be at home to callers. And please ensure that the staff are officially unaware of Lady Laurel’s presence in this house until after the wedding. I want to avoid gossip.’

  ‘All the neighbours must have noticed your arrival.’ Laurel gestured towards the vehicles at the kerb and the grooms with the horses. They were effectively blocking the street and already people had stopped to stare.

  ‘I will be out tomorrow sweet-talking the Archbishop’s chaplain and you will be out and about shopping, I have no doubt. We will not be at home to be called upon. Can the kitchen produce some supper in half an hour, do you think, Downing?’

  ‘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.’

  He had forgotten her sense of the ridiculous. It had always amused him and it did now. ‘I suspect that all men snore.’

  ‘That is a blow.’ She wrinkled her nose in thought. ‘I know the answer—separate bedrooms for us, my lord.’

  ‘We will see about that, my lady,’ Giles said with an exaggerated leer that made her laugh out loud.

  Hell, but I want her.

  Even as he thought it he saw the dark smudges under her eyes, the way she had leaned back into the support of the chair, the way the laugh faded away to a smile. Laurel was bone weary with travelling and with the emotional impact of what they had agreed to do. What he felt and what he wanted did not matter, Giles realised, only what was best for Laurel.

  ‘And you are going to your chaste and lonely, but very comfortable, bed just as soon as you have finished that tartlet.’

  ‘As my lord commands.’ There it was again, that flash of mischief, the way she had always teased him, never allowing him to take himself too seriously.

  ‘Are you going to be a disobedient wife, Laurel?’ He got to his feet and rang the bell.

  ‘I believe I will be. I have had nine years of being so very good, you see. I think I am long overdue my rebellion,’ she said as he pulled out her chair for her to rise. As the door opened to admit Michael, the footman, her wicked smile vanished to be replaced with one that was perfectly demure. ‘Goodnight, my lord.’

  ‘Michael, escort Lady Laurel to her suite. Is her woman there? If not, send her up.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. I believe that all is in readiness for her ladyship.’

  ‘Goodnight, my dear.’ He permitted himself a chaste kiss on her cheek, tried not to notice the fleeting caress of her hand on his shoulder, the scent of lily of the valley, the way her eyelashes curled on her cheek when she closed her eyes for a second. When had his skinny little friend become this beautiful, disconcerting woman?

  * * *

  ‘It is exceedingly difficult not having any acquaintances to make recommendations for shops,’ Laurel observed as the carriage made its way through Mayfair side streets. They were in search of one of the modistes whose name she and Binham had gleaned from scouring through the pile of fashion magazines that Peter, the footman, had produced that morning. ‘I assume that if a particular dressmaker has a design featured in La Belle Assemblée or the Repository then she must be fashionable, but for all one knows she could have paid the publishers to be included.’

  ‘These gowns do seem to be in the first stare, my lady.’ Binham passed her a print of a ball gown worn by a willowy brunette with improbably tiny feet, who was posed against a broken pillar in the Tuscan style, one hand dramatically raised to her brow.

  ‘Tomorrow for the wedding I shall wear my new rose-pink
morning dress with the dark green pelisse and kid shoes,’ Laurel said, looking askance at the pose in the print. If ladies were supposed to throw themselves into attitudes she was going to feel very self-conscious. ‘There is no hope of getting anything ready to wear and I do not want to reveal the fact that I need a gown to be married in. Have you the list? I think this must be Madame Ranier’s shop.’

  The double-fronted shop was painted a tasteful mint green with touches of gilt and the windows displayed single gowns, draped over velvet stands and accessorised with a few well-chosen items. ‘This looks acceptable, my lady.’

  ‘I agree.’ Laurel gathered up her reticule and descended on to the pavement. Fashionable dressmakers could be as snobbish as the grandest dowager, she had heard. She fixed a faint, aloof smile on her lips and swept into the shop.

  ‘Madame?’ The smart assistant was certainly promising. At the rear of the shop a curtain moved. Laurel assumed she was being assessed.

  ‘I am Lady Laurel Knighton. I require an extensive new wardrobe and as I am unfamiliar with London I am hoping to find a modiste to suit me.’

  The curtains parted and a middle-aged woman with dyed black hair and a figure that suggested the most rigorous corseting emerged. ‘My lady. I am Madame Ranier. I would be most happy to show your ladyship some of our work.’ Sharp black eyes flickered over Laurel’s face and figure.

  She could almost read the thoughts. Not in the first blush of youth, no ingénue. Well-made outfit, superior maid. Private carriage with a team of four.

  ‘Hortense, a chair for Lady Laurel.’

  ‘Thank you. I trust I may count upon your discretion, madame?’ She lowered her voice and the modiste came closer. ‘I am to be married very shortly. My future husband and I wish to avoid the vulgar display of a public wedding, you understand. In his position...’ She let her voice trial off suggestively. ‘My wedding gown is, naturally, already made, but I require morning dresses, walking dresses, a riding habit and, perhaps, at this stage, two evening gowns. And I need them as soon as possible.’