Counterfeit Countess (7 page)
“Lady Graywood will have most of those,” she pointed out.
“Then we’ll get new ones.”
She shook her head. “Why would I need jewels?”
He grimaced. “The earldom’s wealthy. We need to persuade people that the title and everything it represents is on sound footing, so we have to be confident. We’ll have to hold a gathering of our own. If we plan that, we can safely leave her ladyship to arrange it. If we agree to invite some potential suitors for her daughters, she’ll be content. And it will keep her busy.”
The prospect began to appeal to her. Rather than becoming a passive decoration, he was giving her something to do, offering her a chance to plan and manage the estate by his side. Asking for her help. A young girl, a fresh, fertile bride couldn’t do that. Neither could she stand up to the dowager, something she’d been doing for years.
His hand moved, swept up her flank to cup the underside of her breast. Such openness in bed was new to her. Heat washed through her body.
He smiled and bent to drop a kiss on her lips. “I like your blush.
It becomes you. Now will you do this?”
However illusionary, he’d given her the choice. They both knew he could compel her to do it, except she had the power of anonymity. Whatever he thought, she could hide from him. She knew how. Become another character, a different person, someone disregarded. That knowledge gave her strength, truly lent her the freedom to choose. “I’ll do it.” That was in the nature of paying off her debt to him. She’d ruin herself, wreck her character in the eyes of society when he finally repudiated her. He could continue with the notion that he didn’t remember their marriage.
Relief flooded his features. “Thank you. I’ll arrange matters first thing in the morning.” He lay down, drew her into his arms.
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“Would you prefer to keep this house?”
“Yes.” Her instinctive response, to give herself a bolt-hole, somewhere she could retreat to if she needed it. She glanced at the shadowy silhouette of her old carpetbag still resting by the door.
His plan was better than hers, that was all. The fact that she could anticipate more nights like this didn’t hurt, either.
“I’d like a house like this,” he murmured, his voice soft with incipient slumber. “Big enough, not grandiose, not pretentious, not a naked marble statue anywhere. I’d prefer a wife like you, understanding, intelligent, someone with a realistic attitude to life.”
She hardly recognised herself.
“Go to sleep,” he said, his voice gravelly with exhaustion.
Lying still, trying not to disturb him seemed to work. She could lie here all night and worry. But she didn’t. Within the space of twenty minutes, she was asleep, too.
* * * * *
The latch rattled as she tried to open it, but sometime in the night John must have got up and slid the bolts across, so it was securely fastened.
“No, I’ll get up.”
Beside her, John murmured and drew her back down into the warmth of the bed. Although it was March, spring had taken its time this year, and the chill of the morning struck through her bones. Her naked upper arm pimpled.
“Madam, is there someone in there? Are you all right?”
Robinson sounded alarmed. Any minute she might start shouting for help.
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“I’m fine. My husband is here. He called around late last night and didn’t want to disturb anyone.”
“Oh.” Then a much louder. “Oh! A boy arrived first thing enquiring after you. He told us the earl had returned. I should have thought of that. Sir, my lord, I didn’t mean to bother you. Only, time’s getting on, and cook wants to know what you want for dinner tonight before she goes to market.”
“Tell her nothing.” Cook could have decided that for herself.
She’d done it often enough. Faith suspected her maid’s curiosity had got the better of her, and she wanted to hear the remarkable incidents from the night before. “I’ll be up soon.”
“Sure about that?” John said that loud enough for anyone with sharp ears to detect, and Faith buried her head against his chest while he chuckled. They heard Robinson’s footsteps retreat along the landing and down the stairs. “All right, I’ll let you go and get dressed. Then we have to go to Grosvenor Square. As long as you promise me you won’t bolt.”
“You’ll take my promise?” After what she’d told him about lying her way into the family, why should he believe her?”
“I will.” His hands stroked her back in what should have been a soothing gesture, but felt like something entirely different.
Walking into the house in Grosvenor Square felt the same as it had yesterday, and it looked the same. Marble floors, grand clock ticking the hours away, two uncomfortable wooden hall chairs for the less fortunate visitor, a footman dressed in maroon and gold.
Faith wore one of her normal dresses, a day gown in a sensible shade of dark blue and a pelisse that, if she were honest, needed turning or replacing. But she held her head high and waited for someone to attend to her.
The footman at the door bowed low, a sign they knew who they were dealing with. Inside, the butler awaited them, taking her old pelisse without a twinge. Instinctively she wanted to move towards John, but she had to learn to cope with this grandeur on her own.
Worse. With a flurry of skirts the staff arrived. The upper servants and the lower, clattering up from the depths of the basement. They ranked in a line, and she reflected how crammed her house would be with this number of people. Faith blinked. John cleared his throat. “We’re pleased to see you. Thank you.”
At least she understood what they expected. She walked slowly down the line, allowing the butler to introduce each member of staff and fully aware of the snub Lady Graywood was subtly creating. Only when she had a word with each and dismissed them did she turn to the butler. “Hanson, where is the steward? I would have thought him anxious to meet my husband.”
Hanson didn’t reveal by a twitch that she had surprised him by her question but she caught a flash of awareness in his eyes. “Mar.
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Carlisle is in the country, constrained by a severe chill. He sends his deepest regrets.”
Faith glanced at John and he gave a curt nod. “This is the son of the man I met as a boy?”
“Yes my lord.”
“Very well.” Faith had memorised the names of the servants. “I will address the servants by name. I want to know if any leave, and why.” She disliked the habit of using the same name for a servant, the way some of the aristocracy did, the position rather than the person. She put up her chin, trying to act the countess. Inside, her stomach had turned to jelly. Just as well she had not had time for more than a bite of toast and a cup of tea this morning. John had kept her too busy for anything else.
At the reminder, she turned to him to hide her incipient blush, should she have any. She felt no heat, but from his compliments yesterday she rather thought she didn’t detect every occasion she flushed. She’d have to resort to rice powder at this rate.
“If you would come this way my lord, my lady, we have held breakfast for you, in case you care to dine.” No doubt about it, the butler’s tones held more respect.
She let him lead the way to the breakfast room on the ground floor. The family in the persons of Lady Graywood and her two daughters waited for them with every appearance of patience.
Charlotte and Louisa wore day gowns of the most shocking green colour—shocking because it managed to suit neither. They wore black armbands. Lady Graywood had already gone into deep black.
Flamboyant at home, Faith thought, but perhaps she planned to go out.
Her ladyship confirmed Faith’s worst fears when, after greeting them with every appearance of cordiality announced, “I have made an appointment with my dressmaker this morning. You will need mourning gowns.”
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Faith had not worn black today, but that did not mean she owned none. She had always refused to allow the dowager to run rough-shod over her, and she wouldn’t let it happen now. “I have a mourning gown. Only a couple of years out of date, in fact. I appreciate you making the effort, but I’ll see my own seamstress, I thank you.”
Her ladyship’s face stiffened. “Indeed, and who do you patronise?”
“Cerisot,” she said recklessly, naming the most popular dressmaker in London. “That is, as you know, I have no modiste of fashion at the moment, but I will see her later. I will need few gowns of deep mourning, but I will order half mourning too.” Her complexion tended to the sallow, and black did few people favours, unless they happened to have pale pink colouring and iron-grey hair.
Her ladyship shook her head. “It will not do.”
“I disagree.” Faith had thought of acting the innocent and letting the dowager have her way. The easier path, especially since her time here would be relatively short. But the manner in which her ladyship had loftily informed her, as if doing her a favour, that she would take her to the same dressmaker her daughters used, annoyed Faith. “We owe the late earl our deepest respect, but they were only second cousins to my husband, and a more pronounced mourning might be considered ostentatious.” She hadn’t read the society papers and stayed watching on the outskirts of society for two years for nothing. After a refreshing night’s sleep, more than she deserved, she’d decided that if she gave the dowager an inch she’d power her way through to dictate everything. While John had become the new Lord Graywood, his relationship to the previous earl was second cousin, which wasn’t close enough to merit a long period of deep mourning. Just the next few weeks, until the season started, then they could legitimately go into half mourning and muted colours.
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The countess raised both brows and reached for a piece of bread-and-butter. Faith examined her own plate that John had filled for her while she’d been speaking with the dowager. Bacon, scrambled eggs, kidneys. Very good. The fragrance reminded her that she hadn’t eaten properly for some time. Why her appetite should return when nothing was settled, she didn’t know. She still wasn’t sure if she should marry him, but had decided to give it a week. After all, if she fooled the countess too, he would have something to hold against the lady when Faith was revealed as a fraud. In the meantime, she wouldn’t let John down. She owed him that much.
If she made up her mind to disappear, he wouldn’t find her. She had friends from the army who’d help and not tell anyone. And she’d learned tricks a vicar’s daughter had no right knowing, but which might prove useful in an emergency.
“Tea or coffee?” he murmured.
“Shouldn’t I do that?”
“I have the coffee pot within reach. You do not.”
“Then thank you. Coffee would be lovely.”
So domestic, so deceptive! The undercurrents around this table could be sliced. She exchanged a glance with her erstwhile companion, who gave her a tentative smile. “Would you like one, Amelia?”
“No, I mean, I am perfectly fine, thank you.” Flustered and uncomfortable, Amelia flicked a tremulous smile and the dowager bestowed a kind one on her. Faith lifted the delicate cup, decorated with sprigs of spring flowers, and inhaled the delicious aroma of fresh coffee.
“I will send for Cerisot to attend you,” the dowager pronounced.
As if the dressmaker would come when summoned. She would only do that for existing clients, and she had so many, she needed no more. “I will visit her establishment. I need to make a few calls on my own account this morning.” If Cerisot chose to reject her,
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she would not do it by refusing to visit this house. Since Cerisot turned away as many people as she accepted, Faith could bear the rejection, knowing it would not reflect on John.
The dowager countess sniffed and Faith could have sworn on oath that she heard a phantom giggle emanating from Louisa’s place.
A footman entered, bearing refills for the dishes and it struck Faith that a great deal of waste occurred in the house, if they encouraged such practices. A countess she might be, for the time being at least, but wasteful she need not be. She added supervision of the kitchens to her list of tasks. It appeared she would have plenty to keep her busy.
After breakfast she declared she would get about her duties immediately. John accompanied her into the hall. “Would you prefer me to go with you?”
“What, and get a reputation for hanging on my skirts?” She smiled at him, enjoying his presence and his concern for her, however illusory it might be. “No, I’ll be fine. I’ll take a footman and the carriage.”
He leaned closer. “I have other business to attend to if you recall.
I will call in at Doctor’s Commons.” Only one reason for that. She cast him a glance of bewilderment, because a special licence would mean marriage for real, something he said he did not want. His eyes gleamed. “The possibility is always there and I like to be prepared.”
She quailed, as she had not at the thought of facing the most formidable Cerisot. It meant they could marry without waiting three weeks or without calling banns, that he was taking the prospect seriously.
He turned to face her, blocking out the others. “If you carry my heir, he will not be born out of wedlock.”
So that was it. She could relax, because the likelihood of that happening was remote indeed. So why did a pang of sorrow pierce her down to her womb? Her barren womb?
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Meantime she would continue as if she intended to fulfil the position of Countess of Graywood as well as she could. She could do that, at least, for him.
* * * * *
