Kathryn Caskie - [Royle Sisters 02] (19 page)

Lady Henceforth pushed her way between the sisters. “Oh no. That will not be so nearly as diverting as the moment Anne cries off and leaves Lord MacLaren standing alone…again.” Lady Henceforth flicked her dark slash of an eyebrow. “Apsley let it slip one night, after a few too many glasses of brandy. This betrothal is a farce—a wager—and nothing more.”

Laird suddenly appeared at Anne’s side. “Are you so sure of that, Constance?”

“It was a lie from the beginning. Like all of Miss Royle’s other tall tales of heroism. She actually has a wonderful sense of imagination. You
know, I even think she might have convinced herself that she loves you.”

“I do love him.” Anne moved slowly toward Lady Henceforth and peered down at her. “I think you should leave, Lady Henceforth.”

“Oh, I shall.” She stepped backward, knocking Elizabeth deep into a gathering crowd.” In a moment. As soon as I expose the lie of your betrothal.”

“Why would you do this?” Anne asked. “I have never shown you anything but kindness.”

“Until you gave Laird that letter from Graham…making me out to be not much more than a lightskirt.” Her nostrils flared in anger. “After MacLaren came back to St. Albans with you, I saw that he had changed. I marveled at the improvement. So, then when Apsley told me about the wager, I realized that I had been given a second chance. Marrying Laird would no longer be a stain upon my name. It would be an honor.”

“The point of my showing you Graham’s letter, Constance,” Laird explained gently, “was that my brother loved you in a way that I never could. We were not meant to be together, despite what I had believed just days before. Graham’s letter proved that to me.”

Lady Henceforth’s eyes grew large. “Are you saying that you would truly choose a habitual liar from Cornwall over me?”

“I am.” Laird placed Anne’s hand on his forearm. “Look there, Anne, the dancers are taking their places on the floor. Let us join them.”

Anne’s eyes glistened as she gazed up at the man she loved. How she wished she did not have to cry off. That she could share a life with Laird as perfect as the one her sister Mary and her husband, the Duke of Blackstone, now shared. At least, she consoled herself, she could pretend…until the end of the dance set.

Anne and Laird stepped onto the floor, to a round of thunderous applause. Lady MacLaren stood beside the orchestra conductor, beaming with pride and happiness.

But then Lady Henceforth rushed into the center of the dancers. Tears of humiliation filled her brown eyes. “What a lark! What a lark, indeed,” she cried out, until the room grew still and silent. “I have just learned that our Lord MacLaren here and Miss Anne Royle are playing a grand joke on us all.”

Confused murmurs rolled through the expansive ball room.

“Yes, it’s true!” She walked in a large circle so that everyone could see and hear what she was about to say.

“Why, imagine my surprise when I learned that they are not betrothed at all!”

Chatter erupted in every corner of the room. Young women gasped, matrons swooned, and gentlemen chuckled and paid off their bets right there on the dance floor.

Anne, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, squeezed Laird’s hand. “I’m sorry, Laird, but I must do this…for you.” She turned and walked alone to the center of the dance floor.

“No, Anne—” Elizabeth’s voice pierced Anne’s focus. She could just see her sister, fighting her way back through the seemingly endless rings of onlookers circling the floor. “Stop! Please, Anne. Do not say it!”

Anne looked away. She had to do it. Had to do it now before she lost her resolve. “Lady Henceforth is right!” Anne breathed deeply as the crowd quieted. She faced Laird, holding his gaze for several precious seconds before she said what she must. “The Earl of MacLaren and I are not betrothed.”

“No!” Elizabeth cried. “Anne,
no
!”

The crowd roared, sending every bone in Anne’s body shaking. She closed her eyes for a moment to prepare for the final blow. When she finally opened them, Laird was standing at her side.

He took her hand in his and touched it to his lips. “Anne, I love
you
, and only you,” he whispered in her ear. “So please, allow me the honor.”

Lifting his other hand in the air, he signaled for silence.

Anne looked at him in utter confusion. What was he about to do?

“We are no longer betrothed. Yes, yes, it’s true.” Laird faced Anne, holding both of her hands now. “Because we are…
already married
.”

A jolt shot through Anne, and for a moment she was certain her eyes would pop from their sockets.

He was lying.
Lying to everyone!

The ballroom erupted into wild applause. Lady MacLaren signaled the orchestra to resume, and Laird swept Anne into his arms.

Tears streamed down her cheeks.

God, she loved him, but she couldn’t allow him to be connected with her. “Laird, please listen to me,” she began.

“After the dance, my love.” Laird was beaming with happiness.

“No, I must—”

Elizabeth reached her then. She grabbed Anne’s shoulders and spun her from Laird’s embrace. “Stop now, Anne, and listen to what I am telling you. You do
not
have to do this.”

“Yes, I do, Elizabeth.” Anne tried to turn again to face Laird.

Elizabeth yanked her back. “No you don’t. I burned it, Anne. There is no proof. Do you understand me? You do not need to cry off to protect him.”

A cool sweat broke over Anne’s skin. “What are you saying?”

“The register no longer exists.” Elizabeth smiled. “It’s gone. I burned it.”

“Burned it? But, Elizabeth, the register is all we had to prove—”

“No proof, no matter what it might have meant to us or even the Crown, is worth seeing my sister’s heart broken.”

“But Elizabeth, what you did is—”

“Something we shall not speak of again.” Elizabeth kissed Anne’s cheek and grinned. “Now go. Your
husband
is waiting.”

Anne slowly turned around and gazed up at Laird’s handsome lying face. God, how she loved him.

“Shall we dance, my darling?” He offered his hand to her, and when she took it, drew her close enough to share a secret wink. “After all,” he told her in a tone loud enough for anyone nearby to hear, “it will be our first—
as husband and wife
.”

Berkeley Square
The next evening

“Hear, hear!” Elizabeth cheered.

Everyone raised his glass into the air, toasting the not-so-newly-betrothed Anne and Laird, Earl of MacLaren. Everyone except Aunt Prudence, who slept, snoring softly, in the hearth-side chair.

And Lilywhite.

Sir Lumley just could not bring himself to toast the joyous couple. Not until he had confessed the secret he’d held inside all these long years. And that confession was not going to be easy.

“What is it, Sir Lumley? Are you not pleased
that your charge and I are engaged?” Laird flicked his eyebrow upward, though a smile still lingered on his lips. Lilywhite hoped MacLaren’s good spirits would linger, too—after he made his confession.

“I-I…” Sir Lumley’s puffy cheeks felt as heated and red as the setting sun. “MacLaren, I must admit something to you. To you, too, Anne and Elizabeth. I cannot allow you, MacLaren, to continue believing that your father was entirely selfish, for indeed he was not. He was my dear friend for many years, until one night when I was too deep in my cups to know enough to curb my words.”

Laird looked to Anne, as if expecting her to explain what Lilywhite meant by his words, but she was as lost in the shadows about this as he was.

“Go on, Lilywhite.” Lotharian flicked his hand. “Tell them. This is long overdue, if you ask me.”

Lilywhite lowered his gaze and bobbed his chin upon his chest. “I can’t deny it.” He looked up at Anne and Elizabeth, and then turned his eyes fixedly upon Laird. “Everyone, Whig and Tory, believed that either Charles Fox or your fa
ther, MacLaren, had somehow come into possession of the marriage register signed by both the Prince of Wales and Maria Fitzherbert.”

“Yes, yes, we know this.” Elizabeth wrung her hands impatiently.

“But a few of us in the prince’s inner circle, heard, too, that Lady Jersey petitioned MacLaren to surrender the register to her…on behalf of the queen.” Sir Lumley glanced around the room. Every person was poised on his last word. “Well, this would make good sense to MacLaren. The king was ailing and needed to secure the royal lineage. If the queen could persuade Prinny to set aside the notion of declaring his illegal marriage to Maria Fitzherbert to the people, passage of a bill to make him regent would be much more likely. And if the queen thought possessing the wedding register, the only true proof of this marriage would make her son regent, then he should deliver it to her.”

“You appear confused, Elizabeth,” Gallantine said. “Let me try to explain this. MacLaren’s only reason for concealing the register was to prevent William Pitt from presenting it as proof of an illegal marriage to a Catholic in an attempt to discredit the prince. The register had to remain
hidden to prevent public opinion from turning against the prince before he could be named regent. MacLaren knew the queen could be trusted to sequester the register—and, too, that she would be forever indebted to him for seeing it into her hands.”

“And so he gave it to her?” Anne shook her head. “How, then, did my father obtain the register?”

“Because of me.” Lilywhite sighed. “And I risked your very lives in the process.”

Anne and Elizabeth exchanged concerned glances.

“I started to say earlier, I was foxed one night. I had heard rumors that MacLaren was considering delivering the register to Lady Jersey. But I knew he shouldn’t trust her. She was cunning. She was the prince’s latest mistress. And, according to Royle, she and the queen had sought to see Maria Fitzherbert’s triplets dead. I told MacLaren everything.”

“What did he do?” Laird slowly came to his feet.

“He didn’t
seem
to do anything. We stopped hearing rumors about the register. It was as though it had simply disappeared.” Lilywhite
raised his hands to Laird. “Royle and MacLaren had once been friends. We all had. It’s very clear what happened to the register. Don’t you see?”

“No,” Anne said. “I don’t.”

Lilywhite huffed a frustrated sigh from his huge middle. “Royle had the register. MacLaren had the page cutter with the location of the register etched upon it.”

“MacLaren gave our father the register—to help prove who we are.” Elizabeth’s eyes were like globes. “Lord MacLaren, your father could have used the register to gain favor with the Crown…to further his position within the House of Lords, but he didn’t.”

Lotharian cast a quick, yet decidedly derisive glance at Sir Lumley. “If anyone else had overheard Lilywhite’s drunken conversation with MacLaren in Boodle’s that night”—he sighed and settled his bony hand on Laird’s shoulder—“and it was discovered that Royle, the prince’s own physician, had saved Maria Fitzherbert’s babies, the girls’ lives might have been in imminent danger.”

Lady Upperton raised her finger and took over the conversation, as was her habit. “Yes, grave danger—if no evidence existed to help support
the claim that the gels were of royal blood. Oh, the marriage register mightn’t have been much in the way of proof, but it may have been just enough to spare their lives. I fear we may never know.”

Laird turned to Anne and lifted her hands in his. “My father—”

Anne stared up at him in disbelief as she finished his thought. “Might have saved
my
life.”

Laird’s breath caught the very moment he comprehended the underlying meaning of her words. He stared blankly at Anne for several seconds, and then the skin at the outer edges of his eyes crinkled upward. He smiled, and Anne knew Laird had glimpsed another side of his father, the man his mother had loved so much.

“His sacrificing the register might have saved my life, too,” Elizabeth blurted. Suddenly she spun around and squinted fretfully at the coal fire smoldering in the hearth. “Gorblimey, I hope we don’t need the register…
anymore
.”

Everyone laughed politely at Elizabeth’s slightly inappropriate comment, except, Anne was quick to notice, Lord Lotharian, who tipped his glass to his lips and sipped his brandy as he peered pensively over its rim at Elizabeth.

A
nd so they were married—a full week after their glittering nuptials had been reported by every
on dit
columnist in London.

It was amazing, especially to Elizabeth, how eerily accurate the newspapers’ descriptions had been in predicting a future event. Had the date of the reported wedding not been off by a sennight, she might have wondered if someone sitting in the box pews, or in the galleries above, had taken detailed notes.

For indeed, just as the newspaper columnists had reported, Laird Allan, Earl of MacLaren, had obtained a special license and had engaged Robert Hodgson himself, the rector of St. George’s, to perform the brief but poignant marriage service.

By the flickering light of dozens of beeswax
candles (for the marriage was conducted secretly), Hodgson joined a most joyous Miss Anne Royle with the newly belted Earl of MacLaren, proclaiming them man and wife before God, country, three Old Rakes, two ladies of society, a sleeping elderly great-aunt, a viscount, and one miss, late of Cornwall but currently residing in Berkeley Square.

Though the wedding was not the magnificent society event the new Dowager MacLaren had once considered necessary for her son and a family of such high standing in society, it was everything she had dreamed it would be.

Laird was happy at last and in love, and what more could a mother ever hope for her son?

Late that same evening, Apsley took home one of the George Romney canvas lovelies from Laird’s town house wall—even though he agreed he didn’t really deserve it, due to the fact that the wager had not been properly listed in the book at White’s.

But it didn’t really matter.

What did matter was that Lotharian, as always, won
his
wager. Miss Anne Royle had married the Earl of MacLaren—the very man he had
selected for her. Oh, maneuvering this gel to the altar had been slightly more difficult than ushering her sister Mary down the aisle of St. George’s, but in the end, he’d done it.

As they left the MacLarens’ town house on Cockspur Street, Gallantine and Lilywhite handed over heavy leather pouches of gold to the victor.

“Someday, Lotharian, your age will get the better of you and you will fail in your complex matchmaking machinations,” Lilywhite muttered as they staggered out to their waiting carriage.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, old man.” Lotharian grinned. “I have a few good years left in me—and one more Royle sister to see matched.”

“You might have had us all caught up in this scheme, but three for three? Surely the Royle sisters are on to your game by now. I know we are, and I do not think you can manage it again,” Gallantine announced.

“Care to wager on that, gentlemen?” Lotharian cast a wink at Lady Upperton, who knew the groundwork for Elizabeth’s match was, at that very moment, moving into place.

She winked back at him, then flipped open her cutwork fan to conceal a grin and her complicity.

As the last guests, the Old Rakes and Lady Upperton, departed the celebration, Anne and Laird raised their goblets in the air and privately toasted their love.

“Would you have believed me if I told you I loved you the moment you stole my goblet from me in the drawing room?” Laird leaned close and nuzzled the soft place behind Anne’s ear.

“My husband, the rake. Promise me you will never change.” Anne grabbed the back of his neck and dragged his mouth to hers.

Her distraction worked, and without him being the wiser, she lifted his goblet with the fingertips of her free hand.

As they broke their kiss, she laughed softly and sipped from her glass and then the one she’d stolen from him.

“As long as you promise me you will never change, either.” Laird leaned in and kissed her lips gently. “I love you, Lady MacLaren.”

Anne smiled, even as his lips lowered over hers again. “And I love you,
my Laird
.”

“My, I am feeling oh so exhausted.” As Laird started for the passageway, he glanced over his shoulder at Anne. A mischievous grin tilted his lips.

“Where are you going, Lord MacLaren?” Anne stood in the middle of the drawing room with a filled goblet in each hand.

“Oh, lass.” He tossed a wink at her. “The moon is full and bright this eve. I think you’ll know where to find me.”