The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae (48 page)

He smiled. Not one of his teasing grins, but a genuine smile. “I am not that bad.”

She arched her brows, but made no reply. The truth was . . .

He was unfailingly honest; she'd never known him to be anything but, even when it would have paid to lie, or at least prevaricate. He was dedicated, loyal, and clearly took his responsibilities on all counts very seriously. Underneath the soldier's armor, the chevalier's sash and plumes, he was a thinking man. Not an intellectual, but with a strong streak of common sense and practicality. He was a man who got things done. Who won battles, and rebuilt estates, and found someone to help him civilize his younger brothers . . .

Meg fought the urge to drop her head and cover her face with her hands. She could see what he was doing—of course, she could. But, damn him, he wasn't being pushy, wasn't giving her any reason to cut him off at the knees, to avoid his company.

To stop him from speaking.

For her to stop listening and so avoid the temptation he was laying before her. All the reasons she should consider . . .

The offer he hadn't yet made.

That it was coming she no longer doubted, but he wouldn't speak until after the wedding . . . just the thought of him speaking of marriage had her stomach contracting and a wholly unfamiliar panic closing in on her.

Unfamiliar, unprecedented.

He was the only man who had ever been able to throw her so off-balance.

She could feel his dark gaze on her face, distracting and intense. She was quite sure he wasn't twinkling at her at the moment, but him watching her with sober seriousness was, she was discovering, even more unsettling. Instead of meeting his gaze, she leaned forward and addressed the vicomtesse. “Thank you for luncheon, madame, but I fear I must get on. I will see you at the dinner tonight.”

The vicomtesse flapped. “Indeed, indeed. We must not keep you. Thank you for all you have done for us, Lady Margaret. I have your note on my dressing table—our party will be at Durham House in good time.”

Rising, Meg looked inquiringly at Cicely.

“I'm going to keep Juliette company for the afternoon,” Cicely said.

After one glance at Juliette's face, Meg nodded. “Yes, of course. I'll tell George to send the carriage for you at four.” The last thing she needed was a bride-to-be in a state. Cicely could be counted on to keep Juliette sufficiently amused to avoid any panic.

Gaston had risen when she had. He touched her arm. “I will walk you to your carriage.”

Meg inclined her head, knowing it was pointless to argue. Gaston was a past master at exploiting the courtesies to his advantage.

Gallantly, he offered his arm. She laid her fingers on his sleeve and walked beside him from the room, trying very hard not to let her senses register the seductive aura of masculine strength that engulfed her. Being close to him, near enough for that aura to enfold her, had always made her feel . . . not overwhelmed, but alive.

Intoxicatingly alive.

He was the only man with whom she'd ever experienced the reaction.

Previously, when they'd met years ago, she'd been affianced to another.

She no longer was.

The damned man was going to make her choose.

To make a choice she'd avoided all those years ago.

She wouldn't be able to avoid it—or him—this time, but, thank God, that time was not yet.

Reaching the street, she dragged in a breath, politely thanked him for his escort, let him assist her into her father's carriage, sat, and determinedly refocused her mind on the many tasks she had awaiting her, rather than listening to a deep, faintly accented voice instructing her coachman to drive her home.

June 16, 1820, 4:00
P.M.

Front hall of Durham House, London

“T
he Duc de Perigord to see Lady Margaret.” Gaston handed the butler his cane and a visiting card. “I'll wait here.”

“As you wish, Your Grace. I will inquire as to Lady Margaret's wishes.”

Gaston swallowed a snort. He was fairly certain that Meg would not wish to see him, that she would avoid him if she could because he made her aware and nervous in a way of which she didn't approve, but he was counting on her to at least see him face-to-face to give him his congé.

His coming there that afternoon wasn't a part of his carefully plotted campaign, but on returning to his suite he'd been too restless to sit, too distracted to do anything but pace . . . so he'd paced there.

He'd told Meg the truth in that he'd only recently had the chance to think of the woman he should wed, but from the instant he had, the only face in his mind had been hers. He'd thought she'd married John Beaumont, hadn't known the man had been killed, but to get her out of his system so he could get on and find someone else to take her place, he'd inquired . . . and discovered she was still unwed.

With his typically Gallic sense of fatality, that had, for him, answered the question of who he would wed. And so he'd started to plan.

Robert's wedding had given him the perfect opportunity to make his bid to secure Meg's hand.

But luring Meg to him, into his arms . . . that, he'd known, would take more than his title, more than a simple offer.

He and she . . . from the instant they'd first set eyes on each other in the summer of '14, they'd known. Known that between them something extraordinary could flare. But she'd been engaged, and he'd been in no position to make a bid to steal her from Beaumont.

And now . . . now, to accept his hand would, for her, mean risking—more, laying aside—the independence she'd grown so accustomed to over the years.

It would mean taking his hand, and walking into the fire of whatever might be with him. Of surrendering to it, and him.

He didn't know if she would, but he was a soldier, a risk-taker—he would risk all to have her as his wife.

He heard her footsteps tapping on the tiles.

She swept out from a corridor, his card in her hand. “Gaston—”

He held up a hand. “I know—you are busy. But that is why I have come.” He caught her cornflower blue eyes. “You are wrestling with the seating for the dinner, are you not?”

Her only answer was a tightening of her lips.

He relaxed. “Well, I have come to assist you—to tell you that, for instance, you need to keep half the table's length between Robert's Tante Helene and the Comtesse Vraitot. If you do not, they will be at each other's throats.”

She frowned, those lovely, unusual, mid-blue eyes narrowing on his, then she humphed, swung around, and waved him to follow. “Very well—come and be useful.”

He followed her down a secondary corridor and into the huge library. She'd been sitting on the chaise before the hearth, uncounted lists spread on a low table before her.

“Why,” she asked, sinking back on the chaise, “are you French so damned melodramatic?”

“Because it makes life more interesting.” He sat alongside her, not so close as to crowd her. He was well aware that his nearness ruffled her senses; he felt the same in reverse. While he was eager to learn what might happen, what it would feel like, when they were even closer, skin to naked skin, she was presently skittish, stepping back, shying away. In terms of persuading her to accept his offer, he would know he'd succeeded when she stepped over the line, when she turned her back on safety and stepped into his arms. He cast a knowing eye over her lists. “What do you have so far?”

He'd been a chevalier—a senior knight—in Louis's household for nearly a decade; he knew as much about the intricacies of precedence as she. While she knew the English attendees, he knew the French; by pooling their knowledge, they made a better fist of the seating arrangements than she would have managed alone.

“Thank you.” Meg gathered the sheets containing their final plan, leaving him to crumple the discarded versions. “The place cards are already written—now I just need to set them out.” She glanced at the clock. “Great heavens! Is that the time?”

She honestly hadn't noticed the hours ticking past. Too engrossed with listening to the intriguing snippets about various guests Gaston had constantly let fall. The devil could be thoroughly entertaining when he wished, in a wholly unpushy way. She'd actually relaxed—and now she was going to be late getting ready. She rose.

He did, too, and waved at the door. “Come—fetch your place cards and I will help you put them out. Together we will do it in half the time, and then I will leave you to get ready.”

She met his eyes and nodded. He was right. And he'd done nothing all afternoon to make her wary.

She grabbed the place cards from her escritoire, then they hurried to the formal dining room and paced quickly back and forth down the table, already laden with silver and plate, crystal and porcelain. In ten minutes they'd created the disposition of persons around the table that they'd earlier determined.

“
Bon
—it is done.” Gaston caught her hand, raised it to his lips and pressed an almost distracted kiss to her knuckles. “And now I must away.” Releasing her, he swept her a flourishing bow as he backed to the door. “I will see you tonight,
mignonne.
”

Meg stood and stared as he turned and strode from the room. The phantom brush of his lips still burned her skin, sending a wave of heat through her.

The door closed behind him, and still she stared.
Mignonne?
She was five feet ten inches tall, and wore her dark hair up in a swirling knot, adding an inch at least.

She wasn't exactly slender, either; Junoesque would be nearer the mark.

“Mignonne.”
Her lips twitched, then she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Good Lord!” Grabbing up her skirts, she rushed for the door.

If there was one rule above all others in planning a wedding, it was that the wedding planner could never be late.

June 16, 1820, 10:00
P.M.

Gardens of Durham House, London

“D
are I say it, but that went better than even you might have hoped.” Gaston followed Meg onto the terrace running alongside the Durham House drawing room.

“Thus far.” Meg scanned the moonlit lawns, then spotted her quarry—the affianced couple—strolling with Cicely, her husband Hugh, and another of Robert's groomsmen farther down the terrace. Appeased, she drew back into the shadows by the wall. “Never before have I had to organize a dinner with three effective hosts, even if Robert's parents are dead.”

“I thought your parents did an admirable job of taking the lead and smoothing things over.”

“I had them well-rehearsed. Besides, they've done such deeds often enough, while the vicomte and vicomtesse are so . . . well, babes-in-the-woods when it comes to such affairs.”

“Not everyone is born and bred to the purple.” Gaston reached out and captured her hand, holding tight when she started, then tried to ease her fingers free. “Come and show me your lovely gardens. Everyone in there”—he tipped his head toward the drawing room—“is presently comfortable, and our bride and groom are being suitably watched over.”

She hesitated, but he gently drew her on, knew when her feet started to move that he'd won.

“There's not much to see.” She followed him down the shallow steps to the graveled path.

He wound her arm with his, then set out, slowly strolling. “But the air here is fresher, and the noise so much less.” He glanced at her, smiled. “Surely, having steered the event so successfully thus far, you are due a moment of respite, to catch your breath and clear your head before returning to guide the throng out of the door.”

Her eyes narrowed on his. “That sounds far too reasonable for you.”

He grinned and looked ahead. Debated his next move. He knew what he wanted, but how to get it . . . In the curve of the path ahead, tucked under the overhanging boughs of a large tree, he spotted a small summerhouse. “
Mignonne,
there is something I wish to discuss with—”

“You can't call me
mignonne
. I'm not anyone's
mignonne.
”

“Ah, but you most assuredly are.” He guided her up the two shallow steps into the dense shadows of the summerhouse.

Retrieving her hand, she turned to glare at him. “That's nonsense. Juliette might quite rightly be termed a
mignonne,
but as for me—”

“What do you think
mignonne
means?”

Meg blinked. Studied him. After a moment spent checking her translation, she replied, “Dainty. Delicate.”

He grinned; she saw his teeth flash white in the darkness. Knew without sight that his eyes were twinkling as he stepped closer, inclining his head. “That's one version.”

She frowned direfully, even if in the dimness he wouldn't get the full effect. “What else does it mean?” What was he, in his devilish way, calling her?

“I will tell you one day, but not tonight. As I said”—he drew closer yet, lowered his voice, tipped his head down, closer to hers, as if to whisper some secret—“there is something I wish to discuss with you.”

Her traitorous gaze had slid to his lips. She felt faintly dizzy, almost as if she swayed, the blood slowly draining from her brain to throb in her lips, then slide lower . . . “What?” The word was a mere whisper; she tried to raise her gaze to his eyes, but couldn't drag it from his lips. So close . . .

They moved slowly closer.

“This.”

The word, carried on a single breath, washed over her lips, then he closed the last fraction of an inch as she, entirely involuntarily, following an impulse as old as time, tipped her face up to his.

In a wordless invitation she'd never meant to offer.

An invitation he accepted.

The kiss . . .