The Earl Next Door (31 page)

‘Dear God, you’re serious. What has happened?’

‘Luke?’ a musical voice came from the open doorway. ‘It is nearly time for us to go into supper,
mon cousin
.’

Marianne was about to turn away when she caught Nicole’s final words. ‘
Mon . . . cousin
?’

‘Yes, of course,
mon cousin
,’ said Luke in surprise. ‘You speak French, Marianne, you know what
mon cousin
means  . . . ‘ His voice tailed away as he realised the implication of her words. ‘But that’s not what you thought, is it?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Dear Lord, you didn’t think Nicole was my cousin, you thought . . . what exactly did you think?’ he asked, his eyes becoming hard.

‘I thought . . . ’ She looked at him perplexedly, finding it too much to take in.

Nicole murmured, ‘I will wait for you in the ballroom,’ and discreetly left the room, closing the door behind her.

‘Yes?’ he demanded, his eyes kindling. ‘Just what in hell did you think?’

‘You have no right to speak to me like that,’ she said, her emotions a confused mix of relief, surprise, elation, and resentment, together with a whirl of other emotions that she could not begin to separate or understand.

‘I have every right.’ He was across the room in two strides, holding her by the arms, his eyes boring down into her own. ‘After all we have shared, you tell me I have no right to be angry when you think I presented you to my mistress?’

‘I never said that,’ she returned, pulling herself free and facing him, her own eyes kindling. ‘I never even thought it.’

‘Then what did you think?’ he demanded.

‘I saw your face, Luke,’ she said. ‘When I rode over to the Manor, when we were meant to be taking tea with you, I saw Nicole walk into the room, I saw you get up to greet her, I saw you hold her, I saw your face. I saw love in your face.’

‘You thought I was
in love
with her?’ he said, aghast.

‘What else could I think?’ she demanded.

‘You thought that when I took you in my arms over the last few weeks I was in love with someone else?’

‘Why not?’ she demanded, driven on the defensive. ‘You are anything but a gentleman. You told me so yourself.’

‘By God, Marianne, I may not be a gentleman, but I am not a cur! I don’t go around seducing gently-reared young ladies for my own perverted amusement. What do you take me for?’ he demanded.

‘I never thought that. You’re putting words into my mouth again!’

‘Then what did you think?’

‘I thought you were in love with her, but believed her to be dead. And then when she came back into your life . . . when you discovered that she had not gone to the
guillotine
, that she was safe . . .  it was as Henri said, I couldn’t —’

‘Henri? What has he to do with all this?’

‘He was with me when I saw you. He told me he knew I had feelings for you, but that I couldn’t spoil your happiness. He said you thought you had lost Nicole to the
guillotine
—’

‘And you really think I would have abandoned her, if I had been in love with her? That I would have forgotten her because I
thought
she had gone to the
guillotine
? That I wouldn’t have gone over to
France
and found out for sure? That I would have been content to think that the woman I was in love with
might
be dead, and therefore I might as well forget her and move on to the next? My God, Marianne, what do you think I am?’ he demanded, his eyes filled with hurt.

‘You’re twisting things,’ she declared. ‘I thought —’

‘You thought I had so little loyalty in me that I would forget a woman I was in love with, who may or may not be dead, inside of three months, and make love to someone else – and then go back to the first, with never a word to the second, when I discovered quite by chance that she was still alive. Dear God, Marianne, it’s lucky I didn’t have a chance to ask you to marry me. With so little trust and understanding between us our marriage would have been a disaster.’

She was about to make a hot reply when the door opened and the drunken Lance Gutheridge wandered into the room. He stood by the doorway, clutching the knob for support, and looked at them with unfocused eyes.

‘Shouldn’t be here,’ he said in slurred speech. ‘Should be going into supper. Looking for you, Miss Travis. And you, too, Ravensford. You’ve been missed.’

‘Pull yourself together, man. You’re drunk,’ said Luke in disgust.

‘May be drunk, but at least I’m not having a lover’s quarrel at the top of my voice. Surprised the whole house hasn’t heard.’

‘This lover’s quarrel, as you refer to it, is at an end,’ said Luke bitingly. And without so much as one last look at Marianne he strode from the room.

‘Miss Travis?’ enquired Mr Gutheridge with a hiccup. ‘Time for supper. I’m to escort you in.’

Marianne, already seething with a deep sense of injustice, did not want to deal with her escort’s drunkenness, but unless she wanted to risk him making a scene she had no choice but to accompany him. Once seated at the supper table she knew he would not cause her any problems. She would be able to converse with her neighbours and leave the drunken Mr Gutheridge to the expert management of her father.

As she walked with him into the supper room, doing her best to keep him upright so that he should not disgrace himself, she was still a prey to a turbulent mix of emotions. How could Luke have said such things? she asked herself angrily. The joy she had felt when she had discovered that he was not in love with Nicole – although the discovery left her perplexed as to the meaning of the conversation she had unwillingly overheard between Luke and her godfather – had given way to a sense of deep injustice. How could he have left the room before she had had a chance to defend herself? The fact that Mr Gutheridge had interrupted them was no excuse. He had accused her of a lack of trust, and had then walked out before she had had a chance to speak. If he had ever told her that he loved her it would have been different. Then he would have had a right to be angry; then he would have had a right to accuse her of a lack of trust. But not as things stood. Not when he had never told her he loved her. And he had not even told her now. Despite everything they had shared, no word of love had ever passed his lips. Even when he had been about to propose to her, she recalled, he had said nothing of love. How then could he blame her for having accepted the evidence of her own eyes? Especially when she thought of Henri's misleading words, and when she thought of the fact that Luke had done nothing in the intervening time to explain matters to her.

She felt a twinge of guilt as she realised that it was not fair of her to blame him for not having used the intervening time to explain. He had been looking for Adèle’s parents, and finding them.

Even so, to blame her so unjustly for her natural fears and anxieties and, after she had witnessed the unmistakeable look of love on his face when he held Nicole, to label them a lack of trust . . . it was something she found very hard to forgive.

She had by now entered the supper room. The tables gleamed with damask cloths; the crystal sparkled; the silver shone. But despite the brilliance of the scene she was aware of only one thing: Luke’s brooding presence at the other end of the table.

She tried hard to keep her mind on other things. She reminded herself that Tom and Trudie’s arms had been aching from polishing all the silver, and that Henri had put all his ingenuity into devising a sumptuous meal. She told herself this was Kit and Adèle’s evening, and that, no matter what her feelings, she must not show her distress. But no matter how lively the conversation around her, no matter how imaginative the soup or how succulent the rib of beef, she could think of nothing but Luke, and the estrangement that had grown up between them.

But there was nothing she could do about it. She could only laugh and smile, and pretend to be light-hearted and at ease, whilst all the while her smile was fixed and her stomach was tied in knots.

Marianne rose early. Despite the fact that she had only gone to bed six hours before she was not tired; rather she was filled with a restless energy that would not let her sleep. She had passed a troubled night. Spells of dozing had alternated with long periods of wakefulness, and whether waking or sleeping she had been plagued with memories of the perplexing conversation she had overheard between her godfather and Luke. What had been the meaning of it? she asked herself for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“You must marry her,” the Comte had said. “If ’er father were ’ere ’e would tell you so. As ’e is not, I regard myself as taking ’is place.”

And Luke’s angry refusal – “I’m not going to marry a woman I don’t love. Particularly when I’m in love with another —”

It had all seemed so clear at the time: her godfather telling Luke to marry her because he had compromised her on the ship, where she had not had the benefit of a chaperon, and Luke refusing. Why, if he was in love with her, had he refused to marry her? And why had he said he was in love with another woman? At the time she had thought he meant Nicole, but if that was not so, then who was the other woman? It was so perplexing that she had to distract her thoughts, because they were going round and round in circles.

At last daylight broke through the crack in her drapes, and dressing herself quickly – a difficult task, since she did not want to disturb Trudie, and therefore had to manage her hooks and buttons alone, and dispense with her corset, which it was simply impossible for her to manage without help - she went downstairs, slipping out of the door into the grey morning. She felt too restless to stay inside, and longed for a ride. The fresh air and exercise would do her good, and perhaps help to soothe her troubled spirit.

Before long she was in the stables, and then, mounting Dapple, she set out for the seashore. Dapple was a little sluggish to begin with, but the mare soon began to enjoy herself, and by the time they had crossed the fields to the seashore both horse and rider were feeling better.

The beach was spread out before them, a vast expanse of dampened sand. The tide was almost out.

Marianne walked Dapple to the edge of the beach and then dismounted, using a boulder as a mounting block. She tethered the mare loosely so that the animal could wander about a little and nibble the coarse sea grass, before taking off her boots and stockings and walking across the sand towards the sea.

The sound of the waves was calming. She went right to the water’s edge, letting it wash over her feet. It was cool and refreshing. The sun was up, and had a considerable amount of strength for the time of year. She stood there for some minutes, watching the receding mass of blue water, which was touched with patches that sparkled in the early morning sun.

Would she ever understand the events of last night? she wondered.

She shook her head, and then turned and walked slowly along the beach.

Luke was slouching in a wing-back chair in the library, his manner dark and brooding. He had not been to bed that night. By the time he had returned from Seaton Hall it was already after
two o’clock
and he had not felt like sleeping. He had had a terrible night. He had finally had an opportunity to offer Marianne his hand, and what had happened? Had she agreed? Had she told him she wanted to be his wife more than anything else in the world? Had she melted into his arms, giving herself up to him with words of love and longing?