Regency Innocents (41 page)

If all went well. But would it? It would be the longest day of her life. Lying to her mother, dreading that something might occur to prevent the wedding taking place ….

‘Trust me,' he said, giving her hands a little squeeze. ‘I will arrange everything.'

Trust him? Oh, how she wished she could!

‘It is only one day, Miss Gillies. I am sure you have the courage to endure just one day. You have gone through far worse since your father died, and emerged unscathed.'

She blinked up at him. He had said he would never resort to honeyed words, and yet here he was uttering another compliment. Did he mean it? He must do, for he had declared he could only speak the plain truth. He must think she had fortitude.

Yes, this was an aspect of that dratted inner beauty he had claimed to admire.

‘Just one day.' She sighed. It would not seem all that much to him, for he did not know that she loved him. He assumed her torment would end, after that one day, whatever the outcome.

She looked up into his face, wondering whether this was the moment to tell him the truth. Surely he would
not abandon her, even if she did not pass the examination of his lawyers, if she told him she loved him. He could not be so cruel ….

But if she pressured him into keeping to his vow to marry her, how would they live? They would not have a feather to fly with. Every time a bill landed on their doorstep, he would resent her for preventing him from marrying a woman who would have enabled him to inherit that property.

Better for her to become a lonely, desiccated teacher, and know that at least she had not robbed him of his happiness, than to endure his hatred.

She would have to keep her feelings for him to herself then, until after they were married.

‘It will only be for a day,' she said again, returning the pressure of his hand. Even if it meant a lifetime of misery for her, she would not let him down. Was that not what love meant? Putting the beloved's happiness before one's own?

‘You will not regret it,' he declared fervently.

But she was regretting it even before she got back to the house. Her mother was bound to want to know what had passed between them in the garden. What was she to tell her?

In the event, she told her mother as much of the truth as she felt she could, without betraying Captain Fawley's confidence.

‘He spoke to me on a … on a financial matter, Mother,' she said, fiddling with one of the tiebacks of the drawing-room curtains. ‘And he asked me to keep the matter in confidence.'

‘A financial matter …' Mrs Gillies frowned. ‘Not a personal matter?'

‘Mother, I promised not to speak about it until … until he gave me leave.'

Seeing how red her daughter's face was turning, Mrs Gillies let the matter drop.

Deborah was glad, for once, when Susannah returned and filled the room with an endless stream of chatter, which required very little input from anyone else. Her mother had not questioned her further, but kept darting her troubled looks, and taking a breath, as though she was about to speak. Then she would shake her head, and purse her lips, as Deborah felt her cheeks grow red at the prospect of returning another evasive answer. Susannah was a welcome buffer from the tension that steadily mounted all afternoon.

Both mother and daughter concentrated on conversing with her, rather than each other, during their outing to the theatre that night. But as the evening dragged interminably on, Deborah began to resent the situation Captain Fawley had placed her in. It was all very well for him to say she would not have to deceive her mother for more than one day, but while his day would be filled with activity, dashing about getting the licence and arranging appointments with lawyers and vicars, she would have nothing to do but count the minutes, while her mother kept looking at her with those mildly disapproving eyes until she would feel she was guilty of some heinous crime.

It was a relief to get into bed, where she did not have
to encounter her mother's reproachful looks any more. But by then she was too wound up to sleep. She thumped her pillows, and threw off the covers, furious at his cruelty in placing her in this untenable position. But it was not much later that she sat up, shivering in the chill night air, and dragged the covers back over her shoulders. The conviction that it would all come to nothing filled her with a cold sense of dread. Then she sank back into her pillows, her eyes searching the shadowy alcoves of her room. How on earth was it possible to love him, yet resent his behaviour with such ferocity, all at the same time?

By the time morning came, she felt almost wretched enough to declare she intended to stay in bed. She did not think she could cope with either her mother's suspicious looks or Susannah's self-centred oblivion to her distress.

But her mother took her hand when she tried to evade the social obligations of the day, saying in a firm voice, ‘It will be much better if you got up, and kept busy, my dear. Distract your mind from … whatever it is that ails it. How long, by the way, did you promise to keep Captain Fawley's confidence?'

‘Just for today, Mother,' Deborah replied, a little uneasy that her mother had so perceptively linked her distress to the conversation she'd had with Captain Fawley. ‘By tomorrow, I should be able to …'

‘Give him an answer.' Mrs Gillies nodded. ‘He has a deal of pride, that young man.' She leaned down and kissed her daughter on the forehead. ‘But my advice to you is to carry on as best you can, as though you did not have … a decision to make. If he has asked you to keep
the matter confidential, you must act as though you were not considering … umm … whatever it was you discussed so intently in the garden yesterday.'

Deborah could not believe her mother had so nearly guessed at the truth. From her knowing smile and meaningful nods, she made it obvious she thought Captain Fawley had proposed to her, and was giving her time to consider her answer. She sat up straight, in alarm.

‘Mother, you won't speak of this to anyone else, will you?'

‘Of course not! Especially if you decide not to … umm … that is, I am sure you would not wish it to be known that you … And naturally, he will not want anyone knowing that you would not … No, no! Far better to keep the whole thing under wraps, until you have decided you will … I mean, when we may speak freely, without risk of hurting anyone's pride.'

Deborah felt much better, knowing that her mother had an inkling of what was in the air. It would be much easier to tell her the whole once they were on the way to her wedding than if she had to spring it on her out of the blue.

It would be easier to make some excuse to go out to the lawyer's too. She would assume she would be meeting Captain Fawley secretly, in order to give him an answer.

She rose early in the morning, after another restless night, wondering how he would manage to communicate with her. He could hardly come to fetch her himself. They could not just go out, without a chaperon of any sort. But she could not imagine how she was
expected to find the lawyer's office unless he sent her a message. Her stomach roiled at the thought he would send her a letter, which she would have to somehow keep from the curiosity of both her mother and Susannah. They normally read all the post over the breakfast plates, discussing the various invitations they received, or comparing news from home. She shook her head, a nagging pain building across her forehead, which, she realised, had been ridged with worry almost since the moment he had made his proposal.

But in the event, Captain Fawley had, as he had promised, arranged things so she did not have to tell any lies at all. They had scarcely risen from the breakfast table, when the butler strode into the room, looking full of self-importance.

‘The Countess of Walton is here, Miss Gillies,' he said, handing her a card. ‘I have shown her into the front parlour.'

All three ladies gasped at the unexpected honour of having such a grand person visit them, especially at such an unsocial hour.

‘Go on, go on,' her mother urged her, making shooing motions with her hands. ‘Do not keep her ladyship waiting. We will join you as soon as we have …' She trailed off, straightening her cap as Susannah scurried to the mirror, where she patted her curls and tugged at the neckline of her gown.

‘Oh, no, is that a smear of butter on my dress?' Deborah heard her saying, as she followed the butler from the room. ‘I had better go and change!'

‘Ah! Miss Deborah!' the Countess greeted her incorrectly,
in a decidedly French accent, as soon as she entered the room.

Deborah had been introduced to the Countess at Lord Lensborough's ball, and had spent a few minutes trying in vain to think of some topic of conversation that might interest the diminutive and rather vague-looking woman. She had learned later, from her mother, that the Countess was generally considered something of a failure, socially speaking, although the universally poor opinion of the Earl's choice of bride had mellowed somewhat when she had eventually fallen pregnant.

‘Alone too!' she beamed, leaping to her feet, and taking Deborah's hands to pull her down on to the sofa next to her. ‘This is good! For I come from Robert, to bear you to him who is waiting at the office of his lawyers. He has told me how I must keep this a secret, and how I am to say to your mother that we are to go shopping, that I admired the gown I saw you wearing at Lensborough's ball, or some such piece of nonsense. As though anyone would believe I would wish to spend the day shopping when I am this size!' She indicated her clearly visible pregnancy with a rueful moue. ‘But there, that is Robert for you!'

The countess was dressed in layers of pink muslin, which draped over, and emphasised, the roundness of her tummy. Together with her chirruping voice and her fluttery hand movements, she put Deborah in mind of a chaffinch hopping about her drawing room. This impression was reinforced when her mother entered the room, and Lady Walton briskly folded those hands in her lap, regarding the newcomer with her head tilted to one side.

‘Mrs Gillies?' she enquired without preamble. ‘You do not mind that I borrow your daughter for the morning to go shopping? It is a fancy of mine.' She checked, an expression of inspiration coming to her face. ‘Yes! For we women who are
enceinte
, we get these fancies, you know. Nothing will do, but to have the delightful Miss Gillies to come shopping with me this morning. We met at Lord Lensborough's ball. I have very few friends in London,' she finished, with an abstracted air. ‘Except for Robert, of course, who is quite like a brother to me. I mean to say, Captain Fawley,' she explained, at the mystified look Mrs Gillies gave her.

Deborah decided she would have to get the woman out of the house before she blurted out something that would give the game away. How could Captain Fawley have entrusted such a delicate mission to such a scatterbrained creature as this? She dashed upstairs, gathered her coat and bonnet, almost tripping on the hall carpet in her haste to get back to the drawing room.

Both women heaved a sigh of relief when the door of the Walton carriage shut behind them, and they set out on their mission.

‘Oh, this is so exciting!' Lady Walton trilled, settling herself into a corner and regarding Deborah out of a pair of black, beady eyes. ‘To think that I should be able to help Robert to outwit that vile Lampton, at last!' She checked herself, going a little pink in the cheeks when Deborah looked at her in astonishment.

‘Lampton? What has Lampton got to do with this?'

‘Oh, dear, now I have ruined everything. Robert will
be so cross with me. I promised I would not spill any beans and now I have done it before we even get to see the men who control his fortune. Miss Gillies …' she leaned forward, her face creased with distress ‘… please tell me that you will not turn him down, now that you know he has done what you must think reprehensible.'

Deborah felt a strange sensation in her chest, as though someone was squeezing her there, making it hard to breathe. ‘Reprehensible?' she echoed. ‘I do not know what you mean. What has Captain Fawley done?'

‘He has done nothing! It is that vile worm of a pig, Percy Lampton, who has tried to steal everything from him. Please, if you care anything for him at all, do not side with his enemies today. From much he has recovered in the past, but not this, I think. It has been so hard for him to summon the courage to ask a woman even to dance with him, thinking himself so ugly, but to beg for your hand … You cannot think what courage he had to summon to approach you.'

She took Deborah's hands between her own. ‘You see beyond the scars, to his heart, do you not? You have not just agreed to marry him because you wish to have a big house in the country and not to have to become a governess? I would not have agreed to take part in this deception if I did not believe you were worthy of him. But I saw how you looked at him at Lensborough's ball. You love him, don't you? Please tell me I have not this all wrong?'

‘Y-yes, I love him,' Deborah breathed, tugging her hands out of the Countess's grip. ‘But I don't understand ….'

‘You don't need to understand! Only love him. Trust him! Men … they do the foolish things sometimes, because they think to protect us. Wrong things, perhaps. But Robert will be so good a husband to you. I know it! He is so grateful that you give him this chance ….'

‘I don't want his gratitude!' Deborah snapped. The funny feeling in her chest was developing into a burning pain. She had felt from the outset that there was something not right about all the secrecy Captain Fawley had insisted on. Now the Countess had confirmed that it was not just his sensitivity to the way he looked that had made him insist the wedding should be held in secret.

But the worst thing of all was knowing that he had taken this ninny completely into his confidence, even to telling her all about her plans to become a governess, when he had kept her in the dark. It had been bad enough when she had thought she came in a poor second to Susannah. Now she had to accept she did not even come in second. This woman, his sister-in-law, stood closer to him than she did.