The Bridal Quest (23 page)

Gideon was, Irene thought, making an effort. He was trying to get to know Francesca's candidates, the first step in choosing his wife. She was aware of a little prick of pain in her chest at the thought.

Was Francesca right? Was she jealous of these women and the attention Gideon was paying them? She told herself that was ridiculous. She had not dismissed any of the women as unacceptable for Gideon for any reason other than the ones she had given Francesca. She simply did not think that he would want any of them. None of them were right for him. None of them were good enough.

With, of course, one notable exception.

"Lady Calandra," Irene said to Francesca, almost forcing the words out.

"What?"

"I was just saying that I find the duke's sister quite attractive and very pleasant, not at all bland or boring. She is a woman I am sure will meet with Lord Radbourne's approval."

"Oh, Callie." Francesca waved a hand in dismissal. "She is not someone I selected for Lord Radbourne. There isn't the slightest reason for her not to marry exactly as she pleases. She has an extremely nice portion, and she is the daughter of a duke. Nor would Rochford ever urge her to marry unless she truly wanted to. She is the apple of his eye, no matter now stern he likes to pretend he is with her."

Irene tried to ignore the fact that her chest suddenly felt much lighter. "Then you do not think she would choose Lord Radbourne?"

"I would not believe so," Francesca replied, then added, "I suppose it is possible, but, well, I would think he is a trifle
dour
for her. And in any case, they are related, are they not? Not first cousins, of course—is it second or third? But I do not think she would even regard him as a potential match. I invited her and Rochford merely because they are relatives, and I thought having them here might make it seem more normal. Less like a ... well, what it is."

"Oh. Well." Irene struggled a little to keep her lips from twitching up into a smile. "Pity."

"Yes, isn't it?" Francesca added drily. She leaned in a little closer and murmured, "My dear Irene, I think that you must be rather better at lying to yourself than you are at lying to others."

Then, with a smile, she walked away.

Irene told herself that Francesca was wrong. She was not lying to herself about her feelings for Gideon. She was quite aware of how dangerously close she was to tumbling into love with him. But she also knew that she could not allow that to happen. She would not let her heart sweep her into making foolish decisions, as had happened with so many other women.

So she kept her distance from him, settling into the role of chaperone and helping Francesca with whatever task needed doing. She spent the first day touring the estate with the other young people, but she did not ride beside Gideon or talk to him. She watched as he rode alongside first one young woman, then another, talking to each one, even, she thought, flirting a little with Norah Ferrington. In the drawing room after supper that evening, she watched him exchange pleasantries with the girls and listen politely as they played the piano or sang, even standing beside Marian Salisbridge to turn the music for her. And the following day, through a session of lawn tennis in the warm August after-noon and then tea afterward, she watched him devote his attention to each one of the women in turn.

It surprised her somewhat that he was actually making an effort to mingle with the marriage candidates whom Francesca and his great-aunt had selected for him. He had apparently accepted her own refusal to marry him and was intent on pursuing someone more willing. He did not seek Irene out for conversation or even ask her for a dance when the girls cajoled Pansy and Odelia into letting them roll back the carpet in the center of the music room and engage in an impromptu party. Piers asked to stand up with her, as did Gideon's uncle Jasper and Mr. Surton and even Lord Hurley, but Gideon did not approach her.

It was a slight that, she realized, was noticed by others, for as she stood, watching the couples go through an energetic country dance, Lady Teresa came up beside her and said, "Fickle creatures, men."

Irene looked at her coldly. "I am sure I don't know what you mean."

"Do you not?" Teresa smiled and shrugged. "If you wish to pretend you had no hopes of landing him, well, who am I to deny it?" She paused, then went on. "It is just as well that you did not set your cap for him. Whoever he marries will not have his heart. He has a low-born mistress in London, and she is the one he loves."

"What?" Startled, Irene turned to look at Teresa in amazement. She realized then that she had shown too much of her feelings to this woman, and she shrugged, striving for an expression of indifference. "Many men have mistresses, especially before they marry."

"Well, he intends to keep her. Her name is Dora. I heard him arguing with Lady Odelia about her. Radbourne said that he would never give up Dora."

Irene felt for a moment as if she could not breathe, and the intensity of the pain that stabbed through her chest shocked her.
Dora.
It had been years, but she remembered that name clearly. It had been the one Gideon had spoken that very first time she saw him, the name of the woman whom he had warned her father to stay away from. The woman he had been so determined to protect that he had attacked a peer of the realm.

And now, so many years later, she was still his mistress. Clearly this Dora held his heart, and so no wife would ever be able to.

"Indeed?" she said at last, striving to keep her voice cool. "It would seem that he has the same problem as his father—marrying one woman while still bound to another."

Teresa's eyes flared with fury at Irene's words, and she turned and stalked away, leaving Irene feeling a trifle guilty over what she had said. She should not have been so cruel, she thought, even if Teresa had hurt her. But she had been unprepared for the pain it caused to hear that Gideon loved another woman, and she had lashed out without stopping to consider her words or the injury they would inflict.

Was what Teresa had said true? she wondered. Or had the other woman made it up only to hurt Irene, and to drive a wedge between her and Gideon? Francesca had been sure that Teresa wanted to keep Gideon from marrying Irene in the hopes that Teresa's son would remain the heir to Gideon's title. But Teresa must have seen that Gideon was no longer pursuing Irene, that he was, instead, dancing attendance on other women. There seemed, therefore, little reason for her to have made up such a story.

Of course, Teresa could have acted simply out of spite, letting her venom spew out over the nearest target. But why, even out of spite, would she have made up such a story? The words she said she had heard Gideon say to his great-aunt had a ring of truth to them. And surely Teresa could not have settled on the name by coincidence or accident. Dora was indeed the name that Gideon had flung at her father years ago, warning him never to try to touch her again. Gideon had told her that he attacked her father because he was protecting one of his faro dealers, but had not the very heat of his fury indicated some deeper feeling than that?

It would explain, as well, his lack of interest in finding a wife whom he could love. If the love of his life was a woman whom he could not marry, given his suddenly acquired position in life, he could very well plan to marry for duty and keep a mistress in the city for love.

Irene swallowed, feeling a little queasy. Had he kissed her as he had, all the time knowing that he was in love with another woman? She had known that he did not love her, that all that lay between them was desire, but ... she hated the thought that his desire could have had so little in it of caring, that in his embrace there had been nothing but carnal lust.

Irene glanced around. All eyes were on the center of the floor, where Gideon and the others were dancing. No one was looking at her, and no one would notice if she left, least of all Gideon.

She turned and slipped out of the room. Outside in the hallway, she hesitated. She had thought to go up to her bedchamber, but she was too restless, she realized. Instead, she turned and hurried down the corridor and out the rear door onto the terrace. She stood for a moment, drawing a calming breath.

Finally she started down the steps to the garden. It was a trifle cool, but the evening air felt good against her overheated cheeks, and she did not want to go back for a wrap. In any case, she would not stay long, as the partial moon did not provide enough light for her to venture farther back into the gardens, where trees and hedges created deeply dark spaces. She strolled along the central path to where it split around the fountain and stood for a moment, gazing down at the cheerily splashing water.

"Irene."

She whirled around, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest. Gideon stood a few feet behind her. The noise of the fountain must have covered his steps. She straightened, lifting her chin a little. She must not let him think that she was mooning over him.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "I saw you leave the room."

"I stepped out for a breath of air," she told him nonchalantly. "It had grown rather warm in the music room."

Her statement would have sounded better, she knew, if she had not involuntarily shivered right afterward as the night breeze touched the bare skin of her arms.

"But now you are cold." He shrugged out of his jacket and came forward, laying it about her shoulders.

The jacket was still warm from his body, and his scent lingered on it. Irene clutched the edges together, feeling suddenly as if she might burst into tears. Whatever was the matter with her?
He had rudely ignored her all evening, and now a tender gesture from him was enough to make her cry?
She was not, she reminded herself sternly, one of those females.

It did not matter that she wanted to lean against him, to rest her head against his hard chest. It did not matter that his nearness was intoxicating to her, that the heat emanating from his body drew her, that the unique scent of him set up a fluttering deep in her loins. She would not be weak.

Irene swallowed and said, "You seemed to be enjoying the dance."

He made a face and said, "I would rather—"

He broke off as a voice from the terrace called, "Gideon!"

They turned and looked up to see Gideon's uncle approaching rapidly.

"Oh, excuse me, Lady Irene," Jasper said. "I did not see you standing there."

"It is perfectly all right. I left the music room and Gi— Lord Radbourne came after me to make sure that I was not ill."

"Are you all right?" Jasper asked, trotting down the steps to join them.

"Perfectly." Irene forced a smile onto her face, hoping that it looked more natural than it felt. "I just came out for a stroll, and then I found it a trifle too cool."

"I wanted to talk to you, Gideon. I had not been able to catch you alone this evening," Jasper told his nephew.

"Pray excuse me," Irene said quickly. "I will leave you gentlemen so that you may talk."

"No, please, my lady, I did not mean to be rude," Jasper said quickly, looking embarrassed. "You are welcome to stay. Indeed, I already spoke to you on this subject the other day."

"Oh." Irene knew that he was referring to the afternoon two days before, when she and Francesca had inadvertently overheard Jasper's argument with his mother. "About Lady Selene?"

"Yes."

Beside her, Gideon stiffened, and Irene suspected that he was searching for a way out of the conversation.

"Please stay," Jasper said, addressing both of them. "It is important. I want both of you to hear. I fear you have been misled about your mother, Gideon."

"Yes, I know. My father pretended that she had been kidnapped."

"No. Not that. About her running away. She would never have done that. I swear to you. As soon as my mother told me, I knew there was something terribly wrong. Selene would never have run away."

"What are you saying? What do you mean?" Gideon looked at him. "What else could have happened?"

"I don't know," his uncle admitted, looking uncomfortable. "But I know she would not have run away with a lover. I will not have you believe that of your mother. She was a-a wonderful woman, good and kind."

"Uncle ..." Gideon's face softened a little, and he reached out to touch the older man's arm in a gesture of comfort. "I know that you regarded my mother highly. I am sure that when you knew her, she was as you said. But you were not here at the time. You don't know what she might have been doing or—or how she might have changed."

"I know!" Jasper jerked away. "Do not patronize me or try to calm me down. Blast it! This is important. I am not some doddering old fool. You were the most important thing in the world to her. She would never have taken you from here, and she would never have abandoned you. Never."

"Perhaps she did not," Irene offered. "We have no idea what happened after she left Radbourne Park. She could have been abandoned by her lover or she could have died, leaving her son alone in London, with no one knowing who he was."

"She did not have a lover," Jasper grated out. "And she would not have removed Gideon from Cecil and his inheritance. She would not even have left Gideon here and run away by herself."

"You cannot be certain—" Gideon began.

"I can! And I am!" His uncle cut him off, his face harsh and lined in pain. "I know—because I asked her to leave with
me,
and she would not!"

His words were followed by a stunned silence.

"Oh, my," Irene murmured at last and sat down abruptly on the low stone wall around the fountain.

"You ..." Gideon stared at his uncle.

"I loved her," Jasper said simply, and sank down onto the wall beside Irene, resting his elbows on his knees and supporting his head with his hands. "God help me, I loved her. I betrayed my brother. My honor."

"Bloody hell," Gideon said in a low voice and turned to look out over the garden.

"I was mad for her," Jasper went on in a dull voice. "I begged her to leave Cecil, to run away with me. Time and again I begged her. I said we would go to America or the Colonies. I didn't care about giving up my family, my name. Nothing mattered to me except her. She was the most beautiful creature, the most charming and gentlest ... But you do not want to hear the lovesick maunderings of an old man."

He stood up and turned toward Gideon. "I know that she would not have left, because she refused to leave earlier with me. She told me that she could not do that to you. You belonged here, at Radbourne Park. You would be the earl someday, and she would not take that away from you. Nor would she leave without you. So she would remain with Cecil, without love, without hope, because of you. And that is how I know that she would not have run away with her lover, if such a man even existed, and taken you with her. And never, no matter what, would she have abandoned you."

"Is that why you joined the Army?" Irene asked.

Jasper nodded. "Yes. I was in despair. I could not stay here, loving her as I did, and see her daily as his wife. Cecil was not worth a single one of her tears. I hated him because she belonged to him, and because he did not even realize what a treasure he had. I began to realize that if I remained at Radbourne Park, I might someday kill him just to free her from him. So I bought a commission and requested an Indian regiment. I wanted to be as far away as I could be, so that I could not break my vow and return, even for leave." He sighed and rubbed his hands tiredly over his face. "If only I had not been so weak, so impulsive. If only I had stayed here, it would not have happened."