Stroke of Midnight (24 page)

“Excellent. Then I can depend on you to see that she spares no expense in her purchases?”

“Absolutely. I shall dedicate myself to the task!”

Their conspiracy against her exasperated Laura, and she lifted her chin. “Are you sure, Alex? Being the daughter of a thief, I wouldn’t want you to think me mercenary.”

He cocked a too-innocent eyebrow. “Have I ever said that? If so, I must apologize wholeheartedly.”

Violet looked a trifle puzzled as she glanced from one to the other. “Oh, just accept the gift, Laura. When your husband-to-be offers to refurbish your wardrobe, why, it’s best to simply thank him!”

Laura laughed. “You’re connivers, the both of you. All right then, thank you, Alex, for your generosity. But I can’t depart just now. Lady Josephine is expecting me to spend the day with her.”

“You must invite her to come with us,” Violet declared. “It shall be great fun!”

“Then it’s settled,” Alex said, taking Laura’s hand in his. “I’ve only one condition to place on your purchases.”

He idly swept his thumb across her palm, the caress stoking the banked fire inside her and making it difficult for her to think. A bit breathlessly, she said, “Do tell.”

Alex bent his head closer as if to confide a secret, though he spoke in a whisper loud enough to deepen her blush. “Mind that you choose something special for our wedding night.”

*   *   *

“She
must
know what happened to the Blue Moon,” the duchess insisted. “She’s playing you for a fool.”

His jaw tight, Alex leaned against the marble mantelpiece in a pose of unconcern. But his temper seethed as he watched his godmother walk back and forth, her olive-green skirt swishing against the crimson rug. He had come here to her house in Grosvenor Square with the intention of smoothing her ruffled feathers. Instead, it had proven to be a struggle to maintain his characteristic coolness.

“Laura knows nothing about the diamond,” he stated. “I thought she might at first, but I quickly realized my mistake. She has a steadfast belief in her father’s innocence.”

The duchess stopped to stare at Alex. “She asked me today if I’d ever had an affair with Haversham. Have you given her any reason to suspect what really happened back then?”

Good God. Laura would never forgive him if she knew. Ten years ago, he had lied to her. He had courted her purposefully in order to investigate her father—only to fall hard for her.

“Absolutely not. I gave you my word on that.” He took a step toward his godmother. “But pray be forewarned, she hopes to clear her father’s name. It’s entirely possible that she could unearth the truth on her own.”

“Then you must discourage her!”

“I’ve done so. However, Laura is a very determined woman.”

“She’s an ambitious woman, that’s what. Even if she knows what Martin Falkner did with the diamond, she’ll still try to clear her own name of the scandal. You should consider that!”

Alex took her hands in his. “I assure you, Your Grace, she has absolutely no knowledge of the whereabouts of the Blue Moon. I would stake my life on it.”

“No, you’ll squander your life on an adventuress. You should have heard how disrespectfully the chit addressed me today.” Pulling her hands free, the duchess paced away from him, then spun back around. “Who are her family? Nobodies, all of them. Irish through her mother, and a father who is a convicted jewel thief.”

“According to Debrett’s, Martin Falkner had a distinguished lineage. However, I seem to recall that one of
your
grandfathers made his fortune as a wool merchant.” When Her Grace’s face flushed a livid red, Alex strove to master his own anger at her denigration of Laura. “I mean no insult, Your Grace. My point is merely that one cannot help one’s forebears. Laura is her own person. You cannot hold her to blame for the actions of her father.”

“Like father, like daughter. She wants your wealth and all the benefits of your title. She will bleed you dry.”

Little did his godmother know, she’d touched a nerve. Ever since the previous evening, his mind had dwelled obsessively on the legal agreement that Laura had demanded of him. A house of her own once she’d borne him an heir and a spare. The independence to leave him if she so wished. Her insistence gnawed at his gut. If fate gave them two sons in quick succession, she could be gone from his life in the same number of years.

By God! Did she really think he’d let her go?

Would she really
want
to go? That was the crux of the matter. He hungered to resurrect in her the love that he had crushed ten years ago. If he couldn’t do so, he knew only one way to bind her to him: by making her burn with passion.

Realizing the duchess was expecting a response, he forced a slight smile. “Pray show a little confidence in my ability to manage my own finances—and my own wife.”

“Stronger men than you have been taken in by the wiles of a fortune hunter.”

“Nonsense. There
are
no stronger men than me.”

“This is no time for arrogant jests.” Her fingers curling into fists at her sides, the duchess continued to pace as if lost in her own private world. “Only look at how your father’s marriage turned out. He, too, had his head turned by a pretty face. Blanche brought out the worst in him with her silly, madcap ways. He should have married someone more suited to his sober disposition.”

An entrenched aversion crept over Alex. He had grown up with loud, prolonged quarrels, his father shouting and his mother screaming. They’d
both
been to blame, Alex knew. But he saw no purpose in correcting his godmother’s misapprehension. “Laura is nothing like my mother,” he said. “We are perfectly well suited.”

The duchess shook her head. “She’s a selfish upstart who will cause you no end of trouble. Your father would have forbidden this hasty, ill-advised marriage.”

Women are vain, selfish creatures who will stab a man in the heart
. How many times had his father told him that? Too often, Alex had been thrust into the role of his father’s confidant after his mother had run off weeping to her bedchamber. Would he and Laura end up like that, at each other’s throats?

He buried the thought. It would
not
prevent him from marrying her. She was a fever in his blood.

“My father would have no say in my marriage even if he were still alive,” he said. “I shall be wedding Laura in three days’ time at Copley House. I would consider it an honor if you would set aside your objections and attend.”

“No. I will not be a party to this farce. I will never receive that schemer, do you hear me? Nor will anyone else of the ton invite her into their homes.”

Her face held a haughty stubbornness that infuriated him. The Duchess of Knowles had been a fixture in his life since childhood, and he had a fondness for her. But no more. He was done with anyone who would malign his bride.

He took a step closer. “If you mean to spread poisonous gossip or speak ill of Laura in any way, I will consider my vow to you nullified. Is that understood?”

“Impertinent boy! You would break your word as a gentleman? Is that what this creature has done? Destroyed your sense of honor?”

His godmother didn’t know it, but he would never reveal her secret. Because then Laura would realize exactly how he’d used her.

Alex gave a curt bow. “I wouldn’t advise you to test me on the matter. Good afternoon.”

As he strode out the door, the duchess called after him, “You’ll rue your actions someday. You’ll wish you’d listened to me!”

Alex clenched his jaw. He kept walking through the grand hall, down the marble stairs, and to the front door. He did not look back.

Chapter 21

“Oh, I do love weddings,” Lady Josephine said as the coach rolled though the busy streets of Mayfair. Then her bright smile faded and a hint of befuddlement clouded her blue eyes. “You
did
say you were marrying Alexander today, didn’t you?”

“Yes, my lady. Most assuredly.”

Laura hid a bone-deep quiver behind a pleasant smile. Her palms felt damp inside her kidskin gloves. Sitting across from her ladyship in the luxurious black coach that Alex had sent to fetch them, she ought to feel like a princess—or at least a countess-to-be. Instead she had the anxious sense of being caught up in another masquerade.

She wore a dove-gray gown of the finest silk, the subdued color in deference to her mourning, with garnet ribbons threaded at her waist and through the short sleeves. The beaded garnet slippers from Lady Milford peeked from beneath her hem. With the help of one of the housemaids, Laura had done up her tawny-blond hair in soft curls adorned with a cluster of deep pink rosebuds that she’d clipped dewy fresh from the garden that morning.

Her transformation, when she’d surveyed herself in the pier glass of her dressing room, had been remarkable. The dowdy spinster had been vanquished in favor of an elegant lady of the ton. Oddly, it had been the improvement in her appearance that had sparked this attack of doubts. She looked like the naive girl whose world had been shattered by the man she’d loved and trusted. And now she was about to give herself into his keeping again.

Forever.

Misgivings churned inside her. Was she taking the right step in wedding Alex? They’d signed the prenuptial agreement the previous day in his solicitor’s office. Alex had been coolly charming, his manner seductively witty, and she’d felt a fervent desire to be his wife.

But today it was as if she’d awakened from a lovely dream to bitter reality. It could be a terrible mistake to marry the man who had once broken her heart. Perhaps it was not yet too late to turn back …

The coach drew to a halt in front of Copley House. A footman opened the door and let down the step. Her movements wooden, Laura accepted his aid in climbing out of the coach. While the servant lent his hand to Lady Josephine, Laura glanced up at Alex’s home.

Situated across from Hyde Park, the imposing residence had a grand facade of pale stone with a columned portico over the double front doors. It rose a full four stories and was crowned by many chimneys. The tall windows of the first floor showed azure blue draperies drawn back by gold cord. She had never been inside his house, but one of those chambers must be the drawing room where the wedding ceremony would be conducted.

A lurch assailed Laura’s stomach. Within the hour, she would be mistress of this house. She would have the right to direct the servants, to redecorate the rooms, to plan parties and entertain guests. She would be wife to a wealthy, handsome earl who would elevate her to an exalted place in society.

It was every lady’s dream. So why did she feel the urge to turn and flee?

Lady Josephine clutched Laura’s arm and aimed a guileless smile at her. “Come, my dear, we mustn’t be late.”

Laura placed her hand over the old woman’s. Curiously, the warmth of those knobby fingers gave her the strength to mount the three shallow steps to the porch, where another footman opened the door. They passed over the threshold into a grand entrance hall with a divided staircase, each side curving upward to the first floor.

Compared with Lady Josephine’s cluttered house, this one had a minimum of furnishings, each piece clearly chosen for its superb quality. A gilded chair had been placed on either side of the doorway. In the center of the cream marble floor, the alabaster statue of a winged goddess in Grecian robes stood on a pedestal. The pastel green walls displayed a series of splendid landscape paintings that she would have been interested to inspect under normal circumstances.

The surroundings were so lovely, so vast, and so
rich
, Laura felt her qualms intensify. Her breath came faster under the force of an incipient panic. Did she really belong here? Or back in her comfortable little cottage in Portugal?

The patter of footsteps drew her gaze to one of the ground-floor doorways. Her freckled face wreathed in a smile, Violet came hurrying forward. A leaf-green gown draped her pregnant form, and she had arranged her hair in a pretty cascade of russet curls.

Her brown eyes sparkled with excitement. “Laura, you look absolutely
gorgeous
! I’ve been waiting for you to arrive. Come with me, we haven’t much time.”

“But … Lady Josephine…”

“The footman will assist her upstairs.”

The strapping servant was already offering his arm for the old woman to hold, and with her customary good humor Lady Josephine hobbled with him to the grand staircase.

Laura let herself be tugged into a library decorated in masculine tones of coffee and cream with leather chairs and numerous bookshelves. Spying an oversized volume on a table, she distractedly opened it, her attention caught by the colored illustrations of exotic flora. If only she could curl up in a chair and lose herself in these lovely drawings …

“Whatever are you doing?” Violet chided, reaching out to shut the book. “You can’t be reading now. This is your wedding day!”

“I know … I only…” Tears burned her eyes, and she lifted her hand to her mouth while gazing beseechingly at her friend. “Oh, Violet, I don’t know if I can go through with this. Truly I don’t.”

A commiserating look softened Violet’s expression, and she threw her arms around Laura. “Oh, my dearest, I felt the same way the morning of my own wedding. As if I were about to swoon from sheer fright. But you’ll feel
so
much better once you go upstairs and speak your vows to the earl, I promise you will!”

As if to add an exclamation point, a tiny foot kicked Laura. She stepped back in surprise.

Violet lovingly stroked her belly. “See? Penelope is ordering you to cheer up, too.”

Laura managed a wobbly smile. “Penelope may well be a boy. And please do explain how I am to cheer up. I’m about to wed the man who once attempted to arrest my father.”

Perhaps that appalling fact lay at the heart of her dilemma. She had despised Alex for so many years. He still believed her father was guilty of theft. How could she even
think
of binding her life to him forever? It seemed unforgivably traitorous to Papa’s memory.