The Earl's Untouched Bride (12 page)

They reached a set of panelled doors, upon which Charles knocked. To her surprise, he did not simply enter, but waited until the door was opened by a stocky servant, dressed in a plain black coat and stuff breeches.

'Ah, Linney,' Charles said, 'I believe Captain Fawley has expressed an interest in meeting my bride?'

'Indeed he has, m'lord,' the stocky man replied, his own face as impassive as her husband's. Why, then, did she get the impression that both of them saw this as a momentous occasion?

It took Heloise's eyes a moment or two to acclimatise to the gloom that pervaded the room she walked into. Lit only by the flames of a roaring fire, it was clearly the domain of a man who did not care what his visitors might think. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of stale sweat, unwashed linen and general neglect that hung in the overheated room. Unfortunately, it was the exact moment her eyes came to rest on a figure sprawled on a scuffed leather sofa, to one side of the soot-blackened fireplace.

For a second her heart seemed to stop beating. The man who regarded her with piercingly hostile black eyes was so very like Gaspard that she uttered a little cry and ran to him, her hands outstretched.

Leaning on his shoulders, she planted a kiss on each cheek, before sitting down next to him. When he flinched, she said, 'Oh, dear
—
should I not have done that? I have embarrassed you. It is just that you are so like my own dear brother.' In spite of herself, her eyes filled with tears. 'Who I will never see again. But now I find my husband has a brother, so I have a brother again, too.'

Somewhat overcome, she reached into her reticule for a handkerchief. While she was busy blowing her nose, she heard Charles cross to the fireplace.

'You haven't embarrassed me as much as I fear you have embarrassed yourself,' Captain Fawley snarled. 'Linney, perhaps you would be so good as to draw back the curtains?'

In silence, the manservant did as he was bade. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the livid burns down one side of the Captain's face, head and neck, which the length of his unkempt hair did little to conceal. The left sleeve of his threadbare jacket was empty; the lower part of his left leg was also missing.

Perplexed, Heloise said, 'Why will drawing the curtains make me embarrassed?'

Captain Fawley laughed
—
a harsh noise that sounded as though it was torn from his throat. 'You have just kissed a cripple! Don't you feel sick? Most pretty women would recoil if they saw me, not want to kiss this!' He indicated his scarred face with an angry sweep of his right hand.

But, 'Oh!' said Heloise, her face lighting up. 'Do you really think I am pretty? How much more I like you already.'

The stunned look on Captain Fawley's face was as nothing compared to what Charles felt. Her face alight with pleasure, Heloise really did look remarkably pretty. He could not think why he had never noticed it before. Her eyes sparkled with intelligence, she had remarkably thick, lustrous hair, and a dainty little figure. She did not have the obvious attractions of her sister, but she was far from the plain, dull little creature he had written off while his eyes had been full of Felice. 'Captivating', Conningsby had said of her. Aye, she was. And she would be a credit to him once he had her properly dressed.

There was a certain dressmaker in Bond Street whose designs would suit her to a tee...

'You cannot mean that!' Robert began to curse.

A few minutes of such Turkish treatment was all he would permit Heloise to endure, then he would escort her to the safety of her rooms.

'Why not?' Unfazed, Heloise untied the ribbons of her bonnet and placed the shapeless article on her lap. Charles had a vision of wresting it from her hands, throwing it off a bridge into the Thames, and replacing it with a neat little crimson velvet creation, trimmed with swansdown.

'Well, because I am disfigured,' Captain Fawley said. 'I am only half a man.'

She cocked her head to examine him, in the way that always put the Earl in mind of a cheeky little sparrow. She missed nothing
—
from the toe of Robert's right boot to the puckered eyelid that drooped into the horrible scarring that truly did disfigure the left side of his face.

'You have only lost a bit of one leg and a bit of one arm,' she said. 'Not even a tenth of you has gone. You may think of yourself as nine-tenths of a man, I suppose, if you must, but not less than that. Besides
—
' she shrugged '
—
many others did not survive the war at all. Gaspard did not. I tell you now, I would still have been glad to have him back, and nothing would have prevented me from embracing him, no matter how many limbs he might have lost!'

'But you must want me to leave this house,' he blustered. 'And once an heir is on the way
—
' he rounded on Charles '
—
you can have no more excuses to keep me imprisoned here!'

Before he could draw breath to reply, Heloise said, rather stiffly, 'Is it because I am French?'

'Wh...what?'

'You reject my friendship because I am French. In effect, all this nonsense about being disfigured is the flim-flam. You don't want me for your sister.'

Faced with an indignant woman, Captain Fawley could do nothing but retreat from his stance, muttering apologies. 'It is not your fault you are French. You can't help that. Or being married to my half-brother, I dare say. I know how ruthless he can be when he wants his own way.' He glared up at Charles.

'Then you will help me?' Again, her face lit up with hope. 'Because Charles, he says it is not at all fashionable for a husband to hang on his wife's arm all the time. I have heard in Paris all about the season in London, with the masquerades, and the picnics, and the fireworks, which he will not at all want to take me to, even if I was not his wife, because such things are all very frivolous and not good ton. But I would like to see them all. And he said I may, if I could find a suitable escort. And who would be more proper to go about with me than my own brother? And then, you know, he says I must learn to ride...'

'Well, I can't teach you to ride! Haven't you noticed? I've only got one leg!'

Heloise regarded his left leg with a thoughtful air. 'You have only lost a little bit of the lower part of one leg. You still have your thigh, and that, I believe, is what is important for staying in the saddle. Do I have that correct? You men grip with your knees, is that not so? Whereas I
—
' she pulled a face '
—
must learn to ride side-saddle. I will have to hang on with my hands to the reins, and keep my balance while the creature is bouncing along...'

'Well, there you have it!' Captain Fawley pointed out. 'You have both hands. I have only one, and
—
'

'Oh, don't tell me you are afraid of falling off!' she mocked.

Charles suddenly felt conscious of holding his breath. For weeks before he had gone to Paris he had known Robert had regained most of his health and strength. There had been nothing preventing him from getting out and resuming a normal life but his own black mood. Had they all failed him by tiptoeing round his sensibilities?

'A brave soldier like you?' Heloise continued relentlessly. 'You are full of...of... Well, it is not polite to mention what you are full of!'

Captain Fawley turned for support to his brother. 'Tell her, Charles. Tell her that I just can't
—
'

Charles cut him off with a peremptory wave of his hand. 'You had as well give in graciously. Once she has the bit between her teeth, there is no stopping her. You cannot argue with her logic because it is of that singularly female variety which always completely confounds we mere males.' So saying, he swept her a mocking bow.

Robert sank back into the cushions, looking as though he had been hit by a whirlwind. Heloise was still watching him, her head tilted to one side, a hopeful expression on her face. And all of a sudden the dour cripple let out a bark of genuine laughter.

'I quite see why you married her, Walton.'

'Indeed, she left me no choice.'

'Very well, madam. I will come with you when you start your riding lessons,' he conceded. Then he frowned. 'Since I expect we will both fall off with monotonous regularity, I recommend we take our lessons early in the mornings, when nobody will be about to see us.'

She clapped her hands, her face lighting up with joy. Something twisted painfully inside Charles. Nothing he had ever done or said to her had managed to please her half so well.

'I dare say,' he said brusquely, 'you would like to see your rooms now, madam wife, and freshen up a little?'

Heloise pulled a face at Robert. 'What he means, no doubt, is that I look a mess, and that also he wishes to take me aside to give me a lecture about my appalling manners.'

'No, I am sure not,' Robert replied, regarding the stiff set of Walton's shoulders with a perplexed frown. 'Your manners are delightfully refreshing.'

Heloise laughed at that, but once they had quit Captain Fawley's suite she turned anxious eyes on her husband.

He made no comment until he had taken her to the suite of rooms he'd had his staff prepare for his bride. On sight of them, Heloise gasped aloud. She had her own sitting room, with a pale blue Aubusson carpet upon which various comfortable sofas and chairs were arranged. Her bedroom, too, was carpeted almost to the wainscot. With a smile, Heloise imagined getting up in the morning and setting her bare feet on that, rather than the rough boards of the little room she had shared with her sister. No shutters on any of the windows, she noted, only heavy dark blue velvet curtains, held back with self-coloured cords.

'I hope you like it
—
though of course if there are any alterations you wish to make, you have only to say.'

Heloise spread her hands, shrugging her utter bewilderment at such opulence. 'How could I not like this?' she managed to say, when it became apparent that her husband was waiting for her to say something.

It seemed to have been the right thing to say, for some of the tension left his stance. 'I will ring and ask for refreshments to be served up here in your sitting room,' he said, crossing to the bell-pull beside the chimney breast. 'You may rest assured I shall not intrude upon your privacy. This is your domain. Just as the rooms downstairs are Robert's. The only time I shall enter, save at your express invitation, will be to bid you goodnight. Every night,' he finished sternly.

So that the servants would believe they were a normal husband and wife, she assumed. She sighed as a group of them came in and laid out the tea things. She supposed she should be grateful he wanted things to look right. At least she would get to see him once each day. Otherwise, the place being so vast, they might not bump into each other from one end of the week to the other.

Once the servants had retreated, Charles said, 'Come, Heloise, I can see you are bursting with questions. I have a little time to spare to indulge your curiosity before I must be about other business.'

There was no point in questioning their living arrangements. She had promised not to be a nuisance. But she would like to know what on earth had happened between the two Fawley brothers for them to come to this.

'Why does your brother accuse you of imprisoning him here? Is this something to do with the rift in your family you spoke of to me?'

'You do not need to have tea served if you do not like it,' he remarked, noticing the grimace of distaste with which she had set down her teacup after taking only one sip. 'The kitchen can provide anything you wish for.'

'Don't you wish to tell me? Is that why you talk about tea? If you do not want me to know about your family secrets then you only need to say, and I will not pry any further!'

'That is not the issue!' This was not a topic he found it easy to discuss. She would have to make do with a succinct account of the facts. 'Robert's mother was my father's second wife,' he bit out. 'In their zeal to protect me from her influence, when my father died the people he had nominated my guardians sent her back to her own family
—
with a modest annuity and penalties attached should she try to inveigle herself back into my life.'

'What was she, then, Robert's mother?' Heloise asked, fascinated. 'Something scandalous? An actress, perhaps, or a woman of easy morals?'

Charles smiled grimly. 'Worse than that, in the opinion of my stiff-rumped maternal relatives. She was a doctor's daughter.'

At Heloise's complete bafflement, he continued, 'She was, with her middle-class values, the kind of person who might have influenced me into thinking less of my consequence than they thought I should. They reminded me that my real mother was the Duke of Bray's granddaughter, and set about instilling me with pride in my true lineage. Rigorously.'

Heloise shook her head. What a miserable little boy he must have been. But worse was to come.

'I did not even know that I had a brother until, when I came of age, I began to go through all the family papers with my lawyers, instead of just ratifying them as my guardians assumed I would. I discovered that Robert had been born some five months after my father's death. Instead of having him raised with me, and acknowledged as second in line to my inheritance, they consigned him to the care of his mother's family. By the time he was sixteen, so vehemently did he hate my mother's relations that he began to refuse even the meagre allowance they had arranged for him. Instead he requested they purchase him a commission, so
that he could make his own way in the world without having any need for further contact with relatives who had made no secret of the fact they wished he had not been born. Which they did
—
hoping, no doubt, that his career would be short and bloody. It was not long after that when I discovered his existence. And by then he was beyond my reach. He neither wanted nor needed anything from the brother he had grown up hating.'