The Perfect Mistress (32 page)

Had she been a part of a scheme by Gladstone, from the beginning? A plot to humiliate him socially and discredit him politically? What could be more damaging than the scandal of a seduction and a forced marriage? He thought of Gabrielle and her mother and the entire crazy situation—

limericks and chess and flowers and that bizarre courtship. Was the

"command romance" all just an elaborate ruse? Or had Gabrielle been used as well, in a cold-blooded attempt to wreck his career?

As he entered his house, his stomach was roiling, his head was throbbing… and there wasn't an answer in sight. He was in no mood for talk or tension or temper, but the instant he set foot in the dining room, he was confronted by all three in the person of his mother. She was arranging flowers on the main table. At the sight of him, she stopped to give him a thorough looking over.

"You could at least shave and change your clothes… maintain a pretense of respectability after spending an entire night in God knows what depravity."

He halted halfway across the dining room, straining for control of his volatile mood. "Is that any way to speak to your only son when he is about to make you the happiest woman alive?" he snarled.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're getting your heart's desire. I'm going to be married," he announced, trying not to choke on the word. He reached for the bell, thinking that her startled look was at least some compensation for the trauma and upheaval he was going through.

"Married? To whom?" She dropped the flowers in her hands.

"Yes, your lordship?" The butler stepped through the door from the kitchens.

"I want a 'morning after' breakfast," Pierce ordered. "In my chambers. I'm going upstairs to have a bath and a bit of rest." He cast a meaningful glare at his mother. "I don't want to be disturbed for the rest of the day… unless it's a message from my solicitors or the bishop." The butler nodded and withdrew.

"I don't believe you," Beatrice said. "What eligible woman of good birth and breeding would possibly agree to marry you?"

A muscle in his jaw jumped as he constrained himself. "It will be very quick—a day or two at most. By special license. You'll just have time to buy a new hat, if you hurry." He started for the door.

"I demand to know who she is—this woman you're marrying!" But for all her bravado, she gripped the edge of the table, bracing for the worst.

He paused at the threshold. "I am marrying my mistress."

As he left the room, Beatrice took the vapors for the first time in weeks.

More than an hour later, lying on the reclining bench in her chambers with a vial of salts in her hand and a cold cloth on her forehead, Beatrice had managed to battle through her shock and her anger enough to think about it.

He was marrying his mistress? Good Lord, she hadn't even known he
had
a mistress!

The wretch—he was doing it on purpose, just to spite her.

But on second thought, she realized that there must be more involved. It was one thing to have a mistress; many men did so without the slightest blemish upon their reputations. But it was another thing entirely to marry one. It smacked of poor judgment at best, weak or depraved character at worst. Men who married their mistresses were made laughingstocks in proper society… considered gullible or hopelessly entangled in a woman's petticoats.

Pierce knew that just as well as she did. And while he would go a long way to annoy her, she knew he was not one to cut off his nose to spite his face.

That meant there was more to it. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became. And she determined to learn just what had happened between Pierce and his bit of fluff that gave this woman a power over him that his mother had never managed to wield.

14

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G
abrielle's wedding day dawned gray, wet, and depressing, and went steadily downhill from there. Rue spent two hours fixing her hair and helping her dress, attending to every detail of her appearance… only to have the duke declare that a white dress, even a deep cream white with a burgundy underskirt and burgundy velvet trim, was wholly inappropriate.

"I liked it better when I didn't have a father," she muttered to Rue, as he hauled out her pale blue satin and ordered her to wear it, instead.

The carriage ride was suffered in abject silence, and when they arrived at the church—St. Mary's of the Something-or-other—it was raining so hard that they had to wait in the carriage until the torrent subsided. She fleetingly recalled another rainstorm, one that had started Pierce and herself on the way to ruin… and the altar.

By the time the coachman handed her down to the church steps and helped her to the doors, she was feeling light-headed and a bit sick at her stomach. Her father grabbed her by the elbow and propelled her into the vestibule. As he steered her down the aisle, she realized Pierce was not yet present. At the front of the church the bishop waited, along with William Gladstone, an older woman whom Gabrielle recognized as Gladstone's

"Catherine," and another, thickset woman in a dark gray dress and a stylish feathered hat.

It was eerily quiet in the chapel. The sound of Gabrielle's heels on the slate floor echoed about the stone walls. She felt conspicuous and guilty and utterly friendless. Her heart sank a bit lower as the duke edged away from her, as if separating himself from the taint of her infamy, but kept a firm hand on her elbow.

The bishop did his best to greet her warmly, which was generous of him, considering that when he last glimpsed her she had been half clothed and bearing passion's evidence plainly on her face. He spoke quietly to her, asking if she was prepared and if she wished anything special read. When she looked up, she found the woman in gray glaring at her with a ferocity akin to a slap in the face.

There was a creak of hinges at the side door. Pierce was entering the church. He stood a moment, lowering an umbrella and brushing rain from his sleeve. His dark eyes and chiseled features, once so familiar to her, seemed perfectly unreadable as his eyes met hers.

After terse greetings, they approached the altar railing, where the bishop directed them to their appropriate positions.

Just as he opened his service book, Gabrielle's name rang out from the back. Gabrielle turned in surprise and found her mother sailing down the aisle toward her, dressed in a buttercup yellow floral silk and a yellow picture hat, at least a yard across, dripping with yellow silk roses and green satin ribbons.

To Gabrielle, Rosalind looked like the veriest breath of spring as she approached with open arms and a beaming smile. It was the first bit of human warmth Gabrielle had been offered in three days. Without a thought for possible consequences, she wrenched free of the duke's grasp and was soon caught up in her mother's embrace.

"Are you all right, Gabby?" Rosalind whispered in a strained voice, then after a moment thrust her back to look at her. When Gabrielle nodded, Rosalind gave a sigh of relief and scowled at Gabrielle's simple dress. "Ye gods—you're being married in
that?
"

"The duke chose it." Gabrielle was blinking away excess moisture in her eyes.

"Well, that explains it," Rosalind said, with a tight smile.

"I didn't think you would come," Gabrielle whispered. "Knowing how you feel about marriage…"

"Not come?" Rosalind cupped Gabrielle's cheek in her hand. "However I feel about marriage, my feelings about
you
are far stronger." She paused to swallow the emotion that clogged her throat. "Go now, my dear, and say your vows and become a wife. That is what you said you wanted, after all."

"But it's not what
he
wanted," Gabrielle whispered, looking so miserable that Rosalind sighed and leaned close to her ear.

"Of course not. He'll get what
he
wanted tonight. Now, you must promise me that tonight you will wear nothing but a bedsheet and a smile." She squeezed Gabrielle's shoulders. "
Promise me
."

"I promise," Gabrielle murmured, blushing.

When the startled bishop asked who the latecomer might be, Rosalind spoke for herself in a clear and ringing voice: "I am Rosalind LeCoeur, the mother of the bride." The bishop glanced at the red-faced duke, then asked Rosalind to have a seat in the first pew on the left side. Rosalind noticed the woman wearing the dreadfully drab gray satin dress and a fierce scowl occupying the first pew on the right. She gave the woman a defiantly cheerful smile.

There were no more interruptions as the bishop called the company to order and began the service of marriage. The duke placed Gabrielle's hand in Pierce's and stepped back, transferring his recently assumed ownership and authority over her to Pierce.

Gabrielle found herself standing beside him, feeling small and powerless and overwhelmed by the promises she was required to make. Love, honor, and obey. What did that mean? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in wealth and in poverty… she was promising to abide with him, to care for him, to hold his honor and his comfort and his trust as she would her own?

There was a pause, and Pierce took her by the shoulders and turned her to him, startling her from her swirling thoughts. In something of a daze, she watched him remove her glove and place on her finger a gold ring set with a sizable ruby surrounded by small diamonds. In full, clear voice, he promised to be faithful and diligent as a husband and to cherish her always in holy Christian love.

She looked up into his eyes. Dark eyes. Turbulent eyes. Yet, in their depths, she glimpsed another, deeper current of feeling… one she was relieved to recognize, one she had touched and known. Tenderness.

Warmth. Passion.

This was not just a "husband," she realized, this was Pierce. Pierce who brought her fancy French shoes. Pierce who sang with her and made her promise to write him limericks and to name her firstborn after him. Pierce who listened to her, and laughed at her and with her, and taught her that she did have passions. Pierce who held her when she cried.

Could she honor him… cherish him… abide with him? The knot of tension in her stomach began to relax. In the midst of those daunting promises, she managed a tenuous smile. There was no one on earth she would rather "abide" with.

Pierce stood staring down into her blue eyes, into her warming, trusting face… and felt a loosening in the control he had imposed on himself for today's events. He had spent most of the morning preparing himself to face Gladstone, the bishop, his mother, the duke… and realized the moment he set foot in the church that the one he hadn't prepared for—the one he hadn't even allowed himself to think about—was the one against whom he most needed a defense. Gabrielle.

There she stood in her blue dress with her pert hat and demure veil, promising to love and honor and obey him… to cherish him in all the conditions of their lives. Those summer-sky eyes could almost make him forget all about Gladstone and humiliation and treachery and the fact that he was being forced into a trap he had long regarded as only a half step above oblivion. Almost.

He looked up and caught sight of Gladstone's stare. The disgrace and humiliation of his situation were resurrected, fresh and intensely painful, in his mind. And it all had begun with
her
.

When the bishop pronounced them man and wife, he hesitated in suggesting the groom kiss his bride. But Pierce needed no prompting. He seized Gabrielle by the shoulders and gave her a long and lusty kiss that had a number of purposes… defiance, expression of anger and frustration, declaration of possession, assumption of authority… everything, in fact, except pleasure.

Then he stepped back and, with his next breath, demanded the papers and the register to sign. When that was done, he turned to the witnesses.

"My bride and I will be departing shortly for Sussex," he announced sardonically. "I am sure you all will understand that the schedule leaves no time for the customary wedding breakfast." With a savage glare at Gladstone and a bitter look at his mother, he scooped Gabrielle up in his arms and carried her out of the church.

As he kicked open the outer doors and headed for the carriage, her foot bumped against the railing then brushed one of the columns on the front portico of the church. "Pierce, please—" she gasped, but at that moment he stepped out into the cold rain and she had to shield her face from the cold drops. When he stood her on the carriage step, she balked at entering and pointed back to the church doors.

"My shoe—I lost my shoe!"

"I'm getting soaked—" He pushed her inside, then climbed in after her.

"But my shoe—" she said, scrambling to the cross seat and peering anxiously out the rain-streaked carriage window, trying to locate the shoe on the portico. When he rapped on the carriage roof and the coach lurched into motion, she stared at him with genuine distress.

"It's a shoe, Gabrielle," he said with icy impatience. "You have others."

"Not like that one," she said, staring at him as if seeing a stranger. Then she reached down and plucked the other one from her foot and tucked it protectively into her crossed arms. It was a dainty party slipper with spool heels… made of white satin brocade… trimmed with bows and blue ribbon rosettes. He looked up at her with a furious expression, then jerked his head and fixed his gaze on the window.