A sense of elation swept over him, so strong that it made him almost dizzy. Vengeance, for all of it, was almost within his grasp! He could not believe it had been so easy. He had all those fools to thank—the fools who had made this lovely girl believe no man could want her.
He sank down on to the chair next to her, and would have seized her hand in gratitude, had he not been aware that she saw acceptance of his proposal as the lesser of two evils. Poverty and drudgery on the one hand, or marriage to a man no other woman could stomach on the other. What was it she had murmured, tears in her eyes? The devil or the deep blue sea!
So what if she felt she had made a bargain with the devil? She would soon learn that though he might not be the kind of husband most girls dreamed of, she would most definitely enjoy the comfortable lifestyle marrying him would bring her. From what he had been able to glean from his brief visit to the lawyers, to verify exactly what he needed to do to inherit, the old woman had left a tidy sum of money, as well as the property that would become their home.
‘Thank you, Miss Gillies. I cannot begin to tell you what this means to me.’ He almost winced at his own choice of words. He had been deliberately economical with the facts. For he never wanted her to discover that he had taken advantage of her vulnerability in order to exact revenge on a Lampton. Such knowledge was bound to chafe at her tender conscience.
He had suspected, before he came to put his proposal to her, that she would refuse him outright if she knew that marrying him would be tantamount to ruining another person’s future. She seemed capable of putting everyone’s happiness before her own. Look at how pleased she had been to observe Susannah’s success. She had displayed no trace of envy, though Susannah had totally eclipsed her more understated beauty, denying her a chance to attract her own suitors. And she had been pleased that the London Season, which was clearly sapping her strength, was helping her mother to get over her grief.
No, he had no intention of burdening her with the knowledge that he was determined to deprive Lampton of a fortune the man had always regarded as his.
But he had to secure it swiftly. Lampton was bound to take steps to prevent him marrying if he got wind of it.
‘We must marry at once.’
‘Must we?’ she replied, in bewilderment.
‘Yes, for if I do not fulfil the terms of the will, within a specified time, I may lose out on the inheritance altogether.’
‘Oh,’ was all she said, but he could hear acceptance in her tone. Relieved to have surmounted yet another hurdle, he braced himself for her objections when he stipulated, ‘And I must insist that we send no announcement to the papers until after the ceremony. Nor tell anyone who is not directly involved either when, or where, it is to take place.’
She looked at him with a troubled frown. ‘You want me to marry you in secret?’ She shook her head. ‘No … that would be … quite repugnant to me.’ To marry in secret, as though there was something to be ashamed of … it did not bear thinking about.
‘It seems so underhanded,’ she persisted.
‘I know I am asking a great deal of you. But, please, look at it from my point of view.’
Sometimes, a battle had to be fought with subtlety, using whatever stratagems necessary to outwit the enemy. He was not exactly lying to Deborah. Only throwing a little dust in her eyes. It was no worse than lying in ambush for an enemy who had superior numbers, rather than meeting him on open ground, where defeat would have been inevitable.
‘I do not want there to be any more witnesses to our wedding than are absolutely necessary.’ That much was the literal truth. But then, relying on her sympathetic nature, he added, ‘Do you think I enjoy having people stare at me? Wondering what on earth I had to do to induce a beauty like you into taking on a wreck like me?’
‘Beauty?’ she gasped indignantly. ‘You just said that you were not going to spout silly romantic nonsense! So don’t resort to insincere flattery just to get your own way. I would much rather you kept to the plain speaking you say you pride yourself on.’
‘Miss Gillies, I am being perfectly sincere. You posses an inner beauty that any man with an ounce of sense—’
‘Oh, inner beauty,’ she snorted in derision. That was how a man always tried to cajole a plain girl into doing his bidding. Well, he would soon find out that she was not as biddable as all that. She must tell him she simply could not act in a way she felt was morally reprehensible.
She took a deep breath.
‘I refuse to keep this news from my mother, or marry without her to attend me ….’
‘Well, naturally,’ he said, taking the wind out of her sails. ‘Miss Gillies, I am not asking you to enter into a secret marriage. Only a very private one. There will be nothing havey-cavey about it. I shall be asking my brother to stand up with me. And once the ceremony is over and we are on our way to our new home, I will be only too pleased to advertise the fact.’
That did not sound too unreasonable, she supposed.
‘However, I would rather you did not tell your mother that we are to marry, until you are in the coach and on the way to the ceremony.’
Deborah blinked.
‘It is the only way to be sure she does not let slip what is about to take place. She is clearly very fond of Miss Hullworthy. Would she be able, do you suppose, to keep the news of your marriage from her? Would she be able to keep it from anyone? Most mothers are so pleased to know their daughters are to wed, they cannot keep a still tongue in their head.’
Deborah chewed on her lower lip as she pondered this aspect of the case. Her mother would indeed be thrilled to hear she was getting married, doubly so that it was to Captain Fawley. And if she knew that he planned to take her into the marital home, and care for her in her old age, nothing would keep her from flinging herself on his neck and weeping all over him, before she proudly announced to all her cronies what a splendid son-in-law she had managed to net.
And as for keeping the news from Susannah … She sighed. Captain Fawley would not want her to be present at the ceremony that represented a final farewell to the woman he loved. In fact, if she was honest with herself, having Susannah there would ruin the event for her, as well. It was bad enough knowing she was a poor second-best, without having her husband’s first choice there in person to remind her what a second-rate marriage he was embarking upon.
She hated subterfuge, or anything that smacked of dishonesty in any form, yet refraining from telling her friend her news would certainly save both Captain Fawley, and herself, some pain.
‘How long would you expect me to keep our engagement from my mother?’
She could not miss the flare of triumph that lit his eyes as he recognised her capitulation to his terms.
‘Now that I have your promise, I can obtain the special licence required to marry without the need for banns. We will have to meet with the lawyers who are acting as executors of the will of which I am a beneficiary too. It is no use marrying without their prior knowledge and agreement. Providing all goes well, the ceremony itself can take place the day after tomorrow. We shall leave town immediately after the ceremony. Walton can send the notice to the Morning Post once we are safely out of the way.’
‘Just a minute—what will happen if the lawyers do not give their agreement?’
‘I am sure they will. You have no need to worry. I did not mean to imply they might not approve you. I just need to make sure I fulfil all the terms to the letter, so that nobody may contest my claim.’
‘Contest your claim? Is that likely?’
What would happen to her, if she did not fulfil the requirements of this will? Or if someone contested his claim? He had only proposed because he wanted to inherit this property. He would have no use for her at all if the lawyers decided she was not fit for some reason. She went cold inside. What would he do in such an event? Take her home and wash his hands of her? Could he be so ungallant?
Was that why he had sworn her to secrecy? So that she would not be able to complain that he had proposed and then jilted her? For she had too much pride to admit to another living soul that she had done something so improper as entering into a secret engagement. Suddenly, she felt very alone, and very afraid.
But then, to her surprise, Captain Fawley reached out and placed his hand over hers as she twisted them together in her lap.
‘I know it will not be easy for you to creep out of the house, without your mother’s knowledge.’
She had not even considered the practical aspects of attending an appointment at the lawyers’ office without her mother’s knowledge until that moment. Now she had another worry to add to those already tormenting her!
‘But only think how happy she will be when she finds out it was all in a good cause,’ he cajoled her. ‘And you will not have to keep her from our plans for more than a day, if all goes well.’
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.
She blanked out the Countess’s persistent chirruping as the coach bore them into the City, as she tried to make some sense out of what she had let slip the moment they had got into the coach. She remembered the look of contempt Captain Fawley had directed at Percy Lampton the first time he had seen him with Susannah. And the malicious smile Lampton had returned. At the time, she had thought it was odd, but now she saw it was the look of two long-standing adversaries. She recalled the way Lampton had ridden up to them in Hyde Park, requesting an introduction, as though the meeting was purely accidental. She remembered her instant distrust of his charm. And felt certain that he was not merely another in Susannah’s long line of conquests. Could his pursuit of her been deliberately calculated for the sole purpose of preventing Captain Fawley from marrying her, and thus gaining his inheritance?
She alighted from the carriage in a daze. Captain Fawley was waiting for her on the steps of a functional building in a narrow, though cleanly swept, side street. He looked tense.
As well he might. He was using her as a weapon in his ongoing struggle with the Lamptons in general, and Percy Lampton in particular.
And it hurt.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, limping forward to offer her his arm. ‘I was beginning to think my ruse would not work. Heloise is such a pea goose. A dear little pea goose, but sadly featherbrained.’
‘I heard that, you ungrateful beast!’ Lady Walton put her head out of the carriage window to inform him, her eyes full of laughter. ‘Now you will have to wonder if I will return, in Walton’s carriage, to take your Miss Gillies home, or if I will take offence and wash my hands of you once and for all!’
‘You wouldn’t do anything so hard-hearted,’ he returned, with a fond smile. ‘Besides, you will be burning with curiosity to discover how this interview turned out.’
‘Pig!’ she answered, slamming the window and thumping with her parasol on the roof to indicate the driver should set off.
Could she really believe the Countess would connive at doing something that was really reprehensible? Though her words had set alarm bells ringing, the insouciant way she had driven off, after laughing and joking with Robert, made it sound as though she were participating in some kind of prank, at the very worst.
She shook her head, too hurt and bewildered to do more than follow meekly where Robert led her, which was into a narrow hallway and up a wooden staircase to the cramped office of the lawyers, Kenridge and Hopedale.
As they entered the room, two men looked up from behind a desk almost obliterated by the mounds of papers and files stacked upon it. One, a kindly-faced, stout gentleman, got to his feet, indicating that she should take the ladder-backed chair set out for the convenience of his clients. As Captain Fawley took his place directly behind her, the other lawyer scowled at them over the top of a pair of half-moon spectacles.
‘Now, then, Miss … Gillies, is it not?’ the cherubic lawyer muttered, shuffling a sheaf of papers in front of him. ‘We just need to ask you a few questions.’
She felt Captain Fawley place his hand upon her shoulder, as though offering her reassurance. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to shake it off. Why had he not been open with her about his real motive for wishing to get married? Could he imagine for one second that she would side with the family who had wronged him even before he was born? She could not believe a man as starchy as the Earl of Walton would acknowledge a man as his brother, if there was even a hint he might be illegitimate. The Lamptons must have deliberately robbed Captain Fawley’s mother, and him, of what should have been theirs. Now Percy Lampton seemed to be trying to do the same thing, all over again!
‘We only need to know that she is of age, and entering into marriage with Captain Fawley freely,’ the acid-faced lawyer interrupted. ‘Are you?’ he shot at her.
But before she could answer in the affirmative, the kindly lawyer shook his head. ‘No, no, we must establish not only the legality, but also the suitability of this union. The marriage must be watertight. We do not want the Lamptons thinking they might have any possible grounds for contesting our decision to wind up the trust. If she does not come from an impeccable background, they might—’
‘Codswallop!’ the thin lawyer snapped. ‘It is quite clear that Euphemia Lampton intended all her estate to go to this young man. Her nephew never even got a mention in the original will. Not even to a keepsake. You and I both know that she only added the codicil under duress.’
Something like a cold dart shot through Deborah at the use of the word nephew. Nephew to a Lampton? Could this other legatee mentioned in a codicil be … Percy Lampton? Was this the inheritance he had been fully expecting to come into? If so, what Captain Fawley was doing was worse than she had imagined. Not only was he using her to get his hands on this legacy, but it was a property that morally belonged to somebody else. Or at least … she chewed at her lower lip … Lampton had always assumed it belonged to him. So he would feel as though he was being robbed. Now she felt like an accessory to a crime.
The plump lawyer’s cheeks went a little pink. ‘Now, now, we do not need to mention specifics in front of this young lady ….’
‘Why not? You are practically demanding she provide references!’
The plump lawyer lost his cherubic look, his brows drawing down in an angry V as he swivelled to face his partner. ‘Only in order to satisfy a legal point. Normally it is preferable for a property to go to a blood relation than somebody who has no connection with the testator.’
‘The connection is there. You heard what Miss Lampton told us when we drew up the original will—’
‘Excuse me,’ Deborah said, rising to her feet, her pulse tumultuous with agitation. ‘But I am quite able to vouch for my suitability to marry any man I choose,’ she said, addressing the plump lawyer. ‘My mother is granddaughter to the Earl of Plymstock, through the female line. You may check her lineage in Collin’s Peerage. My father was a Gillies of Hertfordshire. Again, check away as meticulously as you please. Third son of Reginald and Lucinda Gillies, of Upshott. Not perhaps a noble family, but old.’
She drew in an indignant breath. Not only had Captain Fawley been dishonest in the manner of his proposal, but he had exposed her to this piece of impertinence!
‘You may also investigate as long as you please, and you will discover I have never done anything that would give anyone any justification for claiming I was not completely respectable. My father was a man of the cloth. As his child, he taught me how important it was not to let him down by so much as an unseemly gesture. Go and inquire in the town of Lower Wakering, where I grew up. You will not find anybody who could cast an aspersion on my moral rectitude. And as for the other matter, yes, I am of age! At my last prayers, in fact,’ she said, her face twisting with bitterness as she recalled that it was precisely this fact Captain Fawley had used to lure her into what he thought was her last chance of ever marrying. ‘And do I marry Captain Fawley of my own free will?’
She whirled round to glare at him. She felt humiliated, used, deceived. He held her regard without the slightest sign of guilt or remorse. There was only what might have been interpreted as a slightly mocking challenge in his eyes.
Trust him, the Countess had urged her. Do not side with his enemies.
She swallowed. Furious as she was with him, right at this moment, could she really back out of this horrible tangle, having come this far? Would he not see it as a betrayal, far worse than anything that had been done to him to date? He would regard her as an enemy. He would hate her.
Shaking with impotent fury, she turned back to the lawyers, who were awaiting her answer with quills poised.
‘Yes,’ she croaked, her voice clogged with emotion. She cleared her throat. ‘If I do not marry him, I shall not marry anyone,’ she declared firmly.
Then, her eyes full of humiliated tears, she whirled from the room and stumbled down the stairs into the dusty street. Leaning against the wall, her forehead grinding into the brickwork, she fought to regain her composure.
What was she doing, allying herself to a man who could deceive her, use her without regard for her feelings? Condemning herself to a lifetime of hurt, that was what!
‘Miss Gillies!’ She blinked as the Walton coach drew up at the kerb, and the countess leaned out, her face puckered with concern.
‘Miss Gillies!’ She heard another voice, a masculine voice, calling her from within the lawyer’s offices. Captain Fawley must be making his way down the stairs, of necessity slowly and carefully.
A footman jumped down from the box and opened the carriage door for her. She strode across the pavement and got in.
‘Where is Robert?’ the Countess asked, peering behind her.
‘I don’t think we ought to be seen together, do you?’ Deborah said, on a flash of inspiration. ‘Wouldn’t want to give the game away!’ she finished bitterly.
The Countess’s face lit up. Clapping her hands, she gave the order for the coach to set off.
Just as Robert emerged from the doorway, his face as dark as a thundercloud.