Not long now before he was in London and then he would see her, this witch who had so turned Piers’s head that he forgot his honour and his duty, this lady with the heart of a harlot who had sent her own child far away so she could wallow in pleasure and break hearts as she had broken his cousin’s heart.
* * *
‘We are leaving. Now. Today.’
‘What? Why?’ Mab dropped the laundry basket onto the kitchen table with a thump.
‘That man....’ Her voice was shaking so much she had to stop, grip the edge of the table and breathe hard before she could steady it. ‘That man forced Piers to go back to Spain before he could marry me. He called him a coward and he got him in such a muddle about his duty and his honour that he went—and he was killed.’
‘Lovey, he might have been killed whenever he went back.’
‘I know.’ Laura sank onto the nearest chair. ‘But he would have married me and Alice would be legitimate and Piers would not have died with that worry on his mind.’
‘He knew?’ Mab sat down, too.
‘I wrote and it would have caught the next ship out. I think, from the timing, he could have received it. Perhaps I should not have done it, but I was so frightened and all I could think of was that I had to tell him.’ I feel such a coward. It seems like a betrayal of everything I told you I could be as a soldier’s wife. I hate to worry you, but I am pregnant with our child. Please don’t blame yourself, we were both at fault, but write, I beg you, tell me what to do... There had never been a response, only the news of his death.
‘I dare not risk being near Lord Wykeham or I will say something I regret, I know I will. I cannot believe I kept my tongue between my teeth just now as it is.’ She covered her face with her hands as if the blackness could somehow bring a measure of calm. ‘The boy from the Golden Lion can take the gig into Hemel Hempstead and give a message to Michael to bring the carriage right away.’ She got to her feet and ran to the front parlour to scribble a note for her coachman, who was waiting at one of the big coaching inns and enjoying a quiet country holiday while he did so. ‘If you go to the Golden Lion now with this, I will start packing.’
Mab, her bonnet jammed on her head and her mouth set in a grim line, marched in and took the note. ‘Don’t you be putting your back out pulling that trunk out of the cupboard,’ was all she said before she banged out of the front door.
Laura pulled another sheet of paper towards her and wrote as swiftly as her shaking hand allowed.
Dearest Alice,
I am sorry I had to leave without saying goodbye to you. I will always remember you and think of you. Please understand that not everyone who has to leave you wishes to do so.
With all my love, your ‘adopted aunt’.
* * *
They had not brought much with them, for the cottage had been rented furnished and Laura’s pose as a widow in mourning meant she could manage with a limited wardrobe. By the time Michael arrived in the coach—the one she had chosen specifically because it had no crest on the doors—she and Mab had the trunk filled and a neat row of portmanteaux lined up in the hall.
It was not a good time of day to leave, for they could not get back to London in daylight and would have to put up at an inn overnight, but Laura dared not risk staying another day. As it was, there seemed little chance that Avery could discover who she was, even if he wanted to. The cottage had been rented through her man of business in her false name, she had received no post and Michael had told no one who his employer was.
The note for Alice was dropped off at the inn for delivery the next morning. By then Laura would be on the road again, heading for London, the Curzon Street house, appointments with modistes and milliners, the re-entry into her world—the world of the Season and the haut ton and oblivion in a whirl of pleasure.
Avery Falconer could advertise for a governess and then pack his bags and go back to arranging the affairs of Europe wherever the government chose to use his undoubted talents for autocratically directing the lives and destinies of others.
He had cared for his cousin Piers and yet, when the young man had crossed Avery’s line of what constituted honour and duty, he had bent him ruthlessly to his will. He loved Alice: Laura told herself that she just had to believe he would never break her daughter’s heart because he thought he was doing the right thing.
* * *
For two weeks Avery kept the tightest rein on his temper he ever had in his life. He interviewed governesses and found none to his liking, he arranged for the Berkeley Square house to be put in readiness and he dealt with a weeping child who could not understand why her new Aunt Caroline had vanished. And that was difficult to endure because he had the nagging conviction on his conscience that she had fled his kisses and Alice’s distress was therefore all his fault.
After a few days of tears, followed by clinging, Alice seemed to settle down. After all, as she confided in Avery, poor Aunt Caroline had been sad, so perhaps it was best that she had gone home to her friends, the only excuse he had been able to come up with.
Now all he had to do was to find Alice a stepmama who would love her and she could forget a mother who had sent her away and a mysterious aunt who had vanished. He found he was quite looking forward to it. There would be no work, no worries, no sudden crises, simply a process of sociable, pleasurable wife-hunting and then marriage.
Must be getting old, he thought, studying himself in the pier glass and tightening the muscles of an already flat stomach. No sign of grey hairs yet, but the prospect of a wife is surprisingly attractive. There would be none of the expenses and tantrums associated with mistresses. And none of the tension and guilt associated with respectable widows either, his conscience added. But it was good that Caroline had gone, for an earl with diplomatic responsibilities could not offer marriage to the widow of some middling gentleman and the alternative would not have been honourable. Yes, it was fortunate that he would never see Mrs Caroline Jordan again. But he missed her.
‘So who is chaperoning you? Hmm?’ The Dowager Marchioness of Birtwell lifted her lorgnette to her eyes and fixed Laura with an unnervingly magnified gaze.
Laura paused in her wanderings through the crowds at Mrs Fairweather’s May Day musical reception and dipped a curtsy. ‘My cousin Florence, ma’am.’ Laura reminded herself that one day she might be eighty with arthritis and managed a smile. She crossed her fingers behind her back—after all, Cousin Florence had promised to come and stay soon...she just wasn’t here at this moment.
‘Lady Carstairs? She always was an empty-headed peahen. If your poor dear mama couldn’t keep you in line, what hope has Florence Carstairs?’
‘I am resolved not to be a trial to her,’ Laura said and was rewarded with a crack of laugher.
‘Well, you are too pale to compete with this year’s beauties—and you are getting to be too old for any nonsense into the bargain. Time to stop flitting about and find a husband.’ The dowager flapped her hands at Laura as if she was a troublesome chicken. ‘Go on, there are enough of them out there. In fact, I saw just the man a moment ago. Neither of you are in a position to be too fussy. Now where has he gone?’
There were limits to polite toleration of one’s elders, Laura decided, murmuring an excuse and moving away into the thronged reception room before the old dragon spotted that Cousin Florence was nowhere to be seen or located the rather less-than-ideal candidate she had in mind for Laura’s hand. She was too pale, too old and had too much of a reputation to be entirely eligible apparently, but what were the gentleman’s faults, such that he could not afford to be fussy either? she wondered. Buck teeth, a spreading waistline and a gambling habit, perhaps?
‘Lady Laura! You have returned to us and