Louise Allen - Silk And Seduction Bundle 2

But just before she could do so, her uncle, who had finally noticed what was going on, let out a bellow of rage.

‘Get away from my niece, you filthy cur!’ His walking cane made a swishing noise as he lashed out at the Gypsy’s extended arm.

But the Gypsy’s reactions were swift. The cane clattered down upon the flags without striking his arm.

Her uncle then rounded on her, growling, ‘Who have you been tattling to, you stupid girl? The one thing, above all else, you should have kept quiet about…and now somebody is using it to make trouble.’

Imogen gazed at her uncle in stupefaction. Then turned her bewildered gaze on the stranger, who was regarding her uncle with a smile of what looked like grim satisfaction. Her heart began to pound in her chest. It was the most incredible coincidence that a Gypsy should turn up at her wedding, with a gift and an admonition to remember, after she had spent so much time the night before, lying in bed, thinking about her illegitimate Gypsy half brother.

She saw what her uncle meant. The man who stood before them, a mocking smile on his face, was a visible reminder of her family’s deepest, darkest shame.

‘Go on!’ Her uncle blustered, waving his stick ineffectually at the Gypsy, who dodged each blow with ease. ‘Be off with you!’

‘Nothing to say, Imo?’ The man rounded on her, his eyes burning with blatant hostility. ‘Don’t you want me to leave?’

Imogen’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She was so shocked, she did not know what to say. It seemed incredibly cruel of someone to have sent a Gypsy to her wedding, to remind everyone that she had once had a half brother with Romany blood in his veins.

Her uncle seized her by the arm and began to drag her across the portico, towards the door of the chapel.

‘Come away,’ he huffed. His face was red and shiny from unaccustomed exertion and thwarted rage. ‘The impudent fellow won’t dare to follow us in there!’

‘You may have forgotten me, Imo,’ the Gypsy snarled as her uncle dragged her away. ‘But I, Stephen, have never forgotten you!’

From somewhere she managed to find the strength to tear herself from her uncle’s grasp, and turn back. Surely, hardly anybody alive today could know the name of her Gypsy half brother.

‘How could you know his name was Stephen?’ she grated. ‘Are you from his tribe? Is that how you know about me?’

The man who claimed to be Stephen smiled in a way that was totally without mirth. And she felt a jolt of recognition. She had seen that very smile in the mirror, not an hour since! It was the way she always smiled, when she recognized some absurdity. A shock of dark hair …she seemed to hear her mother saying ‘ …and his father’s smile…’

Everyone said how very like her father she was, too! She took another step towards him, her eyes searching his features, her breathing ragged. His lips were the same shape as hers. He had the same slant to his eyebrows, the same prominent cheekbones.

‘Stephen?’ she whispered, stretching her hands out towards him. ‘Can it really be you?’

‘Don’t be so foolish, niece!’ her uncle snapped. ‘This is just some miscreant, out to make trouble for you. Come away, girl, before it is too late.’

But she could not tear her eyes from the Gypsy’s face.

‘Are you really my brother?’ she demanded.

The Gypsy held her gaze boldly, proudly, unashamedly.

And then he nodded.

‘Uncle,’ she declared, whirling round to face him, ‘I have not raised one single protest about any arrangement you and my aunt have made regarding this day. In fact, I have had no say in any of it! But I will stand firm in this matter. If he really is my brother, then I want him at my wedding!’

Snatches of Imogen’s protests echoed all the way to the front of the church, where Viscount Mildenhall was standing waiting for her.

‘…not raised one single protest…arrangement you and my aunt…will stand firm…’

The guests were turning in their seats, peering over the tops of the box pews, curious to see what all the commotion was about.

Something like a cold fist clutched hard inside the viscount’s chest. Miss Hebden had told him she did not want to marry him, but he had not believed her. He had trampled on all her objections, then approached her uncle, having uttered dire warnings of what the consequences would be if she refused him.

Yet Rick had told him his sister was straight as a die. That she would always be honest.

Right from the first, she had said she was not interested in him. That very first night, when she had thrown her drink over him…

There had been a group of girls standing behind her, laughing behind their fans as she had tried to apologize for what she claimed was an accident.

He had not believed her then. He had bracketed her with all the other females who had attempted such encounters to gain his attention. Especially once he had learned she was Miss Hebden, daughter of a notorious rake and a shameless adulteress.

He cast his mind back to the stories Rick had told of her growing up and how difficult she was finding it to behave with the decorum expected of young ladies in Society. And replayed the scene in his mind with her as Midge, Rick’s tomboyish little sister, chatting away to her companions, waving her hands about exuberantly…with her back to the door.

She had not, he realized with cold certainty, known he was there at all.

Though her so-called friends had.

They had set her up!

His head snapped round to where the Misses Veryan were sitting, craning their necks to see what was going on in the porch. Their faces were alight with the same malice they had exhibited that night.

And as for the terrace outside Lady Carteret’s ballroom…He almost groaned aloud. She had strenuously insisted she had only gone out onto that terrace for some fresh air. Now he fully understood why she had bitten him and punched him in the face. His behaviour had been unforgivable!

But she had looked so alluring in that silver gown, that wistful expression on her face…he almost doubled over as hurt pierced him through. She had claimed she had been thinking of some other man. If that was the truth, as he now accepted all her other protestations were the truth, then Midge’s affections were engaged elsewhere! She had never intentionally pursued him, let alone wanted to marry him. That notion had sprung entirely from his own vanity.

The girl who had written all those loving letters to Rick had such a giving nature, she was bound to yield to her family’s wishes. Yes, he could see it all now. She had tried valiantly to give up all hope of this other man, but he had seen the night he had dined in their home what it was costing her. Her sense of family duty had got her as far as the church door. But the thought of actually tying the knot with a man she had not hesitated to call a vile worm was just too much.

‘Rick,’ he grated, feeling as though something inside him was dying. ‘Go and find out what she wants. And make sure she gets it.’

With a puzzled frown, Rick got to his feet and strode out of the chapel.

Funny, but when he had decided to marry Miss Hebden, he had thought she was the victor and he was her prize. Yet now it felt as though if Midge would not have him he would be losing something that would have enriched his life immeasurably.

At the chapel door, far from the quarrel quieting down, the voices grew even more agitated. Rick’s reasoning tone mingled with Midge’s cries of protest and her uncle’s bombastic hectoring.

Finally, he could take it no longer.

Midge could not possibly hate him more than he hated himself for the way he had misjudged and maltreated her. If the only way he could make amends was to set her free, then he must do so.