ANNIE BURROWS - Regency Innocents - The Earl's Untouched Bride / Captain Fawley's Innocent Bride

Heloise stiffened her spine, stifling her momentary pang of self-pity. She had always known she was a second-best wife. Of course she would only get second-hand jewels! What had she expected? That her husband would begin to act out of character and forget that she was not the woman he had wanted to marry?

He was being very kind, considering the way she had acted since being installed in his home. He had never, for example, upbraided her for the scene she had created at dinner, when she knew such behaviour was what he deplored above all else. He had merely sent her food up to her room.

Because he was, she suddenly realised, a kind man underneath those chillingly controlled manners. It was why she had never really been able to stay afraid of him for longer than a minute at a time. Why she had been able to confide in him from the very first. She had even been secure enough to give way to the childish temper tantrums that her brother had predicted would drive any husband to give her a beating.

Charles would never beat her. He did not, she saw with a sinking heart, care enough about her to lose that glacial self-control.

‘I couldn’t have you going out without any jewellery, could I?’ he said, fastening the necklace round her throat.

‘No, I suppose not,’ she replied. He might not care about her much, but he cared about his own reputation. His Countess could not appear in public without adequate adornment. The dress, the jewels—they were just the costume that made her look the part she was playing.

Charles was rather perplexed by Heloise’s response. He had just hung diamonds worth a king’s ransom around her neck, and instead of going into raptures she seemed weighed down.

Could she be nervous at suddenly having so much wealth displayed upon her person? She had never owned much jewellery before.

Nor wanted it. She had not even been tempted to try on the emerald ring that had been her sister’s.

‘These are yours by right as my wife, you know, Heloise.’ The set of yellow diamonds had been in his family for generations, handed down to each new bride upon her wedding—except for the ring, which was given upon the occasion of the betrothal. ‘It never felt right that you had to wear that ring I bought in Paris.’

‘I shall never wear it again,’ she vowed. It must remind him of all he had lost! And while she had been complaining to herself of all that she did not have, she had entirely forgotten that her husband was still trying to recover from his broken heart. He was so good at disguising his emotions that it took moments like this to remind her how much he must still be hurting.

‘What are we going to see at the theatre tonight?’ she said, deciding that he would be more comfortable if they talked about trivial matters.

‘The beau monde,’ he quipped, taking her arm and leading her to the door. He was glad he had taken that moment to reassure her. Now that she had got over her initial reluctance to accept the family heirlooms, she might even be able to enjoy herself a little. ‘As in Paris, we go to the theatre to see who is in the audience, not what is being performed upon the stage. I expect that during the intervals persons wishing for an introduction to my new Countess will besiege our box. They will probably think,’

he remarked dryly, ‘that they will be able to get to me through you. I hope you will not be taken in.’ He frowned. ‘It would be best if you did not associate with anyone without checking their credentials with me first.’

Heloise was virtually silent all evening. At first, Charles wondered if he had said something to offend her. She had lifted her chin as he’d handed her to her seat, and stared fixedly at the stage throughout the first act. Fortunately, this had left her oblivious to the stir her appearance, decked in the Walton diamonds, had created.

Gradually, he recognised that this was the Heloise he had first become acquainted with. The quiet, reserved girl that nobody noticed. Who observed but did not participate. This public Heloise was a far cry from the termagant who yelled at his brother, flounced out of rooms, slammed doors, and rattled on without pausing to draw breath.

He welcomed her return when they got into the carriage to go home.

‘Charles,’ she breathed, leaning forward and tapping his knee with her ivory-handled fan. ‘Who was that dreadful man—the great big dark one who accosted us in the corridor during the interval?’

He smiled wryly. He had assumed it would be easier to control exactly whom he permitted to approach her if they went for a stroll, rather than sitting passively in their box and letting the importunate besiege them.

‘Lord Lensborough,’ he replied, no doubt in his mind as to who she meant.

The Marquis had stood directly in their path, blocking their progress. And when he had said, Allow me to felicitate you upon your marriage,’ his hostility had been unmistakable.

‘Is he one of the family you won’t speak to because of what they did to Robert?’

‘Far from it. If anything, he regards himself as Robert’s champion. His own brother, who serves in Robert’s former regiment, was so concerned about the Turkish treatment I would mete out, he wrote begging Lensborough to watch over him.’

‘Oh. I am so sorry.’ Heloise laid one gloved hand upon her husband’s sleeve.

‘For what?’ It was ridiculous, he reflected with a frown, that his spirits should lift just because she had forgotten herself so far as to reach out and touch him.

‘That people should so misunderstand you. What do they think you mean to do with Robert? Is he not your brother? Your heir?’

‘Alas, from Lord Lensborough’s reaction this evening, I fear they suspect that I mean to cut him out by siring an heir of my own. Through you.’

‘Well, that just goes to show,’ she said, snatching back her hand, remembering his reaction when she had made such an impulsive gesture once before, ‘how silly they are.’ Couldn’t they see how devoted Charles was to his brother? Didn’t they understand how outraged he had been by the way his guardians had tried to cut him out of the succession?

Charles sighed. The reminder that she would one day have to face this distasteful duty as a wife had brought about an instant withdrawal.

But at least when he went to her room later, to bid her goodnight, she seemed to be in good spirits.

‘Thank you for this evening, Charles,’ she said prettily, when he bent to bestow a chaste salutation on her forehead. ‘I did enjoy it.’

‘Really?’ He frowned. ‘I thought you seemed … abstracted.’

‘Oh, well …’ She fidgeted nervously with the ties of her robe, her cheeks flushing pink as she averted her eyes from his.

Ah! She was relieved it was over. But she did not wish to wound him by confessing as much.

She wanted him gone. Very well, he would oblige her! He would not force his unwelcome presence on her a moment longer. Turning on his heel, he stalked from the room.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Heloise flung back the covers and went to the desk which she had converted to a drawing table. She had nearly given the game away then. It was just that there had been so many odd people at the theatre. And the knowledge that there was, at last, a fresh sheaf of drawing paper and a selection of really good-quality pencils hidden in a box beneath her bed was like a tonic fizzing through her veins. Now that she was a countess, with an army of staff at her disposal, she did not have to search the shops for what she wanted. She simply sent her maid, Sukey, with a list, and voilà ! After an hour or so the girl returned with exactly what she requested! And, since Sukey was so grateful for the meteoric rise in her status, she would rather cut her own throat, she had breathed dramatically, than ever betray Her Ladyship’s confidence.