The Earl's Practical Marriage. Louise Allen

sat down without waiting for Laurel’s assent. On her far side Phoebe was clearly flustered at the sparking hostility. She said nothing though, perhaps as much at a loss as Laurel to know how to snub a perfectly respectable member of the ton in the middle of a Bath Assembly. A perfectly respectable, exceedingly handsome war hero, if Mr Gorridge’s remarks were to be believed.

      ‘We began on entirely the wrong foot this morning,’ Giles said, leaning forward so that he could address Phoebe across Laurel.

      It gave the younger woman an excellent opportunity to admire the breadth of his shoulders and the crisp line of his recent haircut across the tanned skin of his nape. She told herself she could hardly avoid looking, not without turning away very rudely.

      ‘Ladies, I must apologise for approaching you directly the other day, and without an introduction. I imagine it must have been disconcerting to receive the impression that you were being, perhaps, stalked, Laurel.’ The expression in those blue eyes was perfectly serious.

      Why is he being conciliatory? Laurel wondered. Why is he here at all? He could avoid me perfectly easily and that would be more comfortable for both of us.

      When Phoebe uttered incoherent phrases about quite understanding and doubtless the best of motives and Laurel maintained her chilly silence, Giles added, ‘I can only excuse it because of the sense I had at that first meeting at Beckhampton that we were already acquainted, Lady Laurel.’

      ‘Acquainted? Certainly we were. I was apparently a hysterical girl and you... Words fail me.’

      ‘Oh, thank heavens for small mercies,’ Phoebe murmured beside her.

      ‘We must discuss that disaster in private,’ Giles said. ‘Neither of us can afford the appearance of a disagreement in public.’

      ‘We have no reason to discuss anything.’ Laurel wondered where the feeling of panic was coming from. She should send him on his way, firmly and coldly. They had nothing to discuss. Nothing. ‘We have no reason to meet, in public or in private.’

      If only he wasn’t such a stranger and yet so familiar. The more she was close to him the more she heard the echoes of the past in his voice, saw it in those compelling eyes. And if only he wasn’t such an assertively male creature. Yet he was not behaving like his own father always had—loud, cheerfully dominating the world around him. Giles’s manner was perfectly controlled, his voice even, his movements elegant. He was being the perfect gentleman—or perhaps the perfect courtier she had assumed he had spent his time being in Lisbon. Only, perhaps not...

      What had Mr Gorridge meant? Noble and courageous. Had Giles fought? But he hadn’t been in the army... Why was he even speaking to her?

      ‘I beg to differ, Laurel. We are both going to be in Bath for the foreseeable future. I imagine neither of us wishes to lock ourselves away for fear of encountering the other and if our relationship appears strained when we do meet it will cause comment. People will begin to recall the whispers of an old scandal and that can do your standing in Bath no good. Neither would I relish it. It would interfere with my own plans.’

      ‘Lady Laurel, to you, my lord,’ she retorted and got a faint, mocking smile in return. It would serve him right, him and his plans, if she slapped his face as he deserved.

      ‘And might I enquire what those plans are, Lord Revesby?’ Phoebe, who had apparently got a grip on her flustered nerves, gave Laurel a reproving look. Not in public, it said.

      ‘Marriage, Lady Cary. One of the things that will assist my father’s recovery is my making a suitable match. He has been alone too long and he will enjoy having a family around him.’

      ‘You will be in London for the next Season, I imagine,’ Phoebe remarked.

      Laurel wondered where her stomach had dropped to and why it should. Why did she care who Giles married? He was no longer the man she had thought him, if he ever had been. But a family? A brood of small Gileses.

      ‘Perhaps, Lady Cary, if it takes me so long to find the right bride. But this is June, the Season is over for this year and Bath has its charms, I find.’ He was not looking at the dance floor where quite a number of ladies of marriageable age were being led out by their partners for the opening set.

      He was looking at her, Laurel realised. What? No!

      Beside her Phoebe made a small sound. Before either of them could say anything a gentleman in his late forties stopped and bowed slightly. ‘Lady Cary, good evening. Might I crave the favour of an introduction to your companion?’

      ‘Of course, Sir Hugh. Laurel, my dear, Sir Hugh Troughton. Sir Hugh, my niece, Lady Laurel Knighton, who has given me the great pleasure of coming to share my house with me. Laurel, Sir Hugh was a colleague of my late husband’s in the War Office and is in Bath to accompany his sister who has been unwell. I do hope Miss Troughton is feeling a little better, sir.’

      ‘A very junior colleague,’ he said, bowing over Laurel’s hand. She rather liked his smile and the openness of his plain face under a thatch of brown hair just greying at the temples. ‘Thank you, Lady Cary, my sister is finding the fresh air and the waters very helpful. I expect we will be returning to town next week. And...’ He looked enquiringly at Giles.

      ‘Revesby.’ Giles stood up and offered his hand.

      ‘Delighted.’ Sir Hugh shook it energetically. ‘I had heard you were coming home.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I have had the pleasure of reading many of your despatches. Very useful indeed, as I am sure you are aware. I think there is a letter on its way asking you to come in to Whitehall for a debriefing at your earliest convenience.’

      ‘I am attending my father who is unwell, but I will give whatever help I can, naturally.’ Giles spoke equally quietly. ‘You will doubtless let me know if there is anything more urgent.’

      ‘Excellent. Now, mustn’t bore the ladies with this, er, diplomatic talk. Lady Cary, I do hope you will do me the honour of the second set? And Lady Laurel, the third?’

      When they both agreed Giles said, ‘And perhaps I can hope for the reverse? Lady Laurel, the next set? And Lady Cary, the third?’

      His tactics are excellent, Laurel thought, irritation vying with admiration. I have already accepted an offer to dance and therefore etiquette forbids me from refusing another gentleman, whoever he may be. If I wish to claim a strained ankle or exhaustion, I will have to wait until I have partnered him for at least one dance.

      ‘I would be delighted,’ she said, smiling at him.

      ‘Such sharp teeth you have, Laurel,’ he murmured. ‘I still have the scars.’

      ‘Where?’ she asked, startled. Beside her Phoebe and Sir Hugh were in earnest discussion of the best choice of physician for his sister.

      ‘On my right calf. Surely you recall. You must have been about ten and you were furious with me because I had climbed the apple tree at the Home Farm to fetch my kite and refused to pick apples for you. You bit the only part of me you could reach.’

      ‘Goodness, yes.’ A chuckle escaped her at the memory. ‘How I made you yell.’

      ‘You were a little savage.’ The way he said it sounded almost approving.

      ‘You were most disobliging. “It isn’t our tree. It would be theft,”’ she quoted. ‘Scrumping isn’t theft.’

      ‘Try telling that to Farmer Goodyear.’

      A discordant note from a tuning violin jerked her out of the happy childhood memories back to the present. This was becoming far too cosy. Why Giles should be so amiable she could not imagine, not after those gritted-teeth remarks in the Pump Room. And surely that significant look when he had been speaking about marriage to Phoebe had only been to provoke her?

      ‘As Mr Goodyear went to his just reward eight years ago, that is unfortunately not possible,’ Laurel said, deliberately sounding both pious and humourless. She needed to stop being charmed by reminiscence into relaxing, because