Love Affairs. Louise Allen

a,’ he said. ‘It is facing me, that is why you cannot read it. See, the round shape and the little tail.’

      ‘A is for Avery,’ Alice exclaimed.

      There was a deadly little silence, then Caroline said, ‘Your papa will be marrying a titled lady, Alice. She is probably dropping her apple peel at just this moment and it is coming out as a capital A, the right way up.’

      ‘You have the makings of a diplomat,’ Avery remarked softly as Alice became engrossed in making letters with pieces of peel while she nibbled on her apple segments. ‘I am sorry if we have embarrassed you between us this morning.’

      ‘I am not embarrassed,’ Caroline said and returned her attention to the piece of fruit on her own plate.

      And she was not, he realised. But she was distressed. He was learning to read her emotions behind the calm facade and her eyes were sparkling as if with unshed tears and her hand shook, just a little, as she wielded the sharp little knife. What the devil had her husband done to her to make her so fragile on the subject of marriage?

      * * *

      He is going to marry some day and Alice will have a stepmother. She will call her Mama and she will love her. They will be a family in some glamorous European capital while Avery is a diplomat and then they will host great house parties at Wykeham Hall when they return to England. Alice will grow up and another woman will help her choose her gowns and will share her secrets and those first tears over a flirtation. Another woman will... Stop it!

      It was self-indulgent and as foolish as prodding a bruise to see if it hurt. Of course it hurt, but her heartbreak was not important. Alice was what mattered. Only Alice. Laura glanced up and saw Avery was watching her. He knew she was upset and his face was grave. Strange how she was beginning to be able to read his face, the thoughts behind the skilful diplomatic mask. Would there have been as much subtlety and intelligence in Piers’s face as he matured to the age this man was now?

      He smiled at her, a little rueful, the expression of a friend who wants to help, but is not quite sure how. He would not look like that if he knew she was deceiving him or who she was, she thought with a kick of conscience.

      ‘May I get down, Papa?’

      ‘Ask Mrs Jordan’s permission.’

      ‘Certainly. Go and play, Alice.’ Inevitably the door banged behind her. Then they were alone and she could say the thing her conscience was prodding her to say. ‘I apologise.’

      ‘Whatever for?’ Avery was leaning back in his chair, but he sat up at that.

      ‘I thought you arrogant and I made judgements about how well a single man could raise a child. It was wrong of me. Prejudiced.’

      ‘And I apologise for making assumptions about how a widow might wish to flirt.’

      ‘That is what it was? You must forgive me if I am a trifle innocent about these things.’ She was not, of course, but she wanted to maintain the fiction that her world was not that of the haut ton. But while he was being so frank, she could seize the opportunity to remove a small worry about Alice’s welfare. ‘Do you not keep a mistress?’

      The look he gave her was forbidding, but he answered without hesitation. ‘I have done. Not very recently and not in this country. And I would never allow a future mistress anywhere near Alice, if that is what is worrying you.’

      ‘So, when you were hinting just now that I might take the position of governess, that negated any chance you might offer me a very different position?’

      ‘That is frankness if ever I heard it!’ That question jolted him out of his composure, which was interesting. When he recovered his countenance, with a speed that spoke volumes for his self-control, she thought he might be faintly amused under the surprise. ‘Allow me to be equally frank in return. I thought about that for a moment. And I am ashamed of myself, I own it, so you have no cause to look at me like that from those wide brown eyes.’

      ‘Like what?’ She had thought her emotions were well hidden.

      ‘As though you are disappointed in me. Although perhaps I should welcome some heat in your regard after your usual Arctic chill.’

      ‘You talk nonsense, my lord. I must leave now.’ Before this becomes any more complicated.

      ‘You will come tomorrow?’ he asked as she retrieved her bonnet, reticule and shawl from the hall stand.

      The servants had made themselves scarce. Perhaps they know better than to intrude when their master is with a woman. No, that is unfair, I trust him when he says he would never expose Alice to one of his chères amies.

      ‘No,’ Laura said crisply. ‘It is not convenient tomorrow. Please say goodbye to Alice for me.’

      Avery opened the door for her without speaking and she walked briskly down the drive, feeling his eyes on her back for every step. That had been remarkably like a tantrum, she told herself as she turned left into the lane in the direction of the village. Or a lovers’ quarrel. Only we are not lovers and he did no quarrelling.

      It was not difficult to work out what was upsetting her, only to know how to cope with it. The situation with Alice was clear enough, if painful. At least she had a clear conscience and the comfort of knowing she was doing what was best for her daughter, however much it hurt.

      But Avery Falconer was tying her in knots. They had shockingly frank conversations about desire and yet she could be open with him about nothing else. She wanted him with a directness that was unmistakable, but she did not know why. Was it because he looked so much like Piers, but mature and reliable? Or was it that he was a devastatingly attractive man who was open about his attraction to her? Perhaps it was simply that she could not forgive him for stealing Alice, however well meant his actions, and therefore everything about him, good and bad, was exaggerated.

      Whatever she thought of him, and however much he loved Alice now, she could not forget that love and concern for an unknown baby could not have motivated him to buy the child. Pride, arrogance and the certainty that he knew best for anyone who might be connected with the lofty Earl of Wykeham was what had driven him then and it was pure chance that good had come of it.

      Oh, but she ached for him.

      * * *

      ‘Cutting off your nose to spite your face, are you?’ Mab demanded over the breakfast table the next morning.

      ‘Probably.’ Laura bit into a slice of toast, chewed, thought, swallowed. ‘Do sit down, Mab, you make my head ache stomping about. I have so few days left with Alice and I’m a fool to allow one mystifying man to stop me spending them with her.’

      ‘Mystifying, is he?’ Mab poured herself some tea and planted herself on the chair across the kitchen table. ‘Not the word I’d use, myself. Downright—’ She broke off and was lost in thought, searching for the word. ‘Edible. I could think of other ways to describe him, but none of them decent.’ She buttered a slice of toast and applied plum preserve with a lavish hand. ‘Saw him riding past yesterday morning, first thing. Got a handsome pair of shoulders on him. And thighs,’ she added. ‘You’d know you’d got something in your bed with that one, right enough.’

      ‘Mab!’

      ‘Well, I’m female with eyes in my head and I’ve got a pulse, haven’t I? Good-sized nose and feet...’

      ‘Mab!’ Piers had big feet, too... Oh, stop it, you are as bad as she is. ‘All right, I am not dead either. Avery Falconer is very attractive. And intelligent. And he is good to Alice. And I like him. I just cannot forgive him.’

      ‘Worse things to forgive a man for than giving a child a loving home.’ Mab demolished the toast and picked up her tea. ‘You and Mr Piers made a right hash of things between you, thinking with your...well, not thinking at all, if you ask me. You should have insisted he marry you before you got into bed with him and he ought to have cared enough about you not to have risked it. And don’t look at me like that, you know it is true.’