The Romany Heiress

by Nikki Poppen

  She’d lived with Giles long enough to expect elegance at every turn. But still, the townhouse was an opulent show-piece that exceeded the elegance of the abbey. Each room was a new discovery, done up in its own theme. The drawing room was done in the Egyptian style, the dining room done in the French style, all gilt and lightness. Giles’s private office held pieces from the Far East.

  The tour of the house was overwhelming. She was relieved to open the doors to their private chambers and find the decor in there greatly resembled the master chamber at the abbey. “Ah, we’re home,” she said, running a hand over the counterpane on the carved fourposter bed.

  “That’s exactly how I feel when I enter this room. This room is most like the abbey. There are no pretensions, just comfort” Giles encircled her waist with his arm and pulled her against him. “Will you be comfortable here?”

  She leaned her back into him, feeling the warmth of his body. “I am comfortable wherever you are”

  “I will try and not be gone too often,” Giles offered, but she could sense it was a halfhearted remark since he could not possibly keep the promise.

  She tried to assuage his worry. “I know. We talked about this in the carriage. I understand you have obligations in parliament. That is why we are here. I will be on my own many nights. I don’t expect you to shirk your duties.”

  “Isabella and Tristan are in town. I noticed they’d already left a card downstairs. Isabella will take you around while Tristan and I are in session. You’ll have a circle of friends and plenty of activities in no time if I know Isabella”

  Cate knew he meant to be reassuring, but the mention of Tristan and Isabella wasn’t all that comforting. “I know you mean well, Giles. But you mustn’t force them to befriend me if they don’t like me”

  She hadn’t seen Isabella since the wedding, and she wasn’t certain that Isabella was ready to forgive her for the situation she’d placed Giles in. She knew Tristan wasn’t. He’d been surprised by the announcement to wed, and he’d been firmly against Giles’s decision even though he’d supplied the roses for the ceremony.

  Giles hugged her in reassurance. “They will like you. Once they see that we have grown an honest affection for one another and that we’ve put the past behind us, they will accept you on your own merit.”

  Giles’s predictions proved to be true almost immediately. The next morning, Isabella took Cate shopping, beginning the elaborate process of constructing a town wardrobe. In the afternoon, she accompanied Isabella to a ladies’ tea. That evening she and Isabella went to a musicale hosted by one of Isabella’s friends while Tristan and Giles sat in parliament.

  That became the pattern of their days. Giles was busy although when he was home, Cate would sit in his private office with him, quietly stitching or reading while he read papers and proposed legislation.

  “You must be looking forward to such a grand occasion as the Rosamund Ball tonight,” Giles said one day as they spent a rare lunch together. “Everything you’ve attended so far has been small gatherings with Isabella. She says you’ve taken well.”

  “I daresay a ball and a musicale are two different things.” Cate worried the fabric of her skirt, pleating it between her fingers, anxiety evident on her face.

  Giles rose and crossed the distance between them, wanting to alleviate her anxiety. He knelt beside her and stopped her fidgeting hands with his own. “They aren’t that different.”

  “Not to you. You were born to such things. How to conduct yourself is as commonplace to you as breathing.” Cate sighed. “At a musicale, all I have to do is sit next to Isabella, balance a plate of cake and a teacup on my lap and smile while she does all the talking. I nod in the right places, of course” She added the last with a bit of teasing.

  Giles laughed. “You’ve done well. You’ll do well tonight. I’ll be there and I won’t let anything happen to you” He’d said it in good humor but ballrooms were nothing short of social battlefields.

  “Is it so dire as all that? Will I truly need protection?”

  “Of course not. But balls are bigger occasions than musicales. Up until now, there has not been enough people in town for anyone to pull off a ball, but now that the politicians have come flooding back in, more and more families are arriving every day. The Rosamunds think they have their two hundred.”

  “Two hundred?” Cate’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Two hundred what?”

  “Two hundred guests. The ton matrons have ruled that one must invite at least two hundred guests for an event to qualify as a ball.”

  “I can’t imagine putting two hundred people in a home the size of this one”

  Giles tapped her on the nose. “That’s why they call it a `crush.”’

  She began laughing and after that Giles found he could not pay attention to his papers. He gave up and spent the afternoon answering Cate’s questions about balls and how to go on. Society was a silly thing he discovered as he explained all its intricacies to his wife. No wonder Tristan and Isabella preferred time in the country to town. He was starting to feel the same way, especially when Cate asked a question regarding form that he had no ready answer for.

  They laughed away the afternoon in companionable camaraderie, her head resting in his lap as they lounged on the settee. Giles thought he’d never spent a better set of hours, as he ran a lazy hand through the black spread of her hair falling over his leg.

  He hoped he’d appeased her fears, although he could not say they were unfounded. He’d laughed her concerns away but they were his concerns as well. What would the ton think of his hasty marriage? Would anyone care enough to make a scandal out of it? To discover the murky depths of DeBrett’s and Burke’s offered no answer to who his bride was, only more mystery?

  He hadn’t said anything to her, but he was worried. With more people coming up to town all the time, it was inevitable they would encounter guests from his house party who recalled his cousin, Catherine Winthrop. He and Cate maintained that identity. In public she was called Catherine. Isabella had introduced her as Catherine. There was little harm in it, if she went by Catherine or Cate. It was essentially the same name.

  But those questions would come. He could explain away her lack of placement in Debrett’s with the simple claim that she was too far removed for such notice. There would only be trouble if someone saw the marriage certificate, but that was sealed in the parish records. Someone would have to want to find out and go hunting for it.

  He found that he didn’t care if anyone questioned her origins but he did care very deeply if those questions hurt her.

  Tristan and Isabella called for them promptly at 7:00, having decided that it would be best if all four of them arrived together. After all, Isabella had actively behaved as Cate’s sponsor since her arrival in London, and Giles and Tristan had a long-standing friendship. For them to be together was only natural and shouldn’t denote anything beyond their commonly acknowledged friendship; only the Greshams and Giles knew that it had been arranged as a stratagem to promote and, if necessary, to protect Cate.

  “Are you ready, old friend?” Tristan asked, watching his wife mount the staircase to check on Cate.

  Giles gave a somber nod. “Yes. She’s worried of course. She’s afraid she’ll let me down. I could care less” He turned to face Tristan. “I worry about her being hurt, by someone saying a cruel thing or making insinuations.”

  Tristan knitted his brow. “She’s lived on the outside of society, suffered great verbal insult in her lifetime. I doubt the barbs of our dragons could do her serious injury. Your wife is no shrinking violet.”

  Giles chuckled a bit at that. Tristan was right. He’d spent too long thinking of her as his wife, his responsibility, that he often forgot she was capable of looking after herself. “It’s hard for me to remember that sometimes. Still, it’s not the dragons I worry about. It’s the questions that might be asked, and worse yet the answers that might be uncovered. I worry for her, I worry for Spelthorne”

/>   Tristan put a comforting hand on Giles’s shoulder. “Let them ask their questions, Giles. We’ve done our jobs well. If anyone comes looking, they won’t find the answers” His eyes shifted to a point over Giles’s shoulder. “God, she’s beautiful.”

  Giles turned. Their wives stood on the stairs, arm in arm as they began their descent. It never occurred to Giles that perhaps Tristan’s comment had referred to Isabella, who was exquisitely turned out in her trademark copper silk. It was Cate who held all his attention. The hours her maid had spent with her in preparation for the evening had created a vision that was heretofore unequaled in Giles’s opinion.

  Dressed in an aquamarine gown of fine Norwich bombazine, she was the image of chic beauty. Everything about the gown from the gored ankle-length skirts scalloped at the hem to show off the cream silk underskirt beneath to the elegant drape of the Spanish slashing of the sleeves, her attire was the first stare of fashion. No one could gainsay the quality of her wardrobe. More than that, she carried it off with ease.

  Giles recognized immediately that it was not so much the dress that transformed her, but that she’d transformed the dress. Her dark hair was an excellent foil for the aquamarine tones of the fabric, and in turn, the gown showed off the sparkle of her green eyes to their best advantage.

  In her wake, Isabella, who’d always been the standard against which Giles weighed other English beauties, seemed less extraordinary.

  Giles handed his wife into the carriage, whispering to her as she moved passed him, “You look wonderful.”

  The line into the Rosamund’s mansion was long by the time the carriage pulled up to let them out. Giles had planned it that way. The longer the line, the more likely that dancing would have started before they were announced. People would be engaged in their dancing and in their own social sets. They would already have had plenty of time to look around and see who was there and less likely to single him out.

  Not that he minded being singled out. He was not a coward and felt confident in holding his own with anyone. But he wanted to make the evening as enjoyable as possible for Cate, who fairly bristled with tension beside him. He recognized that in part some of her nerves were generated by excitement over attending a ton ball. But part of them was also generated over her concern about the unknown. How would she be received?

  Giles squeezed her hand as they joined the queue of guests with Tristan and Isabella. He bent his head to find her ear. “Everything will be fine. There is this world of theirs and there is the world we’ve created for ourselves. There is nothing they can say or do that can penetrate what we’ve built between us, my love.”

  Cate smile at Giles’s words. She wanted to believe him. But she’d lived a cynical life too long to accept that anything could be that easy. Still, she did her best to enjoy the evening. There was plenty to enjoy.

  After the receiving line, they made their way to the ballroom and its lavish decorations. Cate had never seen such floral luxury in the middle of winter. The ballroom looked and smelled like a hothouse. Every niche was filled with huge urns full of roses of varying colors and wintergreens. Candles blazed from two one hundred candle chandeliers hanging over the expanse of the ballroom. At the far end in a balcony overlooking the ballroom, the five piece orchestra was already playing.

  “It’s fantastical,” she breathed.

  “That’s exactly the right word for it,” Tristan grimaced, steering Isabella into a clear space as they moved forward. “I can’t imagine what it took to force so many roses into bloom this time of year.”

  Isabella poked him with an elbow. “It’s still lovely to look at. I like it. I am reminded that after a dreary winter spring can’t be far away”

  The orchestra struck up a waltz. “Will you dance with me, Catherine, while these two argue about the merits of roses in winter?” Giles asked, careful to use the right name.

  Cate let him sweep her into the sea of dancers, ap preciating the firm hand he kept at the small of her back. She let him set the tone and fell into rhythm with him easily, having learned her lessons well since the first time they’d danced together.

  “One of the best aspects of being married is that now I can dance with you as much as I wish,” Giles confided as they took the high turn. “I am no longer limited to two miserly dances a night.”

  She gave a flirting smile. “I thought..” She paused in mid-sentence. “Oh dear.”

  She forced Giles to turn her so he could see too. Swirling towards them in a cloud of figured periwinkle satin was Lady FoxHaughton in the arms of a handsome Norse god. There was no pretending she didn’t see them.

  Giles met them with a polite nod as the two couples twirled past each other. “It was bound to happen at some point,” he said to Cate once the couples had cleared the dance floor and they could rejoin Isabella and Tristan.

  “Perhaps that’s all we’ll see of them,” Cate said hopefully, although she didn’t believe it. That woman had been far too possessive of Giles to simply give him up. If she had been angry about his attentions to a shirttail relative in the fall, she’d be livid about his having married the relative instead of making no attempt to win back her favor.

  “You’ve seen them, then?” Isabella was saying. “She has a new amour now, Alistair Manley, an earl’s third son.”

  “He’s fairly young and just newly come to town. His father has set him up as an MP for one of the rotten boroughs under his control,” Tristan put in, distaste for the man’s acquisition of power evident in his tone.

  “I don’t believe I know him,” Giles said idly.

  Cate watched Isabella lift her eyebrows and feared the worst. “It seems, Giles, that will soon be remedied. They’re headed this way.”

  Giles squared his shoulders and Cate felt him increase the intensity of his grip on her hand. She drew herself up as well. If there was to be a reckoning, Giles would not be alone.

  “Good evening, Spelthorne” Lady FoxHaughton extended her hand although her tones were cool. “I’d heard you brought your new wife up to town” She cast her eyes on Cate and gave her a full study. “I wonder what other surprises you have for us, Spelthorne?”

  The comment was not even couched in the barest of disguises. Cate felt her temper rise at the insinuation that Giles had married her for the sake of an ill-conceived child, hatched in passion without the blessing of matrimony.

  Giles made a gallant gesture of raising her gloved hand to his lips and kissing it before tucking it back into the crook of his arm. “The only surprise is love. It is hard to know when Cupid’s dart will find its mark. But when it does, its aim is true”

  The rejoinder was well done. Cate recognized at once that there was nothing the woman could say without well-wishing them unless she wanted to appear catty.

  Still, Lady FoxHaughton was not a master of her craft because she gave up easily. “Happiness can be found in many strange places. However this is the first time I’ve heard of it being found beyond the grave”

  “I am not certain at all as to what you mean,” Giles said.

  Lady FoxHaughton turned to the man beside her. “Tell him what you’ve discovered.”

  The blond man leered at Cate while addressing Giles. “There is no Catherine Winthrop. A fourth cousin by that name died in infancy. Your bride doesn’t exist.”

  “This fellow is charming, Candice.” Giles turned the full force of his blue gaze on the woman. “It is plainly visible to all that my bride exists. She stands here right now.”

  “She’s not Catherine Winthrop,” Lady FoxHaughton protested, her voice rising enough to attract the attention of those around them.

  “Then who is she?” Giles challenged, wanting to end this nonsense before the entire ballroom was alerted.

  “She’s a fraud. She’s either duped you or you’ve conspired with her to pass her off as a shirttail relative for some dark reason”

  That did it. The scene Giles wanted to avoid now held center stage among London’s finest. The ballroom
was silent, waiting for his response. Beside him, Tristan was alert and rigid but there was nothing his friend could do.

  “Your accusations are outlandish, foolish, and entirely unsubstantiated,” Giles said, holding Alistair’s gaze evenly. The man needed to have one last chance to back down.

  “No, they are not,” Lady FoxHaughton said in a quiet tone that was far more menacing than the loud accusations. With an imperial gesture of her hand, she beckoned to someone at the back of the ballroom. The crowd parted and a severely dressed woman of middle years walked to Candice’s side.

  It was Magda.

  Cate felt weak. She clung to Giles’s arm for support. All that she feared would happen now. Her world would come crashing down. Giles would never forgive her for this.

  “I believe you know this woman?” Candice said.

  “She works at the abbey as a companion to my wife,” Giles returned coldly, his mind working quickly to ascertain the twists and turns of Candice’s arguments. What direction would she go? How much did she know? How much truth would have to be told to extricate Cate from Candice’s web of revenge.

  Candice raised her voice to assure being heard. `Before she was a `companion,’ she was your wife’s foster mother when they lived together with a gypsy caravan”

  The crowd aahed over this bit of information, their speculations rising in volume.

  “This is an interesting low you’ve sunk to, Spelthorne,” Manley drawled, relishing the moment. “You’re always so perfect, so above reproach and now you’ve been caught married to a gypsy whore whom you’ve tried to pass off as a distant relation.”

  Giles’s fist met with the side of Manley’s jaw. Man ley staggered backward, falling into the crush of people who’d gathered to hear what was sure to be tomorrow’s juiciest on-dit.

  Cate gave a little scream but Giles didn’t care. Manley’s comments were beyond the pale no matter what the truth of the accusations. No one spoke about his wife in such terms. He leapt after Manley’s staggering form and tackled the man to the ground.