She’d never seen him dressed like this. But somehow he looked just as comfortable as in scarred leather and canvas, bedecked with notched guns ready to spit fire.
Instinct, too deep to be denied, compelled her to take a step closer. Her fingers ached to touch him, but she pushed herself back. She was engaged. That was it, betrothed to another man.
Gareth himself would expect her to honor those vows.
“Why are you here?” She reached for composure and pulled herself even further into a lady’s elegant upright posture, as polished and refined as for her presentation to the Queen of England.
Gareth’s eyes flickered. For the first time ever, he truly looked at her from head to toe, her face and her throat, her shoulders and the curves down to her waist. He had to drag his gaze back up to her face. His chest was definitely rising and falling a little faster.
Something feminine deep inside her stretched its claws and purred. A flower which had set root in finishing school, budded in Paris and London during dances and flirtations, reached a little farther toward the light, ruffling her throat and lungs until speech—even thought—became an effort.
“Why are you here?” she asked more slowly, her vowels somehow falling into her mother’s softer, slower Southern accent.
“To take you away.” His tones were darker and rougher.
With him? Had he finally come to his senses? Oh please, dear God, let it be yes! Let the oldest dream finally come true.
But his face didn’t betray any lover-like impatience and he wasn’t holding out his hand to her. His eyes drifted over her with stunned fascination but he wasn’t speaking enough of himself.
“Why?” Splintering hope cut an edge into her voice.
“You can’t marry St. Arles.”
“What are you talking about?” she fenced warily. Please tell me more about why you want me.
“I’ve been asking around about him.” He frowned and pushed his hand through his hair, disarranging the heavy locks. “Donovan asked me to do so, since he couldn’t arrive until yesterday.”
Uncle William had started this, not Gareth? She flipped a handful of chenille fringe back into place on her thigh, wishing she could rearrange arrogant men as easily. Why couldn’t she ever be someone unique to him, for himself, and not because of his close ties to William Donovan?
“So? My father did, also.” As had every other wealthy American parent.
“What did he consider? Anything other than satisfying his wife’s ambitions?” Gareth shot back.
Her jaw dropped in astonishment at his knowledge of her family’s inner workings—and his willingness to discuss them.
“That’s not kind,” she retorted.
“Your British earl has more debts than the Army has mules.”
“Yes, I know.” She shrugged, wishing nothing more than to escape this dream-raddled debacle. “Uncle William made sure I knew who the London and New York fortune hunters were. But my father promised he’d make sure my dowry was well protected. And St. Arles considers my music and wit to be worthy of a diplomatic hostess.”
“Do you honestly believe he loves you?”
Did he have to look as if he pitied her?
“Yes. My only doubts are my ability to be a good wife, a good English wife,” she asserted and silently damned her old playmate for reigniting all her old qualms.
St. Arles was a charming conversationalist—but he sparkled most when the topic was himself or he was on duty, as a diplomat serving his queen. He somehow turned tariffs into a series of jokes about the strong devouring the weak and thereby drew even her father’s most insular political cronies into his charmed circle. Yet he’d never exerted himself to discuss her family in detail. Instead he’d shared details about the run-down estates he’d inherited and his dreams of Britain’s future glory.
Gareth’s eyes narrowed, as if he were scouting a trail across very rocky terrain.
“Portia, I’ve asked the women of the town about him. The women of ill repute,” he emphasized.
“Gareth!” she protested, appalled by his forcing such harpies into this day’s solemnity. “Why are you telling me—”
“He treats them very poorly.”
She gaped at him. Albinia Townsend might believe female ignorance was the best road to marital happiness but Viola Donovan had no such hesitations. Portia considered herself quite well informed about intimate matters between men and women. But what did a bachelor’s wild oats have to do with her?
“Black eyes and split lips are the least of it. Two girls have suffered broken arms in the past—”
“No!” Portia flung up her hand. White ribbons fluttered from her mother’s bible like an Indian’s delicate amulets.
“One day, he’ll handle you the same way. Your only hope is that he needs your healthy body to bear his sons.”
“He calls me his princess and swears life will hold no meaning for him until I am his wife.”
“Your father’s gold doesn’t drip from his fingers yet,” Gareth said crudely. “Grow up, Portia, and start seeing the world the way it truly is, not a bonbon offered on a silver platter to you.”
She slapped him. The few hopes she still cherished, that Gareth Lowell might one day see her as a lover, fled screaming from her memories’ bleeding grasp. St. Arles might not be perfect but at least he wanted her, unlike Gareth.
He caught her wrist and held it, breathing just a little too fast. His eyes narrowed under their dark brows and she was fiercely glad she’d finally riled him up enough to shake his self-control.
“If you’re marrying him because you want to hurt me—”
“Don’t flatter yourself!”
A muscle twitched hard in his cheek before he inclined his head, silently agreeing with her.
Why did that make her want to hit him again? Couldn’t he acknowledge at least a bond of friendship between them?
“At least remember William and Viola Donovan will always take you in. You need only turn to them, even when you stand at the altar.”
“Are you mad? Do you know how much gossip that would cause?” Even her corset seemed to gasp in outrage.
Gareth released her as if dropping a scorpion. “Better a little chatter now than a lifetime of bitterness. But you can trust William and Viola to do—”
“What? The most notorious deed possible?” Walter Townsend’s golden tones resonated through the drawing room, harbingers of the famous orator and backroom politician he was. His wife hovered at his shoulder, smugly certain of both her position and the situation’s outcome.
Portia gulped unhappily. She could imagine several endings for this encounter, none of them gracious. She immediately caught her train up, ready to move in any direction.
“Why, everything possible for their niece, of course,” Gareth said smoothly, betraying no discomfort whatsoever. “Excuse me, sir, I’m Gareth Lowell. You may not remember me but we were introduced at the Vanderbilts’ horse race last week.”
“Vanderbilts.” Portia’s father, patriarch of a far older lineage, sniffed loudly before fixing his gaze on his daughter. “My dear girl, you are not yet ready and society abhors tardiness.”
She glanced down at herself, startled by the unjust description. Her stepmother chuckled and smoothed her dress over her ample hips, making her own bid for superiority in a blaze of over-corseted Parisian finery and clanking masses of rubies.
“And, you, young man, are an intruder.” The master of the house looked Gareth over as if a servant had unaccountably left behind dead flowers. “Society’s leaders are waiting at the church and I will not allow you to ruin our family’s triumph.”
Portia hesitated, uncertainty running like a spring storm through her veins. But staying near Gareth would only heat her father’s ire higher.
She left the fireplace far too slowly.
“As a man of the world, sir, you must have heard the rumors about St. Arles.” Gareth’s demand for attention blazed like a knife fighter’s blade in a da
rk alley.
Portia swung around, one step short of the doorway and her stepmother. The three Townsends faced the interloper in a single, united, hostile front.
“What of them? Idle chatter means little to me, except unnecessary delay to my wife’s and daughter’s dreams.”
“St. Arles is no proper husband for any woman, let alone a beloved, innocent daughter.” Gareth hurled the accusation at the household’s senior members.
“So? My wife and child both desire an English title in the family, you fool, while I enjoy giving my friends a grand wedding—from which you will be excluded.”
“He will harm her.” Gareth’s countenance carried the hardness of complete and utter certainty.
“Don’t be absurd. He’d never cause a scandal or risk losing her dowry.”
Father hadn’t denied he knew St. Arles was capable of Gareth’s accusations? Her stomach roiled, as if she’d returned to a swaying, pitching stagecoach, bound for a hellish, stifling journey through Apache country.
The leader of her family kept talking, sharp and disquieting as blasts from a guard’s shotgun. “That’s unlikely to become important. I have done my best for my daughter and you have no right to interfere.”
Where could she go? What could she do? Surely she’d made her decision weeks ago, when she’d accepted St. Arles’ offer.
“Except an old friend’s worry.” Gareth’s tanned features were so saturnine as to be unreadable. “In that case, I will say farewell and simply ask Miss Townsend to remember my last words.” The fear underlying his voice pulled her a half step forward but her dress’s chenille fringe brushed her legs like silent sentries.
He was requesting her to leave her fiancé at the altar and run off to her aunt and uncle? How could she break her word of honor and do that?
She rocked back into immobility. Surely her engagement ring had never felt this heavy before.
He stared at her, his silver eyes as adamant as his silence—and as desperate—about what he wanted her to do.
She glared back at him, equally stubborn.
“Of all the abominable pieces of impertinence,” her stepmother burst out. “To break into my house and try to stop my party! You—”
Gareth’s hand shot out, palm up, and silenced her in midtirade. He walked out, brushing past Portia without a backward glance.
His clean scent made her treacherous heart give a last, erratic thump. It had to be nothing more than silly, sentimental claptrap over childhood memories.
“Coming, daughter?” Her father glanced at her from the head of the stairs.
“Of course, sir.” She locked her knees back into something steady enough to move, and did her best to glide forward, rather than stumble.
St. Arles wanted her and Gareth didn’t. She’d given her pledge to one man, but not another. What more did she need to know?
Chapter Six
Portia bowed her head one last time, grateful the interminable prayer had finally ended. The archbishop had seen fit to add additional prophets and evangelists’ pleas for children to the standard wedding blessing. Now her head swam from the overpowering scent of massed roses, lilies, and freesias which swarmed up to the high altar and covered everything else they could reach.
They offered the only warmth in the enormous, gray church, since even all the swaying, wrought iron candelabras couldn’t banish the cold chill seeping into every crevice from the heavy rainstorm.
She hadn’t seen or smelled anything like these blooms, since she’d stood in the very small chapel when Mother was buried. The bitter winter that year had closed down travel, leaving only flowers to represent hundreds of friends and thousands of memories. Portia’s head had spun until she wanted to sink into the stone vault with Mother’s coffin.
Today, she gripped Mother’s Bible until her fingers stamped her mark on the soft leather, then clambered onto her feet. Her heavy train tugged at her shoulders and she shook it impatiently back, to be caught and fussed over by her two stepsisters.
St. Arles observed her, too secure in his six feet of lionized British aristocracy and smug naval uniform to break society’s conventions and offer assistance. A half smile toyed with his thin lips under his fashionable mustache.
Their audience leaned forward in a rustling slither of controlled anticipation. Her stepmother’s crisp underskirts echoed like buckshot beside the aisle, while Portia could see from the corner of her eye Father smirking at an old social rival.
Uncle William, Aunt Viola, and their two young sons, Neil and Brian, sat in the following pew. Aunt Viola sniffled hard and briefly leaned her cheek against Uncle William’s shoulder. He tilted his head toward hers, offering comfort and understanding so simply that Portia’s heart twisted.
Uncle Hal and Aunt Rosalind, with their bevy of daughters and single son, her golden Lindsay cousins, Uncle Morgan and Aunt Jessamyn, and everyone else were a blur too distant to be distinguished as individuals.
Dear Cynthia stood behind her, both hands full with hers and Portia’s bouquets. Cynthia’s happy marriage to her gallant British army officer had helped persuade Portia she too could have a successful union to a foreign aristocrat.
Out of all that great assembly, only one man stood on his feet.
Gareth Lowell watched her from the side aisle, his silver eyes like beacons set deep in his hardened face.
Something deep down inside her leaned toward him yet again. She’d wanted him from the day they’d met, when she’d arrived in San Francisco after Mother’s long, dreadful descent into death. He’d just come in from the storm, windblown and clean-smelling like the promise of a new beginning. He’d never reminded her of New York’s gilded, cloying rituals.
Her two stepsisters finished their work and stepped back, leaving Portia isolated in front of the high altar.
“My wife.” St. Arles’s voice was clipped, British, and triumphant as brazen cymbals despite its quiet.
Her eyes widened to meet his. She blushed, thanking a merciful heaven she’d sighted Gareth over St. Arles’s shoulder. No suspicion dwelt in his eyes when his forefinger brought her chin up.
Her husband. She’d sworn to forsake all others and cleave only unto him.
He was what she wanted, wasn’t he?
She stilled, her skin drifting somewhere beyond the ability of her frantic pulse to warm.
He slowly lowered his head to hers, his black eyes glinting like a shotgun’s muzzle.
What was he planning to do? He wasn’t behaving like the groom at any wedding she’d ever attended.
She managed a welcoming smile, gentler than her clumsy fingers’ frantic grip on her mother’s Bible.
He very deliberately licked her lips, flicking his tongue across them like a rattlesnake tasting the air for prey. Again and again, never seeking to penetrate or seduce like those fumbling boys, but only taunt and brand her.
She wrenched herself away from him and staggered back, flinging her free hand up.
“No,” she whispered. How could she yield her body to a man who treated her like that?
St. Arles chuckled too softly to be heard by anyone except the archbishop. Satisfaction flickered through her bridegroom’s eyes, not some ridiculous prank.
Good God, he’d meant to frighten her.
Her blood ran colder than at her mother’s funeral.
The audience surged onto its feet, filling the great church with a storm of dissonant questions and clashing fabrics.
She had to leave. But where could she go? She was married to St. Arles.
Her lungs fought to draw breath fast enough to fuel her irregular pulse.
To have and to hold, for better or worse…from this day forward.
Forever. She would be his wife for all of the days to come.
She lowered her hand as jerkily as a railroad engine stuttering to a halt. But she finished the motion and even added a half smile at the congregation, although she didn’t dare look anyone in the eye.
Her father and stepmot
her erupted from their front pew and charged toward her.
St. Arles took her arm—and she permitted it. Her brain seemed to be somewhere distant from his touch, as if sheer terror had rescued all that was good and pure in her from him.
She glanced around the church, anywhere but at him, the man who’d kiss her again that night. Although she mustn’t let anybody know what she thought of that.
She immediately and far too easily saw Gareth again. He jerked his head toward Uncle William and Aunt Viola, implacably demanding that she scandalously cast her husband aside and run off.
But he never gave any sign she should come to him.
Her husband drew her arm against his side.
Silence spread through the audience like the first flame in dry prairie grass.
“My dear daughter, let me be the first to congratulate you,” her father gushed. “I will introduce you two to President Grant immediately.”
The message in his eyes was as unmistakable as Gareth’s: You must pretend matters are proceeding well. You are married now, like it or not.
A thousand people watched her, eager to see her next move. No matter what she did, there would be gossip. That’d be a minor penalty, though, for choosing the proper road.
Divorce? Impossible; she’d given her word to marry him—for better or for worse. After all, there had to be a future ahead for a woman who did her best to be a good wife.
She’d created more than one ruckus in her life but never the commotion that walking out on St. Arles now would cause.
What did any of that matter? Like it or not, she’d married him and she’d keep her vows.
Portia Townsend—no, Vanneck—wrapped herself in her best, well-bred smile and leaned very slightly on her new husband’s arm. Her finishing school’s deportment teacher would have been proud.
She deliberately did not look anywhere near Gareth Lowell.
But too much of her heart shattered when the side door slammed behind him.
Chapter Seven
The Devil She Knows Page 4