Carrying the Gentleman's Secret

by Helen Dickson

  Irene stiffened. ‘How dare you say that to me? She may put on a hoity-toity manner and boast a superiority of mind that is positively sickening, but what do you think will happen if it gets out what sort of woman she really is? It will do her no good—her shop even less.’

  No human emotion could be traced on Alex’s face. In a silky, menacing voice, he said, ‘If it is your intention to disclose any of this, or cause Lydia and Miranda any unnecessary suffering, then I advise you to reconsider.’ He looked at David who, like himself, was finding it difficult keeping his rage under control. ‘Take her home, David. Make sure that if she is nothing else she is discreet on this matter.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Alex. There will be no scandal. If she so much as breathes one word that will bring disgrace on either Lydia or your sister and your good name, I swear I will personally wring her neck.’ These words were spoken in a cold, lethal voice, leaving Irene in no doubt that he meant it.

  She drew herself up with nervous hauteur. ‘You can’t threaten me, David.’

  ‘No?’ Alex inquired. ‘But I can. David meant every word. There is one thing you should know about me, Irene, and that is that I am a very determined man and if any harm comes to any of mine through your hand, I will destroy you. Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want me for an enemy. Now leave us. You have said quite enough,’ Alex said sharply.

  There was a moment of impasse during which no one moved. Finally, David took his sister’s arm and escorted her to the door. ‘Go to the carriage and wait for me there,’ he ordered his sister. He turned and looked at Alex and Lydia. ‘I am so sorry about this. She has caused immense and unnecessary distress to all concerned—especially to Miranda. I had no idea...’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, David,’ Alex said. ‘What is done cannot be undone. None of this is your fault.’

  ‘I have the full measure of my sister and you may be assured that you will not see her for a very long time. I intend to send her back to Paris. Fortunately she has a liking for all things French so with any luck at all she will find herself a rich French aristocrat and settle down. I will call on you just as soon as she has gone back to London—oh, and one thing more,’ he said, a smile curving his lips, ‘congratulations. You seem to have put the cart before the horse when it comes to matrimony—but I am happy for you both.’

  * * *

  When David had gone, Lydia stared at the closed door. Standing in the wreckage of her dream of marrying Alex, she realised it was over. There was no coming back from this, for how could Miranda possibly forgive her? For the rest of her life she would remember this moment when the bottom had dropped out of her world. She could not forestall the inevitable conclusion for which she was entirely to blame. Irene’s declaration meant the end of everything between her and Alex, and deep within herself Lydia was furious, furious at the injustice done her and furious at the pain she had caused Miranda. Her voice when she spoke was intense.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ she said. ‘It’s down to me—all of it. I’ve ruined everything between you and Miranda. Tell me how I’m supposed to live with that?’

  Alex looked at her. She stood near the window where he could see her face. It was one of torment, strained with the pain inside her, and for a moment he felt himself responsible for this although she and not he had been the one to allow Henry into her life. But he couldn’t help himself. He needed her so desperately that from the moment he had met her he had questioned nothing about her as long as he could be assured that her need for him was as great as his was for her. Subconsciously, they had both been looking for a place of permanence where they could abide. He would not allow Irene Hilton’s malice to take that, or their love for one another, which had grown from a moment of wonder, away from them.

  Her pain and anguish tore at Alex. He went to her and tenderly took her in his arms. ‘None of this is your fault, Lydia. Henry has a lot to answer for—but I must tread with care for Miranda’s sake. This is a difficult time for her, but we will get through it. We have to.’

  She turned her face up to his. ‘I know that. But what can I do? Miranda will never forgive me.’ The pull of his gaze was too strong for her to resist. It was as though he were looking into the very depths of her heart. She felt the touch of his empathy like healing fingers soothing away her pain like a balm.

  ‘She will. We must give her time.’

  ‘This must be breaking her heart.’

  ‘I know. Let me talk to her.’

  Before he could do that Miranda walked in.

  Lydia stood beside Alex. She closed her fingers over his hand for support. She felt him look at her, but he said nothing. Instead, his hand turned and he wove his fingers with hers.

  ‘Miranda... What can I say?’ Lydia said hesitantly. ‘I want to explain.’

  ‘I don’t want an explanation.’

  ‘No, but you’re unhappy. I am part of that. I didn’t intend—’

  ‘Oh, people never do, do they?’

  Lydia heard the bitterness in her words. Its presence didn’t surprise her.

  ‘We hadn’t been married very long before I found out what Henry was like. When I first became aware of the rumours, read the signs—whatever you wish to call them—I chose to ignore them rather than face the truth. But then I realised it’s better to know the truth than to live a lie. I thought I knew him. And then I realised I didn’t know him at all. But I can’t believe—with you...’

  ‘Please believe me when I tell you that nothing happened between us, Miranda—nothing like that. I had no idea he was married, I swear it to you.’

  Miranda looked at her, her eyes wide and brimming with tears and hurt and betrayal and all the other things a woman feels when the man she loves, a man she’d hoped loved her back, lets her down in a way she cannot forgive.

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Because I was desperate—desperate to get away from London, from everything,’ Lydia explained.

  ‘Why? What were you running away from?’ Miranda demanded. Her throat was aching so badly that she found speaking difficult.

  ‘My father,’ Lydia replied quietly. ‘I was running away from my father.’

  Miranda stared at her, trying hard to understand. ‘But...why would you want to do that? According to Alex, your father is a gentle, lovely man.’

  ‘I didn’t know that then. You see, my father left me and my mother to fend for ourselves when I was a small child. I had to watch the love my mother bore him turn to bitterness and then hate. Inevitably that hate rubbed off onto me.’ She told Miranda of her meeting with her father. She spoke of his theft and being sent to Australia, and how the letter he wrote to her sent her into a panic. ‘That was when I met Henry. I can’t pretend I wasn’t flattered by his attention, and when he told me he was to go to America, where he lived, and he would marry me, I saw it as a way out of my predicament.’

  ‘So you returned to London when it fell through. And your father? Have you forgiven him for deserting you and your mother?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I have. I have no intention of punishing him any further. He has paid in his own way for what he did.’

  ‘Tell me truthfully—honestly. Would you have agreed to go America—to marry Henry—if your circumstances had been different?’

  ‘Honestly? No, Miranda, I would not. I didn’t love him—not that I knew anything about that kind of love until I met Alex in Scotland, when he arrived to stop the wedding. Henry wasn’t honest with me. I swear I would not have given him the time of day had I known he had a wife.’

  Miranda looked at her intently, trying to see behind the words for a lie, but unable to find one. She sighed. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘I am sorry to speak ill of Henry to you of all people, but he wanted me for no other reason than to win a wager he had made with his friends. I rejected any amorous moves he made. In the end the only way he could win the wager�
��to save face—was to come up with the ridiculous tale he spun me about his family in America and that he wanted me to go with him as his wife. Like a stupid fool I believed him, when all the time his intention was to whisk me off the Scotland, to enter into a bogus marriage, and afterwards...he intended to desert me.’

  ‘How did you feel when you found out—when Alex arrived and stopped the wedding?’ Miranda asked.

  ‘I was devastated and deeply hurt, then furious at the way I had been duped and used to fulfil a wager. Henry almost ruined me.’

  ‘I think I understand why you refused to make my dresses now,’ Miranda said with a sigh.

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry about that,’ Lydia said. Unable to look any longer at Miranda’s anguished face, she went to her. Taking her hand, she drew her down onto the sofa where they sat facing each other. ‘You have no idea how I agonised over my decision. You see, Alex had asked me to marry him and I had refused. I simply could not enter into any kind of permanent relationship, knowing what I did and unable to tell you without hurting you. I felt dreadful deceiving you and I assure you I am not that sly, manipulative woman Irene painted me as being.’

  ‘I do realise that. Alex has told you—about our childhood—our parents, hasn’t he? He told me he intended to do so when you went out in the carriage with him earlier.’

  ‘Yes, he showed me where you as lived a child. I’m sorry, Miranda. I realise how difficult things must have been for both of you.’

  ‘It was. I couldn’t have got through it without Alex—and our grandfather. I haven’t told Henry about that part of our lives.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Perhaps—one day. With everything that has happened recently, I don’t think that’s important. I asked Henry to come with me to Aspen. He said he had things to do on the estate—things he had neglected of late. He made no comment when I told him Alex had invited you. I realise now that it was because he was afraid of the truth coming out.’

  ‘I can see that. What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I shall have to have time to think about it—to consider all the ramifications of what you have told me. I don’t know when I’ll be able to sort through my feelings on the matter. I can’t see you as a bad person—after all, you were deceived as well as me. Besides, Alex loves you and he is a good judge of character. Henry has promised me things will be different from now on. He’s looking forward to the birth of our child.’ She swallowed, a look of desperation on her face. ‘I have to believe him. What else can I do?’

  Lydia looked at her. She wanted so desperately to believe Henry could be the husband Miranda wanted and needed. Lydia wasn’t so sure—and one look at Alex’s face told her he wasn’t convinced either. Henry had lied to Miranda from the start because he was used to lying, because that was what he did. Lydia doubted very much that he would change.

  ‘There is one more thing we should tell you, Miranda, something you don’t know and will probably shock you when you do.’

  Fully expecting to be told something further that would upset her, Miranda looked at her warily. ‘What is it?’

  Lydia looked at Alex, holding out her hand for him to take, which he did.

  ‘I am pregnant, Miranda. Alex and I are to have a child.’

  Miranda gasped and looked from one to the other. ‘Oh—I wasn’t expecting that.’ Clearly shocked, but delightedly so, she stood up and embraced her brother and then Lydia. ‘I don’t know what to say. I am amazed... I am happy for you both... Oh,’ she exclaimed, clasping her face in her hands, ‘what a day this has turned out to be. I suppose now there will have to be a wedding.’

  * * *

  Later that day, when the rain had stopped and dusk cast a shadowy darkness over the gardens, Lydia strolled beside Alex, trying to forget the day’s happenings and to appreciate the simple pleasure of walking by Alex’s side. Reaching a rose-twined arbour, they stopped and breathed in the scents of the rain-washed garden. Lydia looked at Alex, at this man she had known for such a short time and whom she knew with absolute certainty, she would follow to the ends of the earth if he asked her to, and everything else—her work, her father, those aspects of herself that she had not even been aware of—suddenly fell into place.

  ‘Are you warm enough?’ Alex asked, drawing her shawl close around her shoulders. ‘The rain has left a chill in the air.’

  ‘The cool air doesn’t bother me. I spend so much time indoors with my work that I like to get out in the open when I get the chance—especially when I have such lovely gardens to stroll through—on the arm of the man I love.’

  She fell silent, feeling awkward suddenly. Her eyes, which she’d cast down when she declared her love for him again, fluttered upwards and clung to his. They never left his face. In the beginning she had told herself that she had been drawn to him because of his compelling good looks and his powerful magnetism. She had almost convinced herself that it was so, that this strange hold he had over her was merely his ability to awaken an intense sexual hunger within her. But that was just the tip of the iceberg, because what she felt for Alex Golding went way beyond the physical. It was something far deeper, something dangerously enduring, which had been weaving its spell to bind them inexorably together.

  The light from the windows of the house fell on his face. She was enchanted, it seemed, by the line of his strong jaw and the curve of his throat.

  It was as though the gardens had cast a spell on them and they had not the strength, nor perhaps the desire, to escape it. Alex smiled, and then the smile slipped away and his eyes darkened to the deepest blue as they travelled slowly over every inch of her face. He was fascinated by the wisps of hair that clung to her cheeks. He felt heat pulsate through his veins and he could not look away.

  ‘Have you any idea how precious you are to me, Lydia? I want to make you my wife just as soon as it can be arranged.’ The husky whisper was as potent as a caress. He felt inside his coat and pulled out a narrow box. ‘I have a gift for you. It’s something I meant to give you when I returned from Paris, but somehow the moment never arose.’

  Lydia gasped when he raised the lid to reveal the diamond and emerald necklace and earrings nestling on a bed of black velvet. Tentatively she touched the precious stones with her finger, never having seen the like.

  ‘Alex...they are beautiful.’ She raised her eyes to his. ‘Did you buy them in Paris?’

  He nodded, lifting out the necklace and holding it next to her face. ‘There. I was right. They do match your eyes.’

  ‘I...don’t know what to say. No one’s ever given me anything like this.’

  ‘Think of them as a wedding gift from me. You might like to wear them on our wedding day.’

  * * *

  Just one month later, Alex and Lydia were married at the small Norman church in the village close to Aspen Grange with no more than twenty guests. It was an emotional moment for Lydia when her father gave her to Alex for safekeeping, before stepping back and looking proudly on as they exchanged their vows.

  A beaming Emily was her only bridesmaid. Emily had made Lydia’s wedding dress, a simple gown of ivory silk, skilfully designed to conceal Lydia’s expanding waist. Alex’s diamond and emerald jewels sparkled about her throat and dripped from her ears. Miranda, several months into her own pregnancy and blooming with health, attended with a very quiet and sheepish-looking Henry, who never left his wife’s side during the entire celebrations.

  It was Miranda’s idea that Henry should speak to Lydia. ‘The sooner the better,’ she said adamantly. ‘We belong to the same family now. We have to get over all that unpleasantness and put it behind us.’

  Lydia was afraid that talking to Henry would bring back all the bitterness she had felt at the time. But it had to be done and this was as good a time as any. For Miranda’s sake she would strive to be civil to him.

  ‘I want to say I am sorry,’ Henry said. ‘
I never did apologise to you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t and I have not forgiven you for what you did to me. You would have ruined me. I only hope that where Miranda is concerned you treat her better than that. She deserves to be happy, Henry.’

  ‘I know that. I couldn’t bear to lose her. At least one good thing came out of all that—you and Alex. I never would have thought it when I left Gretna that the two of you would... Well, you know what I mean. When I came back from Scotland I promised Miranda that I would make a fresh start with her and our child.’

  ‘Then keep your promise and behave yourself.’

  As she turned to rejoin to her husband of two hours, she didn’t think for a minute that Henry would keep his word. Oh, he meant it now. He was truly sorry for trying to seduce her, probably for hurting Miranda as well. But how long would he abide by his promise? Now Lydia could see Henry for what he was—a handsome, dangerous individual who lived by his impulses and would never know how to control his feelings.

  Alex had observed her short exchange with Henry with concern and was relieved that it went without mishap. He smiled warmly when she made her way to his side. He took her hand and pressed his mouth against her open palm.

  ‘I shall love you until my dying day, Alex Golding. Promise me that nothing will come between us.’ She raised her hand and tenderly brushed his cheek.

  ‘Nothing will, I promise you,’ he said fervently. ‘I look forward to this night when I can love you as my wife.’

  When he bent his head and placed his lips on hers, Lydia realised how lucky she was. Ever since she had been old enough to know what she wanted—her own establishment, her salon, her customers and most of all to design gowns—she had never stopped to think until she had met Alex of the lonely life she had mapped out for herself. Here, now, was her love, her beloved Alex. Her life was complete—or it would be when she had given birth to their son or daughter.