Secrets of Midnight (10 page)

Oh, she'd overheard some choice comments already, begun
the moment Donovan had ridden away yesterday afternoon.

"A duke's son, truly? And Corie Easton? Don't
mistake me, she's a good, hardworking girl, we all know it to be true. Helped
us all, she has, time and again. But that temper! Lord help him, the poor man
will need the patience of ten saints!"

"Such a handsome young gentleman too.
Not that Corie isn't pretty in her own right.
But, oh, my
dear, that scar on her face. What a pity. Doesn't seem to bother the man,
though."

That thoughtless remark had sent Corisande hurrying
into the parsonage with her three sisters and Frances in tow, all of them
peppering her with questions that required ridiculous answers in keeping with a
young woman who'd just been swept off her feet by most likely one of the most
eligible gentlemen in Britain.

"Aren't you excited, Corie? It's so romantic!"

That from Marguerite, of course, who seemed satisfied
when Corisande gave as giddy a smile as she could muster.

"Where will you live, Corie?"

At Lord Donovan's house—the crumbling eyesore, she'd
added mutinously to herself. Linette's second question quickly followed: "Can
we come and live there too?"

"Of course not, 'ee silly girl," Frances had
said with a fond laugh.
" 'Ee
have a good home
here with your papa. An' I'll be stayen to watch over 'ee, so never you fear."

And lastly, just before Corisande managed to escape
upstairs to her room, came another breathless query from Marguerite that
Corisande had hoped to avoid.

"Oh, Corie, it must feel so wonderful to be in
love. Really, truly in love. Tell me what it's like, will you?"

"It—it's all so new," she'd fumbled, hating
the deception, hating to lie to her family. A haven't even had a moment to
think, Marguerite. We'll talk later, I promise."

She had fled then, sinking against her door with
enormous relief. But indignation had gripped her, too, and she had gone
straight to her small writing desk set before the lace-curtained window and
penned Lindsay a long letter telling her everything.

Someone had to know the bloody truth! Corisande wouldn't
be able to bear it otherwise. And she could trust Lindsay to hold her tongue.
She could trust her dearest friend with her life.

And she most certainly didn't want Lindsay to hear from
someone else that she was getting married—and for her to think that Corisande
had found the man of her dreams virtually overnight—oh, no! She had made it
quite clear in the letter that Donovan was self-centered to his core and cared
about nothing but
himself
, hardly the upstanding,
principled man she envisioned marrying one day. She'd mentioned, too, what
Donovan had said about her reputation, his words still smarting like a slap

"Oh, Corie, he's here! He's here!"

Corisande stiffened at Marguerite's announcement,
allowing herself only the merest glance over her shoulder as her three sisters
wriggled excitedly like fresh-caught pilchards beside her. What she saw made
her breath stop, and no doubt every other woman's in the congregation, as the
most handsome man she'd ever seen strode down the center aisle toward them.

If Donovan had been dressed casually yesterday, this morning
he looked every inch the gentleman, from his clean-shaven face and startlingly
white cravat to the tailored lines of his dark blue coat, fawn-colored
breeches, and black riding boots polished to a bright sheen. Suddenly she felt
quite shabby in comparison, her dove-gray cloth dress a poor cousin to the
colorful concoctions Rose Polkinghorne was making for her. But none had been
ready, and so she had worn her very best, which obviously wasn't good enough
—oh, for heaven's sake, what did she care anyway? That cad! That bounder! It
wasn't as if she gave a halfpenny for what Lord Donovan Trent thought of her!

Her face burning, Corisande slid over reluctantly just
as Donovan reached the pew, her sisters bumping into each other as they slid
down too. In the next instant, Donovan was seated beside her, his hard thigh
pressing against her leg, which made her cheeks feel hotter still.

"Forgive my tardiness, my love,"
came
his low aside as the congregation erupted into a
full-throated hymn. "The servants my brother hired for me arrived early
this morning. The whole place was in an uproar."

"You mean your brother's 'eyes and ears'?"
Corisande whispered back, certain that her sarcasm would be masked by the
resounding singing. "How bloody lovely."

"My thought exactly." Indeed, waking up to a
houseful of Nigel's spies hadn't been Donovan's idea of a rousing good morning.
He had not only found Ogden moving silent as a ghost about his bedchamber, the
somber middle-aged butler laying out finely tailored clothes that Nigel had
ordered made for him—another detail seen to weeks before Donovan had returned
to England!—but in virtually every other room was a servant either dusting,
scrubbing floors, or cleaning windows. Even the two sullen housemaids had been
enlisted, the pair working harder than Donovan had thought possible.

Not surprisingly, Ogden had already been informed of Donovan's
imminent wedding by Henry Gilbert, who had stopped by the house shortly after
the servants' arrival to fetch the sealed letter bound for Arundale Hall. Thus
Ogden's sharing of the news created the unholy commotion of Donovan being
accosted by the frantic housekeeper, Ellen Biddle, and Grace Twickenham, the
red-faced cook, the moment he went downstairs, both women clamoring to know
what special preparations should be made to welcome his new bride.

A bride who looked about as happy to see him as a
condemned criminal bound for Tyburn, Donovan thought dryly, sending a smile
beyond Corisande to his three young soon-to-be sisters-in-law. Estelle and
Marguerite smiled back readily, but Linette stared at him with some wariness,
this serious-faced middle child reminding him most of Corisande.

"If you please, my lord, you're only encouraging
my sisters to fidget. They should be paying attention to the service!"

Donovan met Corisande's flashing brown eyes, glad that
the hymn had covered her irritated whisper. It seemed the hours they had spent
apart had made her even less inclined to honor the role they must play, and he
was determined to remind her. "Of course, my sweet darling, forgive me. We'll
let them pay attention to the service while I pay attention to you. Fair
enough?"

Corisande gasped as Donovan tunneled his arm through
hers and pulled her none too gently against him. "What—?"

"Shh, my love. That's better. Let's give your
father's flock what they came to see, shall we?"

Corisande's face had never felt hotter; she was
mortally aware that everyone in the congregation must surely be staring at
them. She tried to slide her arm back through Donovan's, but to no avail. She
was no match for his strength. The overbearing lout held her as if in a vise,
and she couldn't budge.

"Easy now, dear heart, or you'll confuse your
sisters," he whispered firmly as the hymn swelled to a close. "I
wouldn't be averse to kissing you right here in front of the pulpit if it will
ease your mood. That certainly seemed to work well enough yesterday. What's it
going to be?"

What's it going
to be?
Corisande screamed incredulously to herself, wondering if Donovan
would really make good on his threat. Seething, weighing the odds, she had only
to glance at the steely look on his handsome face to know he would probably
relish such a display. Resignedly she forced herself to relax against him.
There was nothing else she could do.

But she didn't look at him again for the remainder of
the service, not even when he laced his strong fingers through hers and began
to rub her palm lightly with his thumb, a curiously soothing sensation. No, not
even when he leaned over to whisper in her ear after her father's sermon was
done that he'd heard few vicars preach with such conviction.

Only when the last hymn was being sung did she glance
at him again, and, as if he had been waiting for that moment, he lowered his
head to murmur a husky warning for her ears alone, "When you feel a flash
of temper coming on, think of the tinners, my love. Henry Gilbert tells me they're
singing your praises. Let's keep things that way, shall we?"

She was caught and she knew it, at least while they
were in public. But there would come a time when they would be alone, oh, yes,
and she could hardly wait.

Corisande's arm was cramped when Donovan finally
released her, wooden pews creaking all around them as parishioners rose to
their feet. And just as she had known it would, the ingratiating nightmare of
yesterday afternoon was repeated as people swarmed forward to offer good wishes,
the local gentry falling all over themselves to welcome Donovan into their
midst.

To her relief she saw Frances rush forward from the
back where she'd been sitting with friends and shepherd her sisters away, while
in front of Corisande Druella's parents, a very rotund Baron and Lady Simmons,
came barreling along. But the hapless couple was cut off as a path suddenly
opened among the parishioners to make way for an imposing figure of a woman,
her familiar stentorian voice greeting those on the left and right as if she
were the bloody queen.

"Oh, Lord."

"Someone you know?"

Corisande nodded mutely at Donovan as the woman drew
closer, her massive corseted breasts reminding one of the wide
prow
of a warship, her lavender silk dress rustling and her
double chin jiggling. Upon her powdered face was an imperious look to which
Corisande had long ago grown accustomed, the woman's narrow, high-bridged nose
giving her the ability to look snootily down upon all she surveyed.

Just the way she was now staring at Corisande, though
her shrewd blue eyes quickly shifted to Donovan as she extended a plump gloved
hand.

"Olympia Somerset, my lord," she announced
before Corisande could introduce her. "What a distinct pleasure to welcome
you to Porthleven, although" —she glanced disparagingly at Corisande— "a
few days' notice of your imminent arrival might have allowed my stepdaughter,
Lindsay, to be here to greet you as well. Yes, such a pity."

Corisande held her breath while Donovan said nothing
for what seemed the longest moment, nor did he make a move to offer Lady
Somerset the least courtesy. Only when the woman arched a thin painted brow,
looking at Donovan somewhat uncertainly, did he take her hand and bow ever so
slightly, an audible murmur of relief rippling through the church.

Wondering at his behavior, Corisande glanced at him to
find he had stepped closer to her, a faint scowl on his face,
his
arm around her back in almost a protective fashion.
Unsettled by a sudden rush of warmth, she immediately dismissed the ridiculous
thought. Lord Donovan Trent was merely playing his part, convincingly as usual.

"Allow me to introduce my husband, Lord Donovan,"
Olympia added in a tone that gave no hint of her earlier discomposure, stepping
aside to reveal a slight graying man who had silently trailed in her wake like
a shadow. "Sir Randolph Somerset. We would be so honored if you'd dine
with us at Somerset Place, perhaps tonight—"

"Tonight won't be possible," Donovan
interrupted smoothly, feeling no small amount of disgust at the woman's
insulting behavior toward Corisande as well as pity for the poor
miserable-looking wretch who'd been fool enough to take her to wife. "But
perhaps sometime in the near future . . . after our wedding."

"Oh, yes, that would be lovely. Of course, you
must know by now that Lindsay and Corisande
are
the
dearest of friends. Close as sisters, I'd dare say. We'll almost be like
family."

Stunned to her toes, Corisande gaped as Olympia gave a
regal nod of her head and then swept away, another wide swath opening for the
woman like the parting of the Red Sea. But Corisande had no time to dwell upon
the first public acknowledgement she'd ever heard from Lady Somerset's lips
that she and Lindsay were friends as more parishioners crowded forward to
introduce themselves to the son of a duke.

She was certain nearly an hour had passed by the time
the church was emptied, leaving her and Donovan, finally, incredibly alone.

"Pleasant people. Well, most of them," he
said as Corisande brushed past him and moved down the center aisle, inspecting
the pews both right and left. "Did you lose something?"

"Not at all. I'm checking to see that no one left
anything behind. It's one of my duties."

"Duties?"

"Of course. I always close the church after Sunday
service, then I count and record the tithes in the parish accounts, look over
the register—"

"But what of the churchwardens?"

Corisande shrugged. "None have been elected for
three years. I manage well enough, and the parish trusts me. Things run quite
smoothly here."

"But your father? Does he help—
"

"My father is already at home in his study, where
he's most comfortable," Corisande broke in stiffly over her shoulder. "Sunday
mornings tire him dreadfully. He puts everything he has left into his sermons.
You said yourself that you'd seen few vicars preach as well as my father."

"So you heard me. I wasn't sure—"

"Yes, I heard you and your ridiculous warning as
well." Corisande swept up an abandoned white ladies' glove and spun to
face him, struck anew by how magnificently handsome he looked in the sunlight
streaming through the arched windows and wishing she wasn't so inclined to
notice. "And I don't need
you
to
tell me to think of the tinners! If not for them, for their families, I wouldn't
be suffering your—your loathsome attentions—"

"Loathsome? I don't recall any woman ever
complaining before that she found me loathsome."