Lord Deverill's Heir by Catherine Coulter (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

enough time to change her clothes for dinner. “I shall join you shortly, Paul,” she whispered.

Turning to the butler, she said, “Crupper, do tell Cook that Dr. Branyon will be joining us for dinner this evening.”

“Yes, my lady.” Crupper nodded. He wasn’t a blind man. His mistress looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen, and it was all due to Dr.

Branyon. Oh Lordie. Well, who cared?

Crupper eyed Dr. Branyon as he presented him with a glass of sherry.

Though the doctor was not a lord, he was nonetheless a fine gentleman. It was the first time, he thought, ruminating on the situation as he descended the flagstone steps into the kitchen, that he had ever seen the Lady Ann so very, not just beautiful, but sparkling, yes, that was it.

True it was but a short time since his lordship’s death, but what matter?

Lady Arabella was settled with the new earl, and life was too short anyway to worry overly about such things. He smoothed his sparse gray hair and wondered if the two of them would live here at Evesham Abbey after they married.

Had Lady Ann not felt so unbearably happy, she would have felt the undercurrent of tension at the dinner table. She saw the participants at the large table through a pleasant blur, their words and tones softened by the time they penetrated through the haze of contentment. She wanted to leap up and shout hallelujahs when Paul folded his napkin, cleared his throat, and rose to his feet.

“Justin, comte,” he said in a clear voice, “before the ladies adjourn to the Velvet Room and leave us to our port, I should like to make an announcement.”

The earl looked up, searched Lady Ann’s face, and smiled. Not a full smile, for there was that coldness about him, but it was a smile and it was a pleased smile. He nodded. Arabella looked up, not caring, just wanting to leave the dining room, to get away from him.

Dr. Branyon cleared his throat. “Lady Ann has done me the honor of accepting my proposal of marriage. We shall wed as soon as possible and, of course, live very quietly until her nominal year of mourning has passed.”

The earl rose quickly and raised his own glass. “My congratulations, Paul, Ann. It is no great surprise, to be sure, but still a welcome occasion. I propose a toast—to Dr. Branyon and Lady Ann. May you have a long lifetime of happiness.”

Arabella sat frozen. No great surprise? Her mother and Dr. Branyon? No, it couldn’t be true, it simply couldn’t. Her father had just died. His body was rotting in some forgotten ruin of a village in Portugal and her mother was calmly planning to marry another man. She couldn’t bear it.

Anger rose like bile in her throat. She gazed across the table at her mother and saw with barely contained fury the delicate pink of her cheeks, the new brilliance of her eyes. She was nothing more than a damned trollop.

“Arabella. The toast, my dear.” She turned her head to stare at the earl.

Her husband. The man who hated her, the man who would punish her the rest of her life for something she hadn’t done. She heard the command in his voice. By God, he approved this travesty of a marriage. She turned her eyes to Elsbeth and Gervaise. With her newly acquired insight, she saw them almost as one being, Elsbeth’s dark eyes and hair blending, as if with the same artist’s brush, into a blurred mold of Gervaise. It was as if one pair of almond-shaped eyes regarded her, their focus as one, their thoughts as one—their bodies as one. No, surely not. Elsbeth and Gervaise? But who else? No, Suzanne was surely right. They were lovers.

She thought they showed mild surprise, nothing more. Was she the only one who had not guessed?

“Arabella, child, are you all right?” Her mother’s gentle voice, so vibrant with concern. Was there a pleading note? Was she seeking approval from her daughter, seeking forgiveness for her betrayal? Her blindness had known no bounds. She realized she’d been so very locked into herself, into her own misery, that she had missed what everyone else had clearly seen. Yes, she been a wooden puppet unseeing, her very thoughts frozen inside herself. How very surprised Dr. Branyon appeared at her silence.

Or was he? Surely he would know how she missed her father, how she loved him beyond life itself. He had betrayed her. Both of them had betrayed her. And her father. Had they been lovers for years? Had they merely waited for her father to leave before they went to his bed?

“Arabella.”

The earl’s voice again, condemning her now. But then he had condemned her since they had wed. How could she expect him to see the truth, to understand that they had done?

Arabella rose unsteadily from her chair, her fingers clutching white on the edges of the table. She felt crushed with the weight of her own unawareness, the weight of their betrayal. So much betrayal, she thought, only she was innocent. They were not.

Her voice sounded out as a fallen autumn leaf, its spine snapped and broken underfoot. “Yes, Mother, I am quite all right. Did you call for a toast, my lord? I’m sorry, but you see, I don’t have one.” She heard a shocked, sharp intake of breath—from whom, she did not know. Only vaguely did she see the earl move angrily from his chair. She whirled about and raced from the dining room.

Justin threw his napkin down upon the tabletop. “Paul, Ann, do not attend to her. Please, all of you, take your coffee in the Velvet Room. If you will excuse me now, I would speak to my wife.” Lady Ann’s face was perfectly white, her lips drawn in a thin line, but she didn’t cry. She saw the wild anger in the earl’s eyes. Oh God, she had to protect Arabella from his anger. She had never seen him so