Merely the Groom Read online

  “I lost him.” Lady Davies gave her daughter a wistful smile. “My father refused his offer, and he married someone with a bigger dowry. At the time I thought my life was over and that my heart would break. I thought my father was cruel and unfeeling. But he only wanted the best for me, and he was right.”

  “How can you know for sure?” Gillian asked, tearing another chunk from her dance card and hiding it among the folds of her skirt.

  “That’s easy,” Lady Davies answered. “I fell in love with your father. And now, when I see my beau from long ago around town, I’m always amazed that I ever thought myself in love with him.”

  “You see him?”

  “On occasion,” Lady Davies confided. “At social engagements like these. You see, his older brother died some years later, and he inherited the title.”

  “You have no regrets?”

  “Why should I?” Lady Davies met her daughter’s gaze. “The point is that I only thought I loved him. I was madly in love with the idea of being in love. The truth is that I didn’t really understand what love was until I married your father.”

  “I truly believed he loved me,” Gillian said.

  “Perhaps he does in his own way.”

  “He left without so much as a note. He didn’t bother to say good-bye.” Gillian had told her mother and father nearly everything that had happened to her since she’d eloped with the elusive Colin Fox, but she had been too ashamed to admit that her husband had taken her cash and her jewelry and sneaked away, abandoning her to the mercy of the owners of the Blue Bottle Inn. She’d made no mention of Edinburgh. The shame that the memories and the revelations of Edinburgh brought did not bear repeating.

  As far as her mama and papa were concerned, the extent of her trip to Scotland began and ended at the inn in Gretna Green. And although she carried his note tucked inside the secret pocket in her chemise, Gillian hadn’t breathed a word about her mysterious Galahad or the money he had given her. Galahad was her secret, and Gillian intended to keep him that way.

  Lady Davies looked her daughter in the eye. “There’s no doubt that you love us, Gillian, but you didn’t leave your papa and me a note when you left with your young man.”

  Gillian shook her head. “But I did, Mama. I wrote you a letter explaining our decision to elope to Scotland because Colin was afraid Papa wouldn’t accept him as a suitor because he didn’t possess a title.”

  “We never received your letter,” Lady Davies said.

  “I know,” Gillian admitted. “And I’m so sorry. You didn’t get my letter because I gave it to Colin. He promised to post it once we reached Scotland.”

  “Then he misled you on several accounts.” Lady Davies narrowed her gaze. “And the suggestion that your papa wouldn’t accept your young man as a suitor because he didn’t possess a title is ridiculous! Your papa has the greatest admiration for men who make their own way in the world. Why shouldn’t he? He’s been in trade all his life.”

  “But once he became a baron, he made no secret of the fact that he wanted a loftier title for me,” Gillian protested.

  “Of course he did,” Lady Davies replied. “In our society, a title is everything. With a title, the world is your oyster. It can open doors that money alone cannot budge. Your father understands that. Nevertheless,” her mother continued, “your papa would have accepted whomever you loved so long as it was clear that the man loved you in return.” She frowned at Gillian. “And you should have trusted your papa enough to know to know that.”

  Her mother was right. Gillian should have trusted her father and her mother enough to confide her attraction to Colin Fox. If she had, she wouldn’t have ended up abandoned at the mercy of the innkeepers of the Blue Bottle Inn. Her reputation wouldn’t be hanging by a very thin thread and she wouldn’t have had to hear the harsh truth about her marriage or to remember the look of disdain on Mistress Douglas’s face the morning Gillian left the inn and boarded the coach that would take her home to London.

  “He comes here a lot—sometimes by ship and sometimes by land, either through Gretna Green or Berwick,” the innkeeper’s wife had whispered. “There were others, you know. I overheard him boasting in the taproom about how he earns a handsome living at it.”

  Surprised by Mistress Douglas’s revelations that her absent husband had been boasting about his business in the taproom of a busy inn, Gillian took the older woman’s bait. “At what?”

  “Eloping with well-to-do young ladies. He left one in Selkirk two months ago and another at the Dalkeith Inn last month. You aren’t the first young bride he’s wedded, bedded, and bid farewell to in Scotland.”

  Reaching into her coat pocket, Gillian crumpled the letter she’d written to her husband—the letter she’d been about to entrust to the innkeeper’s wife. “I see.” She had held her head high, swallowed the painful lump in her throat, and stilled her tears. “Thank you for telling me, Mistress Douglas.”

  “Well,” the innkeeper’s wife had looked uncomfortable, “I thought you should know.”

  Mistress Douglas’s words had completed her humiliation. The hot rush of love Gillian had felt for her dashing young husband died a quick, crushing death. She couldn’t love him anymore, but she couldn’t hate him, either. She couldn’t feel anything for him at all. Or for anyone else. She was numb and quite suddenly past all caring.

  “But what I believe doesn’t matter,” Lady Davies was saying. “What matters is what you believe. Are you still in love with him? Think about it,” her mother urged. “Ask yourself if you would want to face him if he walked into this room tonight.”

  Gillian straightened on her chair and quickly scanned the room, looking for any sign of him. She didn’t love him. But that didn’t mean she was ready to come face-to-face with him. “Has he?”

  “No,” Lady Davies told her. “At least, not that I’ve seen. But you need to prepare yourself for whatever answers you find.”

  Gillian bit her bottom lip. A sure sign that she was worrying.

  “Do you still want answers, or have you changed your mind?”

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” Gillian said. “I still want answers.”

  “I hope so,” Lady Davies breathed. “Because your father has hired a Bow Street runner to find him.”

  Gillian inhaled sharply.

  “No need for you to worry, my dear,” Lady Davies said. “Mr. Wickham understands the damage this could do to your reputation and our family name. He’s entirely trustworthy and discreet.”

  Gillian wasn’t concerned by her mother’s revelation, but by the sight of a tall man moving through the crowd toward them. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she had trouble breathing, before she realized that the man moving past her bore little resemblance to the man she had married except in the width of the shoulders. And yet...

  She wasn’t as numb as she thought. Or quite past all caring.

  “Gillian?”

  “I’m fine. For a moment, I thought that he”—she pointed her fan in his direction—“was headed this way.”

  “Viscount Grantham?” Lady Davies inquired, following her daughter’s gaze toward the row of chairs on either side of her along the wall of Lady Harralson’s grand ballroom to where Viscount Grantham stood visiting with his mother. “You know him?”

  Gillian shook her head. “No, but he...for a brief moment, he reminded me of...someone else.”

  “He reminded you of him,” her mother guessed quickly. “But as far as I can tell, the only likeness Lord Grantham has to your young man is his height, the breadth of his shoulders, and his Christian name.”

  “You know Lord Grantham?”

  “I know his mother.” Gillian’s mother nodded toward Lady McElreath and her eldest child. “We both serve on the Greater London Orphans Relief Fund Committee and the War Veterans Relief Fund Committee. I know his baptismal name is Colin, and I recognize Grantham when I see him, not only because Lady McElreath introduced us once at one of her drawing rooms, but because Gr
antham and his oldest sister greatly favor their mother. Anyone looking at them can tell that that’s a mother and her two children.”

  Gillian glanced down the row of chairs. “There is definitely a family resemblance. The mother and the daughter are quite lovely.”

  “The girl is Lady Liana. She’s making her curtsy at the next royal drawing room.” Lady Davies frowned. “She’s here so the gentleman can get their first look at her. But she isn’t officially out, so she won’t be allowed to dance with anyone but her father or brother until she’s presented.” She looked at Gillian. “And there’s Lady Dunbridge and her niece. They aren’t dancing, either.”

  Her mother told the truth. Gillian wasn’t the only lady who wasn’t dancing. She wasn’t even the only young lady who wasn’t dancing. But she was the only young lady not dancing who had been presented to society and who wasn’t chaperoning someone else, acting as a companion to one of the elderly matrons, or rumored to be increasing.

  Gillian gave a little self-deprecating laugh. She hadn’t heard all the pertinent rumors circulating the ballroom, so she had no way of knowing for certain, but she hoped that wasn’t the rumor about her. Or the truth. But she knew Papa was afraid she might be. Not that her parents wouldn’t welcome a grandchild, but Gillian knew that they would prefer to meet her husband before they met his heir. She hadn’t told her father about Colin’s other wives, but she knew the only reason her papa hadn’t secured an annulment of her marriage was because he was waiting to see if she was increasing.

  A month had passed since her elopement, and Gillian wasn’t able to enlighten her father about her condition because she simply didn’t know. Her monthlies had never been regular. She never knew when they would appear or how long they would last. And now that she desperately needed the information, there was no way to know for sure if she had missed them.

  Gillian shifted on the hard seat and tore another bit off the edge of her dance card. She felt like such a hypocrite. She no longer belonged in the society she inhabited. She wasn’t a husband-hunting innocent and she had no business pretending to be one. It didn’t matter that, in their circles, marriage was little more than a binding legal agreement. What mattered was that she had followed her heart and trusted a man who betrayed her. What mattered was that Gillian knew how it felt to put her faith and her hopes and her dreams for the future in the hands of a man who had dashed them. What mattered was that she didn’t want to be a guilty accomplice in doing the same to any man who was foolish enough or desperate enough to pay court to her.

  Her father might think it vitally important for her to resume her place among her peers and salvage what was left of her reputation, but Gillian knew in her heart that she had no right to do so. She was a fraud. A counterfeit virgin. The only husband she was interested in finding was the one she’d married—the one who had left her alone in Edinburgh. The one who had abandoned her and disappeared without a trace. Until she knew what had become of him, until she knew why he had chosen her, there was no point in pretending to lead a normal life. She sighed. Still, it would have been nice to forget her troubles and dance...

  As if reading her thoughts, Gillian’s mother leaned closer and whispered, “Don’t worry, Gilly-flower, the dancing won’t last much longer.”

  Her mother’s use of her pet name brought Gillian’s tears to the surface. She took a deep breath. “Oh, Mama, how could I have been such a fool?”

  “Shhh, Gilly.” Lady Davies gave Gillian’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “We’re all fools at one time or another. You made an error in judgment. A mistake. That’s all.”

  “You and Papa have been so wonderful to me and so forgiving.”

  “You’re our daughter,” Lady Davies told her. “Your father and I are sorry that you felt the need to elope, but in the vast scheme of things, an elopement is nothing. We were afraid you’d been kidnapped and taken against your will. We feared for your life. And now that you’ve returned to us safe and sound, we want you to be happy.”

  “Kidnapped?” Her mother’s words gave Gillian pause. The idea had never entered her mind until now... Was it possible? Had he romanced her and convinced her to elope to Gretna Green in order to conceal a kidnapping? And if so, why hadn’t he demanded a ransom after stealing all her jewelry and coin? Unless he’d needed her jewelry in order to prove he had her...

  “We never got the letter you just described, Gillyflower,” Lady Davies confided, “but we did receive a packet containing your gold locket and a note requesting fifty thousand pounds to cover your living expenses.”

  “What?” Gillian’s face lost all color. “When?” She turned to her mother. “Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry for the trouble and the pain I caused you.” Her tears brimmed over and slowly rolled down her cheeks. She looked down at her lap, at her mother’s hand covering her own. “I can’t believe it! Fifty thousand pounds.”

  “Shhh, now. Don’t cry. We didn’t pay it,” Lady Davies rushed to reassure her daughter. “We would have, of course, if we had thought you sent the note or if you needed the money. But since the note arrived the morning of the day you returned home, we knew you hadn’t sent the request.” She smiled at Gillian. “No more tears. We can’t have everyone thinking the rumors are true.”

  “Even if they are.” Gillian looked up at her mother. “Mama, I’ve made such a mess of things. What am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to muddle through as best you can, Gillian. And before you know it, everything will be all right. You’re not alone. Your father and I are here, and we’re going to support you in every way we can.” Lady Davies removed a delicate handkerchief from her evening bag and pressed it into Gillian’s hand. “Dry your eyes and smile,” she said. “I see Lady Harralson and it looks as if our hostess is as good as her word.”

  Gillian dried her tears, then looked up and met her mother’s gaze, a glimmer of hope mixed with disbelief sparkling in her eyes.

  “That’s right, my dear,” Lady Davies continued. “She promised us an evening of dancing, and she’s escorting a gentleman of whom I could definitely approve.”

  “She is?”

  Lady Davies nodded. “A viscount, no less.”

  Chapter Seven

  “This is the night

  That either makes me or fordoes me quite.”

  —William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

  Othello

  “Lady Davies, may I have the honor of dancing with your daughter?” The viscount’s warm, rich voice, deeply reminiscent of his native Scotland, sent shivers of awareness up and down Gillian’s spine as Lord Grantham took her mother’s hand in his and bowed.

  Gillian cast a sidelong glance at him from beneath the cover of her lashes as their hostess, Lady Harralson, tapped the viscount on the arm with her fan and admonished, “Lord Grantham, you cannot ask for such a favor until you’ve been properly introduced.”

  “I have already made Lady Davies’s acquaintance,” Grantham explained. “We met several months ago at one of my mother’s ‘at homes.’” He smiled at his hostess.

  Having met her obligations as hostess, Lady Harralson took the opportunity to withdraw. “I’m pleased to know it.” She nodded to Lady Davies and to Gillian. “Lady Davies, Miss Davies, I shall leave Lord Grantham in your charming company and see to my other guests.”

  Viscount Grantham thanked his hostess, then turned his attention to Gillian’s mother. “If I am not mistaken, Lady Davies, you and my esteemed mother serve on the same charitable committees.”

  Lady Davies blushed as he released her hand. “That’s correct, Lord Grantham. How kind of you to recall.”

  “I rarely forget so charming a meeting,” Colin replied. The truth was that he rarely forgot any face or meeting. His memory for people and places was one of the talents that had kept him alive, but neither one of the ladies present needed to know that. He smiled at Lady Davies once again. “Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your daughter.”

  Lady Davies took the hint. �
�Lord Grantham, may I present my daughter, Miss Gillian Davies?”

  Colin studied the young lady sitting before him. His curiosity was piqued. Miss Davies was beautiful. She had thick, dark hair and big, blue eyes surrounded by dark lashes, which dominated a rather small oval face with a slim nose, determined chin, and plump, red lips. Her eyes were red-rimmed and slightly swollen, but that didn’t detract from her looks. She didn’t appear to be awkward and shy or have two left feet, and her face was as far removed from the image of a gargoyle as it was possible to be. And as for having the approximate tonnage of a frigate... As far as Colin could tell, she was sleek and slim and curved in all the right places. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense of the word, but she was beautiful nonetheless. It seemed impossible to him that all the other men present failed to notice.

  Colin smiled down at her.

  Gillian offered him her hand, and Colin pressed his lips against the soft fabric of her glove. “A pleasure, Miss Davies.”

  She told herself that his actions were smooth and practiced and his words, requisite good manners, but Gillian warmed to them in much the same way as her mother. When he smiled, Lord Grantham came dangerously close to being irresistible.

  Lady Davies turned to Gillian and continued the introductions. “Gillian, may I present Lord Grantham?”

  Gillian looked up and stared into his eyes. “Delighted, Lord Grantham.”

  She expected him to release her hand, but he surprised her by keeping a firm grip upon it as he straightened to his full height and gently tugged Gillian to her feet.

  Bits of ivory-colored paper fluttered to the floor like delicate blossoms on a windy day, coming to rest on the top of Colin’s shiny black leather shoes.

  Gillian blushed red with embarrassment.

  Colin ignored the scraps of paper littering the floor around them. He reached for the silver cord looped around Gillian’s wrist and took hold of the tiny pencil hanging beside the remains of her mangled dance card. “May I?” Gillian lifted her chin a notch and looked him in the eye. “Be my guest.”