The Lady Forfeits

‘My father’s younger sister. She was married to a naval man, but unfortunately he was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar.’

‘And am I right in thinking that she now resides with you in Hampshire?’

‘Since her husband’s death, yes.’

Good Lord, it seemed he did not have just three young, unruly wards to plague him, but an elderly widow he was also responsible for! ‘And where is your aunt now?’

She looked apologetic. ‘She does not care for London and has stayed in her rooms since our arrival.’

Thereby rendering her of absolutely no use whatsoever as a chaperon to her niece! ‘So,’ Gabriel announced heavily, ‘if I am to understand this correctly, your two sisters having run away, you have now decided to offer yourself up as a marital sacrifice in the hopes that, once they learn of our betrothal, they will be encouraged to return home?’

Diana met his gaze steadily. ‘It is my hope, yes.’

Gabriel gave a hard and humourless smile. ‘Your courage is to be admired, madam.’

She looked startled. ‘My courage?’

‘I am sure, even in the relative safety of Hampshire, that you cannot have remained unaware of the fact that you are considering marriage to a man that society has wanted nothing to do with this past eight years?’

‘I have heard … rumours and innuendo, of course,’ she admitted gravely.

Gabriel would wager that she had! ‘And this does not concern you?’

Of course it concerned her. But if no one could be persuaded to tell her of this past scandal, what was she expected to do about it? ‘Should it have done?’ she asked slowly.

He gave a bored shrug. ‘Only you can know the answer to that.’

Diana frowned slightly. ‘Perhaps if you were to enlighten me as to the nature of the scandal?’

Those sculptured lips twisted bitterly. ‘And why on earth would you suppose I’d ever wish to do that?’

Diana stared up at him in frustration. ‘Surely it would be better for all concerned if you were to inform me of your supposed misdeeds yourself, rather than have me learn of them from a possibly malicious third party?’

‘And if I prefer not to inform you?’ he drawled.

She gave him a frustrated look. ‘Did you kill someone, perhaps?’

He smiled without humour. ‘I have killed too many someones to number.’

‘I meant apart from in battle, of course!’ Those blue eyes sparkled with rebuke for his levity.

‘No, I did not.’

‘Have you taken more than one wife at a time?’

‘Definitely not!’ Gabriel shuddered at the mere suggestion of it; he considered the taking of one wife to be ominous enough—two would be utter madness!

‘Been cruel to a child or animal?’

‘No and no,’ he said drily.

She gave another shrug of those slender shoulders. ‘In that case I do not consider what society does or does not believe about you to be of any relevance to my own decision to accept your offer of marriage.’

‘You consider murder, bigamy and cruelty to children or animals to be the worst of a man’s sins, then?’ he asked with a bleak amusement.

‘I have no other choice when you insist on remaining silent on the subject. But, perhaps, having now made my own acquaintance,’ she suddenly looked less certain of herself, ‘you have decided you would no longer find marriage to me acceptable to you?’

Was that anxiety Gabriel could now see in her expression? Had the young fool who had rejected her, no doubt because of that change in her circumstances, also robbed her of a confidence in her own attraction? If he had, then the man was not only a social-climbing fortune-hunter, but blind with it!

Diana Copeland was without doubt beautiful—certainly not ‘fat and ugly’ as Osbourne had suggested she might be when he’d first learnt of Gabriel’s offer for one of the Copeland sisters without even laying eyes on them! Not only were her looks without peer, but she was obviously intelligent, too—and capable. Gabriel was fully aware he had her to thank for having arrived at a house that was not rodent infested and musty smelling, and with servants who were quietly efficient. She was, in fact, everything that an earl could ever want or desire in his countess.

Also, having now ‘made her acquaintance’, Gabriel had realised another, rather unexpected benefit if he should decide to make her his wife … No doubt that golden-red hair, when released from its pins, would reach down to the slenderness of her waist. Just as those high, full breasts promised to fit snugly into the palms of his hands and the slenderness of her body would benefit from a lengthy exploration with his seeking lips.

Obviously it was an intimacy that Diana’s cool haughtiness did not encourage Gabriel to believe she would welcome between the two of them at present— because she was still in love with the social climbing fortune-hunter, perhaps?—but she would no doubt allow it if she were to become his wife.

Diana felt her nervousness deepening at the earl’s continued silence. Nor could she read anything of his thoughts as he continued to look at her with those hooded midnight-blue eyes.

Was she so unattractive, then? Had her role as mistress of her father’s estate and mother to her two younger sisters this past ten years rendered her too practical in nature and, as a result, plain? Was Gabriel Faulkner even now formulating the words in which to tell her of his lack of interest in her?

‘You realise that any marriage between the two of us would require you to produce the necessary heirs?’

Diana looked up sharply at that softly spoken question and felt that delicate colour once again warming her cheeks as she saw the speculative expression in those dark eyes. She swallowed before speaking. ‘I realise that is one of the reasons for your wishing to take a wife, yes.’

‘Not one of the reasons, but the only reason I would ever contemplate such an alliance,’ Gabriel Faulkner bit out, his arrogantly hewn features now cold and withdrawn.

Diana moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I am fully aware of a wife’s duties, my lord.’

That ruthless mouth compressed. ‘I find that somewhat surprising, considering your own mother’s complete lack of interest in them.’

Her eyes widened at the harshness of his remark. Her chin rose proudly. ‘Were you acquainted with my mother, sir?’

‘Not personally, no.’ His disdainful expression clearly stated he had not wished to be either.

‘Then you can have no idea as to why she left her husband and children, can you?’

‘Is there any acceptable excuse for such behaviour?’ he countered.

As far as Diana and her sisters were concerned? No, there was not. As for their father … Marcus Copeland had never recovered from his wife leaving him for a younger man and had become a shadow of his former robust and cheerful self, shutting himself away in his study for hours at a time, and more often than not taking his meals there, too, when he bothered to eat at all.

No, there was no acceptable explanation for Harriet Copeland’s desertion of her family. But Diana did not appreciate having Gabriel Faulkner—a man with an acknowledged, if unspoken, scandal in his own past—point that out to her. ‘I am not my mother, sir,’ she said coolly.

‘Perhaps that is as well …’

She frowned her resentment with his continued needling. ‘If, having considered the matter, you have now changed your mind about offering for me, then I wish you would just say so. It is not necessary for you to insult my mother, a woman you admit you did not even know, whilst you are doing so!’

In truth, Gabriel had no interest whatsoever in the marriage of Marcus and Harriet Copeland; he was well aware that marriages amongst the ton were often loveless affairs, with both parties tacitly taking lovers once the necessary heirs had been produced. That Harriet had chosen to leave her family for her young lover, and was later shot and killed by that same lover when he’d found her in the arms of yet another man, was of no real consequence to the present situation.

No, the coolly composed and forthright Diana Copeland, whilst as head-turningly beautiful as the infamous Harriet, was most certainly not the mother!