Gran set down her cup with a decisive clink. “Utter nonsense. If there’s something ye want, boy, ye must strive for it. And we’ll help ye—doona ye doubt, we’ll think of something.”
The words, spoken by an old woman who’d never even met his bride or seen them together, filled the empty void in his chest. A ghost of a smile came to his lips. “Aye, Gran, I’m counting on it.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“Bea, you aren’t paying even a lick of attention. This is your wedding, my dear, not mine.”
Drat—now what had she missed? Beatrice looked at the two swatches of silk taffeta Evie held, the color seeming somehow faded, as if left in the sun too long. It was how everything looked to Bea these days—washed out, dull, uninspiring in the extreme. “The green, of course.”
Evie’s left eyebrow went up, and her hand went to her hips, the swatches adding a splash of contrast against her dark blue skirts. “They are both green.”
“That one,” she said, pointing to the swatch in Evie’s right hand. “Cece should have no trouble matching the flowers to green, at least.”
They had heard word from their cousin just that morning that she was planning to come to the wedding and would be bringing flowers from her greenhouse for decoration. Though Beatrice loved the idea of seeing Cece, knowing that the wedding might not even happen had sapped all the excitement from the news.
Looking over to Madame Gisele, who hovered over the pattern books laid out all over the worktable, Evie smiled. “Madame, could you see if you have any other silks in the back?”
It was her cue to leave, and they all knew it. The older woman, who’d been eager to please them since the moment they had arrived almost an hour earlier, dipped her head. “As you wish. Pardon me, s’il vous plaît.” With her unnaturally red hair bouncing in time with her enviable bosom, she made a quick exit, swishing the curtains closed behind her.
Turning her attention back to Beatrice, Evie dropped the swatches on the table and sat down beside her. She started to speak, but Beatrice held up a hand, silently asking for quiet. She knew a spy at work when she encountered one. Slipping over to the curtain, she cleared her throat loudly. Aha—there were the receding footsteps she was waiting for. Returning to her chair, she sank back down. “You were saying?”
Sighing, Evie shook her head. “Honestly, Bea, what has gotten into you? You had more fun planning my wedding than you’ve had planning your own.”
A very accurate observation. Of course, Beatrice had known from the beginning that Benedict had been madly in love with her sister. There may have been a few bumps in the road, but she never doubted the intensity of their feelings—or the truth of them.
“I just wonder if—” Bea paused, struggling with the right words to say. It was difficult to admit she had been so blind, so utterly oblivious. “If I wasn’t too hasty in agreeing to marry.”
All exasperation and humor vanished from her sister’s face. “And why would you think such a thing? I’ve seen the way he looks at you—as far as I could tell, it didn’t seem as though things could be hasty enough.”
Lust, pure and simple. Regardless of all else, she was attracted to him in a way she had never been to another man. More than handsome, well beyond normal—he was in a class wholly unto himself. “Attraction is hardly the same thing as love. Unfortunately, they are all too easily confused.”
“Such sage, wise words from one so young,” Evie said, the corners of her lips turned up. “Would you like to talk it over? I’m a dreadful listener, but for your sake I shall try.”
She had intended to keep the truth of it to herself until she heard from Colin, but blast it all, she wanted an ally. She wanted someone who could look at it objectively and then side with her. At the very least, she wanted reassurance that her pain wasn’t unfounded.
“He’s a fortune hunter.”
“A what?”
“A fortune hunter. One who wants nothing more than a moneyed wife so he can fill his coffers and—”
“I know what a fortune hunter is, Bea.” She rolled her eyes and picked up a piece of Pomona green silk taffeta, turning it in her hands. “I simply don’t believe the charge. Are you quite certain?”
“Ask your husband.”
“Benedict?”
“Do you have another?” At Evie’s sarcastic glare, Beatrice relented. “He did a little investigating for me to verify the truth of it.”
“And what is the truth?”
“That he owes ten thousand pounds against his estate, and he didn’t think to mention this to me before, you know, asking me to marry him.”
Evie cringed, biting her lip. “Oh my. I suppose such a truth doesn’t exactly cast his motives in the best of lights. What did he have to say for himself?”
The pain of their last conversation assailed her. The hopelessness of ever being able to trust him, of being able to believe that he truly fell for Beatrice, pulled at her belly. “The usual. He loves me; he felt that my dowry was nothing more than a happy coincidence, et cetera, et cetera.”
“The devil is in the ‘et cetera,’ sister-mine.” Her voice was soft and kind—if that didn’t speak to the gravity of the situation, Beatrice didn’t know what did.
“He swears he fell for me the person, not me the heiress. That we are each other’s perfect match, perfectly suited in every way. And . . .” She trailed off, thinking of his searing last kiss, of the heat of his breath across her cheek, caressing her ear.
“I don’t know what, exactly, you intended to say after ‘and,’” Evie said, her brow raised halfway up her forehead, “but based on the heat of your very rare blush, I’m not certain I wish to know.”
The warmth in Beatrice’s cheeks must have been more visible than she realized. A genuine grin, what felt like the first in a week, came to her lips. “Suffice it to say, though I may doubt his motives, I can’t honestly say I doubt his attraction.”
“Oh good Lord in heaven, if we need to move up the wedding, you need to tell me this instant, Beatrice Eloise Moore.”
She hadn’t meant to burst out with horrified laughter, but she could hardly do otherwise in the face of her sister’s aghast expression. “No, though it is almost worth it for me to say yes just to see my very levelheaded sister have a fit of vapors.”
“So glad I could provide you with such entertainment.” Her straight-faced, flat-toned response made her sarcasm abundantly clear. “Now, back to the issue at hand. Without reducing me to vapors,” she said, lifting a brow, “what does your heart say?”
“That he lied. That he manipulated me. That he betrayed my trust in a way that could never be fixed.”
“Well. I must say, that wasn’t the answer I was expecting. Why haven’t you broken the contract? I know there will be scandal, but it is a lesser evil than a lifetime of misery.”
She thought of his portrait, half finished in her studio. Every feature exactingly reproduced, each angle laid out with her brush with as tender a touch as her own hands upon his skin. She shook her head, swallowing back the unnamable emotion that clogged her throat. “I don’t know. He asked, and I let him have a chance to somehow prove himself.”
“You don’t know? I don’t believe that for a second. You’re the one who always knows everything.”
“I wish. This time around, I have been the worst of oblivious fools. When he was near, it was as though everything else in the world faded away. It was just him and me, alone in the world together. I saw only him, heard only him.” Tasted him, smelled him, felt him—his presence had consumed her every sense. She still didn’t know what happened to her normally astute self when he was near.