The English Witch (Trevelyan Family 2)

Lord Tuttlehope appeared to think it was quite the same thing. He manufactured an awful smile. "But Trev. You? Can't believe it. Sorry." Distractedly he put out his hand. "Happy. And all that."

Mr. Trevelyan returned the handshake with all due solemnity.

"But Trev. Thought you hated her."

"Well, I don't. That wouldn't be a very promising way to commence wedded life, would it? Come, Freddie, don't look so tragic. You're married and happy, aren't you?"

"Course I'm happy. But you're different, Trev," Lord Tuttlehope noted mournfully.

"Yes," Basil agreed. "So is she."

Lord Arden, for other reasons, looked equally pitying.

“Poor fellow,'' he said, clapping Basil on the shoulder. “You should have heeded your own advice, I think.'' He glanced past his erstwhile rival towards Miss Ashmore who was surrounded by a group of happy ladies, including his irritating sister. "Still, it's a beautiful trap for all that. Indeed, I do wish you the best of luck, Trev." His gaze turned back to Basil, looking, he thought, rather feral. "You'll need it, you know. Just as you said. Do not be surprised if you see me in my hunting pinks." With that and a brief, mocking bow the marquess left to offer his best wishes to me bride-to-be.

Mr. Trevelyan smiled easily enough as he turned to his cousin who had joined him, champagne bottle in hand. "What a troublesome business this marriage business is, Edward. I'm not even wed yet, and the gentlemen are already announcing their designs on my wife."

"Very gracious of them it is, I must say," was the dry reply. "Will takes his defeat philosophically enough. I'd have thought he'd rather put a bullet through your scheming brain. But tell me," the earl went on, dropping his voice as he refilled his and his cousin's glasses, "what did happen when you met up with him? Did you treat him to one of your gypsy fortune-teller performances like the one you used on my wife? One of your twisted tragic tales?"

"Cuz, you cut me to the quick. I simply told the man the truth, plain and unvarnished."

"Did you now? Well, it was what he wanted after all. He didn't need even to wring it out of you, did he? Still, I do wonder how you managed to convince that lovely, intelligent girl to trust her future to you. But why do I ask? ‘Thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint.'"

"How you flatter me, my lord."

"For the first and I hope the last time. Well then, cuz," said Lord Hartleigh, raising his glass, "here's to your damnable iteration or the truth or whatever it is. And though you don't deserve it a bit, I do wish you happy."

Chapter Twenty

A month later a newlywed couple sat in a large bed in the most luxurious bedroom of a select, outrageously expensive inn some miles from London. The groom, still partially dressed, leaned back against the pillows inspecting the ring on his wife's finger. She sat watching him, her chestnut curls all unpinned and tumbling in gay abandon about her face.

"I have a wife," Basil said at last, softly and wonderingly. "How very odd."

She looked a little anxious as she asked, "Is it, dear? I know you never meant to have one."

"Didn't I? Well, how stupid of me, to be sure. When I think what might have happened if you hadn't managed to seduce me that night in the library—"

"I did not," she interrupted indignantly, "seduce you."

"You would have, if I hadn't such a scrupulous regard for my virtue. You knew I was exhausted, and therefore in a vulnerable condition, and you attempted to take selfish advantage of my weakness."

"Oh, I see. And which weakness was that? You have so many it's hard to tell."

"A weakness," he said, bringing the hand he held to his lips, "for naughty chestnut curls that will not stay properly pinned. A weakness for green eyes." He kissed each fingertip in turn.

"What a shallow fellow you are, sir. Any woman might have seduced you—and no doubt will, in future."

"Oh, ye of little faith. To speak so, after you’ve done everything possible to enslave me utterly." Abruptly he dropped her hand, got off the bed, and picked up his coat from the floor.

"What are you doing, Basil? You're not leaving—"

"Hardly." He fished out a much-creased letter from the coat pocket and carried it back to the bed with him. As his wife watched with growing impatience, he settled himself comfortably again.

"Well?"

"Well." He dangled the folded letter before her eyes. "Do you know what that is?"

"Whatever it is, it appears to have been rather knocked about. What is it, Basil? A love letter from one of your high flyers?"

"You might say that."

As he slowly unfolded the sheets, she gasped. "That's my writing," she cried. "What is it?"

"'My dearest Aunt Clem,'" he began, "'I am so sorry to trouble you with this absurdity, but matters here have, I think, got out of hand—'" He broke off as his wife tried to snatch the letter from him. "Oh, no," he told her, holding it out of her reach, "I haven't kept it so safely and tenderly all this time that you might tear it to pieces, my darling. Besides, I know it by heart."

"Where did you get that?"

"It was sent me. By my dearest Auntie."

"Aunt Clem sent it to you? When?"

"When I was in Greece."

Though she was a married lady of some hours, Alexandra could still blush. Recalling some of the comments in that letter, she did so now. "In Greece," she echoed faintly.

"Yes. Aunt Clem is monstrous underhanded, you know. Anyhow," he went on, allowing the letter to drop gently to the floor, "I read it and was lost utterly. Your brutally comic description of Randolph and his odious family. As you listed everything that you'd tried and failed with your Papa—well, I felt rather a kinship with you, you know. And then I saw you, dirty and bedraggled in that crowded room. You were so beautiful in spite of it. You knew immediately what I was about and played your part so well. You acted to admiration, my love. I very nearly believed my own lie. Naturally, when I kissed you, I sealed my fate. What could be more romantic?"

His beloved was staring at the bedpost. "You don't mean to say that Aunt Clem delib

erately—but no, how could she? How could she possibly guess—”

"Oh, she didn't guess, my love. She knew we were meant for each other. Aunt Clem sees all, knows all. And knowing her, she had Maria in it as well. My precious," he cried as he flung himself back upon the pillows, his hand clutched to his breast, "we're the victims of a conspiracy. You and I—as wicked a set of connivers as ever walked this great island—the innocent victims of an unscrupulous pair of matchmakers. Matchmakers, Alexandra. How lowering."

The bride transferred her gaze from the bedpost to her groom. "Lowering? I should say so. I never had the trace of a suspicion. Good grief. And your aunt let me go through all that horrendous business."

"Hasn't a conscience, dear. Runs in the family."

"Is that so?" The green eyes narrowed. "Just how long have you known about this?"

"If you keep on looking at me like that I shall scream. It makes my blood curdle. Really it does." He maneuvred himself into more comfortable proximity to his lovely wife. "I assure you I feel as stupid as you do. It never occurred to me. In all my frenzy of jealousy and scurrying hither and yon and plotting, there was no room in my brain for my aunt. Once again she has triumphed over me. I suppose I shall have to endure it, just as I endured my gloomy exile." In proof of this stoic determination, he dropped several lingering kisses upon his wife's creamy shoulder.

"Poor Basil. It was none of your doing, was it? But all these wicked females taking advantage."

He murmured an unintelligible reply from the nape of her neck.

"It was I who trapped you, was it? Caught you in my wicked toils? Compromised you?"

"Well, I helped," he admitted. "Because I'm so gallant, you know."

"Oh yes, poor dear."

"At any rate, thanks to Aunt Clem, I've had a month to become reconciled to my fate. We could have had a perfectly acceptable ceremony the next day. Edward had only to use his influence for a special licence. But no. A big wedding, says my aunt, is the only recompence for not giving you a proper comeout."

"It has been a very long time," said his wife. "I’ve nearly forgotten what it was like exactly. Compromising you, I mean."