“Exactly. He was gritting his teeth and doing his duty. Until he and Alana chanced to meet. Now do you understand?”
Valentine got to his feet and began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I think I’m beginning to, yes. Alana, wonderful as she is, is also the orphaned heiress to her late father who amassed his fortune in—what was that again?”
“Textiles,” Kate supplied quietly, happy her brother had at last seen the point, and wouldn’t have to be led by the nose through an entire sordid explanation.
“And you—and Gideon, I’d suppose, since he’s her guardian—are certain Bailey didn’t just change horses in the middle of a race for solvency, or some such thing?”
“Our brother isn’t a fool, Val. When he took on guardianship of Alana he did so with every intention of managing her finances and protecting her well-being. I was in the room when he interrogated Bailey—and there is no better word to describe that uncomfortable hour. Bailey knows how it must look, as if he’d simply changed horses—ladies—while retaining his motive for marriage. But he truly loves Alana.”
“Not her money.”
“I doubt he’ll dispense it all to the poor in order to prove that love, but no. He is not marrying Alana for financial gain. Nor, might I point out, is she marrying him in order to one day be the countess, as that knife cuts both ways, remember. Not,” she continued, “that the world will probably believe that any more than if Miss Wise and Bailey were to have wed. Society will see a mutually beneficial exchange of money for title. However, if our sweet, love-struck Alana were to think as much, even for a moment, if even a kernel of any notion that Bailey might have proposed to her inheritance and not to her should enter her sweet, innocent head?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh, Valentine, get that woman and her encroaching mama out of here before the dinner gong goes. Please.”
Valentine drew himself up to attention and shot his sister a jaunty salute. “I will do as ordered, Captain Kate. I’m off, nipping down the stairs to the morning room, ma’am, to Do My Duty.”
“And Trixie complains that country life is boring,” Kate said quietly as she got to her feet in order to follow her brother. “This should be fun to watch.”
She’d taken no more than a few steps before she heard the dogs barking at the head of the stairs, followed by Valentine’s cheerful words of greeting to Duke and Major and his own favorite, the fat and fairly stupid aged spaniel, Tubby.
“Val, grab Tubby,” she warned as the younger dogs crowded out the spaniel, backing him toward the top step. “The old fool is going to topple back down the stairs!”
Tubby yelped in panic. Valentine cursed and made a grab for the dog…and a moment later Tubby and Kate were standing at the top of the staircase, watching as Valentine and the two hounds went tumbling head over heels together down the wooden staircase before coming to rest on the half landing.
The hounds got to their feet unhurt, shook themselves, and ran off, seeming to suddenly remember they were not allowed upstairs. But Valentine didn’t move.
“Valentine! Are you all right? Answer me! For God’s sake, say something!”
He did.
And Kate, who had been raised in the company of three older brothers and a more than slightly irascible grandmother, was surprised to realize there were still some utterances that could make her clap her hands over her ears.
CHAPTER TWO
ALANA WALLINGFORD KNEW everyone thought her to be sweet and gentle, pleasant of disposition and possessing not a single bad word to say about anyone. And truth be told, everyone was probably correct in that assessment.
Or they had been, until Bailey had come into her life.
Now, Alana decided, she had become small and petty…and very, very vulnerable.
It had been two days since Valentine Redgrave had unexpectedly returned to the bosom of his family. Two days since he had taken that unfortunate tumble down the stairs and broken his leg, so that he was now confined to his chambers, where he was, at the last she’d heard, scribbling an ode to the glories of laudanum.
Two days since Alana had come down to dinner to see Miss Sylvia Wise and her monstrosity of a mother ensconced in the drawing room, the former smiling up at Bailey, the latter inspecting the underside of a lovely silver dish as if considering placing an offer on it.
Kate had rushed over to her, quickly explaining that Miss Wise and her mother were at Redgrave Manor at the impulsive invitation of Valentine. He’d taken a romantic interest in Miss Wise, silly man that he was, and now was unable to take them away again after riding all the way from London with them, a journey that had sufficed to change his always quixotic mind on that particular head. Gideon, once he returned from Dover in two days’ time, would certainly make other arrangements, but for now there really was nothing else for it. The ladies were their guests, although they’d certainly be gone before the nuptials on Sunday (her brother Max was going to offer, but Kate had rather sensed that her ladyship would
expect the earl to do the honors, and who only knew what Max might say during the trip, since Maximillian Redgrave was not exactly known for his tactfulness when he believed himself to be in the company of fools).
“And that’s all right, isn’t it, Alana?” Kate had ended rather nervously, squeezing her friend’s hands.
Of course that had been all right with Alana. She would never say otherwise. She would never look her dear friend in the eye and say, “Pull my other leg, Kate, it’s got bells on.” She would never then go on to point out that Miss Wise and Bailey had been considered a sure match by the gossips until only a mere six weeks ago, even if everyone, including herself, pretended that she didn’t know that. She wouldn’t think to put forth the mean-spirited opinion that Miss Wise had somehow tricked Valentine into bringing her to Redgrave Manor. The words, “She’s here for Bailey,” would never pass her lips.
But she would think them. She’d been thinking them. Every minute of those past two days and nights.
And Bailey? Oh, Bailey. He had been so attentive, even more attentive than usual. He rarely left her side. He was constantly solicitous, more gentle with her than she could bear, as if he thought she might at any moment dissolve in tears or some such ridiculous thing, just because Miss Sylvia Wise was here to ruin her happiness.
Or was it more than that? Was Bailey feeling somehow guilty? And if he was—for what reason? He’d sworn his love for her. On bended knee, which had been rather delicious to watch. So why was he acting so strangely? Was he having second thoughts now that his former…former love was under the same roof? Was he looking for some way to break off the betrothal without causing a scene?