To Catch a Bride (41 page)

He’d sent a note on ahead the night before, thinking an elderly lady might need time to adjust to the happy news of the imminent arrival of a long-lost granddaughter.

The carriage pulled up at an imposing stepped entrance. Gripping Rafe’s arm for support, Ayisha took a deep breath and went forward to meet her grandmother. She pulled the bellpull and waited.

After what felt like an interminable wait, the door was opened by a butler. His gaze ran over them without a flicker of expression. He addressed himself to Rafe. “Good morning, Mr. Ramsey, miss. Please, enter. Lady Cleeve received your note yesterday, sir, and is expecting you.”

Ayisha’s grip on Rafe’s arm tightened as they entered the house and she looked around her. It still looked more like a temple than a home. The entry hall was large and imposing, marble paved and lined with statues. A sweeping set of wide, marble stairs rose at the end of it, curving gracefully upward. Overhead a domed cupola let in light.

“The postilion will require refreshment and the horses need attending to. We also have baggage,” Rafe said, and with a flick of a wrist the butler sent a couple of footmen out to attend to things.

“Miss, if you care to accompany this maidservant,” the butler said, indicating a waiting maid. “Lady Cleeve has issued instructions that you be attended to. No doubt you also need refreshment,” the butler said.

“Oh, but—” Ayisha began, ready to say she needed no refreshment, that indeed she couldn’t swallow a thing.

But the butler continued, “Lady Cleeve wishes to speak to Mr. Ramsey in private first.”

Ayisha glanced at Rafe, a hollow feeling in her stomach. This was not how she’d thought it would be. If Ayisha’s grandchild arrived, she would have been in the hall to greet her—if not on the steps—not having private discussions with other people first.

“Miss Cleeve and I will see Lady Cleeve together,” Rafe said firmly.

“Her ladyship was most insistent,” the butler said.

“I said, we will both—”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Ayisha interrupted Rafe quickly, seeing he was about to make an issue of it. “Go on, Rafe. I need to make use of the conveniences. I’ll join you shortly.” She needed some time to think.

“Then I’ll wait until you’re ready,” he said, folding his arms.

“No, go ahead, please,” Ayisha said. “Don’t keep my gr—Lady Cleeve waiting.”

Rafe gave her a searching look. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure,” Ayisha said, feeling anything but.

“Lady Cleeve awaits you in the drawing room, sir,” the butler said, indicating the room. “I shall announce you.”

With some reluctance, Rafe followed. Ayisha went with the maid, who led her to a small room off the entry hall.

“There’s a necessary in here, miss,” the girl told her, “and some warm water to wash with. After that, I’m to take you to the kitchen for a cup of tea and a bite to eat.” She gave Ayisha an embarrassed, half-apologetic look.

Ayisha knew why. The kitchen was no place for a welcome guest. It was an insult and the girl knew it.

“Where is the kitchen?” Ayisha asked calmly, determined not to show any hint of distress. She hadn’t asked to come here. She’d been brought here at Lady Cleeve’s request. And she would
not
drink her tea in the kitchen.

The girl pointed. “Down there, miss, through that green baize door.”

Ayisha looked. There were several doors. “Do any of those lead outside? It’s just that I have my cat with me and I think she would appreciate a patch of dirt in which to do her business.”

“Shall I take her out for you, miss?”

“No, thank you, she’s unsettled enough. I’ll take her myself.”

“Very good, miss. If you turn right down that narrow passage at the back there, then turn left, it will lead you to a back entrance. Only staff use it, mind, but . . .” She trailed off uncomfortably.

“Thank you,” Ayisha said. “There’s no need to wait. I will join you in the kitchen when I’m ready.”

The girl nodded and disappeared through the green baize door. Ayisha felt hollow and apprehensive. Why was Lady Cleeve behaving like this? She didn’t even know Ayisha wasn’t Alicia yet . . .

She stiffened her spine. If her grandmother had changed her mind, Ayisha could bear it. Even as a starving child in Cairo, she’d never once descended to begging in the streets, and now that she was in England she refused to beg for crumbs of affection.

A moment later the butler emerged from the drawing room and went through the green baize door to the kitchen area. Ayisha tiptoed back down the hall and listened at the drawing room door.

“—and when I found out the girl in the drawing was not Alicia, but Henry’s bastard—well, it was too late to recall you. You’d already embarked for Egypt.”

Ayisha froze. How could Lady Cleeve possibly have found that out already?

“She is, all the same, your only living granddaughter,” said Rafe in a tight voice. “The circumstances of her birth are not of her making.”

“She’s an opportunist, come to get what she can.” Her grandmother sounded so certain, so implacable.

Something inside Ayisha shriveled.

“Rubbish! Good God, madam, I had to practically threaten her to get her to come here.”

Ayisha bit her lip.

“A pity you did—”

“And in any case, what if she did come to better her life? Why shouldn’t she? She’s your son’s daughter, your flesh and blood—and she’s been abandoned to earn her living in Cairo as best she could from the age of thirteen! It’s a disgrace.”

“Well,
exactly
,” Lady Cleeve declared righteously. “And I beg you will not sully my ears by describing
how
she earned that living.”

Ayisha leaned against the doorjamb, her eyes closed in pain as the harsh words washed over her. She didn’t know how it was, but somehow, her grandmother’s mind had been poisoned against her.

“Madam, you try my patience sorely.” Rafe’s voice was as cold as a whiplash. “From the day her parents died, Ayisha lived disguised as a boy! Why? To prevent male attention, not solicit it. She earned what little she did by working: running errands, selling pies and bread in the streets, and collecting firewood. Living always on the brink of starvation.”

There was a short silence, then Rafe continued, “ The disgrace was your son’s. He should have made better provision for his only daughter, taken better care of her.”

Ayisha heard a ladylike snort. “I saw her from the window when you arrived; she looks like no boy I ever saw. Depend on it, my dear Mr. Ramsey, women of this order know how to pull the wool over gentlem—”

“She is of no ‘order,’” snapped Rafe. “Ayisha is unique, and she is my affianced wife.”

“
What?
You can’t possibly marry the girl! Good God, man, but her mother was a slave!”

The words hung in the air. The silence stretched. Aisha couldn’t breathe. How did Lady Cleeve know? It was the one secret Ayisha had kept from Rafe.

She could tell from the quality of the silence that it mattered. Mattered a great deal. Trembling, with knuckles pressed against her teeth, Ayisha waited for Rafe’s response.

“A slave? What evidence do you have of such an accusation?” For the first time since she’d met him he sounded less than certain.

“Ahh, I see you didn’t know.”

Why hadn’t she told him? Ayisha lashed herself silently. She’d meant to when she was telling him the truth about herself, but he’d shocked her by renewing his marriage proposal and it had driven everything else out of her mind.

After that, there hadn’t seemed to be an appropriate moment to say, “Oh, and by the way, my mother was a slave. Papa bought her from her former master.”

She ran shaking hands over her face. She hadn’t told him later because she was a coward. It wasn’t Mama’s fault she’d been taken by Cossacks as a girl.

Ayisha’s illegitimacy hadn’t mattered to him, and she’d convinced herself Mama’s slave status wouldn’t, either, not because she truly believed it, but because she was so happy and she didn’t want anything to spoil it.

Because the daughter of a slave was a slave, too. No matter who her father was.

“It makes no difference to me who her mother was,” Rafe said coldly.

Not true, she thought sadly. The length of that silence had told her the news had shocked him. Deeply. Now he was just being stubborn, unwilling to admit he’d made a mistake. Papa had been just the same.

Through the crack in the door, she heard her grandmother say, “If she didn’t tell you that, what else might she be hiding from you? She’s convinced you she’s led a life of virtue, but how do you know it’s true? She could have been with dozens of men—”

“Ayisha was a virgin when I met her.”

“How do you know?”

Rafe said nothing.

“Ahh, you’ve had her already. I understand now.” Her grandmother sounded very tired, Ayisha thought, worn out and sad, as if it was all too much for her. She wished she could see her face . . .

The old lady went on, “In that case, I suppose you’ll set her up in some house in St. John’s Wood. It’s where gentlemen keep their mistresses, I gather,” she said bitterly.

“I’ll do nothing of the sort!” Rafe snapped. “I’ve promised to wed her and I will.”

Yes, thought Ayisha miserably, because he prided himself on keeping his promises. Even when those promises had been based on false information . . .

“
Wed her?
What about the succession?” Lady Cleeve asked.

Ayisha frowned. What succession? What did she mean? She pressed closer to the door.

“What does the Earl of Axebridge have to say about this proposed marriage?”

“My brother has no say in the matter.”

His brother was
the Earl of Axebridge
? Ayisha was stunned.

Lady Cleeve said, “Once he learns his heir is proposing to marry the illegitimate daughter of a foreign slave I expect he’ll have a great deal to say about it. Especially since it looks very much like the son of your marriage will, eventually, inherit the earldom.”

The old lady’s words fell on Ayisha like a crushing weight. She had no idea Rafe came from such an important family. She knew he was a gentleman, but his lack of title had deceived her into imagining a marriage between them might be possible. But he was
the heir to an earldom
. . .

Ayisha, Countess of Axebridge? It was unimaginable.

She heard Rafe say, “I marry who I choose. And I have chosen Ayisha.”

Oh, how stubborn he was. And all because he felt honor-bound to marry her, because in saving his life she’d been compromised. And because he’d taken her virginity. And desired her. And because there might be a child . . .

There would be no child, she knew; her monthly time had come in the week before they’d arrived in England. So there was no actual necessity to marry.

Another thing she hadn’t told him.

Gratitude and honor and desire were not enough, she thought in sick despair. Not when he would lose so much by marrying her.

Lady Cleeve continued, “And what of your
fiancée
, Lady Lavinia Fettiplace—what does she have—what does her family have to say about her being jilted in favor of the illegitimate daughter of a
slave
? A charming gel, from one of the finest families in England—and an heiress to a fortune, I believe.” She snorted. “What a scandal that will make. Will your brother have nothing to say about that, either?”

A heavy coldness settled in the pit of her stomach as she heard the words. He was already betrothed to Lavinia? And she was
Lady
Lavinia, not Miss Fettiplace? Beautiful and rich, he’d said. He’d left off that she was titled as well.

And therefore the perfect consort for an earl-to-be.

It was the final straw. She could not let him do it. She loved him too much to let him ruin himself for the sake of gratitude and honor. And stubbornness. And kindness.

She heard footsteps coming from down the hall and stumbled into the next room. Her legs folded beneath her and she sank onto the thick, rich carpet, bent double in pain and misery. Tears blinded her.

Next door she heard the clink of china. They were serving tea. Her palms rested on the soft pile of the carpet. She glanced down and choked on a bitter half laugh. This was exactly the sort of rug he’d threatened to roll her in and carry her off.

The bittersweet humor calmed her. She sat up and wiped her face with the hem of her skirt. Weeping would mend nothing. There was nothing, in fact, to mend. It had all been a dream, based on half-truths and lies of omission and pathetic wishful thinking on her part.

As she’d learned as a child on the streets of Cairo, dreams filled no stomachs. They might give enough hope to carry you through the darkest nights, but they were no foundation for a life.

You needed something more solid for a foundation: honesty. And love.

There was a desk in the corner with writing paper and pens. She quickly penned a note. It was cowardly, she knew, but when Rafe was in one of his stubborn, gallant moods, there was no gainsaying him. If she argued, she knew full well he was just as likely to carry her off to the nearest church and marry her out of hand.

And she did not know if she would have the strength to resist him, face-to-face. Not when she wanted everything he was offering and more.

But she would not be the cause of his ruin.

She folded the note in three, addressed it to Rafe, and sealed it with red wax; she didn’t want anyone else reading it.

When the servants had gone, she tiptoed back out into the hall and tucked the note into the handle of Rafe’s valise. Then she picked up Cleo’s basket and her own smaller valise and followed the maid’s directions to the servant’s rear exit.

Outside she saw two paths, one leading toward a walled kitchen garden, and the other leading away from the rear of the house toward what looked like a village. She hurried along it.