The Countess by Catherine Coulter

George likes me very well, and usually he is an excellent judge of character.”

“I don’t understand,” Amelia said, her cheeks flushed from her bout of laughter,

“Uncle Lawrence isn’t a dog. What are you talking about, Andy?”

“An attempt at a jest, no more,” I said. Of course I had known that this would

have to come up and have to be dealt with. I just hadn’t realized that it would

be this soon and discussed right in front of everyone, Brantley included. I

sighed into my plate and kept my head down.

“Andy has an excellent sense of humor,” my husband said, but he wasn’t smiling

at all. Then he added, “We will see.” And that was all my husband of three days

had to say. He returned to his own turkey. Of course, he had really said nothing

at all. I looked over at John. He was staring at me, and there was something in

those dark eyes of his that I didn’t understand. Then I did. It was violence.

Then, just as suddenly, that something was gone.

Face facts, I told myself. So John had wanted to meet me. Perhaps he had felt a

bit of interest in me, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. I had

been dressed in deep mourning. I had barely been civil. Regardless, that was

three months ago. Now I was married, and separated from him as far as could be.

If he felt any disappointment, which would amaze me if he had, he would simply

have to get a grip on himself.

At least Lawrence’s words had stilled the family. I wanted to tell them all that

we wouldn’t be seeing anything at all, but I realized that Lawrence was

protecting me. The last thing he would want to say was that ours was a marriage

of mutual convenience, mutual respect, and mutual liking with nothing else

cluttering it up, like a naked man humiliating a naked woman, namely me.

I looked again at John. He appeared to be staring into his wineglass. Why, I

wondered, had he wanted to meet me? Well, it didn’t matter now. Still, for a

moment I didn’t look away from him.

He was still too big and too dark in his black evening clothes. He appeared even

larger now than he had the last time I’d seen him three months before. I could

sense the danger in him, the cold control of an autocrat used to obedience, and

he was surely too young for such control, I thought again. His face was still

tanned from his years of campaigning and from his mother’s Spanish blood, and

his hair, like Amelia’s, was raven-black. His eyes were so dark that they

appeared black in the soft lighting, and his brows were thick and slightly

arched.

“How were you married?”

John’s cold voice, so formal and thick with indifference, had me wanting to

smack the rudeness out of him, but Lawrence said easily enough, “By Special

License, of course. Bishop Costain is a friend of mine. He also knew your father,

John. He was pleased to perform the ceremony.”

Of course I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I looked right at John and asked, “Did

you think this was all a sham? Some sort of charade your uncle planned to

entertain you?”

John sat back in his chair, his wineglass held between his long fingers. “I have

heard of men bringing their current mistresses into their homes and passing them

off as their new wives. Naturally, such a pretense could never last very long.”

“No, I can’t imagine that such a charade would long fool anyone,” Lawrence said.

“I remember all the gossip about Lord Pontly, an old roue of the last century,

who brought five different brides home to his beleaguered family, only to be

found out very quickly each time. The sixth time he tried it, his family refused

to allow the supposed wife into the house. There was a huge ruckus.”

Lawrence smiled at each of us around the table. “Naturally, number six really

was the wife, the ceremony even performed by the local vicar.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” I said. “You’re not making that up, sir? A

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