Breathlessly Rachel dropped her head back and looked at him from beneath a fringe of silky lashes. There was one more thing she wanted to know. 'Did you love her?'
'Who? Bernadette?'
'No! The Italian soprano. The shameless lightskirt who displays her underwear in public, and flirts with all the ogling gentlemen, and glares at me from those odd-shaped black eyes.'
'Oh, her...' Connor said, amused by her bitchiness. 'I take it you'd be disappointed if I said I did?'
Rachel flushed, aware she'd been a mite too obvious in her jealous dislike.
'No, I didn't love her, Rachel,' Connor reassured gently as he smoothed a rosy cheek. 'In fact, I'm not sure now I even liked her very much once I discovered how sly and unscrupulous she could be.'
At Rachel's frown he explained, 'When Sir Percy Monk made it his business to inform her that I had a beautiful new scullery maid, she helped the pervert to instigate a rumour that Annie Smith was beneath my roof in the role of concubine. Sir Percy was annoyed that Annie had fled from the brutal attention of his son and his household and found shelter in mine. That deviant thinks his money can buy any vice he wants. He approached me to buy her back. Presumably, when Maria found out how determined I was to keep Annie, she began fretting that a fourteen-year-old girl might supplant her. It was for that reason and others that I shan't bore you with that I ended our relationship. I expect she's already accepting comfort from Benjamin Harley, or Sir Percy, and that wouldn't at all worry me. She means nothing to me...nothing at all.'
Rachel had detected the note of disgust in his voice as he spoke of the Italian woman's mean plotting. She looked up at him and in a small contrite voice said, 'But the Italian woman was much more devious than me...wasn't she?'
He laughed deep in his throat and stooped to tenderly kiss away her fears.
'You're not devious, sweetheart... you're just a beautiful schemer...'
'I've brought you something from London, Papa.'
Edgar Meredith looked at the parchment placed on the table. He put down his pen, closed the ledger he'd been poring over, and five mottled fingers covered the slender white digits still settled lightly on the deeds to Windrush.
'I trusted you would, Rachel,' Edgar said quietly, his eyes fixed on the document. 'I knew you'd get them back, just as you knew I gave them away.
We're too alike, you and I, with our plots and plans. I risked a lot, but I never doubted you putting things right. You're a good girl, Rachel; you deserve to be happy. I should so like to see you truly content.' With a sigh, he enclosed that one elegant hand in both his square venous ones, bringing it to his lips to fondly salute her. 'Welcome home, my dear. I've missed you.' A laugh and a little shake of the head preceded, 'We have our squabbles and our upsets, I think it will be as well for us to keep apart...but I miss you so much when you're not here.'
'I've missed you, too, Papa. I've missed you and mama and June and Sylvie.'
Rachel smoothed a hand over her father's dry cheek, stooped to lightly kiss it.
Edgar looked up at her then. Searched her lovely face for the truth as he interrogated her, 'Do you believe me now when I say that Connor Flinte is a good man?
'Yes, Papa.'
'You are friends?'
'Yes, Papa.'
'Then it was worth all the heartache, the wondering and waiting to discover how you fared, just to hear you say that. Men of such calibre are scarce, you see, my love. We must not toss such good friends lightly aside.' He nodded to himself and Rachel could see that he was garnering the courage to probe further.
'Did he...that is...are you once more engaged?' he asked in a tone that was poignantly fiat, lacking hope.
'No, Papa. Connor will never again be betrothed. He was quite adamant about that.'
'Well...that's understandable, I suppose. Yes; 'tis a great shame for such a fine gentleman to face a lonely future, nevertheless...' Edgar exhaled heavily in disappointment. With a final pat he rested his eldest daughter's curled fingers on the leather-topped library table. Picking up the deeds, he began rolling the cylinder absently between his palms. 'I shall settle then for you being friends and expect no more. All I really wanted, my dear, was that you would not hate him, or think him mean and selfish. I hoped you would come together, just the two of you, and have an opportunity to say those private things, one to the other, that have long needed to be said. There was unfinished business between you. I might not be as canny as I would like, but I know such loose ends must be tidied lest at some time they trip one of you up.'
Rachel smiled at the top of her father's head. She began to speak but he added gravely, 'Lord Devane has returned to us our home, your inheritance.
He need not have been so magnanimous. Even the most honourable of gentlemen would think long and hard about relinquishing such a valuable asset for nothing in return. We are again much obliged to him.'
'Connor is obliged to you, Papa, and wants to tell you so. He did desire something in return: your daughter. He gave the deeds to his wife. He gave them to his Countess as her wedding gift.' Rachel brought her left hand to lay on top of her father's on the parchment. The magnificent sapphire winked lambent blue fire at him, almost obscuring the golden circlet nestling below it.
'I've brought you something else, Papa. Something you've long wanted, more than anything. I've brought you your first son.'
Edgar swivelled in his chair, staring in stunned silence at the tall, imposing man who'd been observing the emotional scene from a respectful distance.
He choked a small noise of mingling astonishment and joy. 'You are wed?'
'Yesterday. We married at St Thomas's. A London wedding; Mrs Pemberton would have approved. Fortunately she was not there. Just Noreen Shaughnessy and a man called Samuel Smith witnessed our wedding. It was quite wonderful,' she said huskily with a lingering, loving look at her handsome husband. 'Indeed, the whole day...and night, was quite wonderful.'
Uncaring of the tears that dripped off his nose, Edgar strode to Connor, unselfconsciously embraced him before pulling back and manfully pumping at his arm. He walked, head high and proud, to open the door. 'I must find you mother at once.' The words bubbled in his throat. He was about to quit the room when he turned about, approached his daughter and, with eyes squeezed shut, hugged her to him as though he would never let her go.
Two pairs of blue eyes, one pale, one dark, clung, merged, over Edgar's thin, quaking shoulder. As the door closed quietly after Mr Meredith, a soft Irish voice murmured, 'I think he's pleased.'
'I think you're right,' the man's dutiful wife concurred.
'We need a honeymoon, Rachel. We deserve a long honeymoon. We should travel...I'll take you anywhere you want...' He shrugged, grunted a laugh at his choice of words that put a blush in his bride's cheeks.
'After June's wedding, I should like to see Ireland, and your estate in Waterford. I think perhaps one of my sisters might like that, too...I so hope she will...'
At Connor's quick glance, she coaxed huskily, 'Wol- verton Manor is a long way from London and malicious tongues. It's a long way from York, too... A person could start afresh there...if need be...'
'Have you decided against Windrush as a refuge for Isabel and her son?'
Rachel walked close to her husband, looking up alluringly, pleadingly at him through a web of luxuriant lashes. Her arms encircled his broad neck, stroked at his nape, at his raven's wing hair. 'I can't wait so long to be with her again. Visiting York but once a year, for fear more trips might risk suspicion, is no good. It might be a decade before Sylvie is wed and Isabel can come home. I'm happy...so very happy—let me share some of it with her. I owe her so much.'
She knew that his intelligent mind was weighing the practicalities of such a move. To persuasively distract him, she murmured huskily, 'So you'll take me anywhere I want, will you?'
His rugged face dipped close to her porcelain cheek. Warm, wooing lips hovered close to a corner of her soft mouth. 'Just name the place...'
Rachel pressed into him, her body and mind afire with memories of those new and exquisite pleasures he had showed her in his hard, masculine bed at Berkeley Square, just last night. It seemed so excruciatingly long ago...
'The King's Arms in Staunton Village.' She nominated a cosy, quiet little inn. 'We could go now,' she breathed raggedly. Her eyes lowered beneath the fond amusement in his. Rachel pressed her rosy face against his shoulder.
'We could eat there...'twill save Mama bothering finding us a meal...as we are unexpectedly arrived...'
'Of course we'll dine there, all afternoon. I promise you a banquet... any thing your heart desires,' her husband teased. Suddenly brisk, he took her hand and led her to the door. With an urgency which now gave his wife cause to smile, he ordered, 'Let's go...'