Duncan Sisters Trilogy - The Bride Hunt Part 26

"I thought I'd better surprise you, Gideon," a woman's voice said with a little trill that sounded nervous to Prudence. "If I warned you I was coming, you might have refused to see me."

"Hardly," he said in the same expressionless tone. "You'd better come in."

Gideon's ex-wife stepped into the hall. She wore an opera cloak of black velvet. As she glanced curiously around, she raised a gloved hand to her black taffeta hat, adjusting one of the white plumes. Her eyes fell upon Prudence, standing now in the light streaming from the drawing room at her back.

"Oh," she said. "You're entertaining, Gideon. How inconsiderate of me not to have warned you of my arrival." She crossed the hall towards Prudence. "Good evening, I'm Harriet Malvern."

Prudence took the extended hand belonging to one of the most cla.s.sically beautiful women she had ever encountered and shook it. "Prudence Duncan," she said.

"Oh, Gideon, could you find someone to take up my valise?" Harriet said over her shoulder. "I was sure you wouldn't mind if I stayed for a few days. I do so want to see Sarah. Where is she? She's not in bed yet?"

"It's nearlymidnight," Gideon said in the same expressionless tone. "Where did you think she would be?"

"Oh, don't be disagreeable, Gideon," Harriet said. "I don't know what time children go to bed, and she must be almost grown up now."

"Go into the drawing room, Harriet," Gideon instructed. "I don't know what's going on here, and you're certainly not seeing Sarah until I find out."

Harriet pouted a little. "He's so stern sometimes, have you noticed?" she said in a conspiratorial undertone to Prudence.

This was not a conversation Prudence was about to have. She stepped around the elegant figure and said formally, "It's time I left, Sir Gideon."

"Oh, don't go on my account," trilled the visitor. "I'm so tired anyway. I'll just go up to my room. Perhaps Mrs. Keith-You do still have Mrs. Keith?-could bring me up a little soup."

"Mrs. Keith is in bed," Gideon said. "Now do as I say." His lips were very thin, his eyes hard. He turned to Prudence. "Would you mind waiting in the library for a few minutes? This won't take very long."

Prudence looked at him in astonishment. Won't take very long. He was intending simply to dismiss this woman, the mother of his child, who'd just turned up on his doorstep with bag and baggage. He was prepared to give her a few minutes of his time, and then presumably send her on her merry way.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm leaving now. You have other things that require your attention."

"Daddy?" Sarah's girlish treble came unnervingly from the head of the stairs. "What's all that banging?"

"It's nothing, Sarah. Go back to bed. I'll come up in a minute," he called, laying an arresting hand on his ex-wife's arm as she made to move past him towards the stairs. "Not yet," he said through his teeth. "Go into the drawing room."

And this time she obeyed. Gideon turned back to Prudence. "Let me deal with this. It won't take a minute."

"What do you mean, it won't take a minute?" she demanded in an incredulous undertone, aware of Sarah now awake and curious upstairs. "That's your ex-wife, or am I mistaken?"

"No, you're not," he said wearily. "I just need to find out what she's doing here."

"Yes, you do," Prudence said, making for the guest room and her coat and hat. "And I cannot imagine how you can do that in three minutes. This is no time for me to be here." She picked up her coat from the bed and then stood in front of the mirror to put on her hat. Her hands were trembling and she hoped that Gideon, who was standing rather helplessly in the doorway, couldn't see them.

"Excuse me." She walked past him towards the front door, stepping around the pile of valises that seemed to indicate a stay of a more than transitory nature.

"Prudence." He came after her, catching her arm as she stepped out through the still-open door. "This is not your affair. It doesn't concern you at all. Leave now if you must, but nothing's changed between us."

"What do you mean, it doesn't concern me?" she demanded, trying to keep her voice low. "We've spent an entire night in bed together. That woman is a part of your life. The mother of your child. How could you possibly be so obtuse, so...so insensitive...as to dismiss her and me as somehow irrelevant to your own concerns? Are you suggesting we simply carry on as if nothing has happened?"

She shook her head in disbelief, shook off his arm, and waved at a pa.s.sing hackney carriage, its driver nodding sleepily on the box. "Good night, Gideon."

The cab drew to a halt at the bottom of the narrow flight of steps. Gideon made no further attempt to stop her. He waited until she was in the cab, then turned back to the hall, his expression grim.

Prudence sat back against the cracked leather swabs and tried to sort out what had just happened. It wasn't Gideon's fault that Harriet had arrived, but how could he possibly think he didn't have to deal with it...that in a few minutes everything would be back to normal? What kind of man was he?

How was Sarah going to respond to her mother's abrupt reappearance? Surely he had to realize that that would take more than a few minutes to deal with. It defied belief.

Prudence was as incredulous the next morning as she had been when she had finally fallen asleep.

Recounting the incident to Chast.i.ty had not helped to clear her mind, and neither had the hours of restless tossing in hot sheets. She awoke headachy and as tired as if she had not slept a wink.

A bleary-eyed look at the clock told her it was barely seven. She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but without success. A knock at the door surprised her.

"Miss Prue?" Jenkins called softly.

"What is it, Jenkins?" She sat up.

The door opened, but instead of Jenkins, Gideon walked in, dressed impeccably in morning coat and waistcoat, carrying an attache case. Clearly on his way to work, Prudence thought, even as she stared at him.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you," he said, setting his attache case on a chair.

"Sir Gideon insisted on coming up, Miss Prue," Jenkins said apologetically. "He said he would open

every door until he found you if I didn't show him up."

"That's all right, Jenkins," Prudence said. "I know how very persuasive Sir Gideon can be. Could you

bring me some tea?"

"At once, Miss Prue. Should I fetch Miss Chas first, though?"

"I don't need a chaperone, Jenkins," she said. It was a little late for that, but she kept that reflection to

herself.

Jenkins left, leaving the door half open. Gideon closed it, then turned back to the bed. "Good morning."

"Good morning."

He swung a chair around to face the bed and straddled it, resting his arms along the back. "You don't

look very refreshed," he observed.

"I'm not. Where's your ex-wife?"

"In bed and asleep, I a.s.sume. Harriet is not in the habit of greeting the day until the morning's well

advanced."

"In bed in your house?"

"Where else?" he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. His eyes narrowed. "Not in my bed, if that's

what you're asking."

"It wasn't."

"Just why did you run off like that, Prudence? I told you I had everything under control. All I needed-" He broke off as Jenkins came in with a tray of tea that he set down on the bedside table. He gave Gideon something approaching a glare and left, again leaving the door ajar.

Gideon got up and closed it.

"There seems to be only one cup," Prudence observed, taking up the teapot. "Jenkins does not look kindly upon intruders at any time of the day."

"No matter. I prefer coffee anyway. As I was saying, I needed to find out what had brought Harriet to my doorstep so that I'd know what I was getting into. Then you and I could have discussed it openly and we could at least have had a civilized good-bye. Why did you just up and run like that as if there was something to run from?"

Prudence took a sip of tea. It was impossible to have a conversation with someone so absolutely blind to another point of view. "I wasn't running from anything, Gideon. I was leaving you to your own business. I a.s.sume it's not every day that your ex-wife drops in on you?" Her eyebrows lifted. "I seem to remember you'd said she'd been absent for six years. Tell me, was Sarah pleased to see her mother after such a time?"

Gideon frowned at her tone. "I told you last night, it's no concern of yours. I have my own business well in hand." He pa.s.sed a hand across his jaw, aware of her angry eyes, the set of her mouth. This was not going the way he'd intended, but she had to see reason. He made an effort to moderate his tone. "Sarah seemed puzzled by her mother's arrival more than anything," he said. "I would have preferred to have given her some warning. Harriet, however, doesn't think of other people when she's acting on impulse."

"How long is she going to stay with you?" Her voice was clipped, her expression unwavering.

He shrugged. "Until she finds somewhere else, I suppose. She's left her horse trainer and has nowhere to go at present."

She watched him over the rim of her cup. "You're not obligated to shelter an ex-wife, are you?"

"No, not legally. But ethically I think I am," he said. "Harriet isn't very good at taking care of herself. She doesn't have a practical bone in her body. But there's no reason why that should affect us, Prudence."

"Of course it affects us!" she exclaimed. "Either you're divorced or you're not, Gideon. I'm not having an affair with a man who's living with another woman, whatever the circ.u.mstances. How is Sarah going to make sense of it? Her mother has taken up residence again, but her father is seeing another woman?" She shook her head and set down her empty cup.

"Sarah's a sensible girl. She'll accept what I tell her."

"It's her mother, " Prudence stated. "That's a relations.h.i.+p you clearly know nothing about. She's going to have a loyalty towards her just by the very fact of Harriet's being her mother." She held up her hands in an almost defensive gesture. "I'm not going anywhere near that, Gideon. It's not my business. It seems to me you have more than enough on your plate right now without complicating matters with a love affair. Let's just walk away from it, now. "

"I'm not going to allow Harriet to interfere with my life," he said tautly, his mouth thinned. "Any more than she already has done. You are in my life, Prudence, and you're going to stay in it."

"Not at your say-so." She threw aside the covers and sprang to her feet, her nightgown swirling around her ankles. "I have had enough of your ultimatums, Gideon. I make my own choices, and I do not choose to be involved in your life at this moment. Or possibly at any moment," she added. "We're so different. You can't even begin to see my point of view." She shook her head, setting her hair swirling in a copper cloud against the white of her nightgown. "You're not even entertaining the possibility that I might be right...that I might know more about daughters and their mothers than you do."

He stood up, caught her shoulder, his fingers pressing through the thin cotton, feeling the sharp bone beneath. "If you insist, I'll send Harriet away."

"You're not listening to me," she cried, jerking away from his hold. "I don't insist on anything. Do you really imagine I would encourage you to throw a dependent woman onto the streets? Who do you think I am?"

She stalked to the window, unconsciously rubbing her shoulder where the warmth of his fingers lingered. She stood with her back to him, staring out at the dim light of dawn. "I am not involved in your life. I cannot be. As you so rightly said, it is not my concern. Only not the way you mean, it's the way I mean. I want no part of it...and no part of a man who thinks a simple statement that there's nothing to worry about is all that's needed to keep a nice little love affair humming smoothly."

She spun around to face him. "I am not a nice little love affair to be kept on the sidelines."

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake," Gideon said, his own anger now riding high. "You're not making any sense to me."

"No, I'm sure I'm not," she said bitterly. "That's exactly the point I'm making."

"I have to go to work." He grabbed up his attache case. "We'll talk about this later."

"There's nothing to talk about," Prudence said. "Are you still prepared to be our barrister?"

He had his hand on the door. He turned and stared at her, a white shade around his mouth, a little muscle twitching in his cheek. "Are you suggesting I would allow my personal feelings to interfere in my professional life?"

Big mistake, Prudence realized belatedly. She'd forgotten that whatever else she chose to impugn, she should steer clear of his professionalism. "No," she said. "I was just thinking that it might be difficult if you had hostile feelings towards your client."

"Don't be ridiculous. I don't have hostile feelings towards you." The door banged on his departure.

And that was a piece of gross self-deception, if ever she'd heard one. Prudence flopped down on the bed again. Everything about that encounter left a sour taste. She had not expressed herself clearly and Gideon had in his habitual fas.h.i.+on tried to carry the issue on the tide of his own confidence and sense of superiority. They were not made to be lovers.

She lay back against the pillows, closing her eyes. She didn't blame him for wanting to protect Harriet-indeed, she applauded him. But she could certainly blame him for not beginning to understand that it might be a problem for her. Oh, it was all part and parcel of what was wrong with this relations.h.i.+p. Two people who had such vigorous differences of opinion and character were doomed as a couple from the start. Maybe it was good to break it off before they were in too deep. But she still felt hollow and disappointed, and in a strange way rather lost.

"I'm so confused," Prudence said to her sisters later that morning. "He talks about falling for me, about how much I'd like his daughter's governess, he takes it perfectly for granted that I should help Sarah with her homework, he cooks dinner for me, for G.o.d's sake, and then his ex-wife turns up and he tells me not to worry my pretty little head over it because it's none of my business, he'll take care of it all, and we should just carry on as before."

She refilled her coffee cup. "How could he not see the essential contradiction in that?"

Her sisters had run out of responses to a question that had been repeated in various forms throughout the morning. "I think from now until the case is over you have to see him only when it relates to the libel suit,"Constancesaid, as she had done before. "It'll clear the way to keep things professional. Let him sort out his own domestic affairs, and when the case is over and his situation has been resolved, then you can decide how you feel."

"However it's resolved," Chast.i.ty said rather gloomily, "we can forget about finding him a bride. He's not going to be open to the hunt if he's got an ex-wife living in his house. I suppose we'll have to settle for the eighty-twenty split."

"Twenty percent is better than bankruptcy," Prudence pointed out. "Anyway, for all we know there may be no damages. We might just count ourselves lucky to manage a successful defense with no damages awarded."

"That is dismally true,"Constancesaid. "But at least the barrister will get paid by the other side if that happens, so I suggest we let him get on with his work and Prue should put her feelings about the whole business aside until it's over."

Prudence sighed and flung herself against the sofa cus.h.i.+ons. "I know how I'll feel," she stated. "It was a mistake ever to get involved with him, and I knew it from the word go . I just didn't listen to my rational self. We're totally incompatible, we see the world from opposite poles. So now I'll stop obsessing about it, it's just that-" She broke off. "No, I'm not going to say another word. Let's practice my French accent. Try to think up some really unpleasant questions about the publication, make them really aggressive, and see if I can hold up."

They worked until luncheon and Prudence forced herself to concentrate, but the image of Harriet Malvern would not leave her. Such an exquisitely beautiful woman. How could any other woman hope to compete? But she wasn't competing...of course she wasn't. She had no interest in extending her brief fling with Gideon. Particularly now.

She'd brought one thing away from it, after all. She'd discovered the joys of s.e.x.