LITMIR.BIZ

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had not believed her then. He had bracketed her with all the other females who had attempted such encounters to gain his attention. Especially once he had learned she was Miss Hebden, daughter of a notorious rake and a shameless adulteress.

      He cast his mind back to the stories Rick had told of her growing up and how difficult she was finding it to behave with the decorum expected of young ladies in Society. And replayed the scene in his mind with her as Midge, Rick’s tomboyish little sister, chatting away to her companions, waving her hands about exuberantly…with her back to the door.

      She had not, he realized with cold certainty, known he was there at all.

      Though her so-called friends had.

      They had set her up!

      His head snapped round to where the Misses Veryan were sitting, craning their necks to see what was going on in the porch. Their faces were alight with the same malice they had exhibited that night.

      And as for the terrace outside Lady Carteret’s ballroom…He almost groaned aloud. She had strenuously insisted she had only gone out onto that terrace for some fresh air. Now he fully understood why she had bitten him and punched him in the face. His behaviour had been unforgivable!

      But she had looked so alluring in that silver gown, that wistful expression on her face…he almost doubled over as hurt pierced him through. She had claimed she had been thinking of some other man. If that was the truth, as he now accepted all her other protestations were the truth, then Midge’s affections were engaged elsewhere! She had never intentionally pursued him, let alone wanted to marry him. That notion had sprung entirely from his own vanity.

      The girl who had written all those loving letters to Rick had such a giving nature, she was bound to yield to her family’s wishes. Yes, he could see it all now. She had tried valiantly to give up all hope of this other man, but he had seen the night he had dined in their home what it was costing her. Her sense of family duty had got her as far as the church door. But the thought of actually tying the knot with a man she had not hesitated to call a vile worm was just too much.

      ‘Rick,’ he grated, feeling as though something inside him was dying. ‘Go and find out what she wants. And make sure she gets it.’

      With a puzzled frown, Rick got to his feet and strode out of the chapel.

      Funny, but when he had decided to marry Miss Hebden, he had thought she was the victor and he was her prize. Yet now it felt as though if Midge would not have him he would be losing something that would have enriched his life immeasurably.

      At the chapel door, far from the quarrel quieting down, the voices grew even more agitated. Rick’s reasoning tone mingled with Midge’s cries of protest and her uncle’s bombastic hectoring.

      Finally, he could take it no longer.

      Midge could not possibly hate him more than he hated himself for the way he had misjudged and maltreated her. If the only way he could make amends was to set her free, then he must do so.

      As he stalked down the length of the aisle, the eyes of all the assembled guests followed his progress avidly. He reflected how he had once foolishly thought that marrying her would be the price he would have to pay for his ungentlemanly conduct on Lady Carteret’s terrace. Now he knew better. The price he must pay for alienating Midge would be letting her go.

      Chapter Six

      ‘Midge, the fellow is an impostor!’ Rick was saying. ‘You know he is. My father left no stone unturned in his search for the little boy your mother wanted to adopt. He found the orphanage where your grandfather had tried to conceal him.’ He took hold of her shoulders, forcing her to look into his face. ‘And the records that proved he was killed in a great fire that destroyed a whole wing of the place.’

      ‘But look at him!’ Imogen protested. ‘The records must have been wrong. Or your father…’ A dreadful doubt shook her. ‘He didn’t want to have him in the house!’ She gasped. ‘Just like my grandfather!’

      ‘Do not say one word against your grandfather,’ her uncle weighed in. ‘He was doing his best to put things right. Utter disgrace to foist the brat on your poor mother in the first place! Should never have been brought into the marital home!’

      Rick shot him a look of annoyance. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but tearing a boy she thought of as her son away from her was not the best thing for my stepmother at all. Nearly broke her heart to lose the boy, wherever he might have come from. Mourned his loss to her dying day. Midge,’ he sighed, ‘for heaven’s sake, my father may have had his faults, but he would not have broken his word. Amanda only agreed to marry him on condition he promised to search for that boy.’

      But Imogen no longer shared Rick’s faith in his father’s notion of honour. He had not been unduly worried about leaving her penniless, when he had helped himself to the inheritance her mother had tried to bequeath her. With hindsight, she could see that he had only tolerated having her about, for Amanda’s sake. She did not think he had ever quite managed to forget she was Kit Hebden’s child too. And Stephen had not one single drop of Amanda’s blood running through his veins. Would he really have welcomed Kit’s bastard into his home and allowed him to be brought up alongside his own sons?

      Catching a movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned and saw Stephen push himself off the pillar, against which he had been lounging, to stare at her as though he could not believe what he was hearing.

      ‘Hugh Bredon was not lying, and the records were not wrong!’ Lord Callandar shouted. ‘He did manage to locate the foundling home where my father sent the boy. And there was no question the brat died in a fire. I saw the records myself.’

      ‘Then who is he?’ Imogen’s bouquet swooshed through the air as she waved in the direction of the Gypsy. ‘Why does he know so much about what everyone tried to hush up? Why does he look like me?’

      ‘Stop talking such nonsense, girl! He looks nothing like you.’

      ‘But his smile, Uncle! And the shape of his brows when he frowns. They are straight. Just like mine. Like my father’s.’

      ‘What is going on?’

      At the sound of Viscount Mildenhall’s calm authoritative voice, everyone involved in the altercation turned to where he was standing in the church doorway.

      Imogen ran to him and grabbed hold of his forearms.

      ‘Oh, please, Monty, help me! I have done everything you have asked of me, haven’t I? Won’t you let me have my way in just this one thing? It is our wedding. Yours and mine. Surely I may have just one guest of my own choosing? If you say he may come in, then nobody else has the right to refuse him. He can sit right at the back, if you like, right out of sight!’

      He tensed as she specified that it was a ‘he’ they were all arguing about.

      ‘Perhaps,’ he said coldly, ‘it would help if you were to explain exactly who he is you are so keen to attend our wedding despite your uncle’s objections?’

      ‘Stephen,’ she said, stepping back and releasing his arms as though they burnt her. ‘My brother.’

      ‘Your brother?’ It felt as though the sun had come out. ‘I see no reason why your brother should not attend if he wishes. Why all this fuss?’

      ‘Because he is not her brother, that’s why!’ bellowed her uncle. ‘The impudent rogue who claims kinship with her is just some filthy Gypsy, trying to cause trouble!’

      ‘It’s true, Monty,’ put in Rick, stepping forward. ‘The Gypsy boy in question died years ago.’

      ‘A Gypsy?’ He was so relieved it was not the marriage itself she was objecting to he would have cheerfully given permission for a whole tribe of Gypsies to dance right down the aisle banging tambourines if that was what she wanted.

      But before he could tell her so, she had lifted her chin, and said, ‘Yes! My father

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