The Devil She Knows by Diane Whiteside Read Free Book Online

woman, let alone a beloved, innocent daughter.” Gareth hurled the accusation at the household’s senior members.
    â€œSo? My wife and child both desire an English title in the family, you fool, while I enjoy giving my friends a grand wedding—from which you will be excluded.”
    â€œHe will harm her.” Gareth’s countenance carried the hardness of complete and utter certainty.
    â€œDon’t be absurd. He’d never cause a scandal or risk losing her dowry.”
    Father hadn’t denied he knew St. Arles was capable of Gareth’s accusations? Her stomach roiled, as if she’d returned to a swaying, pitching stagecoach, bound for a hellish, stifling journey through Apache country.
    The leader of her family kept talking, sharp and disquieting as blasts from a guard’s shotgun. “That’s unlikely to become important. I have done my best for my daughter and you have no right to interfere.”
    Where could she go? What could she do? Surely she’d made her decision weeks ago, when she’d accepted St. Arles’ offer.
    â€œExcept an old friend’s worry.” Gareth’s tanned features were so saturnine as to be unreadable. “In that case, I will say farewell and simply ask Miss Townsend to remember my last words.” The fear underlying his voice pulled her a half step forward but her dress’s chenille fringe brushed her legs like silent sentries.
    He was requesting her to leave her fiancé at the altar and run off to her aunt and uncle? How could she break her word of honor and do that?
    She rocked back into immobility. Surely her engagement ring had never felt this heavy before.
    He stared at her, his silver eyes as adamant as his silence—and as desperate—about what he wanted her to do.
    She glared back at him, equally stubborn.
    â€œOf all the abominable pieces of impertinence,” her stepmother burst out. “To break into my house and try to stop my party! You—”
    Gareth’s hand shot out, palm up, and silenced her in midtirade. He walked out, brushing past Portia without a backward glance.
    His clean scent made her treacherous heart give a last, erratic thump. It had to be nothing more than silly, sentimental claptrap over childhood memories.
    â€œComing, daughter?” Her father glanced at her from the head of the stairs.
    â€œOf course, sir.” She locked her knees back into something steady enough to move, and did her best to glide forward, rather than stumble.
    St. Arles wanted her and Gareth didn’t. She’d given her pledge to one man, but not another. What more did she need to know?

Chapter Six
    P ortia bowed her head one last time, grateful the interminable prayer had finally ended. The archbishop had seen fit to add additional prophets and evangelists’ pleas for children to the standard wedding blessing. Now her head swam from the overpowering scent of massed roses, lilies, and freesias which swarmed up to the high altar and covered everything else they could reach.
    They offered the only warmth in the enormous, gray church, since even all the swaying, wrought iron candelabras couldn’t banish the cold chill seeping into every crevice from the heavy rainstorm.
    She hadn’t seen or smelled anything like these blooms, since she’d stood in the very small chapel when Mother was buried. The bitter winter that year had closed down travel, leaving only flowers to represent hundreds of friends and thousands of memories. Portia’s head had spun until she wanted to sink into the stone vault with Mother’s coffin.
    Today, she gripped Mother’s Bible until her fingers stamped her mark on the soft leather, then clambered onto her feet. Her heavy train tugged at her shoulders and she shook it impatiently back, to be caught and fussed over by her two stepsisters.
    St. Arles observed her, too secure in his six feet of lionized British aristocracy and smug naval uniform to