The Lady Forfeits by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

your Aunt Humphries exists,’ Gabriel commented drily the following morning as he and Diana sat together in the small dining room, eating their breakfast attended by the quietly efficient Soames.
    The previous afternoon had been taken up with various visits to the newspaper offices, the Westbourne lawyer, William Johnston, and to an old comrade in connection with Dominic Vaughn’s disappearance into the country. But Gabriel had returned home in time to change for dinner before joining Diana downstairs. Only Diana. Mrs Humphries had sent her apologies. Those same apologies had been sent down again in regard to breakfast this morning.
    Diana smiled. ‘I assure you she does exist, but suffers dreadfully with her nerves. In fact, she did not wish to come to London at all and only did so because I insisted on coming here,’ she added affectionately.
    Gabriel raised dark brows. ‘I am relieved she hadenough sense to agree to accompany you, at least. But taking to her rooms the moment you arrived, and remaining there, is certainly not helpful. In fact, it is totally unacceptable now that I am residing here, too.’
    She looked enquiringly at him. ‘Surely there can be no impropriety when you are my guardian?’
    ‘A guardian who is now, officially, your betrothed.’ Gabriel passed the open newspaper he had been reading across the table to her.
    Diana’s hands trembled slightly as she took possession of it, searching down the appropriate column until she located the relevant announcement. The betrothal is announced between Lord Gabriel Maxwell Carter Faulkner, seventh Earl of Westbourne, Westbourne House, London, and his ward, the Lady Diana Harriet Beatrice Copeland, of Shoreley Park, Hampshire. The wedding will take place shortly at St George’s Church, Hanover Square.
    There was nothing else. No naming of who Gabriel Faulkner’s parents were, or her own, just the announcement of their betrothal. Nevertheless, there was something so very real about seeing the betrothal printed in the newspaper and knowing that it would no doubt be read by hundreds of people all over London this morning as they also sat at their breakfast tables.
    Not that Diana had even considered changing her mind about the betrothal since they had come to their agreement yesterday. Nor did she baulk at the comment that the marriage was to ‘take place shortly’—the sooner the better as far as she was concerned, preferably before Malcolm Castle and Miss Vera Douglas walked down the aisle together!
    No, Diana had no regrets about her decision; it was only that seeing the betrothal in print also made Gabriel Faulkner so very real to her too. Not that there could really have been any doubts in her mind about that, either, after being held in his arms and kissed so passionately by him yesterday.
    Just thinking about that kiss had kept her awake last night long after she had retired to her bedchamber…
    Nothing in Aunt Humphries’s talk all those years ago, concerning what took place in the marriage bed, had prepared Diana for the heady sensations that had assailed her body as Gabriel had kissed and held her. The heat. The clamouring excitement. The yearning ache for something more, something she wasn’t sure of, but believed that marriage to a man of his experience and sophistication would undoubtedly reveal to her…
    Gabriel watched beneath hooded lids as the colour first left Diana’s creamy cheeks before coming back again, deeper than ever. That rosy flush was practically the same colour as the gown she wore this morning, accompanied by an almost feverish glitter in those sky-blue eyes as she raised heavily lashed lids to look across the breakfast table at him. ‘You are concerned by the word “shortly” in the announcement, perhaps?’ he asked.
    ‘Not at all,’ she dismissed readily. ‘I would like to find my sisters first, of course, but can see no reason why the wedding should not take place immediately after that.’
    ‘No?’ Gabriel