‘There—’tis done.’

‘So it is.’ Gideon smiled down at his new wife. ‘I think we can dispense with this now.’

He reached for her veil, but she quickly put her gloved hand over his.

‘Not yet,’ she whispered.

He laughed.

‘Be careful, my love, I shall begin to think I have married a little prude!’

He expected to hear her delicious, throaty laugh, but she was silent, merely putting her fingers on his arm as he escorted her to the door.

After the darkness of the stone building the spring sunshine was almost blinding when they stepped outside. He stopped and turned to her again.

‘Now, Miss Propriety, let me kiss you... Good God!’ He stepped back, his eyes widening with horror as he looked down into the face of a complete stranger.

Chapter Two

Dominique stood very still, staring up into the shocked face of her new husband. It was all there, everything she had expected: horror, revulsion, disgust. She had known how it must seem to him once the trick was revealed. He pushed his fingers through his auburn hair, disturbing the carefully arranged disorder, while behind them Max’s cruel laugh rang out.

‘Caught you there, Albury!’

‘But I don’t understand. Your cousin—’

‘This is my cousin.’

Max chortled and Dominique’s heart went out to the man standing before her. He looked stunned.

As well he might. Instead of the beautiful, voluptuous blonde he had courted for the past two months he was married to a diminutive brunette whom he had never seen before in his life.

‘Is something amiss?’ The vicar looked from one to the other before directing a vaguely worried look towards Max. ‘Lord Martlesham?’

‘No, no, nothing’s wrong,’ declared Max, still chuckling. ‘The groom is struck dumb by the enormity of the occasion, that’s all.’ He began shepherding the guests away from the church. ‘Come along, everyone, the carriages are waiting!’

‘Just a moment!’ The man beside her did not move, except to shake her hand from his arm. ‘Where is Dominique?’

‘Lord, Albury, have you not understood it yet? You have married her!’ Max gave him a push. ‘Come along, man, don’t stand there gawping. Let us return to the Abbey.’

‘Please.’ Dominique forced her vocal cords to work. ‘Come back to the Abbey and all this can be explained.’

Frowning, he grabbed her arm and set off for the gate with Dominique almost running to keep up with him. As was usual with weddings, the path was lined with well-wishers who showered them with rice as they hurried to the carriage. It was decorated with ribbons for the occasion, the Martlesham coat of arms displayed prominently on the door. Without ceremony her escort bundled Dominique into the carriage, climbed in after her and the door was slammed upon them. Max’s grinning face appeared in the window.

‘Now then, Gideon, try to contain your lust until after the wedding breakfast. The journey from here to the Abbey ain’t long enough to tup a woman properly. I know, I’ve tried it!’

Dominique closed her eyes in mortification. The carriage began to move and the raucous laughter was left behind them.

‘So, this was one of Max’s little tricks.’

Dominique looked at Gideon. His voice was calm, but there was a dangerous glitter in his hazel eyes that made her think he might be about to commit murder. She swallowed.

‘Yes.’

‘And everyone at the Abbey was privy to the joke, except me.’

‘You and...my mother.’

‘Max told me she was too unwell to attend the ceremony.’

Dominique bowed her head.

‘She does not know. Maman would never have agreed to such a scheme.’

‘I take it the female I knew as Dominique was hired for the part?’

She nodded.

‘An actress. Agnes Bennet.’

‘And a damned good one. She fooled me into thinking she was a lady. Whereas you—’ His lip curled. ‘You may be Max’s cousin, but no true lady would lend herself to this, this joke.’

His contempt flayed her. Given time, she could explain to him why she had agreed to Max’s outrageous scheme, but they had already arrived at the Abbey. She waited in silence for the carriage to stop and a liveried footman to leap forwards and open the door. Her companion jumped out first and with exaggerated courtesy put out his hand to her.

‘Well, madam, shall we go in to the wedding breakfast?’

Miserably, Dominique accompanied him into the house.

* * *

‘Now, perhaps you will explain to me what the hell is going on.’

Gideon looked about him at the company assembled in the dining room. The servants had been dismissed and it was only the twenty or so guests who had comprised Lord Martlesham’s house party for the past two months—with the exception of the blonde beauty, of course. The woman he had believed was Martlesham’s cousin. She had been replaced by the poor little dab of a girl who was now his wife.

Everyone stood around, ignoring the festive elegance of the dining table, all gleaming silver and sparkling glass, set out in readiness for the wedding breakfast. His eyes raked the crowd, but no one would meet his gaze.

‘It’s a practical joke, old boy,’ said Max, who was helping himself to a glass of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard.

‘Not one that I appreciate!’ Gideon retorted.

Max turned to him, still smiling.

‘No? Strange, I thought you would, given what happened at Covent Garden last year.’

‘Ah...’ Gideon nodded slowly ‘...so that is it. You are paying me back for stealing the divine Diana from under your nose!’

The scene came back to him. He had been one of a dozen rowdy, drunken bucks crowding into the dressing rooms after the performance. Max was paying court to a pretty little opera dancer, but Gideon knew from her meaningful smiles and the invitation in her kohl-lined eyes that she would happily give herself to the highest bidder.

‘Confound it, Albury, I had been working on that prime article for weeks, then just when I thought she was going to fall into my lap you offer her a carte blanche!’

Gideon felt his temper rising. There was a world of difference between competing for the favours of a lightskirt and trapping him into marriage!

‘And because I bested you on that occasion you concocted this elaborate charade?’

‘Why, yes, and I thought it rather neat, actually,’ returned Max, sipping his brandy. ‘I hired Agnes Bennet to play my cousin and you fell for her—quite besotted, in fact. All I had to do then was persuade you to propose. Of course, it helped that you were still smarting from the roasting your father gave you at Christmas and ripe for any mischief that would pay him back.’

Gideon could not deny it. He recalled that last, fraught meeting with his father. They had rowed royally. If he was honest, Gideon had already been a little tired of Max and his constant tricks and stratagems, but he did not like his father criticising his friends. He had lost his temper, declaring that he would do what he wanted with his life. He remembered storming out of the house, declaring, ‘I will make friends with whom I like, do what I like, marry whom I like!’

How unwise he had been to relay the whole incident to Martlesham.

The earl continued, ‘You knew that marrying any cousin of mine would anger your father. It helped, of course, that she was such a little beauty. A typical English rose.’

‘Couldn’t wait to get her into bed, eh?’ cried one of Max’s cronies, a buck-toothed fop called Williams.

Dear heaven, Gideon wondered why he had never noticed before just what a hideous smirk the fellow had! Max filled a second glass with brandy and handed it to him.

‘Then, of course, you said you could never marry a Frenchie.’

‘Well, what of that?’ said Gideon, stiffening.

Max’s smile grew.

‘It so happens that my dear cousin here is most definitely French. Ain’t that so, m’dear?’

The girl made no answer, save for a slight nod of the head. Gideon’s eyes narrowed.