The ambassador's announcement was news to Blake and to Cristina, but as they stood before the assembled guests, their faces didn't betray their surprise.
"Is our government acting as procurer now for members of foreign royalty?" came a question from the crowd.
Blake started. The voice sounded familiar. Very familiar. He scanned the crowd, but he couldn't locate the owner of the voice.
"No, indeed not," the ambassador replied. "But our government and His Imperial Majesty agreed that it would be a very good idea for someone like this young lady to accompany that most royal personage on the journey home from London in order to keep other less scrupulous members of other governments from trying to persuade that most royal person to intervene on their behalf."
The fictitious explanation the ambassador wove sounded completely legitimate to these men and women who had been a part of the royal machinery for years. They understood the way the government worked and that one of the major problems a ruling monarch had to face was how to rein in the heir to the crown effectively--how to govern the heir without undermining that heir's of their own position in government and in society.
"The woman known to you as the Comtesse di Rimaldi was in fact working for Her Majesty's government. She was accompanied by a most acceptable chaperon at all times and lived alone in a house belonging to that royal member of the Austrian imperial family. She was not and never has been his mistress."
"Then how do you account for that?" the same voice asked, bringing attention to Cristina's pregnant state.
"I can account for it," Blake stepped forward.
The crowd erupted into amused laughter. But the ambassador had had enough. "Ladies and gentleman, what Lord Lawrence means is--"
"We know what he means."
"The comtesse di Rimaldi, or as she was formerly known, Miss Cristina Fairfax, is Lord Lawrence's wife."
"What?" a collective gasp went up from the crowd.
"May I present to you the ninth earl and countess of Lawrence?" Ambassador Paget paused for effect, then continued his story. "As I said earlier, Lord and Lady Lawrence made a tremendous personal sacrifice when they agreed to keep their marriage a secret until after the sensitive negotiations were completed. Lord and Lady Lawrence have suffered the indignation of being labeled by Viennese society and members of our own community when all the while they were acting to protect the interests of Her Majesty's government. We owe them both a debt of thanks," the ambassador concluded, "and a heartfelt apology." He turned to Cristina, leaned forward, and kissed her on the cheek. "My dear Lady Lawrence, let me be the first to welcome you into our little community."
The guests stood in stunned silence for a moment, then began pressing forward to offer their felicitations to the happy couple. But a disturbance between the sergeant-at-arms and an apparent gate-crasher off to the right of the stairway at the first-level entrance interrupted the procession.
A lone person began to clap. "Bravo, Ambassador Paget, congratulations on a very credible explanation and an extremely touching gesture." The crowds parted as a beautiful black-haired woman in a stunning ball gown was wheeled toward the platform by a man who bore a striking resemblance to Lord Lawrence. "There's just one tiny detail you overlooked." The woman paused dramatically. "That woman can't be Lord Lawrence's wife." She stared at Cristina. "She can't be Countess Lawrence. Because, you see," she pointed to Blake, "he already has a wife. I'm the countess of Lawrence."
Cristina turned to Blake for confirmation.
He stared at his cousin, Jack, standing behind the wheelchair, then fixed his angry gaze on the triumphant face of the woman sitting in the wheelchair. "Meredith."
The serpent hath slithered into the garden.
--ANONYMOUS
*Chapter Twenty-one*
Chaos erupted in the ballroom as the gong sounded announcing dinner.
Ambassador Paget leaned down and spoke to Lady Paget. "See that everyone goes into dinner. I'll join you in a moment." He waited while his wife ushered the curious group into the dining room, then shouted for a sergeant-at-arms. "Escort Lady Lawrence into Lord Lawrence's office."
The sergeant-at-arms stood between Cristina and Meredith and glanced from one to the other.
"The first Lady Lawrence," the ambassador snapped. "The dead one."
The sergeant-at-arms elbowed Jack Ashford aside, then grabbed hold of the back of the wheelchair and pushed Meredith to the stairs where two men-at-arms stood on either side of her wheelchair and lifted it, carrying her up the stairs to the privacy of Blake's office. Jack followed behind them.
Ambassador Paget turned to Blake. "Shall I retire to the antechamber?"
Knowing the ambassador could hear every word spoken in his office from the tiny adjoining antechamber, Blake nodded. "Thank you, sir. I may need a witness."
"Agreed." The ambassador hurried up the stairs and down the hall to the secret entrance of the antechamber that connected Lord Lawrence's suite of office to his own.
Blake shouted for his assistant. "Cason, take Lady Lawrence back home."
Cason appeared almost immediately and gently took hold of Cristina's elbow.
"No, Blake," Cristina protested. "I don't want to go home. I want to say with you."
"I'll be home later," Blake promised. "Now please go with Cason while I find out what's going on."
"Blake..."
"Please, Countess," Blake leaned down and ignoring the others around them, kissed his wife tenderly. "I can't think straight if I'm worrying about you. Please go home. I don't want you or the baby in harm's way."
"I thought she was dead," Cristina murmured.
"So did I," Blake told her. "Dear God, so I did. Go home, Cristina, and wait for me."
"Blake," she reached out and grabbed hold of his arm. "There's just one more thing."
"What is it?"
"She's come back from the dead for a reason," Cristina warned. "I believe she could be dangerous."
"She's a viper in women's clothing," Blake answered.
"All the more reason for you to be careful."
"I will. Now go with Cason." He kissed her again.
"I'll wait up for you," Cristina told him.
"It may be very late."
"It doesn't matter," she said. "I'll still be waiting."
She sat with pillows surrounding her slender frame, supporting her slight weight. Her skirts were meticulously arranged to camouflage the unnatural angle of one hip. Blake was forced to admire the illusion she presented. Even Victoria herself could not have done any better. But then, Meredith was a master of illusion--of always appearing to be something she was not.
Blake crossed half the length of the room and halted within inches of her. "All right," he said when he stood facing her, "you've come back from the dead. Do you mind explaining the reason for this dramatic resurrection after six years?"
"I think that's self-explanatory," Jack said.
Blake turned to Jack. "I warned you, Jack, years ago. Now get out before I throw you out." He pointed to door.
Jack glanced at Meredith. "It's all right, Jack darling. Blake won't hurt me. Not when there are witnesses."
Jack still hesitated.
"Get him out of here," Blake ordered the sergeant-at-arms.
The sergeant didn't hesitate. He grabbed Jack by the arm and forcibly escorted him to through the door.
"You were about to tell me why you reappeared after six years," Blake continued once Jack had been removed from the room.
"Was I?"
"Meredith, I'm in no mood for your taunting games. Either you tell me what you want with me or I walk out that door. I have better things to do than spend my time sparring with you."
"Ah, yes, little miss Fairfax is waiting with open arms at your little a
partment on the Ringstrasse, no doubt."
"Leave Cristina out of this," Blake ordered. "Tell me what you want and be done with it."
"My, aren't we touchy?"
"Mer--e--dith." He bit out her name, holding his temper tightly in rein, forcing the words through his tightly clenched teeth. "I asked for an explanation."
"As Jack said, it's self-explanatory. I had to reappear in order to protect my interests."
"You have no interests where I'm concerned."
"My monetary interests."
The look in Blake's eyes hardened until his eyes resembled two lumps of hard, polished onyx. "I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking you had interests that weren't monetary."
"Once you believed I had no interest in your money at all." She saw the immediate spark of emotion cross Blake's face and knew there was certain danger in taunting him with ancient memories.
"Once, I should have listened to the magistrate."
Meredith gasped. "I often wondered if you knew about that," she recovered, quickly remembering the look on the old pig's face when she triumphantly told him she was going to marry Blake.
"He confessed your sins shortly after we returned to England after my first posting to Vienna, but by then, I already knew you weren't the girl I thought you were. You should have married him, Meredith. He would've died a natural death soon enough and left you well off."
"I loathed the old buzzard." She shuddered in revulsion.
"And me? Didn't you loathe me as well?" Blake's face was an inscrutable mask.
"You were young and handsome and the heir to the oldest and richest titled family in the district. And you were Jack's first cousin. I planned to marry you the first time I saw you. I was seven or eight at the time. You were ten or eleven and the answer to a little girl's prayers." Meredith glanced at him through her lashes to hide the alarm she felt. He was different. Changed. He seemed the same, but something had affected him. Changed him. She knew because she knew him so well, much better than he liked to admit. In the years since she had married him, Meredith had made it her business to know him, to find his weaknesses and to exploit them--to torment him as he tormented her with his indifference. He had loved her when they married; loved her to the point of worship, and she had used that love to get the things she wanted out of life--a home of her own, a title, money, lots and lots of money, and a way of remaining close to Jack. She had had enough money to buy and sell most of her friends, but only as long as she stayed married to Blake. After her accident, Meredith had faked her own death and gone to ground like the foxes she loved to hunt--gone to ground so she could recover from the devastating injury. He might have done away with her while she lay ill and vulnerable, so she had pretended to be dead. And she had managed to fool everyone--including Blake, as she manipulated him from afar--while she pulled strings like a master puppeteer. Meredith had waited patiently, secure in the knowledge that one day she would have her revenge--secure in the knowledge that one day Blake would want to marry again and give her the ultimate in revenge.
During their marriage, Meredith had lived in fear that one day Blake would risk scandal and divorce her. The certainty of it haunted her during her recuperation from her accident. She was crippled and unable to bear children. He needed an heir. The courts might listen to his plea. He was a popular member of government and wealthy enough to pay for a parliamentary divorce without the risk of scandal. He might emerge from his marriage to her unscathed--able to marry legally and father a legitimate heir. In a desperate act to retain control over Blake's future, Meredith had decided to orchestrate her own death. Her accident had taken away her mobility, but it had been a strange sort of blessing in disguise. Her death had given her a certain amount of security that she hadn't had before she lost the use of her legs. Now she sat back and pulled the strings and watched her puppet dance. It gave her great pleasure to know Blake continued to support her beggarly family and to have them dance attendance to her, to come when she summoned them and carry out her bidding for the promise of money to pay gaming debts or to buy thoroughbreds. And it gave her enormous satisfaction to use Blake's money to pay spies to follow him and report his movements to her.
He was changed. The weeks with the Fairfax girl had changed him. And to think she had been worried about his having an affair with the girl's mother. She should have known Patricia Fairfax was too jaded for Blake's tastes. He believed in honesty and integrity and was drawn to innocence. It had been the girl he'd wanted, not the mother.
Meredith had never valued her virginity except as a means of getting the material things she desired. Maybe she had sold her virginity too cheaply after all--to Jack instead of to Blake. Blake might have continued to worship her if she had been the innocent girl she'd pretended to be. His utter rejection of her still rankled. She simply couldn't understand it. It never occurred to her that he might be repulsed by her lack of innocence or her affair with Jack. As long as they kept it in the family, what did it matter who she slept with? Blake had had no right to dismiss her. So he felt foolish and betrayed. So what? He had married her. Besides, Jack hadn't been repulsed. He had been eager to trade favor for favor. Why didn't Blake understand that that was the way the world worked? She hadn't asked for his love, just his name and the power he could give her. Power was what she needed from him, not love. She wondered if he knew how stupid he had seemed to her before the wedding--a lovesick schoolboy mooning about making calf's eyes at her. Refusing to bed her before the wedding, unwilling to compromise the reputation of his intended. Well, the joke had been on him! The whole village had been laughing at his ignorance. Blake hadn't known that Jack was already her lover, had been her lover since she was fourteen. Hadn't he known that the only reason Jack hadn't married her was because he had to marry money and her family had none? Blake hadn't understood that she had always planned to marry him and keep Jack as her lover. She had very nearly run out of time. Her family had decided she had to marry for money and the old magistrate had offered for her. Her parents would have accepted him, too, because he was well off. Old, disgusting, and fat, but the richest man in the district next to Blake's father. Meredith had held out for Blake, refusing to marry the old pig, even though he threatened to expose her affair with Jack and even went so far as to blackmail her, and just when she thought she might have to reconsider the magistrate's offer, Blake had finally noticed her. The heir to Everleigh had finally stumbled into her web. She had married Blake and then she waited for the opportunity to rid herself of the blackmailing old magistrate. She had been so confident. She had thought she had everything. But Blake was her ultimate mistake. She mistook his youth for weakness and his love for blind devotion and she had overplayed her hand. She had been so sure of him and her power over him that she failed to recognize the depth of his character. He had been young and full of ideals and the completeness of her deception abhorred him. He had believed her pure and above reproach, and he had found her dirty and soiled from overuse. They had badly misjudged each other and both had vowed never to repeat their mistake.
"If we keep sitting here reminiscing I'll begin to think you care about me, Blake, and that just won't do under the circumstances ..."
"Just what are the circumstances?"
"Pretending to be dead has it limits. I'm bored by the lack of activity, so I've decided to reclaim my position as your wife." She said it so matter-of-factly, Blake was taken aback by her audacity.
"You've never been my wife."
"Legally I am," she said. "And that's all that counts. Will you really try to prevent me, a poor cripple, from reclaiming my position in society and the comforts my husband's wealth can provide? I don't think so."
Blake immediately recognized the threat. "There's a grave in a cemetery with your name on it, Meredith. It's been there for the past six years. Under the circumstances, I'm sure the courts will understand. Now that you've unexpectedly returned from the grave, I think a divorce
is in order."
"You can't prove adultery," she said. "So you wouldn't dare go to the courts."
"Try me, my dear." He smiled grimly. "Please try me."
Flustered for the first time in years, Meredith tried to bluff. "Jack--"
"Owes a small fortune in gambling debts in nearly every club in London. Most of them to me. His father-in-law has been paying his bills and I've been buying up his markers for years." Blake found some satisfaction in Meredith's obvious surprise. "And I don't think Annalise's father would continue to support his son-in-law if he learned about you and Jack, do you?"
"My father--"
"Is also greatly indebted to me. Come now, Meredith, I know that doesn't come as a surprise to you. You had to have money to live on. And accomplices in your elaborate scheme." Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Suddenly Blake understood why he'd never been able to put his past with Meredith behind him. It had all been too neat. He'd never been able to believe the past was over because he hadn't seen her body, hadn't really believed it was possible for Meredith to die so quietly. "I'm sure if I dig deep enough, I'll find that a vast majority of the money I've been loaning to your father over the years has gone to your upkeep and to pay your spies. The courts might be interested in talking to you, your father, the other members of the family, and Jack as well for helping to perpetuate a hoax in order to extort money from me."
"Why would the courts listen to you--an adulterer and a bigamist? Suppose I tell them you participated in the hoax? Suppose I convince them that you kept me locked away in a house in the country while you pretended I was dead? Who do you think they would believe then?"
"Suppose we dig up your grave and see who's really buried there?" Blake shot back. "The village of Everleigh is without a magistrate--and has been for the last six years."
Meredith blanched as Blake's barb hit it's mark.
"It's over, Meredith. You should have stayed dead. Because you don't have a choice. I won't let you get away with your blackmail this time. You won't be reclaiming your position, or your title, or moving into Lawrence House. That's my home. My sanctuary. The one place in England I can call home and where you have no claim."
"But, I'm your legal wife...."
"A mere technicality, like the one that protects Lawrence House from you."
"I remember," she said. "Lawrence House is entailed. It belongs to mother of the heir. That brings us to Cristina Fairfax," she said smoothly. Too smoothly. "While you're in London petitioning the courts and parliament for your divorce, it might be a good idea if you make other arrangements to house your little doxy. It wouldn't do to have both of us under the same roof at the same time."