When the color drained from Yates’s face, Heathbrook nearly smiled.
“Fiancée?” Yates squeaked. Then he paused, and his gaze narrowed on her. “I’ve heard no mention of a fiancée of yours.”
“That’s because we only just became engaged,” Heathbrook said smoothly even as Giselle dug her fingers into his arm. “But we’ve known each other for ten years, ever since we first met in Verdun. I thought I’d lost her when I was sent to Bitche … until I learned she had come to England with her mother. That’s when I began courting her. Fortunately for me, she has finally agreed to marry me.”
“I see,” Yates said sullenly before tipping his hat to Giselle. “Forgive me, mademoiselle. I was unaware that the earl had a fiancée. I shouldn’t have spoken so rashly.”
Giselle sniffed. “I suppose I will accept your apology, sir, since we are soon to be family. But I do hope to be treated better by you in the future.”
Heathbrook struggled not to laugh at Yates’s comical expression, which vacillated between outrage and chagrin. She had certainly playedthatwell. She’d thrown Yates off his game spectacularly.
“Come, Kit,” Yates said, banishing all Heathbrook’s satisfaction. “We must go home before night falls.”
Kit looked at Heathbrook.
“I’m sorry,” Heathbrook murmured to his brother. “The court won’t allow me to take you yet. But I hope to bring you home soon. Very soon.”
With a trusting nod, Kit turned and went back to mount his horse. Heathbrook could hardly bear to watch as they rode past. Evan wouldn’t even look at him, but Zachary regarded him with frank curiosity, and Kit gave a small wave as they went by.
Heathbrook waved back, his heart breaking. This was so unfair to them. What had possessed his father to do such a thing, not onlyto him but to his brothers? Granted, Heathbrook had been reckless and foolish in his youth, but at twenty-six, he had become as responsible toward his father as it had been possible to be in an enemy camp.
Yet Father had let the lads go to Yates. Heathbrook would never forgive him for that.
“Those poor boys,” Giselle said, as if she’d read his mind. “I understand why you struggle so to get them back.”
“The worst part is I assumed they knew I was in London fighting for them,” he said in a hollow voice. “I sent them letters but never received replies, and all this time they were thinking I didn’t care.”
“You realize Mr. Yates might never have passed the letters on to them,” she pointed out. Releasing his arm, she started walking back to the phaeton. “Still, you might have warned me.”
He fell into step beside her. “About what?”
“About whom we were going to meet. And why.”
“What do you mean,why? I wanted to see them, that’s why.”
She halted to look at him, her eyes sad. “No, you wanted to flaunt your faux fiancée before your cousin, so he would know you were not backing down. It was a strategy meant to throw him off his guard.”
How clever of her to have figured that out. “And it worked! Now he knows—and they know—I am not the man he keeps painting me to be.”
“Congratulations.” She began walking away from him again. “And all you had to do was pretend to be courting me and carry me out here to Hyde Park without a word to me about your plans or what my part in them was.”
It began to dawn on him that she was angry. “I suppose I should have told you.”
“Yes. You should have. You had no reason not to. What difference would it have made if you told me your ‘strategy’?” Her voice turned sarcastic. “You’d already engaged my services as your fiancée for the next few weeks, after all.”
“It’s not like that, Giselle,” he said, although he knew perfectly well it was exactly like that. “Besides, you agreed to the scheme.”
“Because I thought you would be honest withmeat least. Whycould you not even prepare me for being called your mistress and being considered as an insult to your brothers?” She strode past the phaeton and continued down Rotten Row. “Your cousin thought I was yourwhore!”
Oh, God, he hadhurther. He hadn’t anticipated that. “He didn’t think it for long. I disabused him of that notion.”
“Not at once. You … you—how do you English put it?—‘gave him enough rope to hang himself’ so you could embarrass him before your brothers. Did you think I did not notice you were doing such a thing?”
“It wasn’t intentional. I never expected him to believe—” He grabbed her by the arm. “Stop, damn you! Where the devil do you think you’re going?”
She snatched her arm away and continued walking. “I am going home.”
“Don’t be absurd. It’s miles from here!”