She met the gaze of the man who would become her husband in a few hours’ time. “I am still willing, Lord Rayne.”
The tension seemed to ease from him before her eyes. He nodded. “Bueno.”
Catriona sipped her tea, forcing a smile she did not feel. “Bueno.”
She could only hope it was a promise which would come to fruition.
Chapter Eight
The wedding wasgoing to be delayed.
Alessandro understood this undeniable, unwanted fact the moment he received a missive from Hamilton House, before he even bothered to open it and scan its contents. The Duke of Montrose, foolishbastardothat he was, had moved in the night, no doubt attempting to find some liquor to pour down his worthless gullet, and had ruined the setting of his bone. Another attempt would need to be made this morning.
But worse news still, Viscount Torrington had yet to regain consciousness.
Alessandro’s betrothed wrote prettily, in the unhurried scrawl of a lady who had learned from a governess and who had never needed to worry over the cost of paper or the time penning such a note would take from her day. Of all the things he was to fixate upon, the penmanship of Lady Catriona seemed the most unlikely.
And yet, it was another reminder of how different the woman he was about to marry was from the first woman he had married. Maria had not been born to the life of an elegant lady. Her scrawl had been small and concise, the hallmark of a woman who needed to conserve both her paper and her time. Her father had been a wealthy merchant, but drink and the loss of his wife had caused him to lose everything. Maria had been tossed from her home with no means of supporting herself save one.
Alessandro’s hand clenched into a fist, crumpling Lady Catriona’s missive.
He was not certain which made him angrier; the delay of his nuptials, which would necessarily mean the addition of more time spent in England, or the reminder of what Maria had endured juxtaposed with the gentle life Lady Catriona enjoyed. Even in her supposed banishment and ruination, she had still lived a life of ease.
“Will there be a reply, my lord?”
The question snatched Alessandro from his grim reveries. His butler was staring at him, expressionless.
“No tengo respuesta,” he said.
“Are you certain there shall be no answer, Lord Rayne?” his butler asked, his tone mild.
Dios. What did the man do, sit about in his butler’s pantry studying Spanish? Alessandro would sack him, but he had no intention of remaining in England long enough to care. The man would be Lady Catriona’s problem.
If she and Alessandro ever managed to wed, that was.
His eyes narrowed on the domestic. “Estoy seguro.”
The butler bowed. “If you are sure, my lord, I will take my leave.”
No,damn it, he was not sure. He was not sure of anything any longer. He had believed he had decided upon an excellent solution to the problem of having shot the Duke of Montrose and also keeping his loathsome cousin from inheriting.
Take a bride. Even a ruined one. Even an English one. Even one he wanted to touch.
But he could not seem to wed Lady Catriona, no matter how hard he tried.
He had believed he could stave off his servants by speaking to them solely in his preferred language.
But his butler had learned Spanish.
Said butler was departing the study where Alessandro had been pacing, fretting over the day’s nuptials and his inconvenient attraction to his impending bride both.
“Johnstone,” he said. “Wait.”
His butler paused, then turned to face him, his countenance still as placid as a pond at dawn. “Yes, Lord Rayne?”
“See that a carriage is brought round,” he directed, entirely against his will. “I will be paying a call to Hamilton House.”
“Of course, my lord.”
