Wedding Night Revenge Read Online Free Page B

-lovebirds in here.' Rachel abruptly pushed open the door to their little library.
    Their sister June and her charming fiance, William Pemberton, were nowhere to be seen. But the room was occupied: by her parents, seated either side of the table. So earnestly were they conversing across its leather top that it was a moment before they realised they were not alone. Both Mr and Mrs Meredith looked startled and a little discomfited at the sight of two of their beautiful daughters joining them.
    Sylvie broke free of Rachel's sisterly clasp and ran, in a rustle of georgette and an unusual fit of demonstrative affection, to hug her papa. Edgar Meredith patted at his little daughter's white hands, clasped round his neck.
    Rachel, cursed with a heightened perception of other people's moods—especially her parents'—felt her stomach flutter in anticipation. 'Is anything the matter? Has Madame Bouillon tendered yet more outrageous suggestions for our costumes next month?' The modiste making their wedding finery had lately been tendering increasingly bizarre designs for their approval. 'Never fear, I can deal with her, you know.'

    Her papa sketched a smile. 'I've never doubted that, my dear. I took your good advice, Rachel. I hid well away until she was gone. No feathers and fronds for me...'
    Rachel's exquisite powder-blue eyes skimmed the desk top. 'Has the post been while I was out?' she asked, noting the letter that seemed to lie portentously between her papa's squarish hands. The palms were flattened on the leather as though he might at any minute shove himself back from the table.
    'No...not the post. This was hand-delivered by a servant. It's simply a reply to a wedding invitation,' Gloria Meredith volunteered in a tone that was far too airily dismissive to properly erase her eldest daughter's apprehension.
    Every aspect of June's marriage preparations was treated very seriously.
    Rachel sat in a chair by the hearth. It was not lit as the day was still warm enough to make the idea of a fire positively unwelcome. Instinctively she inclined towards the grate, recalling that earlier, as she had been on the point of setting off in the landau to go to Charing Cross with Lucinda, a smartly rigged servant had been on his way up the steps of their town house. She had supposed the errand that brought him was something to do with her papa's city affairs. As she believed all wedding invitations issued months ago and all expected replies long since received, she would never have guessed the true nature of his call.
    Sylvie wandered away to an open casement and playfully hung herself over the sill. Stretching to a shrub just below, she proceeded to bat at a branch laden with lilac heads. A pleasing, delicate scent spread into the room on the sultry dusky air. Rachel frowned at the disturbance, for there was a disquieting atmosphere within the room her straining senses could detect but not quite fathom. 'Well, don't keep me in suspense,' she lightly chided. 'Who is this late-invited guest? A celebrity we must have? Or are we simply making up numbers? Have there been some recent cancellations? Whose company are we now to be graced with at Windrush?'
    After a pregnant pause, in which her parents' eyes clashed, then skittered in opposite directions, her papa said with a sigh, 'It's from the Earl of Devane.
    It's a refusal, or should I say, his lordship declines, with thanks, our kind invitation, for naturally he is too well- mannered to simply reject us. Jt is obvious he has given the occasion no real thought: he has responded far too quickly for that.'
    'The Earl of Devane?' Rachel breathed, the shock of hearing that name again so soon quelling her feelings of indignation at the family snub. ' Lord Devane?' Rachel repeated in a voice of strengthening incredulity.
    'Yes,' her father confirmed with a significant look at his wife. 'You sound as though you know his lordship...'
    'Do I?' Rachel demanded in return.
    'You...you spoke as though the