Counterfeit Lady Read online

  “I hope she doesn’t expect us to eat all that,” Nicole smiled.

  “I think she’s trying to let me know that if you’re here the food will improve. It would have to improve over what it’s been.”

  “Did the sloop arrive yet?” She saw the frown cross his face before he shook his head.

  They had just sat down at the table when one of the plantation workers burst into the room. “Mr. Clay! I didn’t know what to do,” he said in an explosion of words. He held his hat in his hands and threatened to destroy it any minute. He was very nervous. “She said she’d come all this way to see you and that you’d string me up if I didn’t bring her.”

  “Calm down, Roger. What are you talking about, and who are you talking about?” He threw his napkin onto his clean plate.

  “I wasn’t sure I believed her. I thought she might just be some English scum tryin’ to pull the wool over my eyes. But then I got a good look at her, and she looked so much like Miss Beth I thought it was her.”

  Neither Nicole nor Clay heard the man, for standing just behind him was Bianca. Her dark blonde hair was limp and straight about her round face. Her little mouth was pursed into a pretty little pout. Nicole felt as if she’d forgotten what Bianca was really like. Her life had changed so drastically in the last few months that the time in England seemed as if it had never happened. Now she vividly remembered the way Bianca liked to control people.

  Nicole turned to Clay and was astonished by his expression. He looked as if he were seeing a ghost. There was a look of incredulousness as well as rapture on his face. Suddenly, it seemed that her whole body was turning to water. She knew then that deep within her she’d always hoped that when he saw Bianca again he would know he no longer loved her. As sharp tears stung the corners of her eyes, Nicole knew she’d lost, that he’d never looked at her as he was now staring at Bianca.

  Nicole drew her breath in slowly and deeply, then stood and walked across the room to Bianca. She held out her hand. “May I bid you welcome to Arundel Hall?”

  Bianca gave Nicole a look of hate and ignored the hand offered to her. “You act as if you own the place,” she said under her breath, then smiled demurely at Clay. “Aren’t you glad to see me?” she said teasingly, the dimple appearing in her left cheek. “I have traveled a long way to be near you.”

  Clay’s chair nearly fell as he dashed across the room to Bianca. He grabbed her shoulders with both his hands, then stared at her face with a burning intensity. “Welcome,” he whispered, and kissed her cheek. He did not notice the way she recoiled from his touch. “Take the trunk upstairs, Roger.”

  Roger backed away from the group. He’d just spent six hours in a sloop with the blonde woman, and a couple of times he had to restrain himself from throwing her overboard. He wouldn’t have believed it was possible for one woman to find so many things to complain about in so short a time. She railed against Roger and his men’s lack of subservience toward her. She seemed to expect all the men to cater to her merest wish. The closer the sloop got to the Armstrong plantation, the more Roger was sure he’d made an error in delivering her to Clay.

  Now, looking at the way Clay stared at the woman, Roger was astounded. How could he look at her like that when that pretty little Miss Nicole was standing there, her heart in her eyes? Roger shrugged, jammed his hat on his head, and carried the trunk up the stairs. Boats were his business, and he was thankful women were not.

  “Clayton!” Bianca said sharply, twisting out of his grip. “Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down? After that long trip here, I’m afraid I’m exhausted.”

  Clay attempted to take her arm, but she eluded him. He held a chair for her, to the left of his at the head of the dining table. “You must be hungry,” he said as he took another place setting from the chippendale cabinet.

  Nicole stood in the doorway and watched them. Clay hovered over Bianca like a mother hen. Bianca swept the green gauze of her dress aside and sat down. Nicole was aware that Bianca had gained at least twenty pounds since she’d last seen her. She was tall enough to carry the weight, and as yet it hadn’t distorted her face, but her hips and thighs had greatly increased in size. The high-waisted fashions concealed it to a degree, but the sleeveless style completely exposed her heavy upper arms.

  “I want to know everything,” Clay said, bending toward her. “How did you get here? What sort of passage did you get?”

  “It was dreadful,” Bianca said, lowering her pale lashes. “After your letter to my father arrived, I was desolate. I realized what an awful mistake had been made. Of course, I came on the next available ship.” She smiled up at him. After her father had shown her the letter, she’d laughed heartily at the joke played on poor, stupid Nicole, but two days later she’d received another letter. Some distant cousins of hers lived in America, not too far from Clay, and they’d written Bianca to congratulate her on her catch. They seemed to think she knew of Clay’s wealth and asked to borrow from her as soon as she married Clay. Bianca dismissed the cousins instantly, but she was furious to read of Clay’s wealth. Why hadn’t the stupid man told her he was rich? Her anger quickly turned from Clay to Nicole. Somehow, the conniving little bitch knew about Clay and had arranged to go in Bianca’s place. Immediately, Bianca told her father she planned to go to America. Mr. Maleson just laughed and said that as soon as she earned the money she could go; it didn’t matter to him.

  Bianca turned to Nicole, still standing in the doorway. She smiled like a gracious hostess. “Won’t you join us?” she asked sweetly. “A cousin of yours came by the house to ask after you,” she said when Nicole was seated. “She had some wild story about your going into business with her. I told her you worked for me and that you had no money. She said the most fantastic things about your selling some emeralds and working at night. It was really quite preposterous. To make sure, I searched your room myself.” Her eyes sparkled. “A passage to America is so expensive, isn’t it? But, then, you wouldn’t know, would you? My ticket cost about what I’d guess a partnership in a dress shop would cost.”

  Nicole kept her chin up. She wouldn’t let Bianca see that her words hurt. But she rubbed her fingertips in memory of the pain of sewing in the dim light.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Clay said. “It’s like a dream come true, having you here again beside me.”

  “Again?” Bianca asked, and both women looked at him. He was staring at Bianca strangely.

  Clay recovered himself. “I meant that I’d imagined you here so often that it does seem as if you’ve returned.” He picked up a bowl of candied yams. “You must be hungry.”

  “Not at all!” she said, but her eyes never left the food. “I know I couldn’t eat a thing. In fact, I may give up eating altogether.” She laughed delightedly at this statement. “Do you know where they put me in that horrible frigate? In the lower deck! With the crew and the livestock! It was beyond belief! The porthole leaked, the roof leaked, and for days on end I lived in semidarkness.”

  Clay winced. “That’s why I had arranged a cabin for you on board the packet.”

  Bianca turned to look across the table to Nicole. “But, of course, I didn’t get such luxurious treatment. I imagine your food was better than mine, too.”

  Nicole bit her tongue to keep from commenting that whatever the quality was, the quantity seemed to have been more than sufficient.

  “Then maybe Maggie’s cooking will help make up for it.” Clay held the bowl a little closer to her.

  “Perhaps just a little, then.”

  Nicole watched quietly as Bianca helped herself to some of each of the twenty-some dishes on the table. Never did she pile her plate high or seem to eat very much of anything. A disinterested observer would have said she was a moderate eater. It was a way she’d learned over the years to conceal her gluttony.

  “Where did you get that dress?” Bianca asked as she delicately poured honey over a bowl of spoon bread.

  Nicole knew her face must be turning pink. She r