Kitabı oku: «Regency Scoundrels And Scandals», sayfa 20
‘Thank you, Lady Belinda.’ The peel curled in an uninterrupted ribbon over his fingers as he slowly used the knife. ‘Now, tell me, why are you such an advocate of passion for other people, but not yourself?’
‘You forget, I am a widow,’ Bel said sharply. That was far too near the knuckle.
‘I apologise for my insensitivity. Yours was a love match, I collect.’ The red peel fell complete on to his plate and formed, to her distracted gaze, a perfect heart.
‘Good heavens, no! I mean—’She glared at him. ‘You have muddled me, Lord…Reynard. Mine was a marriage much like any other, not some…’ She struggled to find the proper, dignified words.
‘Not some irrational, unconventional, injudicious—do I have your list of undesirable attributes correctly?—storm of passion, romance and love, then?’
‘Of course not. What a very unsettling state of affairs that would be, to be sure, to exist in such a turmoil of emotions.’ How wonderful, exciting, thrillingly delicious it sounds. ‘No lasting marriage could be built upon such irrational feelings.’
‘But that is the state true lovers aspire to, is it not? Your brother and his new wife, from what you say, feel these things. It is not all so alarming.’
‘And you would know?’ she enquired, curious. Surely, if there was some blighted romance in his life, he would not speak so lightly; she might safely probe in return.
‘The storms of passion? Yes, I have felt those on occasion. The more tender emotions, no, not yet.’ He quartered the apple and set down his knife, watching her slantwise. ‘Respectable matrons would warn you that I am a rake, Lady Belinda. We are immune to romance, although passion may be a familiar friend.’
‘Are you attempting to alarm me, sir?’ She had never knowingly met a rake before and she was not at all certain she had met one now; Reynard could very well be teasing her. Upon her come-out she had been strictly guarded by her mama, for the daughter of a duke was not to be left prey to the attentions of fortune hunters—or worse—for a moment. On her marriage there had been Henry to direct all her social intercourse and, as he would not dream of frequenting any place likely to attract the dissolute, or even the frivolous and fun-loving, such perilous men had not crossed her path.
‘Not at all. If I was dangerous to you, that would be a foolish tactic for me to adopt.’
‘Or perhaps a very cunning one?’ she suggested, folding her hands demurely in her lap while he cut his apple into smaller segments and ate it, each piece severed by a decisive bite.
‘Lady Belinda, I am too befuddled by last night’s excesses and too bemused by your beauty to manage such clever scheming.’
‘My beauty? Why, I do believe you are flirting with me, Reynard!’ He was. How extraordinary to be flirted with again. She could hardly remember how it had felt and certainly not how to deal with it.
Lord Dereham wiped his fingers on his napkin and dropped it beside his plate. ‘I was attempting to, I did warn you.’ Before she could respond he was on his feet, standing to pull back her chair for her. ‘That was a delicious meal, ma’am; you have heaped coals of fire on my unworthy head with your generous hospitality in the face of my outrageous invasion in the early hours. And now I will remove myself off to Horse Guards and leave you in peace.’
‘I hope your business goes well.’ Bel held out her hand. There went her adventure, her glimpse into the world of excitement, scandal and loose living. And all it had left her were some very disconcerting sensations, which she could only hope would subside once a certain tall blond gentleman removed himself from her sight. Somehow she doubted it. Somehow she knew that Lord Byron’s verse was going to be accompanied by some very vivid pictures from now on.
‘Lady Belinda.’ He shook her hand, his cool fingers not remaining for a fraction longer than was strictly proper. It was most disappointing, although doubtless the best thing, considering Hedges was hovering attentively in the background.
‘Your hat and gloves, my lord. I found them upon the chest on the landing.’
The door closed behind Reynard and Bel found herself standing in the hallway, gazing rather blankly at the back of it. The sound of Hedges clearing his throat brought to herself with a start.
‘I hope his lordship remembered to return his back-door key to you, my lady. I understand from Mrs Hedges that that was how he obtained entry last night.
‘His key? Oh, yes. Of course,’ Bel said brightly. ‘Please ask James to be ready to accompany me to Hatchard’s in fifteen minutes, Hedges, and send Philpott to my room directly.’
As she climbed the stairs, Bel realised that she had just lied to her butler without hesitation. Without, in fact, the slightest qualm. Of course Lord Dereham had not given her back the key. Had he forgotten it, as she had done up to the moment the butler asked about it, or was he deliberately keeping it? And was he really a dangerous rake, or was he just teasing her? Whatever it was that was fluttering inside her it was not fear, but it was a decidedly unsettling feeling.
Ashe walked briskly away from Lady Belinda’s front door, reached Piccadilly, raised his hand to summon a hackney carriage and then, abruptly changing his mind, strode diagonally across the crowded road and into Green Park by the Reservoir Gate.
He needed, he found, space to think—which surprised him, for he had thought he had the next few days clearly planned out in his head. Horse Guards to resign his commission, then back to the Albany to settle in comfortably. There was the town house to check out for Mama, shopping to be done to fit himself out as a civilian gentleman once again, and letters to write. He had intended to stay in London for at least a fortnight before venturing west to Hertfordshire and Coppergate, his country estate.
He had been home on leave a mere six weeks ago, shortly before the battle. His family knew he was safe, where he was and that he had business which would keep him in London for a week or so. That would give him time to get accustomed to his new circumstances, allow him to mentally rehearse the stories he was prepared to tell his family about his experiences. If he told them the truth about the great battle, they would be appalled; he needed some distance from his recent past and space to create the comfortable fictions in order to shield them.
At Coppergate he would interview his estate manager, sort out his affairs and come back to town as soon as he decently could. Ashe loved his family, had missed them while he was away, but in the country he felt purposeless, empty and restless. Why, he had no idea. He enjoyed country sports, he was deeply attached to the estate and the strange old house at the heart of it. And there was certainly plenty he could be doing there, as his steward would tactfully hint.
And now, unexpectedly, he felt the same way here. It must be the hangover. He strolled around the perimeter of the Reservoir amidst the small groups of gossiping ladies with servants patient at their heels, the nursemaids and shrieking children and the occasional elderly gentleman, chin on chest, deep in scholarly thought as he walked off his luncheon.
The fresh air finished the work of Hedges’s potion and a good lunch on his headache, but it did not cure his restlessness. Ashe struck off away from the water and headed for St James’s Park, abandoning the idea of taking a hackney. He found he was avoiding thinking about last night, about Lady Belinda and about his reaction to her. He made himself do so.
It was a relief to realise that he had behaved with at least some restraint, although the feelings of a respectable lady on finding a drunken, amorous officer in her bedchamber defied his imagination, even if he had confined his assault on her person to falling full length upon her, licking her ear and then falling asleep for hours. He grimaced at himself. Even! He had treated Lady Belinda like a lightskirt and he was fortunate she was not even now summoning an outraged brother to demand satisfaction.
The dangerous Mr Ryder was safely out of the country, and the duke was where he always was, reclusive on his northern estates. Ashe wrestled with the conundrum of whether honourable behaviour required that he write to the duke, account for himself and make assurances about his behaviour, or rest upon the lady’s remarkable forbearance. He decided, with relief, that he was under no such obligation to frankness. Nothing irretrievable had, after all, occurred.
Lady Belinda did seem to have forgiven him. Her straitlaced late husband could hardly have given her much cause to become used to gentlemen overindulging, so he supposed she must simply be a very understanding woman.
She had been embarrassed, though, he mused, kicking at daisies in the cropped grass as he walked. It was not as though she was one of those dashing widows who would greet the unexpected arrival of a man in their bedroom with opportunistic enthusiasm. Which was a good thing, he thought with a self-deprecating grin; he had been far too drunk to have performed to any lady’s satisfaction, let alone his own.
Lady Belinda had been tolerant, sensible and pragmatic, he concluded, which was more than he deserved. The thought struck him like a punch in the gut that if she had chosen to be difficult she could, very easily, put him in a position where he would have had to marry her. And marriage was absolutely not in his plans. Not for another five years or so, by which time his mother’s gentle nagging would become strident and she would cease merely hinting that Cousin Adrian would make a terrible viscount and order him to do something about the succession before his thirty-sixth birthday dawned.
He had almost succeeded in coaxing Lady Belinda into flirting, which had been agreeable. Ashe began to feel better. Flirting with pretty women was a cliché for the returning warrior, but it was certainly a good way to keep your mind off blood, death and destruction. Ashe returned the sentry’s salute and ran up the steps into Horse Guards. Perhaps civilian life in London, even out of Season, would not be so bad after all.
Chapter Four
Bel too, was contemplating her sojourn in London with rather more attention than she had previously given it. She had moved simply to assert to herself and her in-laws that she was an independent woman about to start a new life. Her lovely little house was a gem, she was enjoying the walks and the shopping and now she began to wonder if perhaps there was not some social life she could comfortably indulge in.
The fact that the extremely attractive Lord Dereham might form part of that social life was undeniably an incentive. Bel found she was gazing sightlessly at a row of the very latest sensation novels, plucked a volume off the shelf at random and went to sit in one of the velvet chairs Hatchard’s thoughtfully provided for their browsing customers.
In place of her vague, innocent and completely uninformed dreams of a lover, of passion and excitement, her night-time visitor had presented her with a flesh-and-blood model of perfection. And some valuable, if highly disturbing, practical information about the male animal. Daydreaming about Ashe Reynard would doubtless be frustrating but…delicious. She flicked over the pages and read at random.
Alfonso, tell me I am yours, do not betray me to the dark evil of my uncle’s plans! Amarantia pleaded, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her lover strained her to his breast, his heart beating in tumultuous acknowledgement of her…
Bel gave a little shiver of anticipation and forced herself to consider the realities. She might see Reynard again. He might flirt with her. She might learn to flirt in return. That was, of course, as far as it could go. Actually taking a lover was a fantasy, for she would never dare to go any further than mild flirtation and he showed no sign of wanting to do so, in any case. Why should he? London was full of sprightly and sophisticated feminine company and Lord Dereham no doubt knew exactly where to find it.
No, it was just a game for her to play in the sleepless night hours. A fantasy. Lord Dereham was never again going to strain her to his breast, his heart beating hard against hers as it had last night. She sighed.
‘Belinda!’
Bel gave a guilty start and dropped her book. The spine bent alarmingly. She would have to buy it now. ‘Aunt Louisa!’ Lady James Ravenhurst was fixing her with a disapproving stare over the top of the lorgnette she was holding up. ‘And Cousin Elinor. How delightful to see you both.’ She got to her feet, feeling like a gawky schoolgirl as Elinor retrieved the novel from the floor.
‘The Venetian Tower,’ she read from the spine. ‘Is that a work of architecture, Cousin Belinda?’
‘Er…no.’ Bel almost snatched it back. ‘Just a novel I was wondering about buying.’ Aunt Louisa seemed about to deliver a diatribe on the evils of novel reading. Bel hurried on, knowing she was prattling. ‘I had no idea you were both in London.’
‘As The Corsican Monster chose to escape from Elba at precisely the moment I had intended leaving on a study tour of French Romanesque cathedrals, my plans for the entire year have been thrown into disarray,’ her aunt replied irritably. Her expression indicated that Bonaparte must add upsetting her travel arrangements to the list of his deliberate infamies. ‘I had plans for a book on the subject.’
‘Romanesque? Indeed?’ What on earth did that mean? Surely nothing to do with the Romans? They did not build cathedrals. Or did they? Aunt Louisa was a fearsome bluestocking and her turn for scholarship had become an obsession after the death of Lord James ten years previously. ‘How fascinating,’ Bel added hastily and untruthfully. ‘And you are in town to buy gowns?’ After one glance at Cousin Elinor’s drab grey excuse for a walking dress, that was the only possible explanation.
‘Gowns? Certainly not.’ Lady James trained her eyeglass on the surrounding shelves. ‘I am here to buy books. Our expedition will have to be postponed until next year, so I will continue my researches here. Elinor, find where they have moved the architecture volumes to. I cannot comprehend why they keep moving sections around, so inconsiderate. You have the list?’
‘Yes, Mama,’ Elinor responded colourlessly. ‘Britton’s Cathedral Antiquities of England in five parts and Parkyns’s Monastic and Baronial Remains. Two volumes.’ She drifted off, clutching her notebook. Bel frowned after her. She could never quite fathom her cousin. Elinor, drab and always at the beck and call of her mother, was only two years younger than Bel. At twenty-four she was firmly on the shelf and certain to remain there, yet she neither seemed exactly resigned to this fate, nor distressed by it. She simply appeared detached. What was going on behind those meekly lowered eyes and obedient murmurs? Bel wondered.
‘Belinda.’
‘Yes, Aunt Louisa?’ Bel reminded herself that she was a grown-up woman, a widow who was independent of her family, and she had no need to react to her formidable relative as she had when she was a shy girl at her come-out. It did not help much, especially when one had a guilty conscience.
‘I hear you have purchased a London house of your own. What is wrong with Cambourn House, might I ask?’
What business it was of hers Bel could not say, but she schooled her expression to a pleasant smile. ‘Why, Lord Felsham has it now.’
‘I trust your late husband’s cousin does not forbid you the use of it!’ Lady James clutched her furled parasol aggressively.
‘Certainly not, Aunt. I just do not choose to be beholden to him by asking to borrow it.’ The new Lord Felsham was a pleasant enough nonentity, but his wife was a sharp-tongued shrew and the less Bel had to do with them, the happier she was.
‘Then you have engaged a respectable companion, I trust?’
Bel moved further back towards the theology section, away from any interested ears browsing amidst the novels. ‘I have a mature dresser and a most respectable married couple managing the house.’ And what would you have said if you could have seen me last night, I wonder? The thought of the formidable Lady James beating a drunken Lord Dereham over the head with her parasol while he lay slumped on the scantily clad body of her niece almost provoked Bel into an unseemly fit of the giggles. She had the sudden wish that she could share the image with Reynard. He would laugh, those startling eyes creasing with amusement. His laugh, she just knew, would be deep and rich and wholehearted. ‘I am very well looked after, Aunt, I assure you.’
Elinor drifted back, an elderly shop assistant with his arms full of octavo volumes at her heels. ‘I have them all, Mama. I do like that gown, Cousin Belinda. Such a pretty colour.’
‘Thank you. I must say, I am rather pleased with it myself; it is from Mrs Bell in Charlotte Street. Have you visited her?’
Lady James ran a disapproving eye over the leaf-green skirts and the deep brown pelisse with golden brown frogging. ‘A most impractical colour, in my opinion. Well, get along, man, and have those wrapped, I do not have all day! Come, Elinor. And you, Niece—you find yourself some respectable chaperonage, and quickly. Such independence from so young a gel! I do not know what the world is coming to.’
‘Good afternoon, Aunt,’ Bel said to her retreating back, exchanging a fleeting smile with her cousin as she hurried in the wake of her mother. Lord! She did hope that Aunt Louisa retained her fixed distaste for social occasions and did not decide it was her duty to supervise her widowed niece’s visits now that she was in London.
The afternoon post had brought another flurry of invitation cards. It seemed, Bel mused, as she spread them out on her desk, that she was not the only person remaining in London well into July this year. Perhaps the attraction of the officers returning from the Continent had something to do with it.
She took out her appointments book, turning the pages that had remained virtually pristine for the past eighteen months, and studied the invitations that had arrived in the past few days. Her return to town after the Maubourg wedding had been mentioned in the society pages of several journals and it seemed her acquaintances had not forgotten her now her mourning period was over.
Lady Lacey was holding an evening reception in two days’ time. That would be a good place to start. No dancing to worry about, familiar faces, the chance to catch up on the gossip. Bel lifted her pen, drew her new-headed paper towards her and began to write.
‘Belinda, my dear! Welcome back to London.’ Lucinda Lacey enveloped Bel in a warm hug, a rustle of silken frills and a waft of chypre perfume. ‘We have so missed you.’
‘I have missed you too.’ Lucinda had not written, not after the first formal note of condolence, but then Bel had not expected her to. Lady Lacey’s world was one of personal contact, of whispered gossip and endless parties and diversions. She would not have forgotten Bel exactly, but she would never have the patience for regular correspondence with someone who could not provide titillating news in return.
‘All your old acquaintances are here.’ Lucinda wafted her fan in the general direction of the noise swelling from the reception rooms. ‘We will talk later, there is so much to catch up upon.’
As her hostess turned her attention to the next arrivals, Bel took a steadying breath and walked into the party. At least her new jonquil-silk gown was acceptable, she congratulated herself, sending a quick, assessing, look around the room. The bodice was cut in a V front and back and the hem had a double row of white ruffles connected to the high waist by the thinnest gold ribbon. The length, just grazing her ankle bones, and the detail of the bodice and sleeves were exactly in the mode. It seemed strange to be wearing pale colours again after so many months.
She glanced down at the three deep yellow rosebuds she had tucked into the neckline. They had come from the bouquet of roses that had arrived the day after her encounter with Ashe Reynard, accompanied by a very proper note of thanks and apology. Bel had tucked the note into her appointments book, marking the day they had met. It was an absurdly romantic thing to do—just as absurd as her new habit of flicking back through the pages to look at it.
‘Belinda!’ The descent of three of her old acquaintances, fans fluttering, ribbons streaming, drove all thoughts of Lord Dereham from her mind. Therese Roper, Therese’s cheerfully plump cousin Lady Bradford and Maria Wilson, a golden-haired widow with a sprightly air.
‘Come and sit with us,’ Therese commanded, issuing the familiar invitation to join the circle of bright-eyed ladies as they gossiped, criticised and admired the other guests. This was the forum that had convinced Bel that her husband’s attentions in the bedroom fell far short of the bliss to be expected. She wondered what they would say if they knew their sheltered friend had been severely tempted by an intimate encounter with a handsome man on her bedchamber hearthrug and wished she could trust any of them enough to talk about it.
‘Now that is a truly lovely gown,’ Annabelle Bradford declared as they settled themselves on a group of chairs. ‘I swear I am green with envy—divulge the modiste this instant!’
Obligingly Bel explained where she had purchased the gown, submitted to a close interrogation about the total lack of excitement in her rural retreat, agreed that Lady Franleigh’s new crop was a disaster on a woman with a nose of such prominence and exclaimed with indignation at the revelation that Therese’s husband had taken up with a new mistress only a month after promising to reform his habits and become a model of domestic rectitude.
‘What will you do?’ Bel was shocked and intrigued. Imagine Henry carrying on like that! It would have been unthinkable. Therese sounded far more annoyed than upset by the current state of affairs, but then she had had six years to become accustomed to Mr Roper’s tomcat tendencies.
‘I shall abandon my own resolution to be faithful, for a start.’ Her friend lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. ‘I have not yet decided who the lucky man is to be, for I am greatly tempted by two gentlemen, either of whom would be perfect. Let me tell you—oh, my—’She broke off, raising her gilt quizzing glass to her eye. ‘My dears, just when I thought I had passed all the available gentlemen under review, yet another gorgeous creature arrives to distract me!’
‘Where?’ They turned like a small flock of birds, following the direction of Mrs Roper’s interested gaze.
‘Oh, my, indeed,’ Mrs Wilson exclaimed. ‘Now that is what I call a very handsome man. A positive Adonis. Where has he sprung from, I wonder?’
Elegant in corbeau-blue superfine, his legs appearing to go on for ever in tight black evening breeches and with the crisp white of immaculate linen reflecting light on his chiselled jaw, Lord Dereham strolled negligently into the room, deep in conversation with a man in scarlet regimentals. There was a collective sigh from the ladies, masking Bel’s little gasp of alarm.
It was one thing daydreaming about meeting Ashe Reynard again, it was quite another to come across him in the company of three hawk-eyed ladies bent on either flirting with him, seducing him or observing who did.
‘It is Dereham,’ Lady Bradford decided after a minute scrutiny. ‘I thought he was an attractive man last time I saw him, but a few years in the army have definitely added a certain something.’
Muscles like an athlete, an air of quiet authority that make goose bumps run up and down my spine and a gaze that seems to be scanning the far horizon, that is most definitely ‘a certain something’, Bel thought ruefully, wondering if she could find an excuse and slip out now, before he saw her.
Too late. The officer he was speaking to clapped him on the shoulder and strode off, leaving Reynard in the centre of the room. He turned slowly, scanning it, and Bel made a rapid decision.
‘It is Lord Dereham’s house in Half Moon Street that I have purchased,’ she confided, apparently intent upon the twisted cord of her reticule. ‘He called the other day. A very pleasant man, I thought.’
‘Pleasant! Is that the best you can find to say about him?’ Therese stared at her. ‘Is there something wrong with your eyesight, Belinda?’
Bel wrinkled her nose in disdain, searching for something to explain her faint praise. ‘I find that blond hair rather obvious.’ The others regarded her as though she had remarked that she was about to become a nun, then turned their collective gaze back on his lordship who was, Bel saw with a sinking heart, making his way over to her.
Sinking heart and racing pulse and fluttering insides would be more accurate, she realised, despairingly cataloguing her physical reaction to Reynard’s approach even as she fought to attain some mental coherence.
‘Lady Belinda, Lady Bradford, Mrs Roper, Mrs Wilson.’ His bow was a masterpiece of graceful restraint. The ladies were bowing and simpering, returning the courtesy with a chorus of murmured greetings. He had scrupulously addressed them in order of precedence, Bel realised, getting her alarm that he had spoken her name first under control. There would be nothing there for the others to pounce and speculate upon.
Then his eyes fell on the rosebuds at her bosom and she saw a gleam come into them. What was it? Had he recognised the flowers he had sent? Perhaps he had just ordered his butler to see to a suitable bouquet and had no idea what had been delivered. His lips parted as though to speak.
‘I must thank you again for calling the other day,’ she said, cutting across Mrs Wilson who had begun to remark on how unexpectedly crowded London was.
Reynard’s eyebrows started to lift and she hurried on. ‘I was so grateful for someone to explain the idiosyncrasies of the plumbing on the first floor. Your agent seemed completely baffled.’ Around her she could sense the amusement of her sophisticated acquaintances. Poor little Belinda, she has this gorgeous man in the house and all he has come about is the plumbing!
‘It was my pleasure.’ His eyebrows had returned to their normal level, but the gleam—the wicked gleam—was more intense as his voice slurred slightly over pleasure. Something wicked in her flickered into being in response and she could tell he had recognised it in her eyes. ‘After all, the shower bath in the dressing room was put in at my insistence, but I fear the plumber had never come across such a thing before and it still works only intermittently.’
There was a flutter of interest. A shower bath was so novel, and the act of discussing bathing with a man so risqué, that the ladies fell to exclaiming and laughing. Reynard stooped to pick up the handkerchief that had fallen from her reticule and murmured, ‘Clever.’
‘You too,’ Bel murmured back.
‘A good team.’ He pressed the scrap of lace-trimmed nonsense into her gloved hand, his fingers closing for a moment around hers, then his attention was back on the others. ‘You were saying that London is very full of society, Mrs Wilson?’
‘Quite amazingly so for July, do you not agree?’ She batted her eyelashes at him. ‘I think it is because all you wonderfully brave officers are coming back home and everyone wants to meet you.’
There it was again, that shutter descending, closing down the animation in Reynard’s startling blue eyes. ‘And all the wonderfully brave men as well,’ Bel said abruptly, remembering something she had read in the newssheet only the other day about the wounded men still straggling back from Belgium. ‘But they are not receiving so much positive attention, are they? After all, scars and missing limbs are not so glamorous shielded only by homespuns as they are beneath a scarlet dress coat.’
There was a collective gasp, but Reynard turned to her, a smile lurking behind his grave countenance. ‘Indeed, that is very true, Lady Belinda. But doubtless society ladies are already rallying to form charitable organisations to help the men and their families, and urging their husbands to find them work.’
‘One can only hope so,’ she responded seriously.
‘If you will excuse me, ladies? I am promised to Lord Telford for a hand of cards.’ Reynard bowed again and left them to turn on Bel in a flurry of indignation.
‘How could you drive him away like that? Honestly, Belinda, the most handsome man in the room comes to talk to us and you start prosing on about plumbing and amputations!’ Annabelle Bradford scolded.
Bel schooled her face to meekness. ‘I am sorry, I did not think.’ Reynard did not want to speak about his experiences, and she was not going to let these featherbrained women torment him with them, not if she could help it. A good team. The words warmed her inside, adding to the strange hollow feeling that she was beginning to recognise as anticipation and the low, pulsing ache that she supposed was desire.
She turned her face resolutely to the opposite end of the room from where the card room door was. ‘Tell me all about the other attractive men you wicked things have in your sights.’ There could not have been a better choice of subject to distract them. In a ruffle of gorgeous plumage the group settled down in their chairs again.
‘Well,’ Therese began conspiratorially, ‘have you met Lord Betteridge? Just back from the Congress, and I swear…’
