Kitabı oku: «Regency Pleasures»

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REGENCY PLEASURES

Louise Allen

REGENCY SECRETS

Julia Justiss

REGENCY RUMOURS

Juliet Landon

REGENCY REDEMPTION

Christine Merrill

REGENCY PROTECTORS

Margaret McPhee

REGENCY IMPROPRIETIES

Diane Gaston

REGENCY MISTRESSES

Mary Brendan

REGENCY REBELS

Deb Marlowe

REGENCY SCANDALS

Sophia James

REGENCY MARRIAGES

Elizabeth Rolls

REGENCY INNOCENTS

Annie Burrows

REGENCY SINS

Bronwyn Scott

About the Author

LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise divides her time between Bedfordshire and the north Norfolk coast, where she spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating. With any excuse she’ll take a research trip abroad—Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website—www.louiseallenregency.co.uk—for the latest news!

REGENCY

Pleasures

Louise Allen

A Model Débutante

The Marriage Debt

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A Model Débutante

Louise Allen

To the Fufflers

For all the support and laughter

Chapter One

February 1816

Miss Talitha Grey shivered delicately and risked a glance downwards. A single length of sheer white linen draped across her shoulder and fell to the floor at front and back: beneath it her naked skin had a faintly blue tinge. Tallie strongly suspected that it was marred by goose bumps.

With a resigned sigh she flexed her fingers on the gilded bow in her left hand and fixed her gaze once again on the screen of moth-eaten blue brocade that was doing duty for the skies of Classical Greece. Perhaps if she thought hard enough about it she could imagine that she was bathed in the heat of that ancient sun, her skin caressed by the lightest of warm zephyrs and not by the whistling draughts that entered the attic studio by every door and ill-fitting window frame.

Tallie exerted her vivid imagination and summoned up the distant sound of shepherds’ pan pipes floating over olive groves to drown out the noise of arguing carters from Panton Square far below. She was con centrating on conjuring up the scent of wood smoke and pine woods to counteract the distressing smells of poor drainage and coal fires when a voice behind her said peevishly, ‘Miss Grey! You have moved!’

Taking care to hold her pose and not turn her head Tallie said, ‘I assure you I have not, Mr Harland.’

‘Something has changed,’ the speaker asserted. Tallie could hear the creak of the wooden platform on which Mr Frederick Harland had perched himself to reach the top of the vast canvas. On it he was depicting an epic scene of ancient Greece with the figure of the goddess Diana in the foreground, her back turned to the onlooker, her gaze sweeping the wooded hillsides and distant temples until it reached the wine-dark Aegean sea.

There was more creaking, the muttering that was the normal counterpart to Mr Harland’s mental processes and then the floorboards protested as he walked towards her. ‘Your skin colour has changed,’ he announced with a faint air of accusation.

‘I am cold,’ Tallie responded placatingly without turning her head. Frederick Harland, she had discovered, took no more and no less interest in her naked form than he did in the colour, form and texture of a bowl of fruit, an antique urn or a length of drapery. When in the grip of his muse he was vague, inconsiderate and sometimes testy, but he was also kindly, paid her very well and was reassuringly safe to be alone with—whatever her state of undress.

‘Cold? Has the fire gone out?’

‘I believe it has not been lit today, Mr Harland.’ Tallie wished she had thought to insist on a taper being set to the fire before they had started the session, but her mind had been on other things and it was not until the pose had been set and the artist had clambered up onto his scaffold that she realised that the lofty attic room was almost as chill as the February streets outside.

‘Oh. Hmm. Well, another ten minutes and then we will stop.’ The boards groaned again as he walked back to the canvas. ‘In any case, I need more of that red for the skin tones, and the azure for the sky. The cost of lapis is extortionate …’

Tallie stopped listening as he grumbled on, his words indistinguishable. A slightly worried frown creased her brow as she resumed her own thoughts. At least in this pose she did not have to guard her expression, for she was standing with only a hint of her right profile visible from behind, her long, slightly waving, blonde hair falling free to midway down her back.

Her feet were bare. A fine filet of gold cord circled her brow, its trailing ends forming a darker accent in her hair, and the linen drapery revealed her left side, the curve of her hip, the swell of her buttock and the length of her leg. All of which normally delightful features were now unmistakeably disfigured by a rash of goose bumps.

Still, at half a guinea a sitting she could hardly complain, for Tallie had no option but to make her own living and the guineas from Mr Harland paid the rent. The fact that she was engaged in an occupation that was entirely beyond the pale for any lady, and which would be regarded by almost every right-thinking person as scarce better than prostitution, did not concern her.

She entirely trusted Mr Harland’s intentions towards her, for it was not even that he was making himself behave in an entirely proper manner. No, she knew he was entirely uninterested in not only her but, apparently, all females. She had heard that some men preferred their own sex, but this did not appear to be the case either. It seemed that his mind was filled with a single-minded obsession for his art and it allowed no room for any other strong feeling.

The second ground for Tallie’s lack of concern about her employment was that she was well aware that no work of Mr Harland’s in which she featured was ever likely to grace the walls of an exhibition. It was not that his obsession for the classical ran counter to the modern taste, as the excitement at the news that the Elgin Marbles were to be exhibited showed. No, it was simply that his canvases were too vast and his perfectionism too obsessive to allow him ever to finish one, let alone submit it to critical judgement.

The Diana picture was the fourth in which Tallie had featured: each had reached a stage of near completion when the artist had flung his brushes from him with a cry of despair at ever realising his inner vision. They were stacked away now and from time to time he would attack one of them again for a day or two, then give up in frustration.

It was fortunate, both for the artist and for Tallie, that he was not only the possessor of a modest inheritance, but also had a flourishing and lucrative business in portraiture, an occupation he despised as mere craftsmanship. On three days a week he indulged his classical passion. For the rest of the time he painted Society portraits in the rather more salubrious studio on the first floor of the ramshackle house. It was a tribute to his work that the ton were prepared to make the journey to the shabby house in the decidedly unfashionable street just off Leicester Square to have their likenesses taken.

Tallie was mentally casting her accounts in an effort to decide whether she could see the winter out without replacing her hair-brown walking dress and pelisse or whether her other, publicly acknowledged, occupation required her to make an investment in a new outfit.

This financial review was more than enough to account for the crease between her brows, but the frown vanished to be replaced with an expression of real anxiety at the sound of the knocker thudding four floors below, soon followed by the sound of a number of male voices echoing up the uncarpeted stairwell.

With an exclamation of impatience at the interruption, Mr Harland cast down his palette with a clatter and, clambering down from his post, flung open the attic door.

Tallie ran to his side and out onto the tiny bare landing, clutching her flimsy draperies around her. Clearly up the stairway from below she could hear the voice of Peter, Mr Harland’s colourman. Peter inhabited the ground-floor rooms with his pots and jars, his bags of pigments and flasks of oils and there magically ground vivid colours out of strange materials.

‘Mr Harland doesn’t receive clients on Wednesdays, gentlemen. Tuesdays and Thursdays are his days. You can’t go up there now, sir!’

‘Dammit, I wrote to say I would call to arrange my aunt’s portrait and I have no intention of trailing back another day at Harland’s convenience.’ The drawling voice was arrogantly dismissive of the colourman’s protests. ‘Are you saying he is not here?’

‘Yes, sir, I mean, no, sir, he is here, but he—’

‘Perhaps he is with someone?’ It was a new voice, carrying easily up to Tallie far above. A coolly sardonic, rather bored voice that made the previous speaker sound affectedly high-handed.

‘The man has just said that Harland does not have clients on a Wednesday, Nick. Step out of my way, fellow, I have no intention of standing here bandying words with you all afternoon.’

‘But the master’s working with a model, sir! You can’t go up there!’ From the rising note of Peter’s voice, the speaker had pushed past him and was already on the stairs.

‘What? A female model? Now that is more the thing! Come on, you fellows, this should be good sport.’ The voice had lost its drawling arrogance and held a note of excitement that made Tallie’s chilled skin crawl. They were coming up, and it appeared that there were several men in the group.

Tallie had disrobed in a room on the floor below, having learned from experience of the effect that the dusty attic had on her small wardrobe, and her only covering was the fragile length of linen. She cast round wildly, her heart thudding. The attics, although essentially one large open space, rambled around corners made by the construction of racks of canvases and piles of dusty props, and in one corner, shielded by the largest rack, there was a large cupboard with a door to it.

‘I will hide in the closet,’ she said urgently to the artist, who was exclaiming in irritation at the interruption. ‘Whatever you do, Mr Harland, do not let them know I am here or I will be quite ruined.’

He nodded distractedly. ‘Yes, yes, into the closet with you. I wonder if any of the gentlemen would care to buy an historical canvas?’

Tallie did not stop to argue, but ran on bare feet across the splintery boards. She whisked round the corner of the racking as the voices outside neared the attic and jerked open the cupboard door. The key that had been on the outside clattered to the floor.

Tallie scrabbled for it, but it was nowhere to be seen. With a sob of frustration she abandoned the search and pulled the door to behind her. The closet was lit by a tiny window, begrimed with dirt and cobwebs, but sufficient for her to see that the space contained nothing in which she might cover herself and nothing to wedge the door with. Not, she realised despairingly, that wedging it would have done any good for it opened outwards.

The men had reached the attic now. Through the warped boards that framed the closet she could hear at least four voices. The arrogant man and the sardonic man she recognised from their voices far below; their companions had equally well-bred tones and in them she could recognise a kind of febrile excitement at the thought of what they were going to find in the studio.

Tallie felt quite ill with apprehension and scrabbled to pull her linen draperies around herself in some gesture towards a decent covering. Her fingers closed on air and chilled skin. The length of fabric had gone. Wildly she cast around the little closet as though three yards of white cloth could be hiding in an empty space, then she recalled the slight tug at her shoulder as she had hastened around the racking.

Harland’s voice was clearly audible as she stood there, shivering with cold and fear, her ear pressed against the door panels. He sounded flustered. ‘Gentlemen, as you can see, I am alone, but really not in a fit state to receive. However, now you are here, what can I do for you, Mr Hemsley? Something about a portrait of your aunt, I believe you wrote?’

‘Alone?’ The owner of the arrogant voice—Mr Hemsley, she deduced—appeared to take no notice of the artist’s question. ‘Your man said you had a model up here.’

‘He is mistaken. I was working from the nude earlier, but—’

‘Nude, I’ll say! See here, you fellows!’ This voice was younger, excited.

‘Take care, my lord! That platform is not very stable!’ So, one of them had climbed up to the canvas.

‘Bloody hell.’ It was Hemsley, his voice strangely flat with what even Tallie in her innocence could recognise as lust. Then the excitement came back to his tone. ‘I’ll bet she’s still here, Harland, you dog. Come on, men, yoicks and tally-ho!’

‘For heaven’s sake, Hemsley.’ The sardonic man sounded utterly uninterested. ‘How much longer do you intend hanging around in this squalid attic? Oh, very well, if nothing will satisfy you but to search, let us search. I will look over here, you and the others take the rest. Doubtless we will discover some large spiders, a dead starling or two and any number of mice.’

The voice was getting closer as he spoke. Tallie thought wildly of seizing the door handle and holding on if he tried to open it, but the possibility of being dragged out into the open in such an undignified way only added to the horror. The approaching footsteps halted. From the far side of the attic there was the sound of boisterous searching, excited cries and the occasional ‘Do be careful of those canvases, gentlemen!’ from the agitated artist.

The footsteps resumed, rounded the corner of the racking if her straining ears were correct, and stopped outside the closet. Tallie turned her back on the door, moved as far away from it as she could and, wrapping her arms around her shrinking body, awaited the worst.

Her hair fell on either side of her bowed head giving her the fragile illusion of shelter and anonymity. But even that vanished as the door creaked open, sending light from the studio flooding into the small space. It defeated the glimmer from the closet window and spilt the shadow of a man across the floor beside Tallie’s feet.

He did not move. Tallie could hear his breathing, steady and even, but she had also heard the sudden catch in it when he had first seen her. He was under control again now, standing there silently watching her. She could not drag her eyes away from the long shadow.

The unseen regard felt as though it was burning into her back. Tallie was well aware of just what he was seeing and a wave of scalding humiliation washed up her body. She was going to be sick, she knew it.

Oh, get it over with! she screamed silently. How can you torture me like this? At any moment he was going to call out and the whole pack of them would be there, leering, touching, jeering. Like an animal at bay she turned in upon herself, her mind too frozen with terror and shame to allow her coherent thought.

The shadow at her feet shifted. The man moved and something touched her shoulders lightly. It was a hand resting warm on the shrinking skin. The soft whisper of cloth brushed down her back and over her buttocks. Tallie choked on a scream and his voice—very soft, quite dispassionate—said, ‘Here, your wrap was caught on a nail. Be very quiet and everything will be all right, I promise you.’

I promise you. She believed him. The hand was lifted, but she realised he was standing very close just behind her, close enough to whisper in her ear without the sound penetrating outside, close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath. There was the sound of a long indrawn breath and Tallie had the strange sense that he was inhaling the scent of her. When he spoke again there was an edge to the controlled voice, the merest hint that he was finding her proximity unsettling.

‘I am putting the key in the lock on the inside; as soon as I am gone, turn it.’ No, she was imagining it: he sounded practical, aloof, unaffected by the sight of the naked girl shivering before him at his mercy.

The door shut, cutting off the bright light. He had gone, leaving the tiny space feeling vast and empty. Over the sound of her own pounding heart she had not heard him move. The voices of the other hunters sounded suddenly loud outside. ‘What are you about, Nick? Run her to earth, have you?’

‘That closet is locked.’ He seemed to be speaking rather louder than necessary and Tallie, wrenching herself out of her frozen state with an effort, twisted the key in the lock, the sharp click masked by the noise outside. ‘The key was outside,’ the man Nick said.

Oh, clever, Tallie thought as her legs gave way under her and she sank slowly down the wall until she was huddled on the floor. The closet is locked and the key was outside, so it couldn’t have been locked from the inside. All perfectly truthful and all perfectly deceiving.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, will you not come down to the first floor, where you will be more comfortable, and we can discuss the question of Lady Agatha’s portrait, Mr Hemsley.’ The voices, the excitement dying out of them now their hunt had ended in disappointment, receded down the stairs as the men followed Mr Harland.

Tallie stayed huddled on the floor until her breathing settled a little and the wave of nausea subsided. Then she realised that she was so cold that she could hardly move. With agonising slowness, like an old woman recovering from a fall, she clawed her way up the wall until she was on her feet again. The sharp noise of the key in the lock as she turned it made her jump, but with ears straining she pushed the door open and tiptoed out into the cold attic. Far below she could just make out voices. Mr Harland had them all safely in his first-floor studio, thank goodness, probably offering them the good Madeira he kept for clients.

Tallie crept down the stairs to the next floor and into the near-empty bedchamber that she used to change in. The water in the basin on the washstand was icy as she rinsed her dusty fingers, but the blessed security of her clothing as she pulled it on warmed her from the inside, even though the old wool dress was chill from the room. The scent of the jasmine water she habitually wore touched her nostrils. In the absence of her body heat it was a faint ghost of an aroma.

Her hair snagged and tugged as she pulled the comb through it, but she had to braid it tightly and pin it up so that her hat covered the pale blonde shimmer of it modestly. To an onlooker familiar with the detail of ladies’ fashions, the bonnet that she set on her now-subdued hair would have seemed surprisingly elegant in contrast to the shabby gown and pelisse. The straw was the finest pale Luton plait and the trimming, although modest enough, was of elegantly pleated grosgrain ribbon.

Safely and respectably dressed at last, Tallie ventured out onto the landing and peered over the rail. In the hall beneath she could see the tops of the hats of four gentlemen, a variety of well-tailored shoulders and the bare heads of Mr Harland and Peter, who had poked his dishevelled grey head out of his workshop door as the visitors left.

The last man paused and Tallie could hear his voice clearly. It was the sardonic tones of the man the others had called Nick, the man who had found and protected her hiding place. ‘Good day, Mr Harland. I trust we have not caused any of your household too much disturbance.’ The cool voice did not sound as though it was overly concerned, but Tallie was left with a strong impression of a gentleman who regarded his companions’ behaviour with fastidious distaste.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, unheard. She felt she had been rescued by him as surely as though he had plucked her from a burning building.

But he had not been unaffected, she knew. This man was no Frederick Harland, impervious to the female form. The sudden, soft sound of that intaken breath when he had opened the closet door and seen her, the very control of his stillness, told her that. The sensation that he was inhaling the scent of her body was a disturbingly sensual memory that shivered through her.

Her mind probed the hideous scene that would have followed if one of his companions had been there and instead decided that it was simply too horrible to think about yet. She needed to be safe at home with a hot cup of tea, a warm fire and some reassuring feminine companionship.

Frederick Harland came up the stairs, a look of surprise on his face when he saw Tallie standing there fully clothed. ‘Are you going already, Miss Grey?’

Tallie knew him far too well to be surprised that he appeared to have already forgotten the peril she had been in. ‘The light is going, Mr Harland,’ she said simply. He gave an exclamation of irritation and continued up the stairs to the attic studio. With a sigh Tallie followed him. ‘Did the gentleman have an interesting commission for you?’ She needed her money for the day’s sitting; although he never prevaricated when asked, or quibbled about how much she told him he owed her, the artist seemed to vaguely suppose money was of as little interest to her as it was to him and always had to be reminded.

‘Hardly that. A Society dowager, Lady Agatha Mornington. Her nephew Mr Hemsley is paying for it. He doubtless sees it as an investment,’ Mr Harland added suddenly, showing a surprising awareness of those around him.

‘How so?’ Tallie asked, pulling on her gloves. Mr Harland’s portraits were hardly dagger cheap.

‘He is none too plump in the pocket and I have heard from reliable sources that he has taken out a post-obit loan on his aunt’s life. He is no doubt investing in a portrait because he needs to keep her sweet so she does not change her will.’ He noticed Tallie was holding her purse and the discussion about money jogged his memory. ‘And how much do I owe you, Miss Grey?’

‘Two guineas, please, sir. Today, and three days last week, if you recall.’ She took the coins with a smile and thanks. ‘Do you think Lady Agatha knows he has a post-obit on her? Would she not be upset to think he was borrowing against her death?’

‘She would cut him out, I should think,’ the artist replied, beginning to scrape down his palette with a frown of concentration. ‘He is a wild rake, that one. He’ll end up having to rusticate to escape his debtors if he doesn’t have some luck soon.’

‘How dreadful that anyone could regard the death of a relative as good fortune,’ Tallie observed, thinking that any relation, even a formidable dowager, would be pleasant to have in one’s life. ‘Who were the other gentlemen?’

‘Um? Pass me that rag, would you be so kind? Oh, Lord Harperley and young Lord Parry.’ Tallie bit back a gasp. She knew Lord Parry’s mother and it was even possible that his lordship would also recognise her, for he had seen her once or twice. She swallowed and made herself concentrate on Mr Harland as he continued. ‘I did not recognise the quiet gentleman. He may have been abroad, he had a slight tan.’ Tallie smiled inwardly—trust Mr Harland to notice skin tone and colour. ‘Striking-looking man,’ he added dispassionately. ‘I wonder if he would sit as Alexander.’

Tallie said her goodbyes and slipped downstairs, leaving Mr Harland musing aloud on his chances of enticing a member of the ton to model for him naked and brandishing a sword. As she stepped out onto the narrow street she found that she too was musing on that image and was finding it alarmingly disturbing. Home and tea for you, Talitha, she reproved herself. And time for some quiet reflection on a narrow escape.

Chapter Two

The walk back to Upper Wimpole Street where Tallie lodged was not inconsiderable, but even with two guineas in her purse she was not tempted to take a hackney carriage. As she walked briskly through the gathering gloom of a late February afternoon she tried to put the frightening events of the afternoon out of her mind by contemplating her finances. She only succeeded in making herself feel even lower than before.

Talitha Grey and her mother had found themselves having to eke out a life of shabby gentility when her father died suddenly five years previously. James Grey had left them with no assets other than some shady investments, which proved to be worth less than the paper they were printed upon, and a number of alarming debts. With Mrs Grey’s small annuity and Tallie’s one hundred pounds a year they managed, although Tallie’s modest come-out was perforce abandoned and her mother sank rapidly into a melancholy decline.

When she followed her husband to the grave three years later, Tallie discovered that the annuity vanished with her mother’s death and she was faced with the very limited options open to a well-bred young woman with little money and neither friends nor connections.

A respectable marriage was out of the question without dowry or sponsor. The choice appeared to be between hiring herself out as a lady’s companion or as a governess. Neither appealed: something behind Tallie’s calm, reserved countenance revolted at the thought of any more time spent entirely at another’s beck and call, cut off from all independence of action or thought. She had loved her mother and had never grudged the fact that her entire life since her father’s death had been devoted to her, but she had no intention of seeing the rest of that life disappear in the same way in the service of those to whom she had no ties of blood or affection.

Tallie had reviewed her talents once again with a rather more open mind. All that it seemed that she possessed was a certain aptitude with her fingers and good taste in the matter of style. Donning her last good gown, she had sallied out and had called upon every fashionable milliner that she could find in the Directory.

The famous Madame Phanie dismissed her out of hand, as did several others. It seemed that impoverished gentlewomen were two a penny and could be depended upon to give themselves airs from which their humbler sisters were mercifully free. But just when Tallie was about to give up, she found Madame d’Aunay’s exquisite shop in Piccadilly, not four doors from Hardin, Howell and Company, the drapers.

Madame was graciously pleased to interview Miss Grey and even more gracious when she had a chance to view Miss Grey’s work. Tallie joined the hardworking team in the back room. But one day, having heard a paean of praise of a particularly fetching Villager bonnet that Tallie had produced entirely by herself, Madame was moved to call her out of the workroom to discuss with the customer the minor changes to the trimmings that were required.

Word spread that Madame d’Aunay’s establishment boasted a young lady of charming manners and gentility who was an absolute magician with a hat, especially one to flatter a lady on the shady side of forty. Soon Tallie had her own clientele. Madame charged a handsome supplement to send Miss Grey into private homes for personal fittings, and, as Madame, once Mary Wilkinson of All Hallows, was a sensible woman, she paid Tallie a good portion for herself.

But it only just made ends meet. Tallie sighed as she climbed the steps to the front door of Mrs Penelope Blackstock’s private lodging-house for young gentlewomen in Upper Wimpole Street. It was not like her to be so despondent, but it was beginning to dawn upon her lately that she was never going to earn enough to do more than scrape by and even that depended entirely on her ability to keep working. And now she had received an all-too-clear warning that one of her sources of income was perilous indeed. If Lord Parry had recognised her, then even her respectable employment would be in jeopardy.

‘Tallie! You must be frozen.’ Mrs Blackstock’s eighteen-year-old niece Emilia, usually known as Millie, appeared from the parlour at the sound of the key in the door, her head wrapped turban-fashion in a shawl. ‘Do come in and get warm by the fire. Aunt has just made some tea and we are toasting muffins.’

Thankfully Tallie dropped bonnet and pelisse on the hall chair and followed her in, pulling off her gloves as she did so. All the residents of the household, with the exception of Mrs Porter the cook and little Annie the maid of all work, were gathered round the fireplace.

Suddenly Tallie’s vision swam and she found she could not find her way to her chair. Her sight was so blurred she had to grip the edge of the table to steady herself.

‘Tallie dear, what is the matter? Are you ill?’ Zenobia Scott, the other lodger, leapt to her feet and guided Tallie to her seat. ‘You are frozen! Please, Mrs Blackstock, may I ask Cook to bring a hot brick for her feet?’

‘I’ll go.’ Millie was already on her way and Tallie found herself a short while later wrapped snugly in a blanket with the blissful heat of one of the bricks that Cook always kept on the back of the range in the winter glowing by her feet.

She curled her fingers tightly around the teacup and smiled gratefully at her friends, thankful as always for having found this cheerful feminine sanctuary.

‘Have you walked all the way home, Talitha?’ Mrs Blackstock asked. ‘I do wish you would not; it is so cold out there, and dark now. What occurred to upset you so? Has some man offered you an insult?’

‘No, not exactly.’ Tallie made herself think. She could hardly pretend now that nothing had happened—and in any case she badly wanted to talk about it—but although the other women knew she sat for Mr Harland, they had no idea it was in a scandalous state of undress. They knew how she had begun to sit for the portraitist and had unthinkingly assumed that the supply of Society ladies who required someone else to model their less-than-perfect or pregnant figures was constant. But Tallie had failed to tell them that after the first commission, undertaken at the behest of one of her millinery customers wanting a portrait to remind her husband of her pre-childbirth slenderness, she had succumbed to the temptation of far more lucrative modelling.

‘I was at the studio,’ she began, ‘and a party of gentlemen arrived unexpectedly and insisted on coming up. They guessed Mr Harland had a female sitter and began the most dreadful hue and cry, looking for me.’

‘How dreadful!’ Mrs Blackstock and her niece said in one voice. Millie, a ravishingly pretty blonde with a lovely figure and a charming, though light, singing voice, was employed as a dancer at the Opera House. Despite all popular prejudice about her profession, she maintained both her virtue and an endearing innocence, whatever lures gentlemen threw out to ‘Amelie LeNoir’.

‘Did they discover you?’ Mrs Blackstock added anxiously. She kept a concerned eye on her three young ladies, although hard experience since she had been widowed had taught her that no lady of limited means could afford to be over-nice about her employment.

‘No, fortunately the ones who were making such a hunt of it were diverted and all was well. But it was frightening and I was so very cold …’

Mrs Blackstock clucked. ‘Make sure you have a good dinner tonight, Talitha dear, and go to bed early. My goodness, just look at the time! Millie, if we are to take out those curl papers and dress your hair for this evening’s performance, we must bustle!’

She swept her niece out of the room, pausing to pat Tallie’s shoulder as she went.

Zenobia shifted her position to regard her friend closely. Three years older than Tallie, she was a governess who chose to live independently and to go out to households daily. She had a small but appreciative clientele amongst those rare families who took the education of girls seriously and who wished to have their children’s regular learning with their own governesses supplemented by Miss Scott’s tuition in Italian, German and, in two radical households, Latin.

‘Well?’ Zenobia demanded abruptly. Years of dealing with children had given her a sure sense for prevarication and careful half-truths. ‘Who was he?’

‘He? Who?’

Zenobia rolled her brown eyes ceilingwards. ‘The man, of course. The one who was not hunting you.’

‘How did you … I mean, what makes you think …?’

‘Your choice of words was odd, that is all. And I know you very well. There is something about you, some little suppressed excitement. Come on, tell Zenna.’

‘But I did not even see him, Zenna,’ Tallie protested. ‘Only his shadow on the floor. You see, they all came trooping up and I ran and hid in the closet, but the key fell out, and my draperies, er …’

‘Tallie,’ Zenna said, her face a picture of appalled realisation, ‘you do not mean to tell me you were posing unclad?’

‘Um … yes. But you see, Mr Harland is utterly immune to any interest in the female form. Why, I am as safe with him as I am with you; no one will ever see or buy his classical canvases, for they are never finished and, besides, they are vast in size.’

‘Well, one group of men appears to have seen all too much,’ Zenna retorted grimly. ‘Just how many of them were there?’

‘Four. But even if they saw me again, they would never recognise me from the picture, for the pose was from the back.’

A little whimper escaped Zenna’s lips. ‘But what about this closet you hid in? Did none of them find you there?’

‘Well, yes, one of them opened the door. But he did not see my face and he was a perfect gentleman. He gave me my drape back and the key, and told the others that the door was locked so they went away.’

The whimper became a moan. ‘You were in a closet, with no clothes on and this man came in?’ Tallie nodded. ‘And he did not say anything, or touch you or …?’

‘He caught his breath,’ Tallie admitted, a frisson running down her spine again at the recollection of that soft sound.

‘As well he might,’ Zenna said grimly. ‘By some miracle you appear to have encountered the only safe man in London.’

‘Well, he saved me,’ Tallie admitted, ‘but he did not make me feel safe.’ Zenna’s rather thick brows rose interrogatively. ‘His voice was so … so cool and sardonic, as though he did not care what anyone else thought. And he is … powerful somehow.’

‘How on earth can you tell?’ Zenna demanded, attempting to pour some cold water over what she felt were becoming dangerously heated imaginings. ‘You did not see him, did you?’

‘No, he just emanated this feeling. I can’t describe it, but I suppose power is the best word. And Mr Harland wanted to ask him to pose as Alexander the Great.’

‘Goodness. Well, if he looks anything like the representations of Alexander that I have seen, he is an impressive man indeed. What a fortunate thing you did not see him,’ she added slyly, ‘or you would be imagining yourself in love with him.’

‘Oh, nonsense.’ Tallie laughed and tossed a cushion at her teasing friend. She was suddenly feeling better. Alexander the Great indeed!

The next morning, refreshed by a good night’s sleep, undisturbed by dreams of hallooing gentlemen and Carthaginian generals, Tallie woke to a sunny day, feeling considerably more optimistic than she had for some time.

‘Better?’ asked Zenna over the breakfast table. They were alone, for Mrs Blackstock was out marketing and Millie was tucked up in bed—as she rightly said, beauty sleep was essential in her profession.

‘Mmm.’ Tallie spread preserve on her toast with a lavish hand and contemplated the advertisements on the front page of the morning paper. ‘How much money would it take to set up in one’s own shop, do you think, Zenna?’

‘As a milliner?’ Zenna bit thoughtfully into a forkful of ham. ‘Rent for the shop—and that would need space for a workroom, redecoration and fitting it out. Girls for the workshop, materials. A lot of money. Not as much as I would need for a school, but a lot. You would need a loan, or,’ she added with a wicked twinkle, ‘a protector.’

‘I suspect that was how Madame D’Aunay got started, by prudently investing a farewell present from such a person,’ Tallie confessed. ‘But I have absolutely no intention of taking a lover so I can borrow money for a hat shop from him!’

Zenna choked back a gasp of laughter. ‘It would certainly be a most original reason for abandoning the path of virtue. What are you doing today? I have the two Hutchinson girls all day and I plan to go for a nice walk in Green Park with them, conversing in Italian throughout.’

‘That does sound pleasant, they seem such an amiable family from what you have told me. I have rather a pleasant day too, for I have hats to deliver to both Lady Parry and Miss Gower and they are quite my favourite clients.’

However, Tallie found it was hard to maintain such a cheerful mood. In the morning sunshine the hairbrown walking dress and pelisse were every bit as unsatisfactory as she had thought the day before. There was nothing for it but to purchase a dress length and make a new gown, for she really could not feel that she looked the part to be calling upon Society ladies. She looked in the windows of Hardin and Howell as she passed them and regretfully decided that the Parthenon Bazaar was likely to prove more suitable for her budget. Some economies were possible: if she did not take a hackney to her clients’ homes but walked instead, that would save a few shillings.

Tallie was soon regretting the decision, for she had three hatboxes to collect at the milliners. Although her first call at Bruton Street was not far and the boxes were light, they were unwieldy, and the sight of a young lady carrying any parcel—let alone three hatboxes—in the street was sufficiently unconventional for her to attract several impertinent stares.

Feeling increasingly flustered, Tallie was tempted to change her plans and call at Miss Gower’s in Albermarle Street first, for it was closer. But Miss Gower was eighty-three and would not be pleased to be disturbed before eleven o’clock. No, it would have to be Lady Parry and her two hats.

Tallie turned cautiously round the corner from New Bond Street, thankful that her destination was almost in sight. Inelegant though it was, she had found that, by balancing two hatboxes on top of each other and then holding the ribbons of the third twined in her fingers, she could just manage. It did nothing for her vision forward, however, and she was already getting a crick in her neck from peering around her pile of gaily striped boxes.

The collision happened just as she reached the entrance to Bruton Mews. For one startled moment she thought she had walked into the wall, for the obstacle she had hit was certainly solid enough and equally unyielding. One hatbox was driven into her diaphragm, making her whoop for breath, the top one fell off and rolled into the road and she managed to drop the other at her feet.

Doubled up, making unseemly gasping noises and with her eyes streaming, Tallie was conscious of an immaculate pair of boots in front of her. Rising out of them were well-muscled legs in buckskin breeches. Her eyes travelled upwards past a plain waistcoat revealed between the flaps of an equally plain riding coat, past a crisp white stock to a firm, well-shaven chin and the enquiring and frankly appreciative gaze of the owner of these altogether admirable attributes.

It was too much. Coming on top of yesterday’s shock and the knowledge that she had made a serious error of judgement in deciding to walk, Tallie found she was swept with an irrational wave of anger. How dare this man stand there, looking cool, calm and assured and openly scrutinising her while she made an exhibition of herself?

‘Look what you have done!’ she gasped indignantly as her breath returned. ‘Just look at that box in the road!’

Before the man could respond to her attack, a carriage clattered out of the mews rather too fast and drove straight for the gaily striped cerise-and-white hatbox lying in its path.

‘Oh, no!’ Tallie took a hasty step forward to try and snatch it up by its trailing ribbons, only to find herself unceremoniously yanked back onto the footway. She struggled against the grip on her arm, but to no avail. The carriage’s nearside front wheel caught the box and rolled it over, flipping the lid off. Lady Parry’s exquisite new promenade hat fell out into the mud of the gutter and came to rest there like a wounded bird of paradise.

‘Ouch!’ Her arm hurt and at her feet the result of hours of work and the product of the finest materials lay, its curling feathers reduced to a sodden mass.

The man released her arm without apology. ‘It appeared to be preferable to have the hat under the wheels of the carriage than to have you in that position. ’ He stepped into the road and picked up the hat, dropping it into its box and handing that to Tallie before removing a large white handkerchief from his sleeve and rubbing the mud off his gloves with it. ‘My valet insists on checking that I have a clean handkerchief before I go out; how gratified he will be that for once it was needed.’

Considering that she had collided with him and harangued him, he sounded politely unconcerned. He also sounded, to Tallie’s incredulous ears, hideously familiar. No, surely not—it couldn’t be! Tallie felt her jaw drop and she covered her confusion by groping in her reticule for her own handkerchief.

‘Yes, of course, you are quite right, I am so sorry, sir,’ she managed to stammer as she pretended to wipe her eyes. ‘I must suppose I walked into you, sir. I do apologise.’ She was blushing, she knew she was, the wave of heat was rising up her throat, try as she could to control it.

‘You did, but it is of no matter. Can all these be yours?’ He gestured at the tumbled boxes, one dark brow raised.

‘I was delivering them.’ Tallie was certain that she was crimson. Her mind hardly seemed to be functioning at all, but somehow she had to end this encounter and remove herself and her hatboxes before something triggered his memory. Because with every word he spoke she was more than ever convinced that this was Nick—Mr Harland’s Alexander the Great—the man who had found her hiding naked in the closet.

He never saw your face, you never spoke, she told herself frantically.

‘Hmm. I hardly imagine your employer will be very happy about that,’ he observed dispassionately, glancing at the boxes that Tallie had gathered up and were now piled beside her feet, each with at least one unpleasant stain on it.

Tallie glared at him, her anger returning as common sense asserted itself. Of course he would never recognise her—as far as he was concerned she was a humble milliner’s assistant, someone of a class so far removed from his as to be virtually invisible. ‘No, she will not be happy,’ she agreed between gritted teeth. ‘Have you any idea how much that hat that just fell out costs?’ She knew she should not be addressing a gentleman in such a way, let alone one who had behaved with such chivalry to her the day before, but instinct screamed at her to keep him at a distance. She picked up the hatbox and held it, an insubstantial barrier between herself and all that maleness.

He lifted the lid of the box she was cradling in her arms and looked in. It brought him very close to her; close enough to see that his lashes were quite ridiculously long and dark for such a masculine-looking man, close enough to smell a peppery cologne with a hint of limes and certainly close enough to see a flash of wicked amusement in his dark grey eyes as he looked at her flustered and indignant face.

‘Madame Phanie’s establishment?’ he enquired.

‘No, Madame d’Aunay’s.’

‘Ah. Five guineas, then.’

This was so accurate that Tallie was betrayed into speech. ‘How on earth do you know that, sir?’

She was answered with another lift of that expressive brow. ‘One receives bills from time to time, my dear,’ he drawled.

‘Oh!’ Tallie was furious with herself for asking and even more so for blushing hectically again. Even if he was merely referring to hats bought by his wife or sisters, her response to the remark showed clearly that she thought he meant he had been buying hats for a mistress. ‘Well, I made it and it took hours and now it is quite ruined—and if you had not stopped me I could have saved it.’

‘So it is all my fault?’ he enquired drily. ‘In that case I had better pay for it.’ Before Tallie could respond he reached into his pocket, drew out a handful of coins and counted five bright guineas into her hand. Then he set the lid back on the ruined bonnet, stooped to pick up the remaining hatboxes and placed them carefully in her arms. ‘Good day, my dear. And next time, ask your employer to send you in a hackney.’

Chapter Three

The man called Nick strode off up the street towards Berkeley Square without a backward glance, leaving Tallie standing staring after him. Then she realised that she was attracting no little attention. A kitchen maid, her head just visible through the area railings, stopped shaking out a rug to stare open-mouthed; a footman in livery raised supercilious eyebrows as he strode past bearing his employer’s messages; a hackney carriage driver called out something that was mercifully unintelligible to Tallie and a very smart matron, her maid at her heels, fixed her with a look of scandalised outrage.

With a gasp Tallie clenched her fingers around the coins and walked on as fast as she could with her unwieldy burden. To be seen on the street taking money from a man! No wonder people stared—she must have appeared no better than a common prostitute. Tallie almost turned tail, then realised she must at least call upon Lady Parry and apologise for her tardiness and for the damaged hat.

Feeling that everyone was staring at her and expecting at any moment to be accosted, either by some buck with a proposition or an outraged householder ordering her from his respectable street, Tallie finally reached Lady Parry’s door. It was opened with merciful promptness by Rainbird the butler. He allowed a faint expression of surprise to cross his thin face at the sight of the flushed and flustered milliner standing before him with her pile of soiled hatboxes.

‘Miss Grey! Have you been in an accident? Please, step inside at once.’ He stood aside to let her in and snapped his fingers imperiously to the footman, who hurried forward. Tallie relinquished her boxes gratefully and regarded the butler with an expression of rueful apology.

‘I am sorry to arrive in such a state, Rainbird, but I dropped the boxes in the street.’

‘I will ring for the housekeeper, Miss Grey. You will want to wash your hands and have your gown brushed before you see her ladyship, I make no doubt.’ Rainbird approved of Miss Grey, and had so far unbent as to remark on one occasion to Henry the footman, ‘A milliner she might be now, my lad, but she’s a lady for all that she has come down in the world. You just observe her manners: always easy and polite to staff. That comes from breeding and consideration and there are many with a hundred times her income who will never manage that naturally.’

Tallie was just gratefully accepting his offer when a small dark lady wearing a most fetching cap with floating ribbons and a jonquil morning dress, which almost made Tallie forget her woes, emerged into the hall. ‘Miss Grey, good morning. I thought I heard your voice.’

‘Good morning, my lady.’ Tallie bobbed a neat curtsy, conscious of the snapping brown eyes assessing her appearance. ‘I must apologise for arriving in such a state, ma’am, but I had an accident with the boxes.’

‘I was just about to send for Mrs Mills, my lady.’

‘Excellent, Rainbird. You run along with her, Miss Grey, and come down when you feel quite comfortable again. There is no hurry.’ Lady Parry vanished as abruptly as she had appeared and Tallie surrendered herself into the care of the housekeeper who, despite tutting about ruinous mudstains, restored the tired old gown to as good a condition as Tallie could hope for with sponge and badger-bristle brush.

Her cheeks cooled by a splash of water, her hands rinsed and her hair tidied, Tallie hurried downstairs and tapped on Lady Parry’s morning-room door.

‘Come in, Miss Grey, and let me have a look at you.’ Kate Parry was a widow on the wrong side of forty with a son of twenty, a tidy personal fortune and apparently boundless enthusiasm for whatever took her fancy. ‘Sit down and have a glass of Madeira. No, show me no missish reluctance, you have obviously had a shock and coddling your insides with tea or ratafia will not help at all.’

She peered closely at Tallie’s face. ‘Have you been crying, my dear? Were you hurt?’

‘Oh, no, ma’am, only I had the breath knocked out of me for a moment.’ Tallie took a sip of the strong wine, choked a little, then took another. It was certainly soothing to her nerves. ‘It made my eyes water, you see.’ She hesitated. Rainbird had placed the two hatboxes for Lady Parry upon a side-table, having first carefully spread a sheet of the morning paper to protect the polished surface from the mud. ‘I am afraid I dropped your new hats.’

‘How provoking for you! And has your handiwork been spoiled? I do hope not. Never mind, it is more important that you were not hurt. We will look at the hats in a moment: you drink your wine and tell me all about it.’

Thus encouraged by Lady Parry’s warm interest, and perhaps rather more by the unfamiliar glow of the wine, Tallie began her tale.

The foolish decision to walk was easily enough admitted to, and, although Lady Parry shook her head, she did not lecture. She was quite well aware of Tallie’s circumstances, having taken care to draw her out, little by little, during the year that she had been visiting Bruton Street. As a matter of course Kate Parry took considerable interest in most people who came her way, but she found herself particularly in sympathy with the reserved young woman who created such elegant hats for her.

Tallie was as discreet about her own affairs as she was about her other clients, but from the little she did let drop, careful study of the Landed Gentry and a thorough gossip with her old friend Miss Gower, Kate had a clearer picture than Tallie would ever have suspected. Tallie would have been even more surprised to discover that Lady Parry had a scheme in mind for her, but it was not something of which she had the slightest inkling since, for it to come about, something had to happen first to which Lady Parry looked forward with sadness.

She thought about it now and gave a little sigh before fixing her attention on Tallie’s misadventures once again. ‘So you were attracting some unwelcome attention?’ she prompted as Tallie broke off.

‘Yes, but by the time I realised how foolish it was to be walking I was halfway here, so there was no advantage in turning back. Then—’ She broke off, took a deep breath and resumed. ‘I walked straight into a gentleman. And I dropped all the boxes; the one with your special promenade hat rolled into the roadway—and I was quite …’ she searched for a ladylike expression, failed and blurted out ‘… winded.’

Lady Parry suppressed a smile. Poor Miss Grey, it must have been most upsetting for her, but the scene itself sounded not a little amusing. ‘Who was he?’ she enquired, attempting to sound suitably grave.

‘I have no idea,’ Tallie said, then flushed. She could hardly say she knew his first name only—what would Lady Parry think?

‘An elderly gentleman?’ It was said with a wicked twinkle, which Tallie did not fail to notice.

‘No, ma’am. About thirty, perhaps, or a little younger?’ Tallie speculated, wrinkling her straight nose, which Mr Harland always compared favourably to those of the best Greek statues.

Enchanting, Lady Parry thought, watching the play of emotion on Tallie’s face. To have a daughter like that! So attractive, so intelligent. And she would so repay dressing well …’ And did he assist you?’

‘Yes, ma’am, although he stopped me rescuing the box from the road until it was too late and a carriage struck it.’

‘Yet this gallant gentleman displeased you, and for more than his tardiness with the hatbox, I imagine?’ Now Tallie was blushing in earnest. ‘My goodness, Miss Grey, whatever did he do? Did he take some liberty with you?’ It might well have occurred, for the sort of man who would think nothing of fondling a kitchen maid if she took his fancy would probably be equally free with an attractive young milliner if the chance arose, and he certainly appeared to have ruffled the normally calm and self-controlled Miss Grey.

‘No. Not if you mean did he try and kiss me or make an improper remark, ma’am. But … but when I was cross because of your hat, he looked in the box and guessed how much it cost and he paid me for it, in guineas, right there on the street!’ She swallowed. ‘And people saw him.’

‘Dear me, that was a thoughtless thing for him to have done,’ Lady Parry exclaimed. ‘No wonder you are so angry with him.’ Now what had she said? The girl was as pink as a peony.

‘Yes, but I should not be angry with him, it is very ungrateful of me and I am sure it was just thoughtlessness.’ Tallie was finding herself more confused by the minute about how she regarded Nick. Gallant and quick-witted rescuer or heartless rake, not above trifling with a respectable working girl?

‘I do not think that having the courtesy to pick up your boxes entitles him to sufficient gratitude for you not to be angry at such an imprudent act on his part as to make you the cynosure of all eyes on a public street.’ Rather out of breath with the effort of such a convoluted declaration, Lady Parry sat back and watched Tallie with interest. There was more to her distracted mood than she was revealing, she was sure of it.

Tallie rummaged hastily in her reticule for her handkerchief. There really was nothing more she felt she could safely say, for the turmoil of her feelings increased the more she thought about the encounter.

To have seen the man who only yesterday saw her naked body … to feel such anger when she knew she owed him a considerable debt for his tact and quick thinking and that in any case the reaction was out of all proportion to his offence just now … And she was making a positive exhibition of herself in front of her kindest and most influential patroness.

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ she started to say when there was the sound of the front door opening and footsteps in the hall accompanied by male voices.

‘Oh, good,’ Lady Parry said, ‘William is home. I have absolutely no hope that I will succeed, but I intend asking him to escort me to Lady Cressett’s soirée tonight. I declare the wretch knew I was going to ask him, for he made himself scarce just before I came down for breakfast! Would you be so good as to pull the bell for Rainbird, Miss Grey?’

Tallie did so, remaining standing in the shadowy corner by the bell-pull. She had glimpsed young Lord Parry on occasions, but only fleetingly as they passed in the hallway. She had no real fear that he would recognise her from the picture yesterday, but she had no desire to come to the notice of any of the men who had seen it. In any case, it would be most unbecoming of her to put herself forward.

Rainbird entered and informed Lady Parry that their lordships had gone into the study. ‘Would your ladyship wish a message conveyed?’

‘Yes, please ask them both to come in, Rainbird. My nephew must be here as well,’ she added for Tallie’s benefit.

‘I will wait in the hall, ma’am; you will wish to be private.’

‘Not at all, Miss Grey, please, come … William, my dear boy! And my favourite nephew as well. Now that is fortuitous, you may both escort me this evening.’

William, Lord Parry, was twenty years old. Born to a large fortune and rather girlish good looks, he had grown up, much to his mama’s relief, a thoroughly nice, unspoilt young man, if a touch young for his age. A suitable wife would mature him, she was sure; in the meantime she was happy for him to sow his harmless wild oats under the apparently careless eye of his guardian and her trustee, her nephew Lord Arndale.

William grinned disarmingly at the rallying note in his mother’s voice. ‘Escort you, Mama? Er … I think I am engaged; in fact, I feel sure I am.’

His companion followed him into the room and came across to take Lady Parry’s hand in his. ‘Aunt Kate.’ He bent to kiss her cheek, a tall dark man in immaculate riding wear. ‘I hope I find you well this morning, ma’am? I am happy to inform you that William has absolutely no engagements of note this evening and will be delighted to escort you to whichever concert of ancient music you have in mind.’

Lady Parry laughed, ignoring her son’s outraged protestations. ‘No such thing, you wicked man. I would like you both to come with me to Lady Cresset’s soirée. I can promise absolutely no ancient music and several tables set out for cards.’

Tallie stood stock-still in her corner. Lady Parry’s nephew was none other than the man she had just collided with in the street, the man who had protected her yesterday in the studio. To her horror she realised that Lady Parry had remembered her and had turned on the sofa to look for her.

‘Miss Grey, do, please, come and sit down again.’ Tallie hung back in the shadows. ‘Miss Grey was kindly engaged on an errand for me and has had a distressing accident in the street.’

Both men looked in her direction and Tallie realised there was nothing for it but to emerge. She stepped forward, keeping her eyes down and her hands clasped in front of her.

‘Nicholas, this is Miss Grey. Miss Grey, Lord Arndale, my nephew. I believe you have met my son on occasion before now.’

Tallie dropped a neat curtsy without looking up. Was she blushing again? Her heart was certainly pounding. ‘Lord Arndale, Lord Parry.’

William Parry stepped forward with the eagerness that typified him. ‘I say, Miss Grey, are you hurt?’

‘No, no, not at all, my lord.’

‘Perhaps if you were to move, William, Miss Grey could resume her seat,’ Nick Stangate observed drily, watching his cousin with suppressed amusement. ‘I believe this was your chair, Miss Grey?’ He indicated a bergère armchair on which a reticule lay, its drab plainness in startling contrast to the charming toile upholstery fabric.

‘Thank you, it is, my lord.’ So, this unusual young woman must be the lady milliner who had been concerning his Aunt Kate to the point where he had felt it necessary, as Lady Parry’s trustee, to take a hand and make some enquiries himself. He should have realised when he ran into her in the street just now and scattered her hatboxes. Doubtless he would have done if his mind had not been preoccupied with another young woman altogether.

Nick took a seat beside his aunt, which had the effect of bringing him opposite Miss Grey. She was certainly well spoken, and elegant in her deportment and appearance, despite the dreadful gown, unflattering coiffure and downcast eyes. Her present demeanour was in startling contrast to that of the angry girl who had scolded him in the street. She was sitting quite still now, seemingly composed, yet he sensed a desire to burrow backward into the chair cushions out of sight.

‘But what happened?’ William was persisting. ‘Are you quite sure you are not injured, Miss Grey? Perhaps we should send for the doctor, Mama.’

Despite the self-effacing meekness of the slender figure in front of him and the fact that she had spoken hardly a word, Nick was quite certain he knew exactly what the young woman’s problem was. It was not often that his conscience pricked him, but he felt its unfamiliar sting now.

‘I believe Miss Grey is wounded in spirits, not in her person. She collided with a gentleman in the street and had the misfortune to choose one who was not only so slow that he allowed her possessions to be crushed under the wheels of a passing carriage, but who then had the impertinence to recompense her for the damage in a way that was, I believe, very ill judged.’

He felt a stirring of interest as Tallie’s eyes flew to his face. There it was again, that mixture of spirit and—could it be—fear flashing out from behind the subdued front she was presenting.

‘Ill judged!’ she snapped, then appeared to recollect herself. He found himself both intrigued and amused. ‘Yes, my lord, you are correct,’ she added softly, and he realised her eyes were on his face, reading what little emotion he allowed to appear there. ‘Although I am sure the gentleman’s actions sprang from a genuine desire to make amends and not from the wish to—shall we say, tease—an inferior.’

‘Touché,’ he murmured, enjoying the emerald flash of her eyes. So, Miss Grey, you are prepared to duel, are you?

‘Nicholas,’ his aunt demanded, ‘are you the gentleman in question?’

‘I have to confess I am, Aunt,’ he admitted, turning slightly to meet her indignant look. ‘And I am justly reproved by Miss Grey. I had no idea that she was a young lady kindly undertaking an errand for you. I mistook her for a milliner’s girl—’

‘I am a milliner’s girl, my lord,’ Tallie said in frigidly polite tones. So, Miss Grey was not attempting to presume upon her patroness’s friendly treatment. And she was certainly not going to toady to Lady Parry’s nephew. How refreshing. He let his gaze linger on her face as she continued. ‘If you will excuse me, Lady Parry, you will wish to speak in private to their lordships, I am sure. I will take the undamaged hat upstairs and leave it with your dresser. I will naturally make every effort to have the other one replaced within the week.’

She stood up, dropped another curtsy to Lady Parry, picked up the hatboxes and walked briskly to the door before Nick could get to his feet and step past her to open it. As she reached for the door handle it turned and Rainbird stepped into the room.

‘Mr Hemsley is here to see his lordship, my lady,’ he announced. Nick stopped where he was with an inward flash of irritation. Damn Hemsley; he was showing not the slightest sign of becoming bored with William, despite Nick’s persistently accompanying his cousin to every gambling den and sporting venue that Hemsley invited him to. He had made no attempt to fleece William while Nick was there. Possibly Nick was misjudging him and he was not the Captain Sharp he suspected, but he rather feared the combination of William’s innocence and large fortune and Hemsley’s financial embarrassment and lack of scruple was every bit as dangerous as he thought.

Either way, he was getting more than a little weary of chaperoning his cousin. Beside anything else, it was putting a decided dampener on the more sophisticated pleasures with which Nick Stangate normally entertained himself when in London.

Beside him his aunt nodded assent to the butler and Rainbird stood aside and ushered the visitor into the room.

Nick saw Miss Grey step back, but even so she could not escape coming face to face with the man who was entering the room. Why the devil was she blushing? Nick could see the colour staining her throat from across the room. Damn the man, had he murmured some remark? Could Hemsley not restrain himself from flirting with every woman who crossed his path? He schooled his face, resisting the temptation to take a hand. It was not part of his tactics to cross swords with the man yet.

‘Lady Parry, ma’am! A thousand apologies for disturbing you …’

Flustered, Tallie found herself alone in the hall with Rainbird. ‘I will just go up to Miss Hodgson with this hat, Rainbird.’

‘There is no need, Miss Grey, I will have it taken up directly. May I call you a hackney carriage?’

This time Tallie had no hesitation in accepting, despite the very short distance to Albermarle Street where Miss Gower lived. She sat back against the squabs and contemplated the stained hatboxes on the seat opposite in an unsuccessful effort to keep her mind off those two unsettling encounters.

Infuriating man! If only she did not feel such a strong sense of obligation to Nicholas Stangate for the chivalrous way he had behaved yesterday, she could feel thoroughly and justifiably cross with him. And as for Mr Hemsley—well, he was just as much of a rake as she had imagined from what she had heard at the studio. The gleam in his blue eyes and the swift wink he had sent her as they passed in the doorway confirmed her in that opinion. A very good-looking rake, of course, if one had a penchant for that style of rather obvious blond handsomeness. And if one were prepared to tolerate such an insolent regard. Now she had been seen, but not recognised, by three of the four men from the studio; she closed her eyes and gave thanks once again for Nick Stangate’s chivalry.

The hackney pulled up in front of Miss Gower’s dark green front door and Tallie jumped down with one box. ‘Please wait, I will not be above ten minutes.’

Miss Gower had not been well for several weeks now and her maid had told Tallie that the doctor had forbidden any but the shortest visits, but even ill health was not enough to stop the indomitable old lady’s interest in her appearance. Of all her little indulgences, pretty hats were perhaps her favourite, and the more frivolous the creation that Tallie could show her, the happier she was.

On this occasion, however, Tallie saw with dismay that the heavy brass knocker was wrapped in baize. She knocked gently and the door was opened by Smithson, Miss Gower’s butler, whom Tallie suspected was nearly as old as his mistress.

‘Oh, Miss Grey,’ he said lugubriously. ‘The mistress cannot see you, I am afraid. Very poorly she is this morning, very poorly indeed.’

‘I am sorry to hear that, Smithson.’ The old man looked so shaky and distressed that Tallie wished she could give him a hug, but she knew he would be scandalised. ‘Will you tell her I called and that I sent my best wishes for her recovery?’

‘No hope of that, Miss Grey. No hope of that. Doctor Knighton called yesterday and warned us all.’ He sniffed. ‘Slipping away … slipping away.’

Tallie hesitated. ‘Should I leave her new hat, do you think, Smithson?’

‘Yes, please, Miss Grey. I will put it on the stand next to her bed so she can see it. That will give her so much pleasure. Is it a pretty one, Miss Grey?’

‘Very,’ Tallie assured him. ‘Her favourite pink ribbons, and ruched silk all under the brim, and just one pink rose tucked above the ear.’

‘Oh, she’ll like that, Miss Grey.’ The old man took the box in both tremulous hands.

‘Goodbye, then, Smithson, you will let me know when … when she gets better?’

Thoroughly depressed, Tallie gave the driver Madame d’Aunay’s direction and climbed back into the cab. One could hardly hope that a frail old lady would live for ever, but Miss Gower had seemed so indomitable and had had such a love of life that it seemed impossible that the years would ever catch up with her.

‘Well, that will teach you to refine upon encounters with gentlemen and worry about what they think and say,’ Tallie scolded herself out loud as the cab turned into Piccadilly. ‘There are much more important and serious things happening than your foolish adventures. Poor Miss Gower, and without even any family to support her now.’