Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (8 page)

As he spoke, Lord Elyot reached behind him to open the door where the faithful Henry was waiting for just such a moment.

From beneath his gathered brows, Hurst glowered with deep distrust at his audience, but carefully avoided looking at the money he was forbidden to retrieve. He bowed. ‘Your servant … my lady … my lord.’ Then he was gone.

In spite of her new predicament, Amelie’s relief and gratitude robbed her of words and, if she had been of a weepy frame of mind, she would almost certainly have burst into tears and thrown herself bodily into the arms of her rescuer. But since her rescuer was bound to be expecting some convincing
explanations very shortly, she stood with both hands enclosing the entire lower half of her face as if she were praying. Which, in a sense, she was. She was also wondering how on earth to explain herself, not to mention Ruben Hurst.

She realised she was in for a rough ride as soon as Lord Elyot approached her with that maddeningly cryptic expression he favoured, and said, ‘Well, my dear Lady Chester, there’s a dirty dish if ever I saw one. You really do have the oddest friends. I fear I may have to forbid you to see him again once our engagement is formally announced. He won’t do, my dear. Really he won’t. Not up to the mark at all.’

‘You were not expected until this afternoon,’ Amelie mumbled through her fingers.

‘Yes, and you’d have been out, wouldn’t you? Hardly the way to behave towards your intended husband.’

‘Please … stop it! You must have realised that was a last resort.’

‘Thank you. I cannot recall when I was last known as a last resort. Must have been in my schooldays, I suppose.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Then what did you mean? And who was that jackanapes with his bag of moonshine?’

Inside her hands, she shook her head, closing her eyes.

‘You’ll do better like this,’ he said, taking her wrists. ‘It releases the mouth, I find. There now. Come and sit over here.’ Leading her to the chair vacated by Hurst, he lowered her into it. Then, pouring her a glass of some mulberry-coloured liquid from a decanter, he passed it to her. ‘I don’t know what this stuff is, but take a sip.’

‘Blackcurrant juice. Thank you.’ Obediently, she sipped.

A pained expression fled across his eyes. ‘Is that what I’m going to have to put up with? Heaven help me.’

‘Lord Elyot, I owe you an explanation, I know, and an apology for making use of your name. I didn’t think you would ever find out, and that’s the truth of it and, at that particular moment, I desperately needed that dreadful man to believe I had influential friends here.’

‘Well, that’s an improvement on being a last resort, I suppose. But if you didn’t think I’d find out, what d’ye suppose he’ll be doing in the nearest tap-room at this very moment but telling everyone within range that Lady Chester, his
very
close friend, has an understanding with Sheen’s eldest son? I’m really quite gratified to discover who my next partner is to be before the rest of Richmond does. You must understand my relief, I hope?’

That was a possibility she had not taken time to consider. ‘Would he do that?’ she asked, weakly.

‘Well, I would if I were him. He needs all the clout he can get. Who is he?’

‘A gambler and prime scandalmonger from Buxton. I’m afraid this so-called affection he professes is all in his mind. He
was
a family friend, my lord, but not any more.’

‘So why let him in?’

‘If I’d thought he would come here to Richmond, I would have told Henry to keep him out, but since he was in, I thought it was best to know exactly what he was up to. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, as they say. I suspected he’d ask for money. He always needs money. So I gave him some, hoping he’d go away and leave me in peace.’

‘Most people would call that blackmail, Lady Chester. You really are
not
the most worldy-wise of women, are you? A charming naïvety, I suppose some would call it.’ He glanced at the money bag still on the floor.

Stung by the criticism, even though it was accurate enough, she threw him a glance not intended to alter the rhythm of his heart, which it did. ‘I had a good husband,’ she snapped, ‘who was worldly-wise enough for both of us and I have not acquired the knack of it yet.’

‘Then it’s time you had a replacement, my lady. Indeed, you’ve already set the machinery in motion all on your own. I find your reading of my mind quite uncanny.’

Amelie leapt to her feet, slamming the glass down upon her table so hard that the juice slopped on to her toadstool sketch. ‘I’d rather not stay in here with you any longer, my lord. This is my favourite room, not to be shadowed by argumentative men with silly talk. Two in one morning is more than I can bear.’

Glancing around him again, Lord Elyot could well understand her feelings on the matter, even if the expression of them came close to a set-down. The room was obviously special to her, for not only was her work table spread with paints, papers and sketches, but by his side stood a large oak folio stand holding her unframed watercolour paintings, very like the one he had admired on his first visit. He would much rather have given his sister one of those. Leather-bound volumes lined the walls, botanical journals, poetry, and novels in French and Italian. A portrait of a middle-aged businessman holding a roll of parchment looked down from above the marble chimney-piece. Her father, perhaps? Whoever he was, this conversation would be better continued, he thought, out of the man’s hearing.

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘I have a better idea.’ Before she could object to any plan, he hitched the shawl up around her shoulders and threw the long end over to the back. ‘There’s a decided chill in the air. Come with me.’

Without a murmur of protest she went with him downstairs and out through a back door into the garden, boxed into sections by waist-high hedges and paved pathways. Rose-covered columns supported wooden beams across which blowsy roses drooped their wet rusting petals and, at the far end in the shelter of a tall yew hedge, a curved stone bench waited for them, warmed by the sun.

With some foreboding, Amelie wondered if she would be able to fend off his imminent and no doubt relentless questions, for it was clear he was not going to leave things as they were. Brushing the dust off the bench, he waited for her to sit before taking his place at her side, and she could not hold back a comparison of his tight white breeches with Hurst’s buff pantaloons, a world apart.

He saw what was in her mind. ‘Memories?’ he said, softly.

Beneath the shawl, heat flooded into her neck and she looked away quickly to conceal the reply in her eyes. ‘I
have
apologised, my lord,’ she said, stiffly. ‘Pray do not retaliate by reminding me of … things … I would rather forget. You cannot know how deeply shamed I am.’

‘So shamed that you thought it a good idea to attach your name to mine? That doesn’t sound like shame to me, my lady.’

‘A temporary device. I’ve tried to explain. What more can I do?’

‘Oh, that’s easily solved,’ he said, smiling. ‘But we’ll discuss those details later, shall we? What I’d like to know is why you were—’

‘Naïve?’

‘…
generous
enough to lend money to Hurst in the past. I suspect he was lying when he said it was for his sister. Didn’t you?’

‘The story does me no credit, my lord. It happened when I was newly married and very trusting of men. I know better now. He told me his sister was being evicted because she was … well … in a difficult situation. She needed money desperately. I let him have some and he swore he’d repay me. He never did. It was not until after my husband’s death that I discovered Hurst had no sister, that the money was to pay a gambling debt. To Josiah. And since you are about to ask the obvious question, no, Josiah did not know of my loan to Hurst.’

‘Or he would have been angry with you?’

‘For trying to help a woman in distress? No, not for that, though he might have been surprised by the amount I was asked for.’

‘But Hurst can be prosecuted for such a thing. That’s theft, you know. Obtaining money by false pretences. Fraud.’

‘It’s too late for all that. Water under the bridge.’

‘No, it isn’t. You have friends who know the truth of the matter, surely? They’d testify at a trial. And your word is worth something.’

‘His word against mine. I told no one about the loan because the reason for it was confidential. Afterwards, I was not likely to tell anyone how I had been duped by a man like that. I hoped to learn by it, that’s all.’

‘But you haven’t, have you?’

This was getting too close. She must seem not to understand him. ‘Oh, I think I have, my lord. I’ve learnt that it’s best to stay clear of men, for the time being, at least. It’s my niece who needs to get to know them, not I.’

‘You wish to protect Hurst, then?’

‘I wish him to stay well out of my life, sir.’

‘Then the best place for him is behind bars or, believe me,
he’ll keep on coming back for more. Unless you can rely on the timely intervention of your future husband, that is.’

‘Please … can we forget that now? I shall manage well enough, I thank you, and I’d be most grateful if you would think no more about the device I used. It was an emergency and I shall never do it again.’

‘You won’t have to. It’ll be all over Richmond by this time tomorrow.’

With any other man of so short an acquaintance, especially one whose compassion was so underdeveloped, she would have asked him to leave her to sort out her problems alone. But having used Lord Elyot’s good name and linked it so firmly with her own, she could not now tell him it was nothing to do with him when it so patently was. And unfortunately he was right about Hurst spilling the news. She’d had enough evidence of the power of his malicious tongue to know that the damage would spread like oil on water. Why this had not occurred to her at the time she would never know, her only excuse being that she was taken unawares.

‘No, you’re mistaken,’ she said, rising. ‘I know him. He’ll leave.’

But the other matter had not been resolved to Lord Elyot’s satisfaction, and he was determined she should not escape so lightly. He stood before her just one step too close for comfort, his dark head inclined towards her. ‘For a lady who thinks it best to steer clear of men, I’d say you were not making a very convincing job of it, wouldn’t you? Could it be that you’re sending out the wrong signals? Eh?’

‘No, my lord. I think it more likely that they’re being wilfully misinterpreted, if indeed there are any signals to be seen.’

‘Really. But to adopt a man’s name for such an intimate
relationship for whatever reason seems to me more like a miscalculation on your part, for if you believe I shall simply ignore a signal like
that
, which is what you suggest, then you
have
miscalculated, my lady. I take such an appeal for help very seriously.’

‘You were not meant to know. If you had not turned up—’

‘If I’d not turned up when I did, you’d have had that wretch in your house for the next few weeks. You’re too generous for your own good, and far too impulsive to be let loose on your own in a place like this. You must admit that you’ve not made a very impressive beginning, have you?’

‘I’ve hardly had time in five weeks, but thank you for the vote of confidence.’ She made as if to turn and walk away, but he anticipated her, facing her into a curve of the high yew hedge where she could not turn without standing almost on his toes.

She felt again the solid and potent bulk of him at her back, his warmth through her clothes, the unaccustomed and mysterious electric charge that had a strange effect on the softness deep inside her, and it was as she had been at the dance, too tired and exhilarated to feel anything except an inexplicable urge to surrender herself without protest. It seemed then not to matter that she couldn’t approve of a man who took mistresses instead of marrying, who used his power to restrict the freedom of others, and the unacceptable elements faded into nothing as he moved closer and placed his arms across her, pulling her against him until, this time, his mouth was against her ear, whispering, beguiling.

‘Hush, my beauty. You need a man’s protection, if ever a woman did.’

Oh, yes … yes … I need your protection … no other …

She kept her head turned as he stopped her from twisting
away, but his warm breath was upon her neck, emptying her lungs of air with a sudden shudder of delight. ‘My lord,’ she said, willing herself to concentrate, ‘I am not … th … things are not as they seem … please … let me go. What happened that evening was a terrible mistake … and today also … and I deeply regret …’ But his arms held her fast while one hand eased her face upwards and, before she could say more about how wrong he had got it, her protests were tenderly extinguished under his lips, holding her mind in a limbo between excitement and fear.

If she had thought that this might be a quick peck meant to tease her, the idea dissolved within seconds as his mouth moved expertly over hers, unhurried and assertive like that of a man who knows how to change a woman’s protest to wanting. Yet Amelie knew almost nothing of kissing. It was not something she and her late husband had ever practised, and now it was her complete lack of proficiency that became obvious to Lord Elyot, who knew from years of experience the difference between a novice and an unwilling woman.

Though surprised, he was unable to resist letting her know of it. ‘At last, my lady,’ he whispered, lapping at her lips, ‘I have discovered an art at which you are not so accomplished. A little more tutoring, perhaps?’

She was not ready for the taunt, nor could she pretend not to know exactly what he meant. Angrily, she pushed herself out of his arms and, if he had not held her, she would have fallen into the hedge. ‘Let go of me!’ she snarled. ‘I should have expected a man like you to take advantage of a lady in such a manner, Lord Elyot. Please leave me.’

He did, but not without having the last word. ‘I think, my lady, that you should not be the one to be complaining about
taking advantage. That was to even the score, nothing more. Your servant, ma’am.’