The Conqueror's Dilemma (3 page)

She moved swiftly forward as she
spoke, heading directly for the woman in question—and the vulnerable chit in
her charge. A riffle of alarm sent William after her, instinct overcoming
caution.

Her attention still caught by the Conqueror’s presence,
Tiffany was first to notice their hostess bearing down upon her chaperon.
Instant comprehension sent a wave of terror crashing into her breast. She was
right. There had been no invitation—and retribution was imminent.

Glancing wildly round at Eva, she
discovered her to be wholly unaware of the danger. She was holding forth to two
ladies placed immediately upon her other side. Without hesitation, Tiffany
twitched her sleeve, hissing a warning under her breath.

‘Eva, take care!’

‘What in the world is it,
Tiffany?’ began her duenna in an irritated tone, having broken off her
discussion.

Then she must
have seen it, for the dropping of her jaw was almost ludicrous. Tiffany was
seized with a hysterical desire to giggle, but she quelled it, her pulses jumping
in tune with her chattering heart. She was conscious of a craven wish to drop
out of sight, but fright held her rooted to the spot, as she watched the
approach of vengeance incarnate.

And then a miracle
happened. From nowhere a man’s figure interspersed itself between Lady Drumbeg
and their hostess, forcing the latter to come to a sudden halt.

‘My dear
Juliana, have I shown you my latest acquisition?’

The smooth tones
were instantly recognizable, for Tiffany recalled them as well as she did the
lush dark hair and the well-formed figure, although she was at this moment
presented only with his back view. A flood of relief and gratitude enveloped
her. Her acquaintance of the antechamber—the Conqueror himself—had come to
their rescue.

It was all over
in seconds. Before she had time to catch her breath, Lady Yelverton was being
steered away in another direction, Mr Westerham’s hand firmly under her elbow.

Losing no time,
Tiffany turned to her chaperon, an urgent whisper on her lips. ‘Eva, pray let
us remove from here at once.’

Without waiting
for a reply, she emulated the Conqueror’s example and seized Lady Drumbeg’s
arm, dragging her willy-nilly towards the saloon doors. She encountered no
resistance, and could only conclude her duenna had suffered just as much
apprehension as she had herself. Although Tiffany was already conscious of a
rise of indignation.

The moment they
were in the corridor, safe from attack and walking in relative privacy as they headed
for the stairs, she could not help commenting upon the event.

‘I cannot think
why you wish to consort with people of this kind, ma’am. How proud and arrogant
is this Lady Yelverton. I am sure she meant to repudiate us.’

Lady Drumbeg was
a little out of breath—whether from hurry or fright it was hard to know—but she
was clearly on the road to recovery.

‘Don’t be silly,
Tiffany. She has a right to be proud. Only think of her position. You can’t
expect people of her stature to behave like the rest.’

‘Why in the
world not?’ demanded Tiffany, outraged. ‘Are they any better than you or I,
merely because they have money and status? I have a very good mind to beg Uncle
Matt to allow me to return home.’

Eva halted in
the middle of the staircase. ‘What? Just when you’ve had the good fortune to
meet the Conqueror? Certainly not. This is the luckiest thing to have happened,
Tiffany, and I won’t have you spoil it.’

Mystified by her
duenna’s apparent indifference to the near humiliation they had undergone,
Tiffany held her tongue on a heated retort and instead urged her onward with a
ruthless hand.

‘Do hurry,
ma’am. I don’t wish to be discovered here by that woman.’

‘You must not
refine upon it,’ said the other, consenting to proceed. ‘Nothing untoward
occurred, after all, and we ain’t finished yet, not by a long chalk.’

Tiffany withheld
a strongly worded rebuttal, for what was the use? Left to herself, she would
have shunned the fashionable world and all its mortifying rules. But Uncle Matt
had been deaf to all her arguments in his determination to carry out what he
insisted were her deceased father’s wishes. She knew he would not look with
sympathy upon a request to curtail her Season when it had hardly begun. Yet she
dreaded being dragged to events such as this, especially when she was convinced
neither she nor her chaperon had any right to be here. She shuddered at the
remembrance of Lady Yelverton’s avenging features, and vowed never to allow
herself to be forced into a similar situation.

William steered
his seething quarry through knots of her guests, refusing to release her until
they had reached the other side of the saloon. She turned on him then, albeit
speaking in a lowered tone.

‘What in the
world did you do that for, Will?’

‘To stop you
subjecting the chit to the embarrassment of a public ejection from the
premises,’ he responded frankly.

Juliana blinked
at him. ‘What chit?’

‘The one I was
telling you about when you went off at half-cock and very nearly caused a
lamentable scene before your legitimate guests.’

She looked
mulish. ‘If I had done so, the wretched woman asked for it. She deserved
nothing less.’

‘But the girl
with her did not deserve as much.’

William came
under a searching scrutiny that was peculiarly disconcerting. He said nothing,
well aware Juliana needed no encouragement to pursue whatever was exercising
her mind. A telltale suspicion of the trend of her thoughts made him maintain
his blandest expression.

‘What is this,
Will? Have you not realised the significance of that creature having a young
female in tow?’ She leaned confidentially towards him. ‘I am certain Lady
Drumbeg is being paid to bring the girl out. Which is enough to tell you what
sort of background she must have.’

A flare of
annoyance swept through William, but he gave no sign. ‘Are you referring to the
dragon or her protégée?’

‘Don’t be
obtuse, you know very well what I mean,’ said Juliana irritably. ‘The girl is
impossible.’

Undeniably. A sliver of feeling went
through William. Disappointment? However appealing, the female he had
encountered was destined to remain a stranger. The social strata were strictly
kept, and he trod a fine line to remain on this side. She might as well be on
another planet.

Juliana was eyeing him again. Was
it concern in her eyes? ‘Will, you can’t mean to pursue her acquaintance? She
is certain to be beneath the notice of anyone of real
ton
.’

William drummed up a smile, but
it went awry. ‘Was not I so once?’

‘That’s different,’ said Lady
Yelverton quickly.

‘Why? Because I am male?’

A twinkle drove away the last of
her ill temper. ‘Engagingly so, sweet William, but it’s not that.’

He could not withstand a
responsive smile, but he took her up nevertheless. ‘What, then? My wit, my
charm, my
je ne sais quoi
?’

The ironic note was ignored. ‘Oh,
she might have all those qualities too, though I doubt it.’

So did William,
having met her. He hardly knew what it was about the child that drew him, but
it was unlikely to give her the entrée to his set. But he was alive to
Juliana’s meaning.

‘Birth, is that it?’

Lady Yelverton shrugged. ‘It is
the way of the world, Will. Your background, however obscure, has no faintest
trace of the shop.’

His brows snapped together. ‘Is
that what’s wrong with the Drumbeg?’

A nod confirmed it. ‘She’s a cit,
and she was married to a cit. Somehow she managed to snare Drumbeg for her
second.’ Her nose wrinkled distastefully. ‘Rumour has it he was more than
halfway to the grave, for he did not long survive the marriage.’ Her expressive
eyes held his. ‘Now do you see? Any female who cannot find a relative or
acquaintance, albeit undistinguished, to bring her out—whether or not money
changes hands—must be suspect. So pray don’t fall in love with her.’

‘
Love
?’ The very word caused
a contraction within William. He forced a laugh, adopting a careless note. ‘My
dear Juliana, are you not leaping to conclusions? I said I was intrigued,
that’s all. Enough to find out more about her.’

To his discomfiture, Juliana
showed signs of alarm. ‘Will, I beg you to take care. I am far too fond of you
to see you caught in the toils of a scheming adventuress.’

It was the least likely
occurrence, but annoyance rose in him—and not on his own account. ‘Adventuress?
Humdudgeon, Ju. I’ll wager she’s as innocent as a babe.’

‘She may be, but you cannot say
the same of that Drumbeg woman. She will catch you if she can.’

‘Where have your wits gone
begging, Ju? Am I remotely eligible?’

Juliana clicked her tongue. ‘Of
course not. Everyone knows you haven’t a feather to fly with, but that’s not
the point.’

‘What is the point, then?’

‘You are the Conqueror, Will. She
is bound to put herself in your way in hopes of your patronage.’

‘The chaperon might,’ he
conceded. ‘The girl has no idea who I am. Or,’ he amended upon reflection, ‘she
had none before this little contretemps.’

He glanced across the room, and
realised with relief that the unwelcome pair had gone. Juliana must have noted
the direction of his gaze.

‘I take it the hussy has removed
herself?’

William schooled his expression
to indifference. ‘I imagine she did so immediately.’

Satisfaction entered Lady
Yelverton’s face. ‘I imagine she might well have done. She has effrontery
enough, but she would scarcely risk a second chance of a rebuff.’ The teasing note
she was wont to use with him crept back into her voice. ‘You are saved, Mr
Westerham, from an ugly fate.’

The interruption, not altogether unexpected, came while
William was at his morning toilet, in the process of paring his nails. Barely
had his valet reached the door after a light knock had sounded than he was
waved aside by an impatient hand and the visitor bounced into the room.

‘What, is the fellow still abed?
Ah, no, there he is. Good Lord, man, aren’t you done prettifying?’

William met the eyes of his best
friend in the mirror. ‘Some of us, Hector, take a trifle of pride in our
appearance.’ A faintly disagreeable aroma emanated from behind him. He wrinkled
his nose and frowned. ‘You’ve been riding.’

‘Of course I’ve been riding,’
returned Lord Kilbride. ‘And if you weren’t such a sluggard, Will, you’d be out
there with me.’

He strode to the window and
whisked back the drapes, letting in the blast of sunlight the valet had
carefully screened so that it would not disturb his master’s eyes where he sat
on the dressing stool.

‘Beautiful day,’ pronounced
Hector. ‘Can’t think why you want to waste it.’

William sighed and laid down the
paring knife. ‘Frocester, what time is it?’

‘A little after eleven, sir,’
replied the valet.

‘And all of the day before me.
Excellent.’

Kilbride grinned at him. ‘At
Juliana’s until the small hours, were you? Doing the pretty, and getting above
yourself again, I’ll wager.’

‘On the contrary,’ replied
William, rising and allowing Frocester to remove the frogged dressing-gown,
revealing the pristine white of his shirtsleeves beneath, and a pair of tightly
fitting pantaloons. ‘I found myself disgracefully ennuié with the ball and came
away early.’

His friend snorted. ‘Yes, and
pigs have wings.’

‘No, it’s true,’ insisted
William, beset by an intrusive memory of a pair of peeping blue eyes.
Conscience intervened, and he amended this. ‘Well, to be strictly truthful,
dear boy, I was in imminent danger from a dragon with a debutante in tow.’

A crack of laughter emanated from
Lord Kilbride. ‘That’ll teach you to set yourself up as an arbiter of fashion.
Still, it ain’t like you to run, Will. Was the girl a fright?’

‘Far from it. Though not a beauty
by any means.’ He slid his arms into the double-breasted linen waistcoat held
open by his valet, and began to button it. ‘Only Juliana would have it the
dragon was a cit and anyone she was chaperoning must be impossible.’

‘Ah, I begin to see. Who was
she?’

‘The dragon? Lady Drumbeg.’
Hector whistled, and William eyed him with interest. ‘Have you heard of her?’

‘Only through m’sister.’

‘What, does Ariadne know her?’

William was almost as well
acquainted with Mrs Membury as with Kilbride, for she naturally knew all about
his roots and her brother’s part in his rise to fame. Inclined to look upon her
as a sister, William valued both her friendship and her dependability. He was
conscious of a slight rise of emotion—it could not be hope, surely? Might
Ariadne prove a conduit to finding out more of the girl he had met last night?
A notion instantly dismissed.

‘Narrowly avoided an acquaintance
with the woman a few years back,’ stated Hector. ‘Ariadne says the Drumbeg is
pushing, and she’ll batten on anyone who ain’t up to snuff. Beats me how she
got through the Yelverton’s doors.’

‘She used Amelia Murrell. Ju was
furious.’

‘Not surprised. Good thing you
came away.’

William said nothing. Why he
should refrain from relating how he had narrowly averted a public contretemps
he did not care to examine too closely. It might amuse Hector. Equally it might
arouse his curiosity as to the reason. Better to keep his own counsel.