‘I have plenty of pride,’ she retorted. The trouble was, it had already taken enough of a battering. ‘Which is exactly why I will do nothing to attempt to make him change his mind.’
‘But at least,’ said Lord Deben, ‘you are no longer attempting to deny that there is an admirer, that Miss Waverley has poached him and that you were so upset you ran out of a ballroom to hide behind a set of planters to weep your little heart out.’
He’d tricked her! He’d spoken of things she’d wanted to keep private in such a way that she’d inadvertently confirmed everything!
‘Are you satisfied? Now that you’ve pried all my secrets from me?’
‘Not yet,’ he replied calmly, as though he was impervious to her mounting rage. ‘But before I am done, we shall both be, I promise you.’
‘I...I...’ She clenched her fists. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘It is really very simple. If I were to appear to find you fascinating, other men would want to discover what I see in you. If I swear that I think you are a diamond of the first water, you could have your pick of the rest of the herd, if you find you no longer wish to take up Miss Waverley’s leavings.’
‘Oh, for heavens’ sake! I have never heard such arrogance in my whole life.’
‘It is not arrogance, merely knowledge of human nature. Most people are like sheep, who follow mindlessly behind their natural leaders. Besides, you are from a good family and comfortably circumstanced. Once I have brought you to public notice and cleared up the misconception about your connection to the Ledbetters, there is no reason why you should not acquire a bevy of genuine suitors.’
Henrietta hated to admit it, but she could see exactly what he meant. She had often observed that a man with strong convictions could persuade others to follow their lead. And also that what several men liked, others would claim to as well, or risk being thought odd. His stratagem might actually work.
‘No, really...’ she began, but even to her own ears her voice lacked conviction. So she was not surprised by his answer.
‘You are tempted, I can tell. Wouldn’t you like,’ he said, his voice lowering to a seductive tone, ‘to outshine Miss Waverley? Would you not like to be the toast of the ton? Have your hand sought after? Your drawing room full of suitors?’
The toast of the ton.
That...that did sound tempting.
It wasn’t that she wanted Richard any more, not really. But he had said such hurtful things. And, ignoble though it was, she would dearly love to show him she was more than just a country mouse. To prove that London was not too rackety for her, but, on the contrary, that she could become one of its leading lights. Just imagine what it would be like to have London society at her feet!
The thing was, Lord Deben moved in the very best circles, not on the fringes where Richard had worked so hard to secure a foothold. He was an earl, with the right to go wherever he pleased, not the son of a country squire who needed to watch every step he took, every friend he made, for fear of being laughed out of countenance.
For a few moments she indulged in a daydream of attending some glittering ton event, where she danced all night with a succession of earls and marquises. And Richard would be gnashing his teeth in the doorway, because they wouldn’t let him in to tell her how much he regretted missing his chance with her. Miss Waverley would not have even been invited to the event either. Or, no, even better, she would be there, but sitting on the sidelines, ignored as she had once been ignored...
It was so tempting. She knew Lord Deben was not offering her this chance for her sake, but out of his own desire for revenge, yet if she played along...
But then she suddenly recalled her father telling her that if she could ever apply the word temptation to something she wanted to do, then she knew she oughtn’t really to be doing it. And felt like Eve reaching out to take that shiny, delicious apple from the serpent.
‘You...you are a devil,’ she gasped.
He chuckled. ‘Because I am tempting you to give in to a side of your nature you do not wish to admit you have?’
Oh, there was that word again.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ashamed though she was to admit it.
‘But you will do it.’
The glittering vision he’d shown her wavered and took a new form. The faces of the people in it were haughty and cruel. And she, by joining them and giving former friends like Richard the cold shoulder, of inflicting the same misery that she’d borne on Miss Waverley, made her as cruel and hard as they were.
She didn’t want to become such a person.
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. She would not become that sort of person.
‘No,’ she said firmly. Then, a little louder, ‘No. It would not be right.’
‘You are refusing my offer?’
‘Most certainly.’
The ungrateful baggage. He had never exerted himself to such an extent for anyone else, or promised so much of his time to aid their cause.
It was Will all over again. Spurning the hand of friendship which he’d extended and spitting in his face.
His face shuttered. ‘On your own head be it, then.’
‘What do you mean?’
She frowned up at him, those ridiculous feathers bobbing in the breeze. She really had no idea. Over the next few days, society would beat a path to her door, whether she wanted them to or not.
There was nothing she could do to prevent it. Everyone had seen him driving an unknown female around the park not once, but three times, and all the while engaged in animated conversation. He had taken care not to acknowledge anyone, which would stoke their curiosity about her to fever pitch. Why, they would want to know, would such a renowned connoisseur of female beauty have paid so much attention to this rather vulgarly attired little nonentity?
They would want to know who she was, what her connection was to him and where she had come from. They would not leave her be until they had pried every last one of her secrets from her. She would very soon regret her stubborn refusal to make her a reigning queen of society. Then—oh, yes, then he would have this proud little Puritan crawling to him.
‘You will find out. And when you do, don’t forget that I offered my protection.’
When they reached the gates the next time he put his team straight through them and took the turn out on to Oxford Street.
Henrietta could see she had offended him by turning him down, but really, after only these two encounters with him, she was sure it would be better never to tangle with him again. He was too autocratic. Too far out of her social sphere. Too clever and tempting, and worldly and, oh, altogether too much!
She bade farewell to that vision of a glittering ballroom and all those nobles who’d wanted her to dance with them. She was going home, to her dear aunt and uncle, to Mildred and Mr Crimmer. Back to the world of pantomimes at Covent Garden, and dinners in the homes of businessmen, and balls where she would dance with the sons of aldermen and merchants.
And when she went home to Much Wakering she would at least do so with a clear conscience.
* * *
Lord Deben remained silent with that expression of displeasure on his face all the way back to Bloomsbury. But when she alighted outside her aunt’s house, to her surprise he tossed the reins to his tiger, sprang down and caught up with her before she’d set foot on the first step.
‘Miss Gibson,’ he said sharply.
She sighed. What now?
‘You are such a simpleton,’ he said, glancing down the street as though he was already itching to be away. ‘You don’t know what you are saying, to turn down my offer of assistance. And though you have made me very angry, I cannot leave things between us like this.’ He wouldn’t mind making her pay for her rudeness to him by leaving her to the mercy of the goss
ipmongers. But he did not want her to come to complete shipwreck. She was so naïve, and...and green, believing in goodness and decency, and telling the truth and shaming the devil.
He seized her hand and looked directly into her eyes, his expression, for once, neither mocking nor dismissive, but earnest.
‘You came rushing to my help, that night on Miss Twining’s terrace, even though I did not need it. I find,’ he said with a perplexed frown, ‘that I cannot turn my back on such a foolhardy, gallant gesture.’
More than half of his anger with her, he had realised during the drive back to Bloomsbury, was due to the fact she did not appreciate how rare it was for him to want to put himself out for anyone. The rest, well...
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that in some ways we are very much alike. You have a good deal of pride. It is why you hid behind the plant pots to cry, rather than go running to your aunt. Why you spurn the offer of help from me, a man you hardly know, rather than admitting you stand in need of it.’
He was doing it again. Assuming he knew all about her.
And the most annoying thing of all was the fact that he was pretty near the mark.
‘Do not be too proud,’ he said with an infuriatingly sympathetic smile, ‘to turn to me should you ever really need it.’
‘Oh, I’m sure I shan’t.’
‘Yes, but if you should, I will be there. Remember that.’
‘Well, then, thank you, my lord.’ She pulled her hand from his and nodded to him, setting her ostrich feathers quivering wildly.
‘And good day.’
She turned and pounded up the steps to the front door as though the devil himself was after her.
That was clearly what she thought. He frowned. It was perhaps better for her to stay away from a man like him. They came from different worlds.
If she stepped into his, she would soon lose that delightful innocence, that childlike belief in good and evil.
His face set in harsh lines, he mounted up behind his team and set his curricle in motion. The best way for him to protect her probably would be to stay well away from her.
Upon reflection, he supposed he should not have taken her out in public and exposed her to speculation today.
Damn it all, but now he’d set the ball rolling, there was nothing he could do to call off the hounds that would surely pursue her for their sport.
He had told her he would keep away from her and he would do so. But that did not mean he could not exert his influence discreetly. There were plenty of ways he could ensure she was protected, now he came to think of it, which would not involve direct contact.
His lips lifted into a smile of utter devilment, as he began to draw up his plans. How long would it be before she began to detect his hand, gently pulling the strings behind the scenes, and came to him to express her gratitude?
He chuckled at the unlikelihood of her ever doing anything so tame. Knowing her, it would be far more likely she would come marching up to him, ostrich feathers bobbing in indignation, to demand that he leave her alone.
Either way, he would have made her come to him the next time. And for some reason he didn’t care to examine too closely, that was what mattered the most.
Chapter Five
It was two weeks before she saw him again.
She had been some twenty minutes in the house of Lord Danbury, where she’d been invited, much to her surprise, by his daughter Lady Susan Pettiffer. Her party had spent most of that time removing their coats and changing their shoes in the ladies’ withdrawing room, greeting their host, and wandering through as many rooms as they could—on the pretext of seeing if there was anyone they knew—so that her aunt could examine how each and every room in the earl’s sumptuous town house was decorated and furnished.
They had just secured a place on a sofa in one of the upstairs drawing rooms when the entire atmosphere became charged. It was a bit like the tingle she sometimes felt in the air when she was out walking on the hills and a thunderstorm was fast approaching. Then the
ladies started discreetly preening and several of the men checked their neckcloths in the glass over the mantel, if they were near enough, and those who weren’t began to speak in more ponderous tones.
Lord Deben had entered the room.
Her aunt gripped her wrist. Ever since he had taken her out for that drive, Aunt Ledbetter had been expecting him to call again. Or, at the very least, to send a posy. In vain had Henrietta assured her there had been nothing romantic about him showing interest in her. ‘But you are just the sort of girl a man like that would like,’ she had said, over and over again. ‘They live a lot in the country, the aristocracy.’
‘Please, do not refine too much upon the fact that he happens to be here tonight. He has probably forgotten all about me by now,’ she turned to her aunt to say.
‘Nonsense. He just has not noticed you yet,’ replied her aunt.
‘Don’t wave, don’t wave,’ Henrietta hissed out of the corner of her mouth, when it looked as though her aunt was about to do just that. ‘If he wants to pretend he has not seen us,’ she muttered angrily, for how he could have failed to see them, when the sofa upon which they sat was in full view of the door through which he had just walked, she could not imagine, ‘then he must not want to recognise us tonight.’
Her aunt subsided immediately. It was one thing for a member of the ton to call at one’s house, quite another for that same aristocrat to deign to recognise one in public.
Henrietta flicked open her fan and plied it over her aunt’s heated cheeks. The excitement of getting an invitation to a household such as this quite eclipsed the coup of getting her Mildred into a mere Miss Twining’s come-out ball. Although, in a way, they owed that, too, to Julia. She had called, with Lady Susan in tow, only a day or so ago, to enquire whether she had quite recovered from whatever had afflicted her during her come-out ball. ‘Because,’ Julia had said disingenuously, ‘I was beginning to fear it might be something serious, since I have not seen you anywhere since.’ As they’d been leaving, Lady Susan had asked if she would be interested in attending what she described as ‘a very informal rout’.
Aunt Ledbetter had very nearly expired from excitement on the spot.
‘Shall I fetch you some lemonade, aunt?’ There were so many more important people thronging the house that the footmen circulating with trays of refreshments had bypassed them several times. And she was only too willing to leave the room in which Lord Deben was holding court, to go in search of a waiter willing to serve them.
‘No, dear, I need something considerably stronger,’ said her aunt. ‘Lemonade for Mildred, though.’
Henrietta snapped her fan shut and deliberately avoided looking in Lord Deben’s direction. She hadn’t liked the way he’d kept invading her thoughts over the past fortnight. She hadn’t liked the way her spirits had lifted when she detected some sign that he might have been working on her behalf, in the background, in spite of the way they had parted. Although he’d probably, no, definitely had more important things to think about than a badly dressed, shrewish country miss. For in what other light could he regard her? When she looked back on the two occasions they had met, she realised that she had made a spectacle of herself both times. On that first occasion, her face had been all blotchy with tears, and, she’d discovered to her horror when she’d got home and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, there was more than a handful of dead ivy in her hair. The second time, she’d deliberately made herself look as vulgar as she possibly could, and, because she’d still been recovering from Richard, had been very far from gracious.
Shrewish, to be perfectly blunt. And whenever she tried to justify herself by reminding herself of all the rude things he’d said, too, her conscience pointed out that he had at least tried to rein in his temper. Several times. Only for her to provoke him into losing it aga
in.
All the poor man wanted was to express his thanks in the only way he knew how—by offering her the chance at retribution. And she had thrown it all back in his face.
She especially did not like the fact that just now, when he’d walked into the room, she had reacted exactly the same as her aunt had done. The only difference between them was that her pride had kept her from showing it—that, and the fact that she would not for the world expose her aunt and cousin to ridicule by having a man like that snub them, if he should choose to do so.
It was bad enough that at the moment even the waiters would not deign to notice them.
If only she hadn’t turned down his offer to make her the toast of the ton, if only she hadn’t been so ungracious, so ungrateful, everything might have been so different.
So deep had she fallen into a spirit of self-chastisement that she very nearly walked right into the large male who stepped into her path.
‘Lord Deben!’
How on earth he’d managed to intercept her, she had no idea. Last time she had permitted herself to look at him he had been on the other side of the room.
‘Miss Gibson,’ he said, inclining his head in the slightest of bows. ‘Trying to avoid me, perchance?’ He spoke softly, his lips scarcely moving.
‘N-no, not at all! I thought you were...’ She felt her cheeks heat.
His lids lowered a fraction. A satisfied smile hovered briefly about his sensual mouth. ‘I have merely been complying with your wishes. You made it very plain you wanted nothing further to do with me. I was not, especially, to pollute your family’s drawing room with my sinfully tempting presence...’
Her cheeks grew hotter still. ‘I was angry and upset. I spoke hastily. I was rude. And...’ she lifted her chin and looked him full in the face ‘...I apologise.’
The smile stayed in place, but it no longer reached his eyes. It was almost as though he were disappointed in her.
Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Never Trust a RakeDicing With the Dangerous LordA Daring Liaison Page 7