‘Good! Try to get some sleep. And one more thing: tell Lady Merion I’ll call on her the day after tomorrow.’
She nodded and moved to the door, then turned back. Still angry, she knew she was beholden to him, and pride forbade her to leave without thanking him, however little inclined she was to do so. She drew a deep breath and, head held high, began. ‘My lord, I must thank you for your help in releasing me from those gentlemen.’ Lifting her eyes to his, she found that this bland statement had brought the most devastatingly attractive smile to his face.
Wholly appreciative of the effort the words had cost, he replied, his voice light, ‘Yes, you must, I’m afraid. But never mind. Once you’re in London, I’m sure you’ll find opportunities aplenty to make me sorry for my subsequent odiously overbearing behaviour.’ One dark brow rose at the end of this outrageous speech, the hazel eyes, gently and not unkindly, quizzing her. The answering blaze of green fire made him laugh. Hearing voices below, he reached out a finger to caress her cheek gently, saying more pointedly, ‘Goodnight, Miss Darent!’
Speechless, she whirled away from him and knocked on the door. ‘Betsy, it’s me. Dorothea.’
Hazelmere, lips curving in a smile that, had she seen it, would have reduced Dorothea to a state of quivering uncertainty, drew back into the shadows as the door opened with an alacrity which spoke louder than words of the fears of those inside.
‘Heavens, miss! Come you in quick; you look white as a sheet, you do!’ Dorothea was drawn into the room and the door shut.
Hazelmere waited until he heard the bolts shot home, then made his way, pensively, downstairs. At the back door, he encountered Simms.
‘Simms, I have a problem.’
‘M’lord?’
‘I want to make sure those ladies are not disturbed tonight. You don’t perchance have a large burly cousin lying about, who could take up sentry duty on that stair?’
Simms grinned as he saw the gold sovereign in his lordship’s long fingers. ‘Well, as it happens, m’lord, my oldest boy has the most dreadful toothache. He’s been mooning about in the kitchen all day. I’m sure he could do sentry duty, seeing as you ask.’
‘Excellent.’ The coin changed hands. ‘And Simms?’
‘Yes, m’lord?’
‘I’d like to be sure those ladies get the very best of treatment.’
‘Of course, m’lord. My wife’s about to take their supper up to them now.’
Hazelmere nodded and wandered out to the middle of the coachyard, looking up at the stars, twinkling now that the clouds had cleared. He paused, apparently lost in thought. Jim Hitchin, his groom, stood a few yards away, waiting until his master acknowledged him. He had been Hazelmere’s personal groom ever since the young Lord had required one. Well acquainted with his employer’s foibles, he waited patiently. Hazelmere stretched and turned. ‘Jim?’
‘M’lord?’
‘I want you to find a coachman staying here, name of Lang, coachman to the Misses Darent. Miss Darent wishes to leave at eight tomorrow, to avoid the inevitable action around here. She obviously cannot deliver the message in person.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘And Jim?’
‘Yes, m’lord?’
‘Tomorrow morning the Darent party is to leave here by eight. If there’s any difficulty in achieving that departure I want you to see I’m summoned. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘Wonderful. Goodnight, Jim.’
Jim departed, not the least averse to an early morning if it led to a clear sight of this Miss Darent. He had witnessed, distantly, the exchange in the coachyard. To his mind, his lordship was not behaving in his usual manner. Losing his temper with young ladies was definitely not his style. Jim was burning to see what the lady who could throw his master off balance looked like.
Hazelmere, fortunately oblivious to the speculations of his underling, strolled back through the main entrance of the inn and paused outside the open taproom door. Noise, like a cloud, rolled out over the threshold to greet him. Through a bluish haze of tobacco smoke he saw the group of young blades from whom he had rescued Dorothea standing at the end of the bar. It took him longer to locate the last of their number, seated at a small table in the corner, deep in conversation with Sir Barnaby Ruscombe. After considering the scene for a moment, he walked on to the private parlour he always had when staying at the Feathers. Entering, he saw Fanshawe, feet up on the table, carefully peeling an apple.
Fanshawe looked up with a grin. ‘Ho! So there you are! I was wondering whether it’d be prudent to come and rescue you.’
A ghost of a smile greeted this sally. ‘I had a few errands to attend to after returning Miss Darent to her room.’ Hazelmere removed his driving cloak, remembering to extract the glass from the pocket before he threw it on a chair. He moved to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of wine.
‘And who the hell is this mysterious Miss Darent?’
The Marquis raised his black brows. ‘No mystery. She lives at the Grange, which borders Moreton Park. She and her sister are travelling to London to stay with their grandmother, Lady Merion.’
‘I see. How is it, I ask myself, that I’ve never heard of the girl, much less set eyes on her?’
‘Simple. She’s lived all her life in the country and hasn’t moved in the circles we frequent.’
Fanshawe finished his apple and swung his feet down from the table as the door opened to admit Simms, bearing trays loaded with food. ‘At last!’ he cried. ‘I’m famished.’
Simms placed the platters on the table and, checking that all was in order, turned to Hazelmere.
‘Everything’s taken care of, m’lord, as you requested.’
Hazelmere nodded his thanks, and Simms retired. Fanshawe looked up from heaping his plate, but said nothing.
The friends took their meal in companionable silence. They had quite literally grown up together, being born on neighbouring estates within a month of each other, and had shared their schooldays at Eton and, later, Oxford. During their past ten years on the town the bond between the Lords Hazelmere and Fanshawe had become almost a byword. Over the years there had been few secrets between them, yet, for reasons he did not care to examine, Hazelmere had omitted to mention his acquaintance with Dorothea Darent to his closest friend.
Once the platters were cleared and they had pushed their chairs back from the table, savouring the special claret brought up from the depths of Simms’s cellar, Fanshawe, dishevelled brown locks falling picturesquely over his brow, returned to the offensive. ‘It’s all too smoky by half.’
Resigned to the inevitable, Hazelmere nevertheless countered with an innocent, ‘What’s too smoky by half?’
‘You and this Miss Darent.’
‘But why?’ The clear hazel eyes, apparently guileless, were opened wide, but the thin lips twitched.
Fanshawe frowned direfully but agreed to play the game. ‘Well, for a start, as she doesn’t move in the circles we frequent, tell me how you met her.’
‘We met only once, informally.’
‘When?’
‘Some time last August, when I was at Moreton Park.’
The brown eyes narrowed. ‘But I visited you at Moreton Park last August, and I distinctly remember you telling me such game was very scarce.’
‘Ah, yes,’ mused Hazelmere, long fingers caressing the stem of the goblet. ‘I do recall saying some such thing.’
‘And I suppose Miss Darent just happened to slip your mind at the time?’
The Marquis smiled provokingly. ‘As you say, Tony.’
‘No, dash it all! You can’t possibly expect me to swallow that. And if I won’t swallow it no one else will either. And, as that fellow Ruscombe’s about somewhere, you’re going to have to come up with a better explanation. Unless,’ he concluded sarcastically, ‘you want all London agog?’
At that the dark brows rose. Hazelmere drew a long breath. ‘Unfortunately you’re quite right.’ He still
seemed absorbed in his study of the goblet. Fanshawe, who knew him better than anyone, waited patiently.
Sir Barnaby Ruscombe was a man tolerated by society’s hostesses purely on account of his trade in malicious gossip. There was no chance that he would abstain from telling the story of how Hazelmere had rescued a lady from a prizefight crowd in an inn yard. The fact that Hazelmere was sure to dislike having his name bandied about in such context would ensure its dissemination throughout the ton. Although not in itself of much import, the story would reveal the interesting fact that the Marquis had some previous acquaintance with Miss Darent. And that, as Fanshawe was so eager to point out, would lead to complications.
After some minutes had passed in silence Hazelmere raised his eyes. ‘Confessions of a rake, I’m afraid,’ he said, both voice and features gently self-mocking. Seeing the surprise in Fanshawe’s brown eyes, he continued, ‘This time the truth will definitely not do. The details of my only previous meeting with Miss Darent would keep the scandalmongers in alt for weeks.’
Tony Fanshawe was amazed. Whatever he had expected, it was not that. He knew, none better, that, while Hazelmere’s affaires among the demi-monde might be legion, his behaviour with women of his own class was rigidly correct. Then he thought he saw the light. ‘I take it you mean that when you met her in the country she was unchaperoned?’
The curious smile on Hazelmere’s lips deepened. The hazel eyes held Fanshawe’s for a moment, before dropping to the goblet once more. ‘I am, naturally, devastated to contradict you. You’re right in assuming we were unchaperoned. But what I meant is, if the truth ever became public property Miss Darent would be hopelessly compromised and I, in all honour, would be forced to marry her.’
It was not possible to misinterpret that. ‘Good lord!’ said Fanshawe, thoroughly intrigued. ‘Whatever did you do?’
Hazelmere, sensing the wild speculations running through his mind, hastened to bring him back to earth. ‘Control your satyric imaginings! I kissed her, if you must know.’
‘Oh?’ Fanshawe was positively agog.
Feeling horrendously like a schoolboy describing to his more backward friends the details of his first encounter with a wench, Hazelmere regarded him with amusement tinged with irritation. Correctly interpreting the slightly awed expression in the brown eyes, he nodded. ‘Precisely. Not a peck on the cheek.’
Fanshawe stared at Hazelmere for a full minute before saying, his voice quavering with suppressed incredulity, ‘Do you mean to say you kissed her as you would one of your mistresses?’ Hazelmere’s brows merely rose. ‘No! Dash it all! You can’t go around kissing young ladies as if they were bordello misses!’
‘Perfectly true. The fact, however, remains, that in Miss Darent’s case I did.’
Fanshawe blinked. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why. But he could not quite bring himself to enquire. Instead he asked, ‘How long did she take to come out of her faint?’
‘Oh, she didn’t faint,’ replied Hazelmere, the smile in his eyes pronounced. ‘She tried to slap me.’
Fanshawe was fascinated. ‘I must meet this Miss Darent for myself. She sounds a remarkable young lady.’
‘You can meet her in London shortly. Just remember who met her first.’
And that, thought Tony Fanshawe, is a very revealing comment. He sighed, exasperated. ‘If that’s not just like you, to find all the choicest morsels before anyone else has laid eyes on ’em. I don’t suppose she has a sister?’
‘She does, as it happens. Just turned seventeen and a stunning blonde.’
‘So there’s hope for the rest of us yet.’ Abruptly eschewing their light banter, he returned to the serious side of the affair. ‘How are you going to account for your knowing Miss Darent?’
‘She’s Lady Merion’s granddaughter, remember? I’ll call at Merion House as soon as we get back to town and, figuratively speaking, throw myself on her ladyship’s mercy.’ He paused to sip his wine. ‘It shouldn’t be beyond us to concoct some believable tale.’
‘Provided she’s willing to overlook your behaviour with her granddaughter,’ Fanshawe pointed out.
‘I rather think,’ said Hazelmere, his gaze abstracted, ‘that it’s more likely to be a case of Miss Darent being willing to overlook my behaviour.’
‘You mean, she might try and use it against you?’
The hazel gaze abruptly focused. Then, understanding his reasoning, Hazelmere gave the ghost of a laugh. ‘No. What I mean is that, although she was furious with me, I’m not sure she’ll tell Lady Merion the full story.’
Fanshawe mulled this over, then shook his head. ‘Can’t see it, myself. You know what the young ones are like. Paint you in all sorts of romantic shades. The chit will probably have blabbed it all to at least three of her bosom bows before you even get to see Lady Merion!’
The strangely elusive smile that kept appearing on Hazelmere’s face was again in evidence. ‘In this case, I think it unlikely.’
A thought struck Fanshawe. ‘The girl’s not an antidote, is she?’
‘No. Not beautiful, but she’d be strikingly attractive if properly gowned.’
‘You mean, she wasn’t properly gowned when you met her?’
A soft laugh escaped Hazelmere. ‘Not exactly.’
Reluctantly Fanshawe decided not to pursue it. He was consumed by curiosity but slightly scandalised by the revelations thus far. He had never known Hazelmere in this sort of fix, nor in this sort of mood. For the first time in his life he was sure that Marc was hiding something.
Hazelmere volunteered a few more pieces of the puzzle. ‘She’s twenty-two, and sensible and practical. She didn’t faint, nor did she enact me any scenes. If I’d allowed it she would have terminated our interview a great deal sooner. Tonight, instead of falling on my chest and thanking me for deliverance from the hands of Tremlow and company, she very nearly told me to go to the devil. In short, I doubt that Miss Darent is in the least danger of succumbing to the Marquis of Hazelmere’s wicked charms.’
Fanshawe gaped. ‘Oh. I see.’ But he did not see at all.
Unfortunately he had no more time to pursue the matter. A sharp knock on the door heralded the arrival of a group of their friends, come late from the field. More wine was called for and the conversation took a decidedly sporting turn. It was not until much later that Tony Fanshawe recalled his conviction that Marc Henry was concealing something from his childhood friend.
Chapter Three
Early next morning, before the appointed time and without further incident, the Grange party set off from the Three Feathers, watched, appreciatively, by Jim Hitchin.
The day was cool but the thaw had set in. The roads improved as they neared the capital, so the motion of the coach was more even and their progress noticeably more rapid. Dorothea was in a subdued frame of mind. On her return to their chamber the evening before she had been subjected to a barrage of questions from Cecily and Betsy. Her head still swimming, she had let the tide flow over her, knowing from experience that silence would more effectively stop the inquisition than any argument. This time, her normal stratagem had failed. The questions had continued until she lost her temper. ‘Oh, do stop fussing, both of you! If you must know, I had an encounter with an extremely impertinent gentleman on my way back from the coachyard, and I’m quite vexed!’
Cecily, piqued at her subsequent refusal to recount the incident, had only been diverted by the appearance of their meal. In August, in a moment of ill-judged candour, Dorothea had told her sister of her impromptu meeting with Lord Hazelmere in the woods. The memory of the tortuous explanations she had had to fabricate to conceal from Cecily’s avid interest the full tale of that encounter had ensured that this time she easily refrained from blurting out the name of the gentleman involved. In no circumstances could she have endured another such ordeal. Not when she was feeling so unusually exhausted.
She had had little appetite, but to admit this would only have reopened the discussion. So she had forced
herself to eat some pigeon pie. After the brandy she had not dared to touch the wine. The meal completed, she had pointedly prepared for bed. Cecily, thankfully without comment, had done likewise.
A light sleeper, Dorothea had found it impossible to even doze until dawn, when the racket in the inn finally abated. She therefore had had ample time to reflect on her second encounter with the Marquis of Hazelmere. His calm assumption of authority irritated her deeply. His arrogant conviction that she would do exactly as he wished irked her beyond measure. The knowledge that, despite this, he possessed a strange attraction for her she resolutely pushed to the furthest corner of her mind. The last thing she felt inclined to do, she had sternly told herself, was to develop a tendre for the odious man! In all probability he would spend the night enjoying the favours of some doxy elsewhere in the inn. For some reason she found this thought absurdly depressing and, thoroughly annoyed with herself, had tried to compose her mind for sleep. Even then, when sleep finally came, it was haunted by a pair of hazel eyes.
Once they were under way, the swaying of the chaise quickly lulled her into slumber. She woke when they paused for lunch at a pretty little inn on the banks of the Thames. Only partially refreshed, she forced herself to consider how she was going to handle the coming interview with her grandmother. How, exactly, was she to broach the subject of Hazelmere and his promised visit? Back in the carriage, she dozed fitfully while her problems revolved like clockwork in her mind. She came fully awake when the wheels hit the cobbled streets. Gazing about, she was astonished by the hustle and bustle of life in the capital. As the carriage moved into the areas inhabited by the wealthier citizens the clamour was left behind, and both sisters were soon engaged in examining and pronouncing sentence on the elegant outfits they saw.
After asking directions, Lang finally drew up outside an imposing mansion on one side of a square in what was clearly one of the more fashionable areas. In the centre was an enclosed garden in which children and nursemaids were taking the late-afternoon air. The sun’s last rays were gilding the bare branches of the cherry trees there as the sisters were assisted from the carriage by the stately butler who had answered Lang’s knock.
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