‘So what happened next?’ Amanda enquired. She drew her friend’s arm through her own as they strolled along the path in St James’s Park. It was late afternoon and they had been shopping in Bond Street with Lady Bainbridge. Lady Bainbridge had declared herself fatigued by all the excitement and had gone home, but Amy and Amanda had wished to see how the preparations for the Regent’s victory fête were progressing.
Amy giggled. ‘After that I told him that I did not require his attendance for the rest of today as I would be going shopping with you and Mama. Do you know, Amanda, Lord Tallant even offered to accompany me to Bond Street, saying that he was quite an expert on the subject of female dress! Can you imagine the fuss that that would have caused?’
‘I can,’ Amanda said drily, ‘and I do believe Lord Tallant told nothing but the truth. He is indeed a connoisseur of female charms!’
Amy blushed self-consciously. ‘Oh, I know! I realise that he is the most dreadful rake! But our activities this week are going to be quite blameless, Amanda. Why, Lord Tallant is escorting me to a concert by the Charity Children of Westminster tonight. Mama and Richard will be there as well, so it is all quite innocent!’
Amanda raised her brows. ‘Lord Tallant at a charity concert? Good God!’
‘Yes, indeed, and tomorrow we go to a lecture at the Royal Humane Society! I have it in mind to give them a large donation from my winnings. So you see, Amanda, there is nothing scandalous about what we are doing!’
‘Only the giving away of large sums of money,’ Amanda said feelingly. ‘That is quite disgraceful, Amy!’
Amy blushed. Although she had made up her mind to give most of the money to charities and she was quite determined to go through with it, the combined disappointment and disapproval of her family and Amanda was difficult to bear. Only Joss Tallant had not condemned her decision.
‘You are aware that people will talk anyway if they see Lord Tallant dancing attendance on you?’ Amanda was saying now, with a speculative glance at Amy’s face. ‘He never pays attention to any respectable female unless he wishes to seduce her! People will be saying that he has ruined you through this so-called debt of honour.’
Amy had already thought of this and some imp of obstinacy had refused to let it spoil her plans. Now that she had been persuaded to accept Joss’s company, she was not going to be so poor-spirited as to be put off by a little gossip.
‘I dare say people will talk scandal. There will be little for them to talk about, however, and what little there is will not be interesting. Oh, look—is that not a Chinese temple that they are building over there? The Prince’s creations always have a grand design!’
They fell to discussing the victory celebrations.
‘I did not tell you before,’ Amanda said, ‘but one of the reasons I came up from the country was to see all the victory festivities! I was last up in town in April for the visit of King Louis XVIII—I was in Piccadilly when the procession drove past, you know!’ Her face fell a little. ‘It was a sad disappointment, for the King is old and lame and the crowds were quite uninterested! I glimpsed the Duchess of Oldenburg as well, you know—she is a terrible fright and they say that the Regent and she took an instant dislike to each other!’
Amy herself read the newspapers when Richard took them, and so was quite aware of the visit to London of a whole bevy of princes and generals following the victory of the Allies in Europe. Unlike Amanda, however, she was quite indifferent to the phalanx of visitors. She knew that the Bainbridges were too unfashionable to receive invitations to any of the Prince Regent’s private celebratory entertainments and had no wish to be crushed by the crowds who would wait for up to a whole day simply to see the famous pass by.
‘I am quite beside myself at the prospect of seeing the King of Prussia,’ Amanda continued. ‘Czar Alexander will be visiting next month as well and he is reputed a vastly handsome man! I wonder if the Duke of Fleet could procure me an invitation to one of the Regent’s dinners? He is an intimate of the Prince, after all. It is such a shame that half the fashionable world seems to have gone to Paris!’
Amy smoothed down her gloves. They were new and had flowers embroidered on the back and were really very pretty. She was beginning to feel almost part of the fashionable world herself. The Bond Street purchases, lavish as they had been, had not made a huge dent in the thirty thousand pounds. Amy reassured herself that there was still plenty left for her chosen charities.
‘’Tis a shame my aunt does not own a house along the Czar’s procession route for I heard tell that people were asking fifty guineas to rent a window along the way!’ Amanda said. ‘Still, we may admire the preparations for the fête, I suppose! Look over there, Amy—they are building a Chinese bridge across the lake and a pergola and all manner of follies! The Prince is mad about Oriental fashions, you know, and so very extravagant, but I imagine it will be a magnificent party!’
Amy followed Amanda’s pointing finger in the direction of the preparations, but rather than concentrating on the progress of the Prince’s building work, her attention was caught by four gentlemen who were strolling towards them. She stiffened.
‘Amanda, look! It is Richard—and the Duke of Fleet and the Earl of Tallant and Lord Parrish! Now what are we going to do?’
Amanda drew her breath in sharply. ‘Oh dear, I do so hate having to cut anyone of my acquaintance dead! And especially your brother, my dear, let alone the Duke of Fleet. This is most delicate…’
It was not the gentlemen themselves who were the problem but the fact that each had his arm entwined about the waist of a personable young female. Amy stared—and felt herself blush. A strange feeling swept over her and a lump seemed to wedge itself in her chest, hard and hot and painful, as she watched Joss Tallant with his mistress.
‘Ladybirds!’ she said, in a stifled voice. ‘Mama would have forty fits if she knew Richard was parading his chère amie in the park in the afternoon!’
‘Lucky that Lady Bainbridge did not choose to walk with us this afternoon,’ Amanda said, ever practical. ‘A female’s nothing but a fool if she expects men to be other than the way they are!’ For a second there was a hint of bitterness in her tone that made Amy glance at her curiously, but then it was gone, leaving Amy wondering. She had thought Amanda’s marriage had not been happy. Perhaps the late Lord Spry, whom Amy had met only once or twice, had been another such, who paraded his conquests with scant regard for his wife.
Her gaze was drawn back to the lady on Joss Tallant’s arm and she gave a little, unconscious sigh. So this was how the Earl of Tallant spent his time when he was not attending upon her! Suddenly her lavender gown did not feel so stylish and Amy herself felt decidedly cross-grained. She and Joss had spent such a pleasant morning discussing their plans for the week, yet now he had obviously returned to his preferred entertainments. Amy, who had been at a loss to understand why he would wish to spend any time with her at charity lectures and visits, felt strangely humiliated. Her envious eyes took in every detail of the fashionable impure who graced Joss’s arm. She struggled hard to overcome her ill temper, but was only partially successful.
‘The…er…ladies are prodigiously pretty, are they not, Amanda? One can see the attraction!’
‘The one with the Earl is Harriet Templeton,’ Amanda said, lowering her parasol to conceal the fact that she was watching. ‘She used to be an opera dancer, by all accounts, and now she has a part share in a very exclusive club in Covent Garden! But that is enough of this salacious gossip! Your Mama would be disgusted with me, discussing such matters with an unmarried lady!’
‘I am no débutante,’ Amy said, trying to sound cool, ‘and I think I may stand the shock of knowing that such ladies exist! The question is—what are we to do?’ The group was still strolling towards them and suddenly Amy felt a little panicky. Was she to ignore her own brother because of the company he kept? She had no idea how to deal with the situation. Yet it was on Joss Tallant rather than Richard that her gaze was still f
ixed and when Joss turned his head and looked at her, as though drawn by her scrutiny, she did not look away, and neither did he.
Amy was not sure what she had been expecting—that Joss would deliberately turn away to spare her embarrassment perhaps, or even that he might appear slightly abashed to have been caught in such a situation. Instead, he held her gaze with a steady regard that contained just the slightest hint of amusement and more than a little challenge. Amy’s chin came up and she gave him back look for look. She saw his smile deepen and the hot, angry feeling inside her welled up and threatened to spill over. Then she turned away, finding it quite easy to cut him dead after all.
Amanda took her arm and led her down a little path off to the left, and in a moment the danger was past and the gentlemen and their ladies, laughing and chattering, had passed on by. Amy was shocked and a little breathless to find that she was trembling.
‘Whatever was that all that about, Amy?’ For once Amanda’s voice had lost its light tone. ‘I hope you are not developing a tendre for the Earl of Tallant! I was worried about it as soon as I heard about this foolish debt! Lud, he is the last man on earth for an innocent miss to tangle with!’
‘I assure you that there is no such danger,’ Amy protested, trying to quell her shaking. ‘I barely know the man and what I do know of him does not dispose me to like him!’
‘Gracious, what has liking to do with anything? One can look once and…’ Amanda shrugged airily. ‘What I cannot understand is that he was staring at you!’ Her gaze skimmed her friend thoughtfully and Amy could not help but laugh.
‘I know! You are wondering what a man like the Earl of Tallant, with the beautiful Miss Templeton hanging on his arm, could possibly see in me!’ she said, with a hint of bitterness. ‘Well, Amanda, I beg you not to trouble yourself. I am persuaded that you are making too much of this. The Earl has no romantic interest in me and I…do not think of him in that way at all!’
Her friend looked unconvinced. ‘Yet you will be much in his company during this week—’
‘And the rest of the time he will be following his own inclinations,’ Amy said lightly, ‘as we have just seen.’ She took a deep breath to steady herself. It seemed ridiculous, but seeing Joss Tallant like that had, just for a second, felt like a betrayal. Amy had enjoyed his company that morning but now she felt disappointed and resentful. She knew it was ridiculous, for she had no claim to him, but it felt suspiciously as though she was about to cry. It felt loweringly as though she was jealous…
She stole a look at Amanda’s face. Her friend did not seem much happier to have witnessed the Duke of Fleet with his chère amie. She gave Amanda’s arm a little shake.
‘Shall we take some tea at the rotunda? I have had quite enough of gawping at the sights for one day!’
Amanda smiled a little sadly. ‘A good idea, Amy. There is nothing so reviving to the spirits as a hot cup of tea!’
Chapter Nine
‘Did you enjoy the lecture, Miss Bainbridge?’ Joss asked, as he tooled his curricle through the park the following afternoon. It was a cooler day, grey with a chilly edge to the breeze, so the crowds were fewer and Amy had been obliged to wrap up warmly in her new pelisse. They had been to a lecture given by Dr Thomas Hardiment, a notable fundraiser, at the Royal Humane Society and afterwards Amy had resolved to donate a large sum for the funding of the Society’s work. She intended to speak to Mr Churchward about it the following morning. She sighed. There was something very worthy about charitable giving, of course, but the lecture had been dry and a little depressing.
‘I am sure that Dr Hardiment does a marvellous job,’ she said now, in answer to Joss’s question, ‘but for my part I found his lecture a little tedious. All those graphic descriptions of resuscitation, for example! Perhaps the fault is in me for being so squeamish, but I did not care to know the detail.’
‘The good doctor is certainly fond of his subject,’ Joss said with a grin, ‘but I fear that not everyone has your delicacy, Miss Bainbridge. I do believe that there are plenty of people who relish the grisly details of illness and death!’
‘The same people who would enjoy a public hanging, I suppose,’ Amy said ruefully. ‘Oh, I dare say I am too nice in my opinions and the Society does a great deal of good work.’ She turned to look at him. ‘I do hope, my lord, that you do not feel you are suffering from an excess of charity? Remember that it was your idea to accompany me!’
Joss shot her a grin. ‘My dear Miss Bainbridge, I beg you not to concern yourself! I found the Westminster Orphans’ School concert to be most entertaining last night! Some of the children could sing very sweetly; as for that angelic child who played the harp—I am persuaded that the orphanage would not give her up even if twenty people offered her a good home, for she is far too talented for them to lose!’
Amy frowned at him. ‘Upon my word, you are a dreadful cynic, sir!’
‘You know that I am right. Charity is a business as much as any other.’
Amy looked troubled. ‘I do not like to think of it in that way, my lord. There is no question that the likes of Dr Hardiment do a most useful job—’
‘Oh, indeed, I would not dispute that. But it is also their task to raise funds and promote their work. There is no harm in it. Someone needs to persuade the idle rich to part with their money to help the deserving poor!’
Amy frowned all the harder. In some ways she hated to hear Joss speak like this and yet there was an uncomfortable truth somewhere in what he was saying.
‘Do you think, then, that a great many people make donations to salve their consciences?’ she asked.
‘Assuredly. It makes them feel as though they are doing some good.’ Joss turned and looked at her. ‘They are doing good, Miss Bainbridge. So everyone wins.’
‘Yet it feels more satisfying to actually do something to help, does it not?’ Amy sighed. ‘Something active, I mean.’
Joss smiled at her. ‘Which is why you pay visits to the old and sick as well as giving so generously to the work of the Society. You are a positive paragon, Miss Bainbridge!’
‘Oh, do stop teasing!’ Amy looked at him. ‘I suppose that you do nothing useful with your time, my lord?’
‘You suppose correctly. Nothing other than entertaining myself. That seems useful enough to me.’
Amy shut her lips in a tight line. It was at moments like this that Joss irritated her almost beyond reason for she was certain that the flippant exterior hid something deeper. She had been willing him to tell her that she was wrong and to recite a whole list of the useful causes in which he was involved. Yet she knew that he would not. Joss had always been quite open about his selfish lifestyle and just because in some irrational way she wanted him to be a better person, it did not make him so.
‘Would you like to hear about my activities, Miss Bainbridge?’ Joss was saying now. ‘I drink and play cards excessively, I read the newspapers, attend the races, go to balls and routs, visit my friends, drive in the park and, of course, do other unmentionable things as well! That is my idea of gainful employment!’
Amy refused to reply. She knew he was trying to provoke her and she was well aware of his unmentionable activities. The incident in the park the previous afternoon had remained unspoken between them, as though it had never happened. When Joss had arrived in Curzon Street to accompany the Bainbridges to the charity concert Amy had been careful not to enquire into his afternoon’s activities, but the memory of Harriet Templeton hanging on his arm still made her feel sore and scratchy.
‘I assume, then, that you did not enjoy the lecture,’ she said crossly. ‘Perhaps Dr Hardiment’s words left you quite cold?’
‘It is the manner of these philanthropists that offends me, rather than their message,’ Joss said, with a lopsided smile. ‘I fear that their paternalistic attitudes remind me rather too strongly of my father. They always appear to think that they know what is best for everyone.’
Despite herself, Amy’s attention was caught. It was
the first time that Joss had ever referred to his family. ‘Is the Marquis very dictatorial? He never comes up to London, does he?’
‘No, never. He prefers the country. And to disapprove of me from a distance, of course. It is the way with fathers, I suppose.’
‘Dear me.’ Amy tucked back the tendrils of hair that were being tugged from her bonnet by the wind. ‘No doubt you give him plenty of which to disapprove.’
‘I do. As does Juliana. It is difficult to know which of us is more of a disappointment to him.’
There was no hint of expression in Joss’s voice but for some reason Amy was sure that he was more upset than he showed. She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Does that not…distress you?’
‘To be estranged from my father?’ Joss flashed her a smile. ‘Not really. He cannot disinherit me. He could cut off my allowance, I suppose, but that would reflect badly on the family honour…’
‘I was thinking along personal rather than mercenary lines,’ Amy persisted. For all Joss’s flippancy, there was some other feeling there. ‘Would you not prefer that there should be some affection between the two of you?’
Joss raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘My dear Miss Bainbridge, what an extraordinary idea! I believe that there was once some affection between my parents and look where that got them!’
‘I see.’ Amy thought that she understood. She remembered that the Marchioness of Tallant had decamped many years ago with one of her lovers, leaving her children behind in the care of their unbending father. ‘Is your mother still alive?’
‘I believe so. I have not heard otherwise.’ Joss’s tone was careless. ‘She has lived in Italy these twenty years past and I lost count of the string of her lovers. Meanwhile, my father and I only speak when he wishes to upbraid me or to try to persuade me into marriage.’
‘That sounds melancholy. Have you no wish to oblige him?’
Joss shot her a look. ‘Not in that, no. A love match is out of the question and to marry for convenience seems equally empty to me, although I expect I shall bring myself to the point one day.’
The Earl's Prize (Harlequin Historical) Page 16