Amy wrinkled up her face. His words were bleak but he was right—they lacked his customary ring of cynicism. He did not deny the existence of love, only doubted that he would find it. That seemed sadder in a way.
‘Do you know, Miss Bainbridge,’ Joss said slowly, ‘my parents both gave me the same piece of advice on the same day? It was the day my mother left and I remember it well, for all that I was only seven years old. My father told me that love was for fools. My mother said the same. I suppose I took it to heart.’ He looked at Amy and she saw that there was a strange, dazed look in his eyes before he blinked and it was gone. ‘Good God,’ he said in tones of deep disgust, ‘I cannot believe I have become so mawkish! I never told anyone that before. It must be all these charitable thoughts that have unmanned me!’
They drove for a little in silence.
‘Did you never wish to marry, Miss Bainbridge?’ Joss’s voice was his own again, cool and a little hard. ‘It is surely the ultimate aim of every young lady?’
‘Of most, I suppose,’ Amy conceded. A dimple touched her cheek as she smiled. ‘Unfortunately no one has asked me, my lord—apart from Mr Hallam, of course! But, yes, when I was younger I wanted to marry. I was quite desperate to find a husband! I thought that would give me a settled home.’
‘Your father’s changing fortunes must have been most disturbing,’ Joss said. His voice had softened a little. ‘I can see that a quieter existence might prove attractive.’
‘Oh, yes! I was mortified that I had moved about so often, you see. Governesses never stayed for long—we could not afford them—and I went to so many seminaries for young ladies that I do believe I could write a guidebook! My education was somewhat neglected as a result and I did not have the chance to learn all the ladylike accomplishments. I never learned to play the piano, for example, as I had nowhere to practice. So when I failed to attach a husband I was convinced that this must be the reason!’
Joss laughed. ‘If you ascribed it to a lack of discernment on the part of the gentlemen, Miss Bainbridge, you would be closer to the truth.’
Amy smiled. ‘Thank you. That is a very pretty compliment, sir. However, it does not matter now, for I am a lady of independent means and have achieved the security I craved! To my mind that is much better!’
‘There might be other reasons for marriage,’ Joss observed, after a moment. ‘The society, the companionship, the shared interests. It is sometimes lonely being on one’s own.’
‘That may be true,’ Amy said, ‘though it surprises me to hear you say so, my lord!’
They had reached Curzon Street and now Joss helped Amy to alight, swinging her down from the phaeton in a manner that never failed to take her breath away.
‘I will see you tonight at Lady Carteret’s ball, Miss Bainbridge, but what do we do tomorrow?’
Amy hesitated. She had planned to go to Whitechapel the following day, to take a hamper of food and children’s clothes to Mrs Wendover and to visit the School for Ragged Children. She had already decided that it would not do to ask Joss to escort her. That would entail an explanation of her connection with the Wendover family; besides, it was one thing to accept a gentleman’s escort to the Royal Humane Society and quite another to drive to Whitechapel alone with him. She tried to imagine Joss leaving his elegant phaeton outside Mrs Wendover’s lodging house and was almost betrayed into a giggle. It would be minus its wheels in five minutes—unless, of course, Joss bribed an entire gang of street children to guard it.
‘I am not sure,’ she said, hastily composing her face. ‘I do believe that I shall visit a friend in the morning, and perhaps we could go to the Royal Academy in the afternoon?’
‘That sounds most pleasant,’ Joss said, taking her hand. His perceptive gaze scanned her face. ‘I do believe though that you are keeping something from me, Miss Bainbridge! Who is this mysterious friend that you do not wish me to meet?’
‘Oh…’ Amy felt herself blushing and pulled her hand away. ‘It is…an old school friend who lives in reduced circumstances, my lord. I would not wish to overwhelm her with too many visitors!’
‘Very thoughtful of you! It is not that you are ashamed of me, reprobate that I am?’
Amy stared. ‘What an absurd idea, my lord! It is simply…I only thought…’ She hesitated on the brink of disclosure. It would be the utmost folly to confide the truth in Joss, for he could not be anything other than shocked to know that she had once lived in a lodging house in a Whitechapel rookery. She turned away.
‘As I said, my lord, my friend has very limited means and I would not wish her to feel obliged to entertain us.’
Joss pressed a kiss on her hand before letting it go. ‘I can tell when you are being sparing with the truth, Miss Bainbridge, but no matter! I will look forward to seeing you later.’
He stood watching as Amy went in at the door. Bond Street and a little lottery money had wrought quite a change. Her saucy blue straw bonnet matched the elegant pelisse and fitted her neat figure to perfection. Beneath the hat her hair was brown and glossy, feathering her cheeks in wind-blown tendrils. She looked thoroughly enchanting. As she reached the door, she turned and gave him a very sweet smile and for some reason Joss felt as though a hand had squeezed his heart. It left him feeling slightly breathless.
He gave the horses the office to move off. It had been an interesting afternoon and he looked forward to seeing Amy again that night at Lady Carteret’s ball. It was refreshing to speak with her for she had decided opinions and was not afraid to voice them to him. He smiled to himself a little ruefully. Perhaps that was what led him to play devil’s advocate with her sometimes—it was interesting to provoke her to discussion. She was so utterly unlike any other lady of his acquaintance.
That reminded him of Harriet Templeton. When he had left her bed that morning she had been quite sulky at the thought of not seeing him for the entire day. It had cost him the promise of a pearl necklace and a trip to Vauxhall to buy back a smile, and it all seemed damnably like too much hard work. He knew that he was tiring of her—the signs were unmistakable and had been for a while. Yet for some reason he was reluctant to end their association just yet, as if the thought of ridding himself of Harriet would leave him too exposed. He remembered Fleet’s suggestion that he should marry Harriet to scorn his father. She would look magnificent in the Tallant diamonds, but the thought of her as Marchioness of Tallant was otherwise repugnant to him.
Marriage…Joss frowned. He could scarcely believe that he had told Amy the tale of his parents’ separation and far less that he had mentioned their advice to him. He had thought such childhood memories were long forgotten. Yet perhaps they did remain to colour one’s judgement. Certainly Amy had been most affected by George Bainbridge’s fecklessness. But now the spectre of genteel poverty was banished and she had all the security she needed. Perhaps, now that she was an heiress as well, she would attract a suitor who pleased her.
The warm feeling that Joss had experienced whilst thinking of Amy vanished abruptly at the thought of a suitor who might catch her interest. The idea certainly did not please him. He could not imagine that any future husband of Amy’s would countenance for a moment the continuation of their visits and conversations. Yet they were only meeting so frequently to fulfil the terms of the debt of honour. At the end of the week the arrangement would cease and Amy would be free of his company. Feeling thoroughly grumpy now, Joss turned the phaeton in the direction of Covent Garden. Thinking about Amy was proving too problematical and he did not wish to question why. On the other hand, Harriet would be delighted to see him and that was not complicated at all. All the same, he knew that he was running away.
‘Amy, I have been thinking.’ Richard Bainbridge had caught his sister at the foot of the stairs as they waited for Lady Bainbridge to join them for the Carteret ball. Richard’s fair, good-humoured face was creased with worry and this, together with the unusual information that he had been thinking, made his sister vaguely apprehensive.
/> ‘Yes, Richard? Whatever is the matter?’
‘It’s Joss Tallant.’ Richard leaned a hand against the newel post and surveyed his sister with severity. ‘Dash it, Amy, it just won’t do, you know. Yesterday you were closeted with the fellow for nigh on two hours and today you vanish with him for a whole day! It makes me uncomfortable!’
Amy raised her brows. ‘I thought that Lord Tallant was a friend of yours, Richard?’
Richard looked affronted. ‘What has that to do with the price of fish? Joss is a friend of mine, but he ain’t suitable as a friend of yours!’
Amy shrugged. She felt irritable. ‘You know there is no harm in it! Besides, you did nothing to stop the wager at the time.’
Richard shifted uncomfortably. ‘I thought that Joss would simply pay up. I never imagined him squiring you around Town in this devilishly attentive manner! People will talk, you know!’
‘People always talk,’ Amy said crossly. ‘Dear Richard, I know that you have my best interests at heart, but you more than anyone must see how baseless your fears are! I know it is indelicate to mention it, but what would Lord Tallant be doing with me when he has Miss Templeton to…entertain him?’
Richard blushed. Amy found this rather endearing. ‘Amy! You should not…I cannot…’
‘Amanda and I saw you all together, remember?’ Amy said with brutal candour. ‘You, Parrish, Fleet and Joss Tallant in the Park with those ladies.’
Richard recoiled. The sound of Lady Bainbridge’s tread could be heard on the landing above and he threw a hunted look over his shoulder.
‘For God’s sake, do not mention this in front of Mama, Amy! She would have an apoplexy!’
‘Why?’ Amy raised her brows in mock ignorance. ‘Surely she knows you have an actress in keeping—’
‘Amy!’ Richard backed away, rather as though she was an unpredictable dog that might bite at any moment. ‘You know full well why you should not speak of it! Besides, Mama would be furious to discover that I had Kitty Maltravers in keeping! Papa was cheated at cards by Kitty’s first protector and Mama never forgets something like that.’
Amy gave a snort of laughter. ‘Oh, Richard, I am sure you are more worried about that than ever you are that I might be in danger from associating with the Earl of Tallant…’
‘Now there you are wrong,’ her brother said virtuously, straightening up as Lady Bainbridge, in emerald green and a startlingly large diamond necklace, started to descend the stair. ‘I have your interests firmly at heart! By the by, if you think that Joss’s amorous interests are focussed on Miss Templeton these days, you are far out! Why, he barely seems interested in the girl. I believe it will not be long before Miss Templeton is looking for another protector.’
‘Truly?’ Amy felt her heart lift in a most inappropriate and telling way. ‘Not, of course, that it is any concern of mine…Mama!’ She turned to Lady Bainbridge, grateful for the distraction. ‘You look magnificent tonight! And those diamonds—I had no notion that you possessed anything so fine.’
‘All paste, my dear,’ Lady Bainbridge said, patting her chest fondly as she approved her reflection in the hall mirror. ‘I tried to pawn them when we fell upon hard times, but I fear the pawnbroker was not interested! He said they were too gaudy!’ She frowned and checked her reflection again. ‘I cannot imagine what he meant!’
‘I say, Amy,’ Richard whispered, as they waited for the new carriage to be brought round, ‘can you lend me a monkey, just for tonight? My pockets are to let.’
‘How much is a monkey?’ Amy asked innocently.
Joss arrived at Lady Carteret’s ball very late in the evening and Amy, noticing him the moment that he walked through the door, thought that he looked slightly tousled, which in no way detracted from his startlingly attractive appearance. She watched as he greeted his hostess with a gallantry that had her ladyship blushing and smiling and made his way by very slow and slight degrees to Amy’s side.
At first she had assumed that this casual approach was designed to quash any gossip. They had agreed earlier that Joss should not escort her to the ball, but Amy had thought that the arrangement had at least involved Joss arriving tolerably early and dancing with her a couple of times. He was the one who had added balls, parties and masquerades to her list, after all. They were not her preferred mode of entertainment. As the evening had wound on and he had failed to appear, Amy found that she had every dance spoken for. To start with she had thought to save one for him; now she was glad that she had not.
She was not sure how she knew, but when he finally bowed over her hand she immediately realised that he was out of temper and that the easy camaraderie that had been between them only that afternoon had vanished. A slight frown creased her brow as she studied him. Joss’s dark auburn hair was casually dishevelled and he wore his clothes with a careless distinction. Some instinct suggested to her that he looked as though he had just got out of bed. And as she stared, her mind transfixed by the idea, she realised that it was true and, further, that he had not been alone. She blushed scarlet with mortification, snatched her hand away and muttered something incoherent.
‘Would you care to dance, Miss Bainbridge?’ Joss asked, sounding to Amy’s ears as though the very thought bored him to death. She gave him a tight smile.
‘Thank you, my lord, but I fear all my dances are taken,’ she said. ‘Here is Lord Holles come to claim me for the boulanger. Excuse me, if you please.’
Joss bowed. His face was studiously blank but there was an edge to his voice. ‘Some other time then, Miss Bainbridge?’
‘Perhaps,’ Amy said, with an equal edge to hers.
She did not remember much about the boulanger other than that from her place on the floor she could see Joss and Richard making their way to the card room. That seemed to make everything worse, as though Joss was deliberately doing everything he could to anger her by arriving late, acting in an offhand manner and then heading straight for the gaming tables. When Amy told herself not to be foolish and that she had no right to censure his behaviour, it only served to make her feel worse. She could not understand why she felt so upset. She had known all along what manner of man he was, and, if he chose to go directly to visit his mistress after he had spent the afternoon with her, that was his concern. She was not interested in his sophisticated games. It was not as though she had any romantic claim to him.
Nevertheless, there was a hot pain in her chest and tears burned behind her eyes. She had known that the debt of honour was a foolish idea from the very start and she decided that it would be better to finish it now, before it was really started, and have done with the pretence.
The dance ended and Amy accepted Lord Holles’s arm back to her mother’s side. The poor man had been doing his best to be agreeable and she realised that she had not taken in a word that he had said to her. All that she could think was that she would speak to Joss at the next opportunity and tell him that their plans for the rest of the week were cancelled. That way she need not see him again.
Joss was faring little better than Amy. He had not enjoyed his time with Harriet, despite the strenuous efforts to do so that had made him late for Lady Carteret’s ball. Their physical encounters had always been satisfying before, even if he had never found Harriet a particularly stimulating companion in other ways, yet he had found the last few hours utterly unfulfilling. He was bored and irritable and had found it almost impossible to work up any enthusiasm for their lovemaking no matter how he tried, and Harriet’s failure to notice this seemed only to serve to emphasise the gulf between them. Afterwards she had prattled on about trips on the river and the projected visit to Vauxhall, until Joss had been desperate to escape her company. When she had flung her arms about him as he left and pressed her scented body against him, he had felt physically repulsed.
All in all it was enough to put him into a very bad mood and for some obscure reason it had seemed to be the fault of Miss Amy Bainbridge. He had enjoyed his afternoon with her so much that it
had made the following hours seem even more disappointing. Then, when he had finally caught up with Amy what seemed like hours later, she had greeted him very coolly indeed and promptly gone off to dance with some other gentleman. For his part, Joss had headed for the card room in habitual fashion, only to find that he could not concentrate on the game of hazard that was in progress. He emerged a short while later, prompted by the need to discover whom Amy was dancing with next.
He was not amused to see that it was Clive Massingham who was plying her with lemonade and attention in equal measure under the approving eye of Lady Bainbridge. There were a couple of other young ladies present and a gaggle of younger sons whom Joss cynically identified as hanging out for a fortune. Amy was looking rather pretty, he thought, in another of Madame Louise’s confections, this time of pale pink gauze embroidered with tiny rosebuds. There were matching flowers on the bandeau that held back her ringlets and her hair gleamed golden brown in the light. She looked tiny and delicate and she also looked extremely cheerful and not at all reserved. Joss’s hands clenched in an involuntary movement as he saw Amy laughing with unrestrained enjoyment at one of Massingham’s anecdotes. He detested Massingham. The man was a fortune hunter and a libertine and Joss knew it was hypocritical, but he deplored Massingham’s lack of morals. He could hardly bear to be near the man—the fact that Massingham had been lover to both the Marchioness of Tallant and now to her daughter Juliana made Joss feel sick.
He was also surprised to see Lady Bainbridge countenancing Massingham’s attentions to Amy when it was well known that the man had an unsavoury reputation. As for Massingham himself—thirty thousand pounds would never be enough for him. Joss knew that he had refused to marry Juliana because she did not have enough money to tempt him.
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