And then he saw him. Bright smile. Boyish face. Pretty in a way that most men weren’t, and Philip knew of plenty of women who preferred pretty to rugged. He just hadn’t ever expected Loraine to be among those women.
Philip stood when he saw Lord Garth and went straight towards him without any real effort at pretense. Lord Garth was saying hello to his cousin, a round fellow who was leading him to what was presumably Lord Garth’s usual seat.
Just as he was sitting down, Philip emerged with a broad smile plastered on his face. “Lord Garth, what a pleasure to see you. It is Lord Garth, isn’t it?”
Lord Garth looked up at him from his seat. He was falling over his reply, stuttering like an adolescent caught doing something he wasn’t meant to.
“Umm-” he began, but before he could finish, Philip gestured to the seat opposite him and said, “May I join you?”
He sat down before waiting for an answer. Before poor Lord Garth could get a word in, Philip called over the waiter and made an order. He ordered the pair of them two of their biggest breakfasts and said, “It’s on me.”
“Th-thank you,” Lord Garth said. “But you really don’t have to-”
“Nonsense!” Philip said. “Anything for a friend.”
He could see by Lord Garth’s dubious and awkward expression that he didn’t really think of them as friends. Well, that made two of them.
Philip smiled at him while they waited for the breakfasts to come, until Lord Garth became so uncomfortable that he started pulling at his collar as if it was too tight. “What brings you hear, Lord Blackhill?”
“I’m surprised you know my name.”
Lord Garth blushed. “You know mine.”
“As I ought to. I saw you at Miss Beauchamp’s the other day and took an interest.”
“You did? Oh, yes, of course you did.” He cleared his throat, his nervousness noticeably increasing. When the breakfasts came, he thanked the waiter a little too intently and looked as if he wanted him to stay.
If only to prevent Philip from launching into what was clearly going to be an interrogation. Philip started eating in big mouthfuls, and spoke between swallowing. “So,” Philip said. “I’ve been wondering something. Are you very close to Miss Beauchamp?”
Philip looked up at Lord Garth and saw him swallow. “Yes,” he said, after a long time. “Sort of.”
“Yes or sort of?” Philip pressed.
Lord Garth hesitated, then said, “Yes.”
“As I thought,” Philip answered, then took another bite and chewed it slowly. “Are you friends?”
Lord Garth looked around them, with a shifty look in his eye, as if he was trying to decide if he could make a break for it. Well he may be pretty, but Philip could run him down with ease.
“Well?” He pushed, in a less patient voice.
“We’re courting,” Lord Garth admitted.
“Courting,” Philip echoed, in a flat voice.
Lord Garth nodded uneasily. “Yes.”
Philip stopped eating and put his knife and fork down. He pushed the plate aside and leaned across the table towards Lord Garth. “Then I suppose you don’t know about her,” he said, conspiratorially. “Or perhaps you do and you are just a braver man than most. Is that the case?”
Lord Garth’s anxious expression was answer enough. He was by no means a brave man. He didn’t answer. “Let me do you a favor and tell you the truth about her,” Philip suggested. “She’s a heartbreaker, Lord Garth. She plays with the hearts of men like a cat with string. Do you understand that?”
Lord Garth was clearly trying to muster the nerve to say something. But before he could, Philip went on. “She’s left a graveyard of broken hearts behind her. And you’re a sensible man. Do you really want to get yourself hurt?”
Lord Garth’s lips parted, but again Philip interrupted him. “I don’t think you do. So if I were you, I’d stay away from her.”
In the wake of his words, Philip stood and wiped his mouth on a napkin. He put some cash down on the table to pay for their meals. “You have a good day now, Lord Garth.”
He turned to leave, but before he made it to the door, Lord Garth called out after him. “Will you?”
Philip stopped and looked back. “Will I what?”
“Will you take your own advice, Lord Blackhill? And stay away from her?”
It was without a doubt the boldest thing he’d ever heard Lord Garth said. Philip’s brows lifted, but he didn’t answer. He turned and walked out of the restaurant.
***
Lord Philip Everton, Marquess of Blackhill
“I really don’t think you should be attending without an invitation,” George said, as they approached the Beauchamp estate.
“Miss Loraine and I are very close,” Philip answered. “It would have been an insult to extend an official invitation.”
George believed the best of people - even his brother - so much, that he didn’t question whether this poor excuse might not be true. He looked pleasantly surprised in fact. “Are you courting?” He asked, hopefully.
“Something like that,” Philip said, though it was half a lie. He’d certainly thought they’d been courting after what had happened in the woods, but he and Lord Garth couldn’t both be courting her.
And Lord Garth didn’t seem to be the lying sort.
Still, George was clearly overjoyed by Philip’s answer. “That’s marvelous. I can’t wait to meet her.”
And when he did, he was speechless. Loraine greeted them at the door in a floor length blue gown. It looked so light that he imagined a breeze could lift it away. It hugged her bodice in such a way that made every man look at her.
Even George, pious and righteous as he was, stared. “You must be Miss Beauchamp,” he said, as they stepped inside. “Such a pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s a delight to meet you too, father,” she answered, with a curtsey. Having been ordained only recently, not many people had gotten into the habit of calling him ‘father’. Hearing Loraine do so, George’s countenance brightened even more so.
Philip smiled at his brother half-affectionately, half-awed. He wondered how his brother could find so much joy in such simple pleasures. The priesthood was so clearly his calling.
“My brother was particularly excited by the prospect of being here tonight,” George went on, gesturing towards Philip. Obviously he thought he was being helpful, but Philip really hoped he’d shut up.
“Why don’t you go inside, George?” Philip suggested, quickly. “Isn’t that Mrs. Haddingley? She’ll be wanting to see you.”
“Of course,” George said, when he spotted Mrs. Haddingley. She spotted him at that very moment, thank God, and gestured for him to come over. George thanked Loraine for inviting him and went inside, leaving Loraine and Philip stood together in the doorway.
“He’s quite lovely,” Loraine remarked, as she followed George with her eyes.
“You sound surprised.”
She gave him a pointed look and said, “I am.”
He knew what she was suggesting. How could George, a overtly righteous man, have fallen from the some tree as Philip? Philip smiled at her roguishly. “Him and I are not so different,” he said.
Her brow rose in disbelief. “He did not crash my ball, uninvited.”
“I was only trying to spare you the embarrassment of realizing that my invite had been lost in the post, Loraine.”
Loraine shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I am sure you were.”
Philip had every intention of continuing their conversation because, if he was being honest with himself, he’d missed her. But before he could get another word in, someone else arrived, forcing him to go into the ball.
Once there, he wasn’t really sure what to do with himself. He realized, as he looked around, that the only person he had any interest in talking to was Loraine.
He was also desperate to confront her about Lord Garth, but couldn’t exactly do so without sacrificing what little power he ha
d between them. And power was crucial in their relationship. Constantly shifting in endless battles.
But he was confident that he would be the one to win the war when she fell in love with him and he implemented his plot to break her heart.
Philip spotted Abigail and she called him over before he could pretend he hadn’t seen her. He tried to disguise his dread and cast a look over his shoulder, to look at Loraine one more time before diving into the social expectations of the ball.
She was smiling at the gentleman who’d just arrived, with that calm, polite countenance that drove him so crazy.
Abigail, as usual, chatted his ear off and made it difficult to divide his attention. He kept on stealing glances of Loraine so that he could keep track of her, while nodding at whatever nonsense Abigail was going on about.
But after a while, when he cast a glance back towards the door, he realized that Loraine had disappeared. He quickly cast his eyes around the room, but there were too many people. He couldn’t see Loraine.
“Sorry, Abigail,” he interjected. “Will you excuse me?”
Before she could answer, he left to go hunting for Loraine. The trickiest part of that was keeping people from stopping him for a chat. When he couldn’t avoid a conversation, he’d quickly excuse himself and resume his hunt.
Eventually he’d done two laps of the entire ballroom, but he hadn’t seen her. He’d even started asking people if they’d spotted her, but none of them had. Expelling a breath, he stopped beside his brother and asked him if he’d seen Loraine.
“I have,” George said, to Philip’s surprise. “She went out that way.” He gestured towards a closed door which led back into the foyer.
Frowning, Philip went through the door as inconspicuously as he could manage and emerged in the foyer. It wasn’t well-lit, because the attendees were expected to stay in the ballroom. And it was dead silent.
Before he turned back, he saw a door at the end of the foyer. He walked towards it, though he saw no reason why she would seclude herself when there were so many guests desperate to speak to her in the ballroom.
Or perhaps that was why she was hiding.
Philip moved to put his hand on the door knob, but just as he touched it he heard a woman’s voice on the other side. With furrowed brows, he put his ear against the wood and listened.
It didn’t sound like Loraine. The voice was higher than Loraine’s, but it was clear that whoever was speaking was speaking to someone. So Philip continued to listen in and started to frown when he heard what was being said.
Chapter 16
Miss Loraine Beauchamp
“We were close,” Lady Mary Reynolds said. “Very close.”
Lady Mary was not what Loraine had been expecting. She had glorious, flaming red hair and emerald eyes. The freckles across her pale cheeks were unique and made her look like she’d been dusted with cinnamon.
“We saw each other every day for weeks,” she went on. “He even told me that he loved me. We became… more intimate as time went by.” Her cheeks flushed red as she said this, and Loraine knew enough of men and women to realize what she meant.
But she hadn’t actually said it, leaving plenty of room for misinterpretation, as she’d no doubt intended.
If it was true that they’d been intimate in the strictest sense of word, then she wouldn’t very well be telling Loraine. A veritable stranger.
But Tristan had told her to trust Loraine, and it seemed as if she was doing so, as much as she could.
But Loraine couldn’t very well expect her to reveal all her secrets, especially ones that could ruin her reputation if they ever got out.
“Please go on,” she said.
“And then I stopped hearing from him,” she confessed, lifting her shoulders as if she still didn’t understand. “After all that, he just… stopped. I tried to contact him with no success and he never visited again.”
This was just the information she’d wanted to hear. And yet… she hated hearing it. But whether she enjoyed hearing it or not, it was necessary. After what had happened between her and Philip in the woods, she’d needed to be reminded of why she was doing this.
Because Lord Philip Everton was as much a scoundrel as his father was.
“He’d asked me to keep our relationship a secret. Said that he didn’t want his father finding out, lest he try to interfere. But he told me that we’d get engaged someday soon and then everyone could know.”
She took a breath, then went on. “Once I stopped hearing from him, I grew concerned. I decided to speak to one of my friends about him. But she beat me to it.”
Loraine felt dread settle in her stomach, because she already knew where this was going. “She started talking about this new man she’d met. A man who she’d fallen in love with, and who was promising her the world.”
Loraine might have expected the girl to cry as she said this, but she didn’t. She proudly lifted her chin and kept her gaze steady. “I asked my friend who this gentleman was. And she said Lord Philip Everton.”
Lady Mary expelled a slow breath and shook her head. “Lord Philip Everton,” she said again, as if she was still in disbelief. “I realized the truth of him then and told my friend, who was just as horrified.”
Loraine heard a floorboard creak just outside the door. It was a floorboard she knew well, because when she’d snuck out of her bedroom to listen to her father’s meetings as a child, she’d always had to avoid that floorboard.
When she’d put even her meagre weight on it as a young girl, it had made a terrible creaking sound which had often given her presence away to her father. Who’d no doubt been listening out for the sound.
Luckily, Lady Mary did not notice. But Loraine certainly did, and she had a pretty good guess at who was listening in. The very person she’d meant to overhear them.
Loraine wasn’t shocked by what Lady Mary said. She wasn’t surprised. Not really. She’d known who Philip was when she’d first met him and his reputation as a womanizer hadn’t escaped her during her time in England.
What she did feel was rage.
But she disguised this, and chose to display another feeling which would suit her purposes far better. She forced her voice to sound shaky and said, “I’m… I’m sorry, I’m taken aback.”
Lady Mary reached out and held her hands, squeezing them reassuringly. “I am so sorry to bring you this news. You are not first to fall prey to him.”
“I just,” she murmured. “I just never thought he’d hurt me.”
“None of us ever did,” she answered, with a sympathetic smile. “Better to get out now, before he does your heart anymore harm, my dear.”
“Of course you’re right,” Loraine said.
Loraine nodded and leaned back in her seat. “Thank you for sharing this with me, Lady Mary. It is much appreciated.”
“Of course,” she answered. “We ladies must stick together.”
“Yes, we must.” Loraine stood. “I am so sorry to have stolen you away from the ball to engage you in such a sombre subject. Please go and enjoy yourself.”
As Loraine said this, she opened the door to the study so that Lady Mary could return to the ball. She did so after giving Loraine a sisterly smile, as if they were both cut from the same cloth, hurt by the same man.
But they were not.
Loraine was a different breed of woman.
She stood in the hallway and watched Lady Mary disappear back into the ballroom.
“You may come out now,” she said.
***
Lord Philip Everton, Marquess of Blackhill
After everything he’d heard, Philip was left reeling. But not so much by what Lady Mary had said, so much as what Loraine had said. And what he’d heard in her voice.
She was hurt.
He felt his stomach sink and didn’t want to hear anymore. He took his ear away from the door and stood there, thinking about everything that had been said in that study.
And thinking about what he’d
done, for the first time, from someone else’s perspective. He wished he could say that Lady Mary was lying, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to do so convincingly. And after everything he’d already done to Lady Mary, he wasn’t about to call her a liar to top things off.
He had treated her poorly. He’d manipulated her into getting close to him, but had got bored in the end. Philip hadn’t always been like this. Before he’d gone off to university, he’d been a diligent, albeit a little mischievous, young man.
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