Regency Rumour: Never Trust a Rake / Reforming the Viscount

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 again.

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.

‘But then you have had your revenge upon me, haven’t you?’ she continued gloomily. ‘So I suppose that makes us even.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know exactly what I mean,’ she snapped. She hated it when he put on that supercilious how dare you speak like that to me? look.

‘When you said “On your own head be it,” it was because you knew just what would happen after you took me out driving in the park. Ever since that afternoon, my aunt’s drawing room has been besieged by the most dreadful people all wanting to know who I am and how we are related.’

The smile returned to his eyes.

‘No doubt you quickly put them in their place. I only regret not having been there to witness their discomfiture at your masterly control of the cutting comment.’

‘I did not make any cutting comments to anyone. I told you, they were in my aunt’s drawing room. I simply explained …’ she continued, encouraged by the fact that he was smiling, even if it was at her expense. For he looked like another man altogether when he smiled like that, with genuine amusement. Younger, and an awful lot more approachable. ‘… that I was two and twenty.’

‘Which naturally put paid to the initial rumour that you must be my long-lost love child, conceived during my reckless youth.’

Her eyes widened. She had not thought he would speak quite so frankly. Although to be fair, she was the one who had started alluding to the scurrilous things that were being said about her.

‘You heard that one as well?’

He nodded, gravely. ‘For my part, I said that although I appreciated the compliment, even a man with my reputation with the ladies was unlikely to have begun my amatory career at the age of nine.’

‘And speaking of your reputation,’ she said darkly, ‘I had no idea when I accepted your invitation to drive in the park that you had never done so before with a woman who is not your mistress.’

His smile vanished completely. ‘Who told you that?’

‘That you only take a mistress up beside you?’

He nodded grimly.

‘I don’t think I’d better tell you his name,’ she said, suddenly fearful for the vengeance a man who could look so cold might take on the bacon-brained youth who’d let that piece of information slip. ‘Besides, another of the … gentlemen present soon stopped that line of speculation by declaring that he wouldn’t credit it unless he also heard that you had developed some kind of problem with your eyesight.’

‘He said what?’

‘Hearing failing now, too, hmmm? Perhaps you ought to sit down. At your age, you need to start being careful.’

‘At my age? I am hardly into my thirties, you impudent …’ He took her by the arm, steered her out of the room and up to a buffet, manned by a brace of footmen who had so far been ignoring her with masterly aplomb. With a few terse words, he arranged for them to take a tray of refreshments to her aunt and cousin, then whisked her into a small recess beyond the end of the last sideboard.

‘You will inform me, if you please, the name of the man who insulted you in your drawing room …’

‘But why?’ She opened her eyes wide, in mock surprise. ‘He only echoed what you yourself said in the park.’

‘Nothing of the sort. I made a list of your best features, in an attempt to persuade you that you had as much chance of dazzling a man as Miss Waverly, should you care to …’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, because Mr Crimmer soon settled his hash.’

‘Who is Mr Crimmer?’ His eyes narrowed on her intently. ‘Is he the suitor you were crying over at Miss Twining’s?’

‘Oh, no. He’s not my suitor at all. It was when Lord … I mean, the man who had said your eyesight must be deteriorating said that he could have understood it if it had been Mildred up beside you, because she was a … I think his exact words were a game pullet, that Mr Crimmer, who is in love with my cousin Mildred, you know, lifted him off his chair by his lapels, bundled him out of the house and threw him down the front steps.’

She paused, peeping up at him cheekily over the top of her languidly waving fan. Her eyes were brimful of laughter.

She was not angry about the incident. If anything, he would have said she was vastly amused by the antics of the boors who had invaded her aunt’s house. He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest.

‘Pray continue,’ he drawled. ‘I simply cannot wait to hear what happened next.’

It was, he realised, completely true. He was affecting boredom, but he did not think he had enjoyed a conversation with any other female half so much during the entire two weeks he had been deliberately avoiding her. Not that he’d had anything that could accurately have been described as a conversation. He had definitely attempted to start several, with various young ladies who could lay claim to both impeccable lineage and trim figures, but they always petered out into a sequence of ‘yes, my lord’ and ‘no, my lord’ and ‘oh, if you say so, then I am sure you must be right, my lord’. It had been like consuming a constant diet of bread and milk.

Running into Henrietta Gibson was like suddenly finding a pot of mustard on hand, to lend a piquancy to the unremittingly bland dishes he’d been obliged to sample of late.

‘Well, the man who’d called Mildred a game pullet was rather annoyed to be treated with such disrespect by a mere cit,’ Henrietta continued, ‘and informed Mr Crimmer of the fact in the most robust terms. And Mr Crimmer replied that a real gentleman would never speak of a lady with such disrespect, to which that man replied that Mildred was no lady, only a tradesman’s daughter.’

‘You heard all this?’

‘Oh, yes. Though I had to throw up the sash in the front room and lean out, because the front steps were a bit crowded with all the other, erm, gentlemen who had come with the man who’d called Mildred a name he oughtn’t. And I had the pleasure of seeing Mr Crimmer plant a nice flush hit that sent the so-called gentleman reeling right out into the road. After that, though,’ she said with a moue of disappointment, ‘it descended into the kind of scrap that little boys of about eight get into.’

He raised one eyebrow again. He had never, ever heard a female of good birth use boxing cant as though it were perfectly natural.

‘Oh, you know the kind of thing,’ she replied, completely misinterpreting the cause of that raised eyebrow. ‘Kicking and grappling, and flailing arms without anyone really doing the other any damage.’

‘No science,’ he said, to see if she really understood what she was saying.

‘None whatever,’ she said with a rueful shake of the head. ‘Although the other spectators appeared to enjoy it tremendously. There was a great deal of wagering going on.’

‘May I ask what your aunt was doing while this impromptu mill was taking place on her front doorstep and you were hanging out of the window cheering on your champion?’

‘I was not cheering,’ she said, adopting a haughty demeanour. ‘And he was not my champion. And as for my aunt, well,’ she said, the laughter returning to her eyes, ‘she thought about having the vapours, I think, but only for about a minute or two, because nobody was taking any notice of her. And she is a very practical person, too. So once she had got over the shock of having her drawing room taken over by a pack of yahoos, she sent the butler to fetch some of the male servants from the houses round and about, to make them all go away.’

So she had read the works of Dean Swift. Of course she had, with a father like hers. And the way she was chattering away now, taking his own knowledge of literature for granted, showed that she was well used to holding conversations that assumed all participants had a high level of education.

He’d been correct to tell her that with a few tips from him, she could learn to dazzle a man. Even without the benefit of his tuition, tonight, she was quite captivating. The way she was smiling at him, for instance, inviting him to share her amusement, was well nigh irresistible. He would defy any man not to smile back.

He would swear she was nowhere near so unappealing as he recalled, either. While she chattered on he surreptitiously scanned her outfit. The dress she was wearing tonight complemented both her colouring and her slender form. The accessories were not the least bit vulgar, so that anyone who didn’t know better would never dream she was being sponsored for this Season by a cit. But he rather thought it was the sparkle in her eyes that made her look so very different from the last times he’d seen her.

In fact, if she could but learn to keep a rein on her temper, she could very easily become a hit, without him having to make people think she had some hidden fascination which so far only he had discerned.

‘Why, then, have I not heard of this riot?’ It was time he made some contribution to the conversation. ‘Because if the thing escalated into a public brawl, involving the male servants of several houses and a pack of … yahoos …’

‘Oh, it didn’t come to that. Fortunately Mr Crimmer’s foot slipped on a cobble and he went down with his opponent on top of him. He was stunned for a few moments. Or he might just have been winded, I suppose, because … well, let us say that his opponent is no lightweight.’ She sparkled up at him.

He laughed outright at the picture she had just painted. And it struck him how very rarely he laughed, genuinely laughed, with amusement. Very few people shared his sense of humour. Or suspected he even had one. Miss Gibson, he realised, had looked right past the outer shell, which was all most people wanted to see, and reached right to the man he … not the man he was, or even the man he wanted to be, but perhaps the man he might have been had things been different.

‘But anyway, before he recovered the power of speech, the yahoo claimed it as a victory and went away, taking his friends with him.’

‘In short,’ he said, inspecting his fingertips with an air of feigned innocence, ‘far from exacting any kind of revenge, I have furnished you with no end of entertainment.’

‘You … I …’ She shut her mouth with a snap. ‘I absolutely refuse to allow you to goad me into losing my temper with you again,’ she said resolutely. ‘Because you did, at least, warn me what it would be like. And it has all ended rather well for Mildred and Mr Crimmer, at least.’

‘Good God,’ he said with disgust. ‘Are you really the kind of person who detects silver linings within even the darkest clouds? Not only have you completely outdated notions of morality, but it now appears that you also suffer from an incurable case of optimism.’

‘Oh, well,’ she said airily, ‘if you do not wish to hear the end of the tale, then naturally, I shall not bore you any longer.’ She made as if to leave the alcove.

‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ He seized her arm, just above the elbow, and turned her back. ‘You know full well that there is much more I want to hear. Oh, not about this Crimmer person, or your pretty little hen-witted cousin Mildred. It is obvious that once he leapt to her defence she has now cast him in the role of hero and his suit will prosper. No, what interests me is how you managed to wring social victory from what might have so easily been a crushing defeat.’

She pretended not to understand him.

‘I want to know,’ he persisted, ‘how you got an invitation to this house, of all houses. Lord Danbury has a reputation for being very exclusive. Just being seen here will do your credit no end of good.’

‘Well, it all stems from that incident, you know. Because after that, my aunt became far more discerning about who she would permit into her drawing room. Nobody gets in just because they have a title, any more. A visitor has to have some valid reason, apart from vulgar curiosity, before Warnes will allow them past the hall. Which meant that those wishing to have their curiosity satisfied had to send their sisters, or cousins, or aunts to ferret out what information they could.’

‘And yet you still did not apply to me for aid? My God, once the tabbies get their claws into you, it can be far worse than anything a boorish young fop can achieve.’

‘I did not think I needed to apply to you for aid. I thought you had already sent it.’ She gave him a speculative look. She couldn’t quite understand why she had hoped that in spite of the way they’d parted, the visit from his godmother had been a sign that he was still watching out for her, from afar. ‘I … I thought you might have spoken to Lady Dalrymple and asked her to intercede.’

‘Indeed?’

Henrietta’s heart sank a little. She had forgotten the vast social gulf that existed between them for a few moments, but now he had erected the barriers again, with that one lazily drawled word, that repressive lift to one eyebrow.

‘Well, yes. I am sorry, it is just that she is your godmother and she was there at Miss Twining’s ball …’

‘And she is as eaten up with curiosity as any of them. Perhaps more, given her relationship to me.’

‘Well, however it came about, she did a great deal of good. Because she declared, straight off, that she’d come to scotch the rumour that I was a vulgar nonentity, thrusting my way in where I didn’t belong.’

‘I can almost hear her saying it.’

Henrietta giggled. ‘I should think you might have done. She has a very carrying voice, does she not? Nobody who was in the drawing room the afternoon she called round could have failed to hear a single word of her conversation with me about my maternal grandmother and how they were such bosom bows, and how appalled she was not to have seen me at any of the kind of gatherings where Lavinia’s granddaughter ought to have been invited.’

He smiled with satisfaction. His godmother was one of those persons who knew everyone and everyone’s antecedents to at least three generations, and thoroughly enjoyed showing off the extent of her knowledge.

‘Did she restrict herself to merely mentioning your maternal antecedents?’

Henrietta shook her head.

‘My father’s connection to the Duke of Harrowgate came up very early on. Nor did she leave out my Uncle Ledbetter’s lineage, which she followed by lecturing us all, at length, about the difference between the middle classes, who may truly be called vulgar mushrooms who push themselves up from nowhere, and younger sons of good families who are obliged to take up a profession. And since then, the invitations to, well, to be frank, rather tonnish events such as this have begun to trickle in.’

It had only been after Lady Dalrymple’s visit that Julia Twining had called again, which was what had made her take both her repeated protestations of friendship, and her concern about her health, with a large pinch of salt.

‘I am only surprised,’ he sneered, ‘that nobody has yet started a rumour that you and I are on the verge of matrimony. Given that her appearance in your drawing room will have dealt the fatal blow to speculation that any kind of scandal could be brewing between us.’

‘Oh, dear, would people really …?’ She whisked her fan shut and tapped it absentmindedly in the palm of her other hand. Poor Lord Deben must be regretting his association with her even more. The last thing he wanted was to have his name connected to any innocent, eligible female. He disliked the entire notion of marriage so much that he’d told her he would rather shoot himself in the leg than enter into one.

‘No, no, I’m quite sure nobody suspects anything of that nature,’ she said, a rather worried frown puckering her brow. ‘A-at least …’ She glanced about the room, looking rather alarmed. ‘Perhaps we ought not to be standing apart in this corner, in this … intimate fashion.’

It felt as though she had forcibly thrust him into a stuffy room and slammed the door on him, while he’d been enjoying taking a walk on a particularly fresh and bracing October day.

‘Do you dislike the notion so very much?’

His whole being swelled with indignation. Just because those bucks had let slip a few indisputable facts, and he’d admitted that even his own brother had publicly condemned his licentious lifestyle, the little Puritan was recoiling from the prospect of her name being linked with his.