Compromised Miss

‘As far as I am aware, my care was undertaken by the Captain of the smug—the sailing vessel that rescued me. Harry Lydyard, your brother.’

‘Ha! Such pretence does not become you, my lord!’

Light footsteps echoed on the stairs. Sir Wallace flung the door back.

‘Come in. Come in. There’s scandal in the air, with you at the centre of it, my dear sister. I should have known!’ His tone, Lucius noted, despite his expressed concern, was not that of a compassionate brother, but rather that of a hanging judge. ‘Once again you have put the Lydyard reputation in jeopardy, leaving me to smooth over the unpleasantness.’

A young woman stepped into the room.

So this was the Lydyard sister. Lucius cast a briefly appraising eye over her. Nothing like her brother in looks, thank God, but nothing more than a country girl with no hint of town bronze. Tall for a girl, her hair was dark, unfashionably long, tied carelessly with a ribbon to cascade in a thick mass of curls to her shoulders and beyond. A neat figure, fine boned and well proportioned. Pleasing enough features in an oval face with well-marked dark brows and a straight uncompromising nose. Her lips as this moment were tense and unsmiling. He would never have guessed at the relationship between the two, except that she did not refute her brother’s harsh welcome. Her dress was unfashionably full-skirted and high-collared, drab and plain in an unflattering shade of green. As Lucius was forced to admit, he would not have given the young woman, who looked nothing more than a lowly governess, a second look in a crowded salon in Mayfair. Yet she bore herself with a confidence and an elegant simplicity at odds with her garments. Perhaps because she was no schoolroom miss, but a lady of more than twenty years. She stood just inside the door, calmly waiting for whatever would happen next, her eyes firmly on her brother.

‘Miss Lydyard. It is an honour to meet you.’ Lucius bowed as gracefully as he could manage despite the torn muscles. He smiled bleakly. ‘As I have informed Sir Wallace, we have no prior acquaintance. Any accusations on his part are misinformed. Your honour is without blemish.’

Sir Wallace waved the apology away, his attention on his sister. ‘Your guest at the Pride is Lucius Hallaston, Earl of Venmore,’ he announced with relish. ‘Were you aware of that?’

Entirely composed, Miss Lydyard ignored her brother and curtsied, eyes now lowered. ‘My lord. I see you are much recovered.’

It was the voice that did it for Lucius. Cool, low tones, carefully controlled, calmly confident. Astonishing in the circumstances. And then the eyes confirmed it as they rose to meet his across the room. Oh, yes, he could not mistake those eyes. As cool as her voice, grey, almost silver in the morning light, like the flash of sunlight on water at daybreak. And her hands, now clasped firmly before her, her knuckles white, if he were not mistaken. So perhaps she was not as composed as he had thought. Longfingered, capable hands, able to pull on a rope or manoeuvre a barrel on a moving deck. Or bathe a man’s forehead with cool water and bind a wound…

The suspicion transformed itself into a certainty. This was Captain Harry. The knowledge, the memory of the Captain’s intimate ministrations, lurched uncomfortably in Lucius’s belly.

‘So Harry Lydyard tended to you, did he, my lord? I fail to see how you could be unaware.’ The words burst from Sir Wallace. ‘A foolish notion that no man of sense would believe. This is my sister, Miss Harriette Lydyard. Whom you, my lord, have dishonoured!’

Seeing a chasm opening up before his feet, Lucius viewed the occupants of his borrowed bedchamber with distaste. Miss Lydyard continued to make no response to her brother’s recriminations, a matter that earned his reluctant respect, except for the little line that had dug itself between her brows and a tinge of colour to her cheeks. She was not afraid of her brother, nor of the situation, even though her brother was accusing her of immodesty and him of some form of lascivious seduction, remarkable given the condition he had been in! As for the brother…Had he imagined it or had Lydyard’s interest grown as soon as he knew his title? Lucius’s head might ache, but there was nothing wrong with his wits. Here was a situation that had the makings of a trap set to catch a man of wealth and consequence and some degree of honour. How to snap up a prize for a spinster sister who was not in the first flush of youth or blessed with obvious beauty. And he, the Earl of Venmore, was to be the prize. Lydyard had said he already had a marriage arranged for his sister. Like Hell, he had! Lydyard had an eye to the main chance and had leapt to secure it.

Well, he would not be caught in that trap. Lucius’s nostrils flared at the audacity of the man. And at the same time caught the eyes of the lady. Grave and solemn, they touched his and held there, and if he were not mistaken there was a plea in their silver intensity. But for what? Perhaps that he should not make it worse for her than it already was. He set himself to do his best. He owed her that much.

‘As I recall, Lydyard, not that I recall much of it, I was unconscious for most of the night. I could have spent the night with an entire gang of smugglers in the room, together with their contraband and an invading force of Preventive officers, and been unaware of it.’

But Lydyard’s smile widened to show an array of unpleasantly discoloured teeth. ‘And would the gossipmongers of London society believe that? That Earl Venmore spent the entire night with my sister in his room, in an empty house, with her honour still intact at daybreak? Hardly, my lord. My sister will be disgraced. Nor, I hazard, will it do much for your own reputation, robbing an innocent girl of her good name. We may be distant from London, but news and gossip travels. One of the biggest catches in the marriage market as you are, if I am not mistaken, reduced to seducing and abandoning innocent girls. Will the gossips believe the innocence of all concerned? And your presumed unconsciousness throughout?’

The chasm not of Lucius’s making yawned wider. ‘No, probably not.’

‘For certain they will not! You have rendered my sister unmarriageable, sir!’

And Lucius saw Harriette Lydyard grow pale, as she had never done when she had his blood on her hands. He saw horror dawn and spread over her face in a tightening of the skin along her cheekbones. Still she made no reply. On her behalf as much as his own, anger bubbled up, enough to make him light-headed in his weakened state. He had been neatly trapped, had he not, one disaster following upon the next, but if he read the girl’s reaction right, she was as much a victim as he.

So he would take control of this situation. He had had quite enough in recent weeks—more than any man could tolerate—of being outmanoeuvred and manipulated, outwitted and outgunned. Jean-Jacques Noir might have got the better of him in France, but he was damned if he would allow Sir Wallace Lydyard to do so in—where was this God-forsaken place?—Old Wincomlee! Nor would he allow the man to take such a bullying tone of voice with his innocent sister. A vulnerable, gently reared girl did not deserve that.

Hell and the devil! Did he not have enough to plague him without this? But those grey eyes were suddenly dark like a winter sea, wide and anxious.

Harriette continued to stand where she had stood since the beginning of this appalling scene, a mere step into the room, wishing with all her heart that she could remain Captain Harry for just a little while longer. Or that the rotten floorboards of the chamber would collapse beneath her feet and swallow her down into a black hole. Her heart sank to the depth of her scuffed satin shoes. She had hoped to make her escape back to Whitescar Hall with no one being the wiser, certainly without any further conversation between herself and her wounded spy. And here she was, summoned by her brother as if she were a servant. She had managed, if nothing else, to dispose of her breeches, which would have added kindling to the flames, but Wallace, damn him, had come hotfoot. Wallace was furious. She slanted a look towards his unappealing features and her attention was caught. Perhaps Wallace was not so furious as he might wish to appear. Manipulative was more the order of the day. Her half-brother had seen an opportunity and was intent on making the most of it. Harriette did not know whether to descend into hysterical laughter or weep from the sheer incongruity of the whole situation

An earl! Her spy was an earl! Ridiculous. And was, furthermore, accused of dishonouring her. As if her private dreams had blossomed into reality. What arrant nonsense was that?

No point in her arguing the case with Wallace. When he was in this mood, he would listen to neither excuse nor reason, so she might as well keep her silence until he ran out of foolish accusations and the exquisite Earl had made his inevitable rapid escape from Lydyard’s Pride.

She risked another glance at the Earl.

The ripple of laughter almost won despite the horrors. Because the Earl of Venmore was a Corinthian. All that Wallace wanted to be, tried so ineffectually to ape, here was his heart’s desire in the flesh. Wallace had the ambition to be a sportsman, proficient and lauded for his abilities in the saddle, with pistol and rapier. To be admired for his splendid physique, his handsome looks. To be recognised as a leader of fashion. He never could. And here standing before him was the epitome of all his dreams.

And hers.

Washed, shaved, his hair settling into shining, elegant dishevelment, the Earl cut a splendid figure. He was taller than she had thought, more than six feet, his shoulders impressively broad beneath the lurid monstrosity, and did she not know at first hand how the muscles ran sleek and smooth, as water over a rock, beneath his skin, the athletic moulding of his strong thighs and firm belly? Did she not know the smooth satin of his skin beneath her palms when she had washed and bound his wounds? And Harriette felt her face and her blood heat at the memory.

How degrading that he should look at her with such arrogance printed on his features, as if she were of no consequence to him. But then why should she be? If he were a man of intellect, the Earl of Venmore would have quickly detected Wallace’s disgraceful plotting to catch a husband for her.

Her concentration was dragged back as her brother’s anger filled the room.

‘You have dishonoured my sister, Venmore. I demand retribution.’

‘No…! There was no dishonour,’ Harriette gasped, a knot of ice forming in her belly.

‘Be silent!’ Wallace rounded on her. ‘This is not for you. Although many would say you brought it on yourself, cavorting as you do with the Free Traders. I will settle this. What hopes for a suitable match if this gets out—as it surely will?’

‘Then there is only one remedy, is there not?’ A cold interjection in the heat.

The Earl walked across the room towards her, slowly but steadily enough. His eyes were on her face, and Harriette saw banked fire there and recognised a lethal fury at her brother’s wily methods. Even so, he bowed before her with inestimable grace.

‘Miss Lydyard. There is one solution to restore your good name in the eyes of the world. Would you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?’

Marriage! To become the wife of this man? The knot of ice melted in a rush of heat. If she could choose her heart’s desire, would it not be this gift that was being offered to her, as in a childhood fairytale? A precious jewel on a silk cushion? She might have damned him as a traitor, but now she must acknowledge the depth of honour that he should come to her rescue, much as a knight of old would ride to slay the dragon—Wallace—and carry off the damsel in distress.

Would not this miraculous offer make her heady dreams come true?

But Harriette heard herself reply, her voice as distressingly matter of fact as his. ‘No, my lord. There is no need. As we both know, my brother was ill informed. I am grateful and will never forget your kindness in making so great a sacrifice, but I must refuse your generous offer.’

She saw him react. That was not what he had expected. The muscles along his jaw tightened. ‘Perhaps you do not quite understand the situation, Miss Lydyard.’

‘I am not a fool, my lord.’ A flash of impatience, which she strove to temper, but without much success. ‘I understand the situation perfectly. As I see it, there is no situation between us.’ And gasped as her brother grasped her wrist with painfully hot fingers.

‘Show some sense, girl—’

‘Sir Wallace,’ the Earl interrupted icily, raising a peremptory hand as Harriette tugged ineffectually for her release, ‘I need a moment’s private conversation with your sister. Alone, if you will. Is there a library or drawing room in this establishment that we can use?’

Sir Wallace drew himself up to his most pompous. ‘I’ll not allow it. It’s not appropriate that you—’

‘Sir,’ the Earl interrupted bitingly, without finesse, ‘if I spent the night with Miss Lydyard behind locked doors as you imply, luring her into my bed and proceeding to destroy her reputation by the physical demands of my body on hers, five minutes in a library in the full light of morning will not make matters any the worse.’

Harriette froze at the brutal description of what had not occurred. And for the length of a heartbeat wished that it had.

‘Five minutes, then.’ Sir Wallace allowed Harriette to pull her wrist away. ‘Take his lordship to the library, miss, and try to keep some sense in your stubborn head.’

They descended the stairs, Harriette leading the way into a library as dusty and disused as the rest of the house, what furniture there was shrouded in Holland covers. The leather spines of the few books on the shelves were dull, clearly unread. Immediately the door was closed behind them, a swathed form of a sofa strategically positioned between them, Harriette swung round to face the Earl. Her eyes were clear and bright and very determined. She might have been proud of her earlier reticence, but she could remain silent no longer, even if it meant rejecting the heartstopping image painted in her mind by the Earl’s savage words.

‘There’s no need for this, my lord. I know what my brother is about. I’ll lay odds he didn’t suggest marriage until he heard you were an earl!’ She saw her sharp cynicism cause a slash of high colour along the Earl’s magnificent cheekbones—whether from anger at her brother’s presumption or disapproval of her lack of discretion she could not tell—but she would not simper and prevaricate.

‘I wouldn’t take your odds, Miss Lydyard. Sir Wallace certainly saw the opportunity.’

‘I’ll wager the Lydyard’s Ghost he did! To get me off his hands, and to gain a connection with a man of wealth and consequence.’ Harriette made no attempt to bury the bitterness. ‘My brother is nothing if not ambitious. And I should tell you, I won’t do it, just to further Wallace’s ambitions. Not even if you were the Prince Regent himself!’

‘Fortunately for both of us, I am not!’ the Earl responded, taken aback. What was the impression he had gained not ten minutes ago? Here was no innocent, vulnerable, gently reared girl, bullied by her brother. Here was a highly opinionated young woman actually refusing his offer of marriage. And with a forthrightness that, quite frankly, he resented. His lips thinned. ‘Would marriage to me be such an anathema, Miss Lydyard?’

‘That’s not the issue here. What possible advantage could there be for you in such a mésalliance? I think you must be all about in your head to even consider it, my lord!’

‘The blow from a club might have rattled my senses as a temporary measure,’ he snapped back, ‘but I think I am sane enough.’ What possible advantage…? The kernel of an idea began to form in his mind. That such a marriage might just bring him a glimmer of light, an unforeseen advantage….

‘We know nothing about each other. How would I fit into your elevated social circle in London? I have no notion how to go on there. I have never been to London, not even further than Brighton. Why would you possibly wish to marry me? A beautiful debutante? No. A wife skilled in the social mores of London? Not that. A rich wife with powerful connections? Not that, either. So why? I am no fit wife for you.’ Harriette kept her voice unemotional, ignoring the weight of regret that lay on her heart. He would never know how difficult it was to reject him. ‘I am twenty-three years old, my lord!’

‘And I am thirty-four, if that is of any interest to anyone but myself.’

She saw the flash of proud temper as she resisted him, but would not retreat. ‘I agree your age is irrelevant. Mine is not. I did not think you obtuse, my lord.’

‘Obtuse?’ His eyes hardened, unused to being challenged.

‘I am firmly on the shelf, with nothing to recommend me as a wife, fit for nothing but to be governess to my brother’s children.’ She stated the uncompromising truth without a quiver, her chin raised.

His face remained stern. ‘I commend your shining honesty, Miss Lydyard, but marriage can be the answer—if you are not determined to be so stubborn.’

‘What will your family say with a plain nobody like me for a bride, trailing behind you on your expensive doorstep, somewhere I expect, in Mayfair?’

‘I have no idea, nor do I care,’ he replied, struck by the sad little image. ‘It seems to me, Miss Lydyard, that you sell yourself short. You are hardly a nobody. Your family is perfectly respectable.’

But Miss Lydyard did not retreat. ‘Respectable! How damning a word is that? Compared with the Hallaston family, the Earls of Venmore, we are parvenus indeed. It takes no intelligence to guess the on dit of the Season. A common smuggler as the Countess of Venmore! As bad as Lady Lade. I can’t wed you, my lord.’

At which he smiled, for the first time with some level of genuine humour. It lit his face, softening his mouth, rendering her instantly breathless. ‘Not as bad as Letty Lade. She, as I recall, before she was elevated to society, was a servant in a brothel and mistress of Sixteen-String Jack, who ended on the gallows. I doubt you, Miss Lydyard, have any such claim to fame.’

His face was alight with laughter, atrociously handsome despite the disfiguring bruises and the vicious path of the knife on his cheek. Harriette was forced to look away, forced to take a steadying breath as her dreams shattered before her eyes. He was not for her. To know that he had offered for her under duress, driven into an honourable gesture by her despicable brother, was entirely shaming for her. Without Wallace’s spiked accusations, the Earl of Venmore would never have noticed her, much less invited her to share his life and his bed. She took another breath against the sharp dejection and wished with all her heart it could be otherwise, but she could not, would not, let him be a sacrifice for her brother’s greed. It would humiliate her—and him. Marriage on such terms, when all he had shown her was kindness, would be beyond tolerance for both of them.

‘Why did you do it?’ His soft question surprised her.

‘What?’

‘Take on the appearance and identity of Captain Harry?’

‘A family obligation.’ She walked away to look out towards the cliffs where seabirds wheeled and dived in a joyous freedom, finding it easier not to face him.

‘It’s a hard burden for a family to ask of a young girl.’ To her dismay he followed her to stand at her shoulder, a solid physical presence so that she was immediately aware of the heat of his skin against hers, the sheer dominance of his tall figure. But she would not allow herself to feel vulnerable.

‘It’s not just an obligation.’ She felt an inexplicable need to defend herself to him. ‘It’s the excitement, too. Lydyard’s Ghost is my own. So is Lydyard’s Pride, this house that I love but can’t afford to keep and where my brother refuses to let me live.’ Unaware, animation coloured her words and her face. ‘The smuggling runs have become part of my life. Without them, what do I have before me? I am unwed and unlikely to be so, whatever my brother might say. So I must die of boredom—a neverending round of embroidery, painting, sedate walks under my sister-in-law’s caustic eye. When Zan first took me on a run…’ She flushed, regretting having laid herself open to his interest. ‘It’s in my blood, I suppose.’

‘Zan?’ he asked.

‘Alexander Ellerdine. My cousin. My friend. He showed me the…the satisfaction of it. And since Wallace would not, I took on the family connection. The sea is in my blood, too. Lydyards have always had an interest in the Free Traders.’

The idea that had crept into Luke’s mind blossomed into a fully fledged possibility. To rescue Miss Lydyard from dishonour—a matter of duty in itself—and at the same time…the cutter, Lydyard’s Ghost! He turned to lean, careful of his shoulder, against the window shutter so that he might look directly at her, obliging her to raise her eyes to his.

‘Since you don’t appear to value my offer of marriage overmuch…’his mouth curled in a touch of self-contempt ‘…allow me to suggest a contract that might appeal to you Miss Lydyard. A business deal, if you will.’

‘A business deal?’ That she had not expected.

His eyes narrowed as if he contemplated some distant plotting. ‘I find I might have the need for a fast cutter to give me easy access to the French coast. You own such a cutter.’

‘Well—yes. But if you need one, would it not be simpler to just buy one?’ Harriette’s brows rose in blatant disbelief. ‘Why saddle yourself with a wife?’

He thought fast of the advantages that he might just make use of. ‘I need a trustworthy crew and an experienced captain with knowledge of tides. A captain with knowledge of the French coast and a connection there. And speed would be important—might be crucial in my planning. You could offer me all of that.’

Harriette folded her arms. ‘I could. Why?’

‘A matter of family business. It need not concern you.’ And Harriette watched as a grimness settled about the Earl’s mouth. It was like a shutter closing, she thought, masking any emotion.

‘So you get use of the Ghost.’ She pursed her lips. ‘What do I get?’

‘Simple enough.’ He lifted a hand, palm spread. ‘My title and consequence. My purse strings. I can give you comfort, luxury if that is what you would enjoy, social standing, independence. There will be no compulsion on you to paint or embroider from me! You will no longer be under the eye of either your sister-in-law or your brother. Is that not at least tempting? I own a number of houses that you might like. You might find that you enjoy a London Season.’

‘Ha! With nothing to think of but what I wear and what I say, and if I can manage the steps of a country dance at Almack’s without tripping over my feet? You should know that I have never been taught to dance, either!’ She let the ideal filter through her mind. ‘You think that money would matter to me?’

‘As a smuggler, I imagine profit is an important consideration for you.’

‘You would think that,’ she replied enigmatically. If that is what he thought of her…But how should he not since he did not know her? ‘Why would I choose to escape from my brother into your controlling, my lord?’

‘You would not find me too rigorous a husband. Will you do it?’

Harriette studied the unsmiling, masterful features and was not sure, not sure at all. The Earl of Venmore did not seem to have the makings of an easy, tolerant husband. There was suddenly no similarity between this man and the helpless figure who had been tumbled broken and bleeding at her feet. This man who insisted on her striking this remarkable bargain with him.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

‘Why not? Consider what a profitable catch I turned out to be.’

There was no mistaking the edge of a sneer in his voice. What a low opinion he appeared to have of her. Well, she would reply in similar vein. ‘So there’s something in this for both of us. Youw ould be as self-interested as I in finding an advantage in this match.’