The Outrageous Lady Felsham

Lady Lacey was holding an evening reception in two days’ time. That would be a good place to start. No dancing to worry about, familiar faces, the chance to catch up on the gossip. Bel lifted her pen, drew her new-headed paper towards her and began to write.

‘Belinda, my dear! Welcome back to London.’ Lucinda Lacey enveloped Bel in a warm hug, a rustle of silken frills and a waft of chypre perfume. ‘We have so missed you.’

‘I have missed you too.’ Lucinda had not written, not after the first formal note of condolence, but then Bel had not expected her to. Lady Lacey’s world was one of personal contact, of whispered gossip and endless parties and diversions. She would not have forgotten Bel exactly, but she would never have the patience for regular correspondence with someone who could not provide titillating news in return.

‘All your old acquaintances are here.’ Lucinda wafted her fan in the general direction of the noise swelling from the reception rooms. ‘We will talk later, there is so much to catch up upon.’

As her hostess turned her attention to the next arrivals, Bel took a steadying breath and walked into the party. At least her new jonquil-silk gown was acceptable, she congratulated herself, sending a quick, assessing, look around the room. The bodice was cut in a V front and back and the hem had a double row of white ruffles connected to the high waist by the thinnest gold ribbon. The length, just grazing her ankle bones, and the detail of the bodice and sleeves were exactly in the mode. It seemed strange to be wearing pale colours again after so many months.

She glanced down at the three deep yellow rosebuds she had tucked into the neckline. They had come from the bouquet of roses that had arrived the day after her encounter with Ashe Reynard, accompanied by a very proper note of thanks and apology. Bel had tucked the note into her appointments book, marking the day they had met. It was an absurdly romantic thing to do—just as absurd as her new habit of flicking back through the pages to look at it.

‘Belinda!’ The descent of three of her old acquaintances, fans fluttering, ribbons streaming, drove all thoughts of Lord Dereham from her mind. Therese Roper, Therese’s cheerfully plump cousin Lady Bradford and Maria Wilson, a golden-haired widow with a sprightly air.

‘Come and sit with us,’ Therese commanded, issuing the familiar invitation to join the circle of bright-eyed ladies as they gossiped, criticised and admired the other guests. This was the forum that had convinced Bel that her husband’s attentions in the bedroom fell far short of the bliss to be expected. She wondered what they would say if they knew their sheltered friend had been severely tempted by an intimate encounter with a handsome man on her bedchamber hearthrug and wished she could trust any of them enough to talk about it.

‘Now that is a truly lovely gown,’ Annabelle Bradford declared as they settled themselves on a group of chairs. ‘I swear I am green with envy—divulge the modiste this instant!’

Obligingly Bel explained where she had purchased the gown, submitted to a close interrogation about the total lack of excitement in her rural retreat, agreed that Lady Franleigh’s new crop was a disaster on a woman with a nose of such prominence and exclaimed with indignation at the revelation that Therese’s husband had taken up with a new mistress only a month after promising to reform his habits and become a model of domestic rectitude.

‘What will you do?’ Bel was shocked and intrigued. Imagine Henry carrying on like that! It would have been unthinkable. Therese sounded far more annoyed than upset by the current state of affairs, but then she had had six years to become accustomed to Mr Roper’s tomcat tendencies.

‘I shall abandon my own resolution to be faithful, for a start.’ Her friend lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. ‘I have not yet decided who the lucky man is to be, for I am greatly tempted by two gentlemen, either of whom would be perfect. Let me tell you—oh, my—’She broke off, raising her gilt quizzing glass to her eye. ‘My dears, just when I thought I had passed all the available gentlemen under review, yet another gorgeous creature arrives to distract me!’

‘Where?’ They turned like a small flock of birds, following the direction of Mrs Roper’s interested gaze.

‘Oh, my, indeed,’ Mrs Wilson exclaimed. ‘Now that is what I call a very handsome man. A positive Adonis. Where has he sprung from, I wonder?’

Elegant in corbeau-blue superfine, his legs appearing to go on for ever in tight black evening breeches and with the crisp white of immaculate linen reflecting light on his chiselled jaw, Lord Dereham strolled negligently into the room, deep in conversation with a man in scarlet regimentals. There was a collective sigh from the ladies, masking Bel’s little gasp of alarm.

It was one thing daydreaming about meeting Ashe Reynard again, it was quite another to come across him in the company of three hawk-eyed ladies bent on either flirting with him, seducing him or observing who did.

‘It is Dereham,’ Lady Bradford decided after a minute scrutiny. ‘I thought he was an attractive man last time I saw him, but a few years in the army have definitely added a certain something.’

Muscles like an athlete, an air of quiet authority that make goose bumps run up and down my spine and a gaze that seems to be scanning the far horizon, that is most definitely ‘a certain something’, Bel thought ruefully, wondering if she could find an excuse and slip out now, before he saw her.

Too late. The officer he was speaking to clapped him on the shoulder and strode off, leaving Reynard in the centre of the room. He turned slowly, scanning it, and Bel made a rapid decision.

‘It is Lord Dereham’s house in Half Moon Street that I have purchased,’ she confided, apparently intent upon the twisted cord of her reticule. ‘He called the other day. A very pleasant man, I thought.’

‘Pleasant! Is that the best you can find to say about him?’ Therese stared at her. ‘Is there something wrong with your eyesight, Belinda?’

Bel wrinkled her nose in disdain, searching for something to explain her faint praise. ‘I find that blond hair rather obvious.’ The others regarded her as though she had remarked that she was about to become a nun, then turned their collective gaze back on his lordship who was, Bel saw with a sinking heart, making his way over to her.

Sinking heart and racing pulse and fluttering insides would be more accurate, she realised, despairingly cataloguing her physical reaction to Reynard’s approach even as she fought to attain some mental coherence.

‘Lady Belinda, Lady Bradford, Mrs Roper, Mrs Wilson.’ His bow was a masterpiece of graceful restraint. The ladies were bowing and simpering, returning the courtesy with a chorus of murmured greetings. He had scrupulously addressed them in order of precedence, Bel realised, getting her alarm that he had spoken her name first under control. There would be nothing there for the others to pounce and speculate upon.

Then his eyes fell on the rosebuds at her bosom and she saw a gleam come into them. What was it? Had he recognised the flowers he had sent? Perhaps he had just ordered his butler to see to a suitable bouquet and had no idea what had been delivered. His lips parted as though to speak.

‘I must thank you again for calling the other day,’ she said, cutting across Mrs Wilson who had begun to remark on how unexpectedly crowded London was.

Reynard’s eyebrows started to lift and she hurried on. ‘I was so grateful for someone to explain the idiosyncrasies of the plumbing on the first floor. Your agent seemed completely baffled.’ Around her she could sense the amusement of her sophisticated acquaintances. Poor little Belinda, she has this gorgeous man in the house and all he has come about is the plumbing!

‘It was my pleasure.’ His eyebrows had returned to their normal level, but the gleam—the wicked gleam—was more intense as his voice slurred slightly over pleasure. Something wicked in her flickered into being in response and she could tell he had recognised it in her eyes. ‘After all, the shower bath in the dressing room was put in at my insistence, but I fear the plumber had never come across such a thing before and it still works only intermittently.’

There was a flutter of interest. A shower bath was so novel, and the act of discussing bathing with a man so risqué, that the ladies fell to exclaiming and laughing. Reynard stooped to pick up the handkerchief that had fallen from her reticule and murmured, ‘Clever.’

‘You too,’ Bel murmured back.

‘A good team.’ He pressed the scrap of lace-trimmed nonsense into her gloved hand, his fingers closing for a moment around hers, then his attention was back on the others. ‘You were saying that London is very full of society, Mrs Wilson?’

‘Quite amazingly so for July, do you not agree?’ She batted her eyelashes at him. ‘I think it is because all you wonderfully brave officers are coming back home and everyone wants to meet you.’

There it was again, that shutter descending, closing down the animation in Reynard’s startling blue eyes. ‘And all the wonderfully brave men as well,’ Bel said abruptly, remembering something she had read in the newssheet only the other day about the wounded men still straggling back from Belgium. ‘But they are not receiving so much positive attention, are they? After all, scars and missing limbs are not so glamorous shielded only by homespuns as they are beneath a scarlet dress coat.’

There was a collective gasp, but Reynard turned to her, a smile lurking behind his grave countenance. ‘Indeed, that is very true, Lady Belinda. But doubtless society ladies are already rallying to form charitable organisations to help the men and their families, and urging their husbands to find them work.’

‘One can only hope so,’ she responded seriously.

‘If you will excuse me, ladies? I am promised to Lord Telford for a hand of cards.’ Reynard bowed again and left them to turn on Bel in a flurry of indignation.

‘How could you drive him away like that? Honestly, Belinda, the most handsome man in the room comes to talk to us and you start prosing on about plumbing and amputations!’ Annabelle Bradford scolded.

Bel schooled her face to meekness. ‘I am sorry, I did not think.’ Reynard did not want to speak about his experiences, and she was not going to let these featherbrained women torment him with them, not if she could help it. A good team. The words warmed her inside, adding to the strange hollow feeling that she was beginning to recognise as anticipation and the low, pulsing ache that she supposed was desire.

She turned her face resolutely to the opposite end of the room from where the card room door was. ‘Tell me all about the other attractive men you wicked things have in your sights.’ There could not have been a better choice of subject to distract them. In a ruffle of gorgeous plumage the group settled down in their chairs again.

‘Well,’ Therese began conspiratorially, ‘have you met Lord Betteridge? Just back from the Congress, and I swear…’

Chapter Five

That had not been so bad, Bel told herself as she was driven home that evening. She had survived meeting Lord Dereham again without betraying herself in front of the sharpest eyes for scandal in town, she had mingled comfortably with any number of old acquaintances and met several congenial new people and she found herself more confident and poised than she had ever been in society before.

Age, she supposed, did have its benefits in bestowing some confidence. One came to realise that not every eye in the room was upon you, that you could make little mistakes without the world coming to an end and there was neither a strict father, nor a critical husband, to remind you constantly how much you needed to improve yourself.

Bel recalled with a smile how last month she had even brazenly broken her last days of mourning and taken herself off to the Prince Regent’s reception for the Grand Duchess Eva with the sole intention of getting her Serene Highness to herself to upbraid her for breaking her brother Sebastian’s heart.

She had cast every tenet of polite behaviour to the winds when she had done that, and, although she suspected her well-intentioned meddling had actually made things worse for a while between the two lovers, she now had a friend for life in her new sister-in-law.

Lucky things, she mused wistfully. How must it feel to have a man look at you the way Sebastian looked at Eva when he thought himself unobserved, his very soul in his eyes?

‘My lady?’ They were home, the groom was holding the door of the carriage for her, and had probably been standing there patiently for some minutes.

‘Thank you, James.’ She gathered up her things and stepped out. Yes, all in all, this evening had been a success and she felt confident about repeating it. Tomorrow night was the Steppingleys’ dancing party, an opportunity, she had been informed by Mrs Steppingley that evening, of giving her daughter and her friends some experience before their come-out next Season. Lady Belinda need not fear a juvenile party, she had been assured, her hostess had invited a mixture of interesting people and there would be cards for those not wishing to dance.

It would be fun to dance again, although she would avoid the waltz, of course, and perhaps meeting all those interesting people she had been promised would help keep her mind off a certain broad-shouldered gentleman with a sinfully tempting curve to his mobile mouth. If only he did not make her feel so wicked.

Philpott glided about in her usual stately fashion, unpinning Bel’s hair, locking away her jewellery, stuffing the tissue paper into the toes of her evening slippers before coming back to unfasten her gown.

Bel unclasped the diamanté brooch that had been holding the rosebuds in place. They were beginning to lose their firmness, the delicate petals felt like limp velvet under her fingers.

‘Will you fetch me a box of salt, please?’ she asked the dresser. ‘About so big?’ She gestured with her hands six inches apart.

‘Now, my lady?’

‘Yes, please. These are so pretty, I intend to preserve them as a memory of the first social engagement of my new life.’

‘Very well, my lady.’ Expressionless, Philpott helped her into her robe, handed her the hairbrush and went out. Did she guess the real reason Bel wanted to keep the flowers? If she did, she was far too well trained to let a flicker cross her face.

Bel pulled the bristles through her hair in a steady rhythm, contemplating her aunt’s demand that she engage a companion, then shook her head, sending the heavy fall of hair swishing back and forth against the silk of her robe. Privacy was difficult enough with a houseful of servants, let alone with some stranger, obsessed with propriety and convinced her employer required her company at all times.

No, life like this might be a trifle lonely, but she had grown used to that, even when Henry had been alive. In fact, loneliness was a welcome space of peace and privacy. Those things were more important than satisfying the conventions.

The guests at Mrs Steppingley’s party proved every bit as entertaining as she had promised. After an hour Bel had met a colonel from one of the Brunswick regiments, a gentleman pursuing researches into hot-air balloons as a means of transport for freight, several charming young girls, wide-eyed with excitement at their first ‘proper’ dancing party, a poetess and an alarmingly masculine bluestocking who, on hearing who she was, delivered a diatribe on the mistaken opinions of her Aunt Louisa on the evolution of English church architecture.

As Bel was just about capable of differentiating between a font and a water stoop and had not the slightest understanding of the vital importance of rood screens, she was greatly relieved to be rescued by the poetess, Miss Layne, who tactfully removed her with the entirely specious excuse that Bel had promised Miss Layne her escort into the room where the dancing was about to begin.

‘Phew! At least Miss Farrington despises dancing, so she will not pursue us in here.’ Miss Layne found them seats halfway along the wall and sank down with a hunted look back at the doorway. She fanned herself vigorously, giving Bel a chance to study her. She supposed she must be about forty, a slender woman with soft mouse-brown hair, amused hazel eyes and an air of being interested in everything. ‘What a bore she is.’ She suddenly whipped a notebook out of her reticule, jotted a note and stuffed it back again.

Bel blinked. ‘Inspiration?’ she enquired.

‘Yes! See that young couple over there, pretending not to look at each other. So sweet, and so gauche. It gave me an idea. I have a fancy to write a really romantic verse story.’

‘Will I find your work at Hatchard’s?’ Bel enquired. ‘I am afraid I am very ignorant about poetry. My husband considered it frivolous, so I never used to buy it, although I have to confess to reading my way through Lord Byron’s works at the moment.’

‘Yes, you will find mine there, I have several volumes in print. But you must allow me to send you one as a gift. Some are frivolous, some are serious. But I see no harm in occasional frivolity—’ Miss Layne broke off, her gaze fixed at something over Bel’s shoulder. ‘And speaking of frivolity, what a very beautiful man. Lord Byron would give his eye teeth for such a hero.’

Bel did not have to turn around to know who it was out of all the handsome men in London at the moment. The very air seemed to carry the awareness of Reynard to her, as intensely as if he was running his hands over her quivering skin.

‘Really?’ she made herself say lightly, stamping on that unsettling image. ‘I am all agog, Miss Layne, I do hope he passes by us so I can see, for I can hardly turn round and stare—’

‘Lady Belinda. Madam.’ Yes, it was Reynard and her pulse was all over the place. Miss Layne was looking up at him with the air of a lepidopterist who has just found a rare species of butterfly and was wondering where her net had gone. Bel pulled herself together. A surge of lust, for she supposed that was what was afflicting her, was no excuse for a lady to forget her manners.

‘Lord Dereham, good evening. Miss Layne, may I introduce Lord Dereham?’

They shook hands. ‘Miss Layne—not the author of Thoughts on an English Riverbank?’

‘Why, yes. It was published at the end of last year,’ she explained to Bel. ‘You have read it, Lord Dereham?’

‘On the eve of the battle of Quatre Bras, Miss Layne. It was a lovely contrast to the scenes around me, and I must thank you for it.’

The poetess beamed up at him. ‘I am delighted to have been able to provide a distraction at such a time.’

‘More than that: a reminder of what we were fighting for.’

Bel bit her lip at the undercurrent of emotion in the controlled voice, then he was smiling again. ‘May I have the honour of a dance, Miss Layne?’

‘I do not dance, Lord Dereham, Lady Belinda kindly rescued me from an importunate acquaintance and we took refuge in here.’

‘Lady Belinda is a notable rescuer of all her friends,’ Reynard observed seriously. ‘If you are merely hiding in here and the other gentlemen have not yet found you, then perhaps your dance card has a vacancy for me, Lady Belinda?’

Bel laughed, flipping open the fold of embossed card that hung from a cord around her wrist to show him. ‘Quite empty, Lord Dereham. I have been talking too much to look for partners, I fear.’ She liked the way he had asked the older woman first instead of simply assuming she would not be dancing. It was thoughtful, but done without the slightest suggestion of patronage.

‘May I?’ He lifted the card, his fingers brushing against hers. Even through the thickness of two pairs of evening gloves Bel seemed to feel the warmth. She made herself sit still while he took the tiny pencil and stared at the list of dances. The noise of the orchestra carrying out its final tuning faded as she looked at his bent head. She knew what that thick golden hair felt like against her cheek, she knew what it looked like, tousled from sleep, and her free hand strained against her willpower to lift and touch it.

‘There. I hope that is acceptable.’ He had put down a waltz as well as a country dance. Bel opened her mouth to tell him that she would not be waltzing, then threw her resolution overboard with an almost audible splash. This was Reynard; she wanted to be in his arms and she could admit to herself a disgraceful impulse to make other women envious.

‘May I fetch you ladies some lemonade?’ They shook their heads with a murmur of thanks. ‘Then I will see you for the second country dance, Lady Belinda.’

‘That man has lovely manners,’ Miss Layne remarked as they watched Reynard’s retreating back. ‘Oh, good! There is my brother now, I was not certain if he was coming tonight.’ She waved and a slender, brown-haired man who was just passing Reynard waved back and began to make his way across to them.

‘Kate, fancy finding you in the ballroom!’ Mr Layne was considerably younger than his sister, but he had her soft brown hair and quizzical hazel eyes. He smiled at her affectionately and bowed to Bel. ‘Ma’am.’

‘Lady Belinda, may I introduce my brother, Mr Layne. Patrick, Lady Belinda Felsham.’

Bel shook hands and gestured to the vacant chair beside her. ‘Mr Layne?’

‘Thank you, Lady Belinda, but I am promised for the next dance. Might I ask if you can spare me one later? Although I expect your card is filled already.’

‘Not at all, I would be delighted.’ She showed him the virtually empty card and smiled acceptance as he indicated the first waltz.

‘Very daring of him,’ Miss Layne observed as her brother went in search of his next partner. ‘I do hope he has learned the steps.’ They both observed in anxious silence as Mr Layne went down the first measure of the country dance without error. ‘Thank goodness. He must have been taking lessons. He has been rather preoccupied learning to manage our uncle’s estate for the last two years; I was beginning to despair of him ever getting out into society.’

‘And meeting a nice young lady, perhaps?’ Bel teased.

‘Indeed. Our uncle is Lord Hinckliffe and Patrick is his heir—he is taking that all rather seriously. I was worrying that he would end up an elderly bachelor like our relative at this rate.’

Mr Layne was a long way from that condition, Bel realised a little later, as he swept her competently into the waltz. Far from having to temper her steps to a learner, she found he was testing her own rusty technique to the limit. They were laughing as they whirled to a stop and well on the way to being very well pleased with each other’s company. He was coaxing her into allowing him another dance when Bel saw Reynard making his way towards them.

Patrick Layne’s voice faded and the air seemed to shimmer as the crowded room became a mere background to the man in front of her. Bel wondered dazedly if she was about to swoon.

She blinked and the illusion of faintness vanished, leaving her startled and confused. It was not simply that Reynard was a handsome, personable man. She had just spent five minutes, very pleasantly, in the arms of another man who could fairly be described in the same way. This was different. This was something she could only try to understand.

With an effort she kept her voice normal as she agreed to dance the cotillion with Mr Layne later in the evening. Then she turned, smiling, to take Reynard’s outstretched hand with a sense of surrender that filled her with nervous delight. The deep-sea eyes smiled at her and she stopped fighting the apprehension. A die had been cast; the problem was, she did not know what game they were playing.

The steps of the country dance were intricate enough to keep Bel’s full attention on her moves. After the first circle she found herself standing next to her partner. His soft chuckle had her glancing up at him, disconcerted.

‘What is it?’

‘You are frowning Lady Belinda. If I was a nervous man, I would think I had displeased you; as it is, I am hoping you are concentrating on your steps.’