Читать книгу Regency Scoundrels And Scandals - Louise Allen - Страница 45

At three on Tuesday afternoon Ashe walked up the steps to what had once been his own familiar front door, knocked and was admitted by Hedges. The butler regarded him with more approval than might be expected, given that on the occasion of their last meeting in Half Moon Street he had been hideously hung over and in the wrong bed.

‘Good afternoon, my lord. Lady Belinda is in the drawing room.’

Ashe handed his hat and gloves to a footman, the butler opened the door, announced ‘Lord Dereham, my lady’, ushered him through and closed it behind him with a soft click.

Bel came towards him, her hand held out, her smiling lips parted as though to speak. He did not give her the chance. His coat was off, thrown to one side as he took two urgent strides across the room, then she was tight in his arms, his mouth crushing down on hers, every soft curve pressed against him as he drank in the taste and the scent of her like a parched man.

She writhed in his arms, inflaming him further; her hands were clenched against his chest, beating a tattoo of desperation every bit as urgent as his. Her mouth was open, working under his searching lips as he swept her further into the room, past the knot of chairs around the hearth and towards the sofa. All he had to do was to get there, although the urge simply to drag her to the floor was overwhelming.

One hand slid down to cup the delicious peach-curve of her buttock; she was so tense, quivering with an excitement that matched his own, struggling in his embrace. They were almost there, almost at the sofa. Out of the corner of his eye, Ashe glimpsed the tea tray on a low table, swerved to avoid it, swept the honey-sweet moistness of Bel’s mouth with his tongue—and froze.

The tea tray was laden with cups and plates and more cakes than two people could eat in a week. The realisation sunk in as Bel’s teeth closed on his tongue in a sharp bite that had him freeing her with a yelp of pain. From behind him a voice like thunder said, ‘Unhand her, you libertine!’

Bel staggered back from Ashe’s arms, panting from her struggles to free herself. His appalled expression contrasted with the outrage on her aunt’s face as Lady James surged to her feet from the depths of the wing armchair, reticule clenched in one mittened hand, intent on saving her niece from masculine assault.

To an onlooker it would have seemed highly amusing, a farce of the first order; all Bel could feel was a sick apprehension. There was absolutely no way this could be explained away, no way that she was not now exposed, before her own aunt, as a loose woman.

‘Explain yourself, sir!’ Ashe turned slowly to face Aunt Louisa. Her face, as she recognised him, was a picture of shocked disbelief. ‘Lord Dereham! What is the meaning of this outrage?’

‘Lady James. I can explain—’

‘I would like to hear you try, sir!’

Bel groped for the high curved end of the sofa and held on to it. Explain? How could he possibly explain that away? How on earth had it happened? She had felt so safe, so happy, and now, in a few seconds, it was tumbling around her ears. She swayed, dizzy, convinced that every ounce of blood had drained out of her face. The back of Ashe’s neck was red, but his voice was steady as he faced the outraged widow.

‘The force of my ardour—’

‘Hah! Is that what you call it, you libertine?’

‘—for Lady Belinda,’ he continued steadily, ‘deceived me into believing that my feelings were reciprocated, and, in coming here today with the intention of proposing marriage, I—’

‘What?’ The question was out of Bel’s mouth before she could stop herself. Neither of the other two answered her, or even appeared to remember that she was standing there.

‘In short, ma’am, the novelty of finding myself, as I thought, alone with Lady Belinda so inflamed my passions that I threw caution to the winds and seized her, wishing to press my suit with more zeal than, I know, is proper.’

‘Proper, indeed! You were about to ravish the poor child upon the sofa, sir. That is not zeal, that is not ardour, that is the action of a ravening beast! You are half-dressed—’

‘Will someone please listen to me?’ Despairing of either of them attending to her, Bel poked Ashe in the ribs so that he half-turned towards her. His neckcloth was askew, his shirt half-untucked and his coat gone.

‘Lord Dereham,’ she said, with as much steadiness as she could command, shock at his words overriding even her shamed confusion, ‘I do not believe that I have, on the few occasions we have met, given you any indication that your suit would be acceptable to me.’

‘I agree, ma’am,’ Ashe responded with equal control. ‘Nothing you have said to me could be construed as encouragement for me, or any other man, to make you an offer of marriage.’

‘Then why—?’

‘You must forgive the ardour of a man seized with feelings too strong to be denied. I had hoped to persuade you.’ Ashe had shifted so that Aunt Louisa could not see his face. His intense expression urged her to agree. His lips moved. Bel strained to read them. Say yes, for goodness’ sake, Bel.

Yes? Marry him? Bel was aware that her mouth was opening and shutting like a carp in a pond and that nothing was coming out.

‘Well, you have achieved your aim, young man,’ Aunt Louisa said wrathfully. ‘Because you are most certainly going to have to marry my niece after this exhibition of unbridled lust.’

‘No!’ The word burst out of her tight throat. ‘No, I am not going to marry him.’ With denial came a kind of awful calm.

‘Of course you must, you foolish gel! Your reputation is at stake.’

‘You must. Bel…Lady Belinda…Think of the scandal.’

‘Considering that my aunt is the sole witness of this débâcle, and knowing that she has only my interests at heart, I fail to see where the scandal is going to come from, my lord,’ Bel said frostily. Over his shoulder her aunt moved and Bel caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her mouth was swollen with Ashe’s kisses, her hair was half-down and the pretty fichu she had arranged at her throat was a wreck. ‘Oh, my God! Look at me.’

‘Lady Belinda.’ Ashe raised his voice over her gasp of horror and Aunt Louisa’s furious mutterings. ‘Please listen to me…’

Bel slapped his face.

She did it without thinking, her hand flashing out in a reflex that dismayed her almost as much as it must have shocked him. ‘How dare you?’ she whispered. ‘How dare you talk about marriage? How dare you try to force me into something I am resolved never to do?’

There was a silence as they stared into each other’s faces. Bel could feel the heat and sting of tears and fought them back. Ashe’s eyes were dark with what she could only assume was thwarted anger at her refusal to bow to the conventions and satisfy what his masculine code of honour told him he must do. And the marks of her fingers branded his cheek, to her shame.

From the hallway there was the murmur of voices, the sound of the front door closing. The drawing room door began to open. The three of them, united suddenly, stared at each other. Then Bel spun round on her heel and ran for the door at the other end, the one that opened on to the service passage. As she whisked through it she heard Hedges announcing,

‘Lady Wallace, Lady Maude Templeton, Miss Ravenhurst, the Reverend Makepeace, my lady.’

How Ashe and Aunt Louisa were going to explain his presence in her drawing room in his shirtsleeves she had no idea, and, she told herself furiously as she wrenched open the back door that led into her tiny garden, she did not care either.

It was not so much a garden, more of a court, the width of the house and a few yards deep, paved and with tubs of shrubs and flowering plants set about it. But, despite its modest size, in the afternoon it caught the sun and was a pleasant place to sit. Bel remembered too late as she ran down the six steps into it that she had urged her loft-full of soldiers to take the air there whenever they chose: today it seemed they had taken advantage of the offer.

She stood and regarded them, five of the eight who now occupied the loft, brought in over several days by Brown whom she had sent out in a hackney to scour the streets. He had recovered quickly with good food and medical attention, but his friend Lewin was still very poorly and confined to his bed.

They got to their feet with varying degrees of ease and stared at her mutely. Then Brown took a step forward. ‘What’s the matter, ma’am?’ His big fists clenched. ‘Who’s touched you? You tell me, I’ll sort them out.’ The group at his back growled agreement.

Bel pushed pins back into her hair with hands that shook. ‘No one. I…I had a stupid argument with a friend. I am upset…I am sorry, I forgot you might be here.’

‘We’ll go, ma’am, let you have your garden back for a quiet sit, don’t you fret.’ The others began to shift towards the gate, uneasy, she realised, that she was less than poised, less than completely in control. Probably, she thought with a flash of desperate humour, they were afraid she was going to weep.

‘No, please, don’t go. Stay and I will sit out here too. Tell me how everyone is doing.’ Bel forced a smile and saw them begin to relax.

‘Well, ma’am, Lewin’s sitting up and seems to be getting his appetite back, leastways, for Mrs Hedges’s soup. And Jock here…’ he tipped his head towards the taciturn Scot with an eye patch who seemed to be resigned to never being addressed by his real name ‘…his foot’s a lot better. And I found two more lads this morning, the doctor’s looking at them now.’ He talked on, marshalling and presenting his facts efficiently. Bel found herself wondering why he had not become a sergeant, he seemed to have the requisite qualities. She must ask Ashe about how that worked. If they ever spoke to each other again.

Ashe shot one glance down the length of the room to where his coat lay crumpled on a chair where he had thrown it. The door was already opening—he could never make it in time, and besides, the marks of Bel’s hand on his face must be crimson.

This entire ghastly episode was like a farce, he thought, despairing for a second before military training kicked in. Think, improvise, survive. If this was a farce, then salvation might lay in making it even more of one.

‘Scream,’ he ordered brusquely, lifting Lady James bodily and standing her on top of a side chair. ‘And stay there.’ She gave a muffled shriek and waved her arms for balance. As the sound of the entering guests’ chatting reached him, Ashe dived under the chaise, the poker snatched from the hearth in his hand.