Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 35

‘Where am I?’ Not the most original of opening lines, Jack told himself, focusing on the magnificently dressed figure in front of him. He should recognise her; flashes of memory—of an angry aristocrat, a crowded coffee shop, of crowds, a bear, his schooldays and, improbably, of an angel—tried to force their way through the headache that was an almost physical presence in his skull.

He shifted his gaze, but not his throbbing head, found himself staring at a sphinx—of all things—and hastily looked back at the young woman. The beautiful young woman, now he could see past the ornately piled hair, the frills and flounces and the jewellery.

‘You are in my house in Chandler Street, sir.’ She moved closer, forcing him to refocus painfully. ‘You were injured coming to my aid outside—do you not recall?’

‘Some sort of riot? I came because you wrote … Miss …?’ He frowned with the effort of recall. ‘Have I met you before?’ For some reason she seemed to be blushing.

‘France. Lily France. You came to my aid a month ago in Piccadilly—can you remember that? As for this—it was a hoax, someone was playing a malicious trick on me. A fight broke out and you were hit by a cobblestone. The doctor says you bruised your back badly on the steps as you fell.’ Which no doubt accounted for the fact that he felt as though he’d been flogged. But why, if he had fallen on his back, did his jaw ache? Jack raised a hand and prodded it, wincing.

‘Did someone land me a right hook at the same time?’

Now what had he said to make her blush even deeper? ‘I am afraid so. My … the man to whom I was betrothed hit you.’

‘What the hell—sorry—for? Miss France, please will you not sit down? I can focus better on the level and for some reason I keep seeing sphinxes when I look up.’

She came and sat by the bed in a rustle of silk that whispered money to a man who had three sisters. ‘That’s because the room is decorated with a gilded frieze of them,’ she said, pride evident in her voice. ‘This room is in the Egyptian style, you know, quite the height of fashion.’

Jack risked a glance around and repressed a shudder. And quite the worst of taste. ‘Why did he hit me?’ he asked again. Shreds of memory were coming back: a woman’s gasp of pain, a sneering voice. Fog.

‘Because he was angry with me for having you brought into the house, and he mistook the situation—but he was angry in any case. I broke our engagement, he raised his voice and you—somehow—managed to get to your feet. You were trying to protect me, which was very gallant of you. But you could hardly see I imagine, what with all the blood, and Adrian took advantage of that and hit you. The coward,’ she finished, vehemently.

‘Adrian?’

‘Lord Randall.’

Well, that explained some of the memories. It seemed that Randall was still picking on those smaller or weaker than himself—undersized boys, women, injured men. Strange that neither of them had recognised the other in the coffee house, even after sixteen years. That evening in Hatchett’s was coming back now. ‘It took you rather a long time to get rid of him.’

‘Four weeks,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I should have listened to my own feelings and not done what everyone else said was right.’

‘Why agree to marry him in the first place if you do not like him?’ His head was thudding and the gilded ornamentation of the room seemed to shimmer in the candlelight, but Jack found himself fascinated by the play of emotion on Lily’s face. Her expression of self-deprecation changed to one of surprise.

‘He is a baron,’ she stated as though he had asked a very foolish question.

‘Er, yes. And so …?’ She still seemed puzzled. ‘You must marry a baron?’

‘Someone with a title, and baronets are too low down, so it had to be at least a baron.’

The room was definitely beginning to blur and he could feel his eyelids drooping. ‘But why?’

‘So my sons will be gentlemen, of course.’

Lily saw Jack had lapsed into unconsciousness again and sat watching him blankly for a while. In the space of a day she had lost her betrothed, and very probably her reputation, and had gained one decidedly large and disturbing house guest. She doubted that Aunt Herrick would consider it a very good bargain.

Had she really let him kiss her? Try as she might, she could hardly dismiss that as being due to the shocks of the day. And yet she had felt unable to resist. The sensations that strange caress had evoked were far more powerful than Adrian’s hot embraces had been. At least Jack Lovell showed no sign of recalling it. Thank goodness.

And what to do with Mr Lovell? She could not send him back to his lodgings in the state he was in. But what if someone was waiting for him? She should have thought of that and asked him for his direction, rather than discussing her motives for wanting to marry Adrian.

Lily eyed his coat, which was looking considerably the worse for wear as it hung over the back of a chair. She could hardly search his pockets. But if someone was expecting him back they would be anxious by now. Tentatively she patted the coat, noting that it was at least two seasons out of style and, although well enough made, was certainly not by a London tailor. Something hard and flat in the inside breast pocket seemed promising and she fished out a notebook.

Scrupulously trying not to read anything, Lily flicked through the pages. Early on there was a list of inns with a mark against at least six of them. Not helpful. Then halfway through, the draft of an advertisement: … at the sign of the Green Dragon. Sliding the book back, she picked up the pile of clothes and tiptoed out.

Two hours later, Lily regarded the still figure anxiously across the small table she had ordered to be set up for her dinner. Doctor Ord’s strictures made her uneasy about leaving Mr Lovell to the care of one of the housemaids, as she had explained to her aunt. Mrs Herrick inspected the bandaged figure with a shudder, but pronounced it safe for her niece to be alone in the same room, provided she left the door ajar.

The soup in the bowl in front of her smelled delicious. Lily dipped in her spoon and began to sip, wondering what tomorrow would bring. Recriminations from her relatives over the end of her engagement, that was for sure. Aunt was probably on about the sixth outraged letter even now. And gossip to face wherever she went. Gossip about the hoax and just as much about Adrian. Would he behave like a gentleman and tell people that it was an amicable mutual decision? Somehow she doubted it.

‘Soupe de Cressy.’ The voice was so unexpected that Lily dropped her bread roll.

‘I had quite forgotten you were there,’ she apologised. ‘Oh no, you should not move.’ But he was already hauling himself up painfully against the pillows. ‘Here, let me put another one behind you.’ That was intimately close, she realised as she wedged a bolster down behind the broad shoulders.

Now that Jack Lovell was sitting up she was all too aware that, except for the bandages, he was naked. Her hand stilled, an inch from the skin of his shoulder. She had never felt the slightest temptation to touch Adrian, although she had admired his beauty. Why now did she want to run her hands over the scarred brown body of this man? His hair, released from the cord that had confined it, touched his shoulders. It was deeply unfashionable when severe crops were all the rage, yet profoundly masculine in its thick vigour.

Lily straightened up, hastily. ‘There. How do you feel? Would you like some soup?’

He caught her wrist in his hand as she turned for the bell pull. ‘Thank you, I would welcome that. However, I cannot get up while you are having your own dinner.’

The long hard fingers encircled her wrist easily. Lily was not used to regarding herself as particularly slender, and certainly not fragile, but the grip made her feel both. She glanced down, her mouth dry, and he released her.

‘You are certainly not going to get out of bed this evening, Mr Lovell.’ She tugged the bell and retreated to her table.

‘Miss France, I insist.’

Blake appeared and they spoke at once.

‘Please fetch me my clothes …’

‘A bowl of soup, some bread and some wine for Mr Lovell.’

‘Miss France? The clothes the gentleman was wearing today are being cleaned.’ The footman turned towards the bed. ‘Mr Fakenham has set Percy to unpacking and pressing your other things, sir. He has instructed him to act as your valet while you are with us, sir.’

The dark grey eyes did not show much gratitude for this arrangement. Lily intervened. ‘Mr Lovell’s supper, please, Blake. At once.’ The footman effaced himself.

‘What other things, precisely, Miss France?’

‘Your luggage from the Green Dragon. I thought it best to have it removed and your account settled. They know where you are in case there are any replies to your advertisement,’ she added hastily when the dark brows drew together.

‘And how did you discover my direction?’

‘From your notebook. I had to check, I had no idea if anyone would be waiting for you, expecting you back. And I did not read anything, I only skimmed through to find some clue as to your lodgings. Now, please rest. I am going to eat my soup before it gets cold.’

‘I cannot stay here.’

‘Why not, for goodness’ sake?’ Lily put down her soup spoon impatiently. ‘You have had a very nasty blow to the head, the doctor says you must rest, and this is much better for you than staying in that cheap inn.’

‘You are a single lady and I am not in need of charity.’ For some reason he seemed to be becoming positively annoyed.

‘I did not suggest that you were; you may certainly refund me whatever Percy expended at the Green Dragon. But if you think I am going to allow someone who has come to my aid not once, but twice, to nurse a bad head wound in some third-rate hostelry, you may think again, Mr Lovell.’

They glared at each other. ‘Miss France, you are in enough trouble with that business this morning, and ending your engagement to Lord Randall, without harbouring a down-at-heel mine owner in your bedroom.’

‘Who is to know?’ Lily shrugged. ‘And this is the spare bedroom, not mine, and you are not down at heel. Your hair may need cutting and your clothes are thoroughly out of fashion, but your boots are admirable.’

The grey eyes narrowed dangerously at this sweeping assessment, but much to Lily’s surprise he laughed. ‘I like to get my priorities right. Do you always get your own way, Miss France?’

‘I try to,’ Lily confessed. ‘I do not see the point of being extremely rich if one does not get the benefit from it.’

‘That is certainly frank! But money does not buy you everything.’ His smile was wry and Lily stiffened. Was he criticising her?

‘Most things it does,’ she retorted.

‘But not obedience from those who are financially independent of you—and I am. Please ring for your footman and my clothes, Miss France.’

‘No! I am not asking for your obedience, you exasperating man—just for you to show some common sense and do as the doctor orders!’

‘I will get up anyway.’ Jack gripped the edge of the bedclothes and sat up straighter.

‘You cannot—you haven’t got any clothes on.’

‘That is your problem, Miss France. Not mine.’ Jack Lovell tossed back the coverlet and blankets and tugged the sheet free where it had been tucked in. ‘Now, ma’am—am I going to have to find where my luggage is by myself, or are you going to ring for it?’

He was bluffing, he had to be. He would never do it. ‘No.’

‘Very well.’ Before Lily’s horrified gaze Jack swung his legs out of bed, swathed the sheet around himself toga-fashion and stood up. The effect was ostensibly decent—he was certainly better covered than most Classical statues that she had seen—but the impact of bare legs, one exposed shoulder and most of his chest suggested all too vividly the nakedness that the sheet concealed.

‘Mr Lovell. Get back to bed!’

The door opened to reveal Blake with a loaded tray. He stopped dead at the sight of the apparition facing him, then stepped forward hastily as someone behind him must have pushed. Aunt Herrick bustled past him, glanced round, saw Jack and let out a piercing scream. Blake dropped the tray, showering all of them with Soupe de Cressy and claret as Percy shot into the room, alarm on his face.

‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ He stared around wildly, then gawped at the near-naked man dominating the bedchamber.

‘No, I am not all right!’ Mrs Herrick waved a frantic hand at Jack. ‘This … brute was trying to assault my niece— send for the constables!’

Lily, torn between laughter and horror, pressed her hands over her mouth as Jack took a hasty step forward. ‘Madam, I assure you my intention—’

He could not have untucked all of the sheet from under the mattress. With his long stride it caught at the back with a jerk, pulled from his grip and fell to the floor. Lily stared, realised what she was doing, and clapped her hands over her eyes. With a gasp Aunt Herrick slid to the floor in a dead faint. Blake, kneeling amidst the wreckage of the supper tray, let out one startled expletive and was silent.

For a moment the tableau was frozen, then Lily, keeping her back to the bed, hurried to her aunt’s side. Mrs Herrick had subsided safely on to the thick pile of the carpet and was moaning, apparently more in shock and outrage than from any bruises.

‘Mr Lovell, please go back to bed this minute. Percy, fetch Mrs Herrick’s woman, and my maid, and then help Blake clear this up.’ She waited a moment. ‘Mr Lovell, are you decent?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He sounded chastened. Good. So he should be, the reprobate!

Still on her knees, Lily turned slowly round and regarded the dishevelled bed and its occupant, now decidedly paler than before he had got up. He looked at her with rueful apology, and somewhere, at the back of those expressive grey eyes, wicked amusement.

This was dreadful. Lily bit her lip. Aunt would have fits when she came round, the carpet with its special border of golden crocodiles and papyrus foliage was going to have to be cleaned and Blake’s be-frogged livery was covered in claret. It was also very, very funny. Coming on top of a day packed with horrible surprises, it was too much. She turned away, tried to control herself and failed utterly. With a gasp she sank back on her heels, buried her face in her handkerchief and wept with laughter.

‘Miss France—Lily! I am sorry … hell, I did not mean to make you cry.’

‘Don’t you dare get up again,’ she threatened, raising her flushed face from the linen. ‘It is so unfair—you create havoc and then you make me laugh. Oh Maria, Janet, help Mrs Herrick to her room—she fainted, but she does not appear to be hurt. That’s right—’ she turned to the footmen who were sponging the soup off the carpet ‘—do the best you can and we will have to look at it again tomorrow when the light is better. And fetch Mr Lovell another supper tray, please.

‘Not that you deserve it,’ she scolded, approaching the bed and wrenching the coverings straight as the footmen hurried out. Lecturing him was the only defence she could find to hide the shock and embarrassment—and fascination—of seeing his naked body. ‘Now, will you promise me you will stay there?’

‘Will you finish your supper up here?’ Jack was managing to sound reasonably contrite; Lily did not trust him one inch.

‘Certainly not. Aunt would never allow it after what she has just seen. I mean …’ Oh, Lord, that could have been better put! ‘I mean, she thought you were unconscious. Please do not be difficult.’

Without thinking she put out one hand imploringly and Jack caught it in his and raised it to his lips. ‘I apologise Lily. I would apologise to your aunt too if I did not think it would set her off again. But I can stay for one night only.’ He released his grip and Lily thrust her hand safely behind her back. ‘And thank you. I am sorry if I seem ungrateful, but I am not used to accepting favours, and I am not good at being told what to do.’

‘I had noticed,’ Lily remarked with a smile as she closed the door behind her and left Mr Lovell alone with his crumpled sheets and a strong smell of claret.

Aunt Herrick was propped up on the chaise-longue in her chamber, smelling bottle in one hand, fan in another, while Janet and Maria hovered with cordials and pillows. To Lily’s surprise she waved them away when she saw her niece. ‘Leave us, off you go. Well.’ She eyed Lily’s flushed face with a knowing eye. ‘And just what have you brought home, miss?’

‘I have not brought him home,’ Lily protested, perching on the end of the chaise. ‘He was knocked out on our doorstep—what was I supposed to do with him? Leave him to bleed to death outside the front door?’

‘He is a well-built young man, that I’ll say for him.’ The older woman chuckled at Lily’s blush. ‘What is he?’

‘He owns a mine in Northumberland and he is looking for investors for steam pumps for it.’

‘Oh. Trade. Then he’s no use to us.’

‘Aunt!’

‘Well? You have lost your baron, young lady—what are you going to find to replace him with?’

‘Not Mr Lovell, that is for sure,’ Lily retorted, resolutely ignoring a disturbing mental image of muscular thighs and narrow hips. ‘Infuriating man.’

‘Handsome, though, so long as you aren’t looking for the languid elegant type. He would turn out quite well with a good suit of clothes and his hair cut. Pity he’s not got a title.’

‘I like his hair,’ Lily said without thinking. ‘Not that that is anything to do with anything, so stop teasing me, Aunt, please. I really do not know what I am to do. Today’s events will be all over town by tomorrow, so even if it were not for Lord Randall, everyone would be talking about me.’

‘Laugh about the hoax and say you broke it off with him, who’s to know any better? Put on your best new dress and your diamonds and find another lord.’

‘It is not as simple as that,’ Lily confessed, twirling the bullion fringe on the chaise between restless fingers. ‘About a month ago I let Adrian drive me back from Almack’s and he … he tried to make love to me in the carriage and I repulsed him and ran away. And Mr Lovell rescued me. But I was alone with Adrian, and then I was in this coffee house on Piccadilly with Jack, even though nothing happened. And sooner or later Adrian is going to realise that the man he hit today was the one who told him I was not in the coffee house, and—’

‘He will put two and two together and make twenty-seven,’ Aunt Herrick finished for her. ‘I do not pretend to understand half of this tale, but if Lord Randall chooses to be spiteful then you’re in trouble, Lily, my child.’

‘I know.’ Lily’s fingers had twisted the bullion fringe into a knot. She released it and watched it spring back into its own intricate twirls. ‘I think I am probably ruined.’