Читать книгу Regency Collection 2013 Part 1 - Хелен Диксон, Louise Allen, Хелен Диксон - Страница 41

Lily kept well away from the studio that evening and the next morning, although she turned her chair around at her desk so that she could glance up at Jack’s windows as she worked on her notes for the afternoon’s meeting. She had to get her trustees briefed, and in a positive frame of mind, before Jack appeared, for she had not the slightest confidence that he would agree to meet them. If she had to trick him, then she should prepare the ground as much as possible first.

Percy carried off a note, asking Mr Lovell if he would care to take tea with Miss France at three that afternoon. ‘If he should ask, say that you believe Mrs Herrick will be there. And do not mention that my trustees are meeting this afternoon.’

‘Yes, Miss France.’ Puzzled, but obedient, Percy took the note and returned ten minutes later to report that Mr Lovell would be glad to accept. ‘I think he is intending to leave soon, Miss France.’

Lily’s stomach sank with a sickening lurch. ‘Why? What has he said?’

‘He asked me to get his portmanteaux sent over. And he has started bundling up all those papers and tying them together.’

The door closed behind the footman, leaving the room in silence. Lily realised her vision was blurred. Furious with herself, she dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘Do not be so feeble, Lily France! You haven’t lost him yet—time and enough to cry when you do.’

Jack glanced at the clock, put down his pen and regarded his inky fingers wryly. He seemed to have spent more time lately with a pen in his hand than he had since he left school.

Time to wash and make himself respectable to take tea with Lily. Time to thank her for her hospitality and to explain that he was taking the stage from the Bull and Mouth at St Martin-le-Grand tomorrow afternoon. And time to acknowledge to himself that what he was taking away from London was not money, but a great deal of information, new ideas and fresh resolve. And what he was leaving behind was the woman he had come to love improbably, impossibly and, he very much feared, irrevocably.

Like Lily, he had a duty to marry, to have heirs. And now, leaving Lily, he knew that whoever he did eventually wed, it was not going to be someone he loved. He had always imagined, when he thought about it at all, that he would find someone, fall in love and marry her. Foolishly romantic, many would say, for a man in his position. Now, marriage had become another act of duty to put alongside all the others. The ache of missing Lily was simply another pain to be borne; he knew how to cope with physical pain. Would emotional pain be any different?

He washed, tied back his hair, put on a clean shirt and took pains with his neckcloth while he rehearsed small talk for the tea table in his mind. The weather, things that he had seen in London that seemed worthy of comment, the virtues of Lily’s new horse, the presents he had purchased for his mother and sisters. That would tide over a polite three-quarters of an hour comfortably.

Lily would be upset that he was leaving, he knew that. She had decided she was going to solve his problems because she always was able to solve anything that simply required the application of money. She was not going to like being thwarted in that. She regarded him as a friend, he thought, as he shook out his coat and pulled it on. What she made of his lovemaking he was not certain, for she had shown no embarrassment or shyness afterwards. Nor did she seem to expect him to make love to her again, so, with her characteristic practicality, she had no doubt put it down to experience—and out of her mind.

The memory of Lily, quivering and responsive in his arms, the sweet heat of her mouth on his, the innocent passion, struck him with desire so violent it was like a blow. God, I want her. I love her and I want her. How had he managed to keep that under control the other night? How was he going to be able to sit with her and her aunt, politely discussing commonplaces when all he wanted was to drag her off to bed and make love to her until they were both exhausted?

One thing was certain, he was not going anywhere until he had got both his body and his imagination under control.

As a result, the clocks had finished chiming three before Jack entered the house through the garden door and his mind was busy memorising the towns on the stagecoach route back to Newcastle, the most unerotic activity he could think of on the spur of the moment, other than stripping off and throwing himself in the horse trough.

‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Fakenham was his usual imperturbable self.

Hoddesdon, Ware, Puckeridge. ‘Good afternoon, Fakenham.’ Royston … no, Buntingford, Royston …

‘Miss France is in the library, sir.’ Odd place to take tea … Huntingdon, Norman Cross …

‘Mr Lovell, ma’am.’

… Stamford. ‘Good afternoon.’ Gran … There was no sight of the tea table, nor of Mrs Herrick. Lily was certainly there, seated at the foot of a long stretch of mahogany around which were grouped six men, all soberly suited, all of more than middle age. At the head a vigorous septuagenarian with beetling grey brows glowered at him.

‘You’ll be Lovell.’

What the devil is going on? ‘You have the advantage of me, sir.’

‘I am Frederick Conroy, Miss France is my great-niece and these are my fellow trustees in her affairs.’

Jack shot Lily one hard glance, saw her smile fade, and turned back to her great-uncle. ‘Then I appear to have intruded upon a private meeting. My apologies, Mr Conroy. Good day, gentlemen, Miss France.’

‘Not so fast, young man. We understood you are seeking investors for your coal mine.’

‘Yes, sir, for steam pumps. However, I hardly see how that need concern you.’

‘My niece is interested in investing.’

‘I, however, have not sought Miss France’s involvement.’ The anger was an almost physical presence possessing him. Jack trampled it down. Damn the woman and her passion for paying for things. What was this for? Payment for his injuries, or for his escort the other evening—or for his lovemaking?

‘Well, we have heard all about it now, so you might as well come in, sit down and discuss it.’ The old man was regarding him with shrewd eyes. Jack could almost feel him pricing his clothes, assessing his mood, calculating his worth. ‘Come along, sir! Or do you tell us we have met for nothing?’

Jack took the proffered chair, his temper under a tight rein. He could sense Lily’s eyes on him and kept his own steady on Conroy. ‘Your meeting was not at my instigation, sir. I do not consider my proposition a suitable investment for Miss France.’

The older man gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘Miss France begs to differ. And if you do not agree with her, Mr Lovell, how is it that you have discussed it in such detail that she is able to recite chapter and verse to us? I had no idea my niece was so well acquainted with the uses of steam power or the mechanics of coal mining.’

‘I—’ Jack did look at Lily then. He knew her well enough now to know when she was hiding something, and behind the expression of calm attention on her face he could read guilt and discomfort. He had not talked in detail to Lily about the mine, but he had left all his papers out in an unlocked room.

‘Nor had I expected to find her with quite such a grasp of the different grades of coal and their uses or so very knowledgeable about optimum depths of mine shafts and the laws of diminishing return as applied to the length of—what is the term?—ah, yes, galleries.’

‘Miss France has indulged me by listening to me thinking out loud about various problems. I should not have bored her with them and I am amazed that Miss France should have troubled to recall any of the details.’ He kept his eyes on her as he spoke and watched the colour rise betrayingly in her cheeks. She could read him too, knew he was furiously angry with her.

‘My niece constantly surprises us all.’ The old man chuckled as he said it, but Jack could hear both indulgence and a strong will behind the words. Mr Conroy would allow his niece her whim this far, but he would not agree to her parting with a penny piece unless he and his fellow trustees were satisfied.

Every instinct was telling him to get up and walk out. But to do so would be to humiliate Lily in front of these men whose respect was important to her. He wanted to shake her, to demand to know what the devil she thought she was about, but that could wait.

‘Let me introduce you to my fellow trustees,’ Mr Conroy began with the air of a man calling the meeting to order, ‘and then, despite my niece’s excellent summation of the facts, we have a great many questions to ask you.’

Half an hour later Jack knew he had lost them. They were intelligent, hard, practical men, all of them, but they were merchants and traders, not engineers or mine owners. If he had been asking them to invest in a canal, or steam pumps in a manufactory, or possibly even in mines in the Midlands, then he might well have convinced them. But Northumberland was too far away, they could see all the problems very clearly and the solutions were outside their experience. And on the subject of steam locomotion, which for some reason Lily appeared to have been lecturing them about, they were frankly sceptical.

Lily had sat silent until then, her guilty blush faded until she was pallid, her hands locked together on the table as her green eyes followed the argument and questions around the table. But when Mr Shillington, the attorney, remarked that steam power for coaches was a fantasy, she intervened, passionately.

‘It is the future, not a fantasy. You only have to read the articles—’

‘Yes, yes, Miss France. It might work very well on some short tramways in Wales, but for long distances? Or even on the roads, as I believe some of these fanatics would have us believe? Madness! Why, the things would be exploding and frightening the horses, and people would go mad with the speed.’

‘But there is a steam engine in Newcastle called the Puffing Billy—’

‘They break the rails—I have heard all about it. And in any case, you are not proposing spending Miss France’s money on these locomotives, are you Mr Lovell?’

‘No sir. I require static engines that can run pumps, provide ventilation and lift coal.’

Mr Conroy looked down at his notes, then round at his fellow trustees. ‘Do we need to ask Mr Lovell to retire while we discuss this, gentlemen? No?’ His faded blue eyes looked round the table. ‘Well?’ One after another the grizzled heads shook; the only words spoken were Lily’s.

‘No! Of course we have to discuss it! You cannot simply dismiss this out of hand.’

Jack got to his feet. ‘You have given me a very patient hearing. I will not impose longer on your time. Good day, gentlemen. Miss France.’

‘Jack!’

He shut the door firmly, realising that his hands were shaking with anger. He nodded curtly at Fakenham, who was waiting in the hall, and strode out through the garden door, carefully refraining from slamming it behind him.

The restraint lasted as long as it took him to reach the studio. The slam of that door rattled the glass in the windows, and the nearest portmanteau, kicked with the full force of his feelings, flew down the length of the room to knock over a chair with a satisfying thud.

Jack counted out money for Mrs Oakman, a tip for Percy, and began to pack his portfolio with the papers from the table. How had she managed to study them without him noticing they had been disturbed? The thought of the deliberate care it must have taken made him angrier still. If she had just asked him, he would have told her he did not wish to meet her trustees, that it was not a suitable investment for her.

He lifted a stack of notes and found one long, reddish brown hair curling over his fingers. Not so very careful after all. He brushed it off, then picked it up again. It was as live and vibrant as Lily herself, curling round his fingers as she had twined herself around his heart. Impatient with himself for his weakness, Jack pulled out his note book, dropped the hair between two pages and thrust it back into his pocket as the door slowly opened behind him.

‘Jack?’

He swung round and saw the misery on her face and a strange mixture of exasperation and love cut through the anger. ‘Jack, I am so sorry they said no. I obviously mishandled it, I did not prepare well enough …’

‘You are sorry you mishandled it?’ Lily could always be relied upon, it seemed, to infuriate him afresh. ‘Lily, if I had wanted to approach your trustees it would have been up to me to present my proposition to them. I did not wish to approach them, so your intervention was quite unnecessary. You wasted their time, you have put yourself to no little trouble to no purpose and, I have to say, I do not appreciate having my private papers ransacked.’

‘I did not ransack them!’ She was instantly indignant. ‘I put them back exactly how I had found them.’

‘Lily, they are my private papers.’

‘If there had been anything personal, of course I would not have read it.’

She still did not understand what he was angry about—he could see the bafflement on her face. ‘Lily, I realise that I am so poor that you do not consider it of any more account than you would scrutinising your servants’ wages, but I do not relish having my personal finances investigated and the results discussed with a number of persons unknown to me.’

‘Oh, you are so wretchedly starched up about this!’ she flared at him, not at all repentant. ‘Why cannot you ask my trustees for money when you will happily advertise to all and sundry in the newspapers?’

‘It is risky. It is not an investment for a woman.’

‘But you do not need much; it is a trifle as far as I am concerned. I could lose it all and it would not matter.’

‘It would matter to me, and it is not a trifle for me.’ He tried again. Somehow he had to get her out of his room before the feelings that were battering at him won and he did what he was aching to do and took her in his arms, kissed her until she could only whimper, and told her that he could not take her money because he loved her. How could he make her understand? ‘Lily, this is futile. Even if I would borrow money from you, your trustees will not allow it, so there is nothing more to be said.’ He half-turned away from her as he added quietly, ‘Not that this is about money.’

Lily stared at him, baffled, hurt and wounded that Jack was angry with her for trying to help him, glimpsing through the fog of anger that was swirling about them that she had badly misjudged his reactions. But what was it about, if it was not about money?

‘Jack—’ She held out a hand and he moved abruptly. ‘Please do not do that. Please do not hate me.’

‘Hate you?’ He took two jerky strides then, fetching up with one hand on the mantelshelf, his back to her. ‘I do not hate you.’

‘Good,’ she said shakily, looking at the figure in front of her, wondering how she could ever have thought any other man handsome, how she could ever have contemplated living with anyone less intelligent, less virile, less interesting.

‘Lily, I do not think we speak the same language. I do not think we even inhabit the same country sometimes. We do not understand each other and we are hurting each other as a result. I am leaving London tomorrow.’

What does he mean? Lily shook her head in frustration. Of course we speak the same language! It is just pride, that is all. But Adrian Randall, a man with a barony, a man consumed with pride in his name and his status—he had had no qualms about marrying me. Marriage? Was that it?

‘Jack.’ She stepped forward and put her hand on his arm. It was rigid. ‘Jack …’

‘Lily, please go away.’

‘No. I think I see. You need to be master, I understand that. You need to be in control of … of everything. Well, marry me then, and you will control one-third of my fortune.’

‘Marry you?’ He turned then and Lily took a step backwards, suddenly afraid of what she had done. ‘You want to marry a title, do you not?’

‘I am sure you will have one,’ she stammered, too aghast at the anger in Jack’s eyes to think what she was saying. ‘You will be a great man, I know it. I can see it all, the mine will be a success, you will stand for Parliament, build steam railways …’

‘And be knighted?’ he enquired, his voice so chill she shivered. ‘But that will not do, will it, Lily? If I recall, nothing but a baron will do for you. Still, I hear say that Prinny is in need of funds, perhaps you can buy me a title.

‘And what do I have to do in return? Provide one little coal mine for you to play with? Oh, yes, and father your children. And pleasure you in bed, Lady Lovell? That, at least, will not be a hardship.’

Recalling her daydream, Lily felt her face burn with shame. Lady Lovell. Jack was so angry—could she tell him she loved him? That he did not understand?

‘Is this what you want for your money, Miss France?’ His hand on her wrist was like iron, but Lily did not try to resist as Jack pulled her into his arms.

‘Yes,’ was all she could manage before his mouth crushed down on hers. Not money, just love, Jack. Please understand, just love …

He had aroused and pleasured her before; now, angry and demanding, he excited her almost beyond bearing. Lily strained against the hard body, revelling in the sensation of being mastered, ready to match him wherever he took her. She was not afraid of him, despite the anger she could almost taste; if she said no, she knew he would leave her. Everything she said was wrong, she could not find the words to reach him or the understanding to comprehend him, but in this thing at least, despite her ignorance and her innocence, they could communicate.

He was claiming and taking, his tongue invading in a way that flooded her with an almost unbearable longing. The room seemed to be moving, then she realised he had lifted her, shouldered aside the screen across the bed and laid her down.

Through the thin silk of her afternoon gown his hand burned on her breast and she arched into it, the nipple hard and aching. Then her skin was exposed to the air, to the rough heat of his palm and he bent his head to take her in his mouth, sending wild sensation lancing through her belly.

Lily writhed beneath him, her hands frantic to touch him as he touched her, pulling at his neckcloth, tearing at shirt buttons until her fingertips met skin, yanking at the linen until she could flatten her palm on the springing curls of his chest.

Instinctively she shifted beneath his weight, adjusting her body to the length and weight of his and suddenly aware of the strength of his arousal and where this was leading. And, she realised, she did not care what the consequences were, despite the ripple of fear that ran through her at the thought of joining with that much maleness. She loved Jack—this was the one thing she could give him that had nothing to do with money.

His lips trailed upwards, up her throat, to her temple, to kiss her closed lids. And his hands were no longer restraining her, but lifting her to hold her against his chest as he sat up.

‘Oh, God, Lily. My cursed temper.’

‘Jack?’ She wriggled in his hold.

‘Just sit still, please, while I still have some control left.’ His voice sounded muffled, she could feel the warmth of his breath in her hair. Then she was sitting by herself on the bed and he was pulling the screen back to shield her.

‘Is your gown torn?’

Shaken, Lily glanced down, her fingers fumbling with buttons. ‘No, not torn. Jack—’

‘Lily, for once in your life, just listen. I am going down to the stable yard now and I will not come back until you have gone. There is a brush near the mirror and a cloak over the back of the chair if your gown is too crushed.’

‘But Jack, what is wrong? I wanted you to make love to me.’ Through the crack in the screen she could see him stripping off his torn shirt. The sight of his naked torso took the breath from her lungs.

‘For heaven’s sake, woman—accept this is the one thing you know nothing about! This is not the price of tea, or the weather in India or import duties at the docks or the latest fashion in bonnets! I should never have touched you, never have kissed you. I am no better than that lout Randall or his friend Dovercourt.’

‘Yes, you are,’ she cried, her hand on the screen. ‘I wanted you to make love to me. You stopped even though you did not have to.’

‘You have no idea. None. I am leaving today.’

Lily stood, listening to the sound of his feet on the stairs down into the carriage shed. I am going to be sick. The storm of arousal was still washing through her body as though she had drunk too much, and her knees were trembling. She pressed her face to the small window overlooking the mews and saw Jack stride towards the pump, gesturing to one of the grooms to work it. He bent his whole upper body under the cold gush of water and she shuddered in sympathy at the thought of the temperature.

As though to wash me away. What can I do? He will not take my money, he will not take my body and he will not take my hand. For the first time in her life Lily could see no way through, no answers, no plan that would make things right. Her money was no use to her now. There were not even tears; she felt as though she would never cry again, that there was nothing left inside her but a hollow shell. She turned from the window and swept the cloak around her, pulling up the hood. What would the staff think?

Lily turned back at the sounds of bustle in the mews—her trustees must be going, their carriages called for. If she went now, while Fakenham and the footmen were busy in the hall, she could slip in unnoticed. She looked round the room, trying to print the memory of Jack’s presence on her mind. His neckcloth lay at her feet where she had tossed it. She picked it up and hurried for the back stairs.