Читать книгу Bachelor Duke - Mary Nichols, Mary Nichols - Страница 8

Sophie’s arrival at Belfont House with all her belongings the following day did not go as she expected and planned. She had hoped only for a garret room, where she could sit and write, not the sumptuous bedchamber she was given. It was furnished in mahogany and walnut; its thick carpet, in shades of blue, reflected the pattern in the curtains at the windows and those about the large four-poster bed. Adjoining it was a small sitting room. ‘I have had a desk and some shelves brought in,’ Harriet told her when she conducted her there after Lady Myers had been entertained with tea, been bidden goodbye and left, promising to call in a day or two to see how Sophie did. ‘Then you can write if you feel the inspiration. But I do not want you to think that you must do it. Look on it as a pastime when you have nothing better to do.’

‘I do not see it as a pastime, my lady.’

‘No, of course not. How foolish of me. What I meant was that I want you to make this your home. Write if you wish, but I should like it very much if you would accompany me on outings. There is so much going on in London this Season, it is beyond anything the capital has seen before, and it is not much fun if you have no one to share it with. The Duke is too busy.’

‘Is your husband not able to accompany you?’

For a moment her bright smile vanished. ‘He was killed at Oporto in ’09.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry. I did not know…’

‘No reason why you should. It was a comfort to know that James was with him when he died. He stayed abroad until last year when our father died and he became the next Duke. It was a relief to have him safe home again.’

‘I am sure it was,’ Sophie murmured.

‘I have two darling daughters, Beth and Olivia, but I left them at home in Suffolk. I cannot imagine they would find London in summer to their liking. They are more interested in ponies and country walks. When the Season is at an end, you must visit us and meet them.’

‘I should like that very much.’

‘Now, here I am prattling on about myself when what I really want to know is all about you. What was it like to be in Europe when Napoleon was Emperor? Did you ever meet him? Some people here say he was an ogre and others that he was a hero. I cannot find that very patriotic, can you?’

‘No, and I never met him. I saw him in the distance when we were in Paris, and we were in Austria when his son was born and there were tremendous celebrations. But I did meet some other interesting characters. Papa seemed to attract them. He was such an affable man and was always bringing people home for dinner.’ She did not add that it had stretched their housekeeping money to breaking point to entertain them.

‘And is that what is going into your book?’

She had not consciously thought of doing that, but she did know a simple travel book would not interest a publisher; there were dozens of those already. She must make it different, and interesting characters might do that. People lived abroad for many reasons; some, like her father, to escape their creditors; others to get over an unhappy love affair or to run away with someone else’s spouse. Some eloped when parents refused to countenance their marriage and some moved to a warmer climate for the sake of their health. Whatever the reason, there was always a nucleus of expatriates in the major cities of the continent, even during the war. ‘Yes, but I shall have to be very careful not to name names, I do not want to antagonise people. And they will only be part of the descriptions of how we travelled and the interesting places we saw.’

‘It must have been very exciting for a young girl to see so much of the world, almost like a Grand Tour.’

Sophie laughed. ‘It was never like that. And when Mama died—’ She stopped, unable to go on.

‘I feel for you, Sophie. Lady Myers told me a little of it, when we had a few minutes alone together, but you must put all those difficulties behind you now. I am going to enjoy dressing you up and taking you out.’

‘Really, my lady, there is no need…’

‘I want to, and please call me Harriet. Your mama was our cousin and that makes you a cousin too and families should not be formal with one another.’

Sophie laughed suddenly. ‘But when one of them is a duke…’

‘Oh, James is nothing like as top lofty as he pretends. He stands on his dignity to keep the doting mamas and their simpering daughters at bay. Being a bachelor and a duke, he is the target of every ambitious mother of an unmarried daughter.’ She chuckled suddenly. ‘I have told him he will have to marry soon and he ought to be looking for a wife, but he remains stubbornly unwed.’

‘No doubt he is particular. His wife will be a duchess and he must be sure she is up to it.’

‘True.’ She rose and shook out her blue taffeta skirt. ‘Now, I shall leave you to settle in. Dinner is at five and afterwards I have an evening engagement that I cannot cancel, but tomorrow we will go shopping. Shall I send a maid to help you unpack?’

‘No, thank you. I can manage.’

She left and Sophie sat on the bed and regarded her trunk, sitting in the middle of the floor, where the footmen had left it. It was scuffed and scratched, its straps wearing thin, proclaiming her poverty. In it was everything she possessed. She could not bear for a servant to see that. Sighing, she unpacked it, putting the gowns in the wardrobe, her other clothes in a drawer and her writing things on the desk with the miniature of her mother. She had just finished when a maid arrived with hot water and an offer to help her dress and to do her hair. ‘My name is Janet, miss,’ she said. ‘Lady Harley says I am to look after you until a maid can be found for you.’

Dinner would be an ordeal, she knew that. It was not that she did not know how to behave; she had dined with some very aristocratic people when her father was in funds, but this evening she expected the Duke to be present and he would quiz her, or perhaps ignore her; either would be mortifying. She found a spotted muslin that was not too creased, draped a silk shawl that had been her mother’s over her upper arms and followed the maid down to the first-floor drawing room, where she had been received the day before. The Duke and Lady Harley were waiting for dinner to be announced.

‘Miss Langford, good evening.’ He rose politely. ‘I trust you have settled in.’

He was dressed formally in a blue long-tailed coat, an embroidered waistcoat, over which a froth of ruffles tumbled, powder blue silk breeches and white stockings. She noticed how well cut his coat was and how it showed off his broad shoulders and that his fair hair, though in the latest short style, curled over the high collar. He was the most handsome man she had ever met and she could understand his popularity with mothers of marriageable daughters. She wondered why he had not married before now; after all, he had admitted to being four and thirty, long past the age when men in his station of life married and set up their nursery. He would naturally be particular, but surely there were dozens of young ladies with beautiful faces and trim figures who would make elegant duchesses?

This reflection made her acutely aware of her own poor garments and she felt like turning tail, but then her pride came to her rescue and she bent her knee. ‘Yes, thank you, your Grace.’

‘And are you satisfied with your accommodation?’

‘Entirely,’ she said, unwilling to admit she had expected much less considering his lack of a welcome.

‘I have given Sophie the blue room,’ Harriet said. ‘The little boudoir next door to it is ideal for a writing room.’

Sophie turned from her secret contemplation of the Duke to face her hostess, whose gown was of forest green silk with deep lace ruffles round the hem. It had a very low décolletage and huge puffed sleeves. Her hair was piled up in a complicated knot and threaded with gems and there were more studded into a pendant around her neck. She patted the sofa next her. ‘Come and sit down, Sophie. I wish I were not going out this evening, I would much rather have stayed at home to talk to you, but I am promised and cannot disappoint my friends.’

‘Oh, please do not think of if,’ Sophie said. ‘I shall be quite content. I think I might do some writing.’

‘Ah, the book,’ James said in a tone that made her hackles rise. He might treat it as a matter for jest now, but one day she would make him take her seriously. ‘You must tell us all about that.’

‘I do not think it would interest you, your Grace.’

‘Why not?’

‘It is but a little thing and you must have been to all the places I have and seen it all.’

‘When?’ he asked sharply. Did she know something he would rather not have made public? He had never met her before, had he? She was never in any of the places he had been operating in, was she? Always alert to danger, from whatever direction, he suddenly felt threatened.

‘When?’ she repeated, puzzled. ‘I assumed you went on the Grand Tour before the Continent was closed to travellers.’

‘Oh, yes, a rather curtailed Grand Tour, as I remember. It was 1799, Napoleon was on the march and Europe was in turmoil.’ He was being foolish, he told himself. What could a chit like her know of espionage and those engaged in it? She would have still been in the schoolroom when he was sent to Austria. Or was it something else altogether making him feel he ought to take more interest in her? Her vulnerability in spite of her efforts to hide it?

A footman arrived and announced that dinner was served and James moved forward and offered his arm to Sophie. She got up and laid her fingers on his sleeve and even that slight contact made her catch her breath. She was shaking with nerves and had no idea why. He was only a little above average height, but he had an overpowering presence, as if he was used to having his own way and would brook no argument, but she had no intention of arguing with him. He was her host, her provider, and, however much it irked her to admit it, she could not afford to alienate him.

‘We are eating in the small dining room,’ Harriet told her, as she took her brother’s other arm. ‘It is much less formal than the large room we use when we entertain, and we can talk comfortably without having to raise our voices.’

And talk they did. While eating their way through a delicious fish dish, roast beef, boiled potatoes and mushrooms in a cream sauce, they spoke about the celebrations, the visits of foreign royalty, the plight of the soldiers coming home to unemployment and hardship, about Wellington and Napoleon and the latest on dit, which meant nothing to Sophie, though Harriet did her best to explain who was who. The Duke was an affable host and seemed to forget his earlier antagonism. Sophie found herself relaxing a little, though not completely. She was only too aware that she was the poor relation, there under sufferance, though she meant to remedy that situation as soon as she could afford it.

‘Is it true that the Regent hates his wife?’ she asked, when everything had been removed in favour of fruit tartlets, jelly and honey cakes. She had been too nervous to eat heartily; in any case, she had become so used to frugality, her stomach would not take rich food.

‘I am afraid so,’ he said. ‘His father badgered him so much to marry, he agreed to marry her without ever seeing her and he disliked her on sight. How he is going to keep her from the celebrations, I do not know. She is related to half the crowned heads of Europe who are coming and expecting to meet her.’

‘I am sorry for her. How dreadful it must be to be despised and unloved in a strange country.’

‘She is hardly unloved,’ Harriet put in. ‘She is very popular with the people.’

‘It isn’t the same though, is it? The public face and the private one. I think it is very important to have a fondness for the person one marries and it doesn’t matter if you are a prince or a duke or the man who clears the middens.’

‘Love,’ he murmured, making Sophie turn to look at him, thinking he was laughing at her, but though he was not laughing, there was a slight twist to his mouth that might have been humour directed against himself. ‘Are princes and dukes allowed to fall in love?’

‘Of course they are,’ Harriet said bracingly. ‘The world would be a very poor place without it.’

‘Mama loved Papa,’ Sophie said. ‘And he loved her. He was brought so low when she died, he never properly recovered.’ It was said with a kind of defiance, which was meant to offset whatever tale Lady Myers had told Harriet, who would undoubtedly have passed it on to the Duke. She did not want him to blame Papa, or feel sorry for her. Or perhaps just a little, she amended, just enough to give her a roof over her head and food to keep her from starving until she could prove to him and the world that she was an author to be reckoned with.

It was as if her listeners understood her point, for neither commented and a minute later the footman came to tell her ladyship the carriage was at the door. Harriet rose to go. ‘I must be off. I will see you tomorrow, Sophie, and we will make plans.’ She bent to kiss Sophie’s cheek. ‘Sleep well. You are very welcome.’

Then she was gone in a rustle of silk, leaving Sophie to face the Duke. ‘Am I?’ she asked in the silence that followed.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Am I welcome? Or am I an encumbrance you would rather do without?’

‘You are certainly forthright,’ he said, laughing. ‘But I assure you, you are not an encumbrance. This house is large enough for two dozen guests; one little cousin who is determined not to be noticed is not going to upset my routine.’

‘Then I am glad of it.’ She spoke with a certain amount of asperity; it was so very difficult being beholden.

He knew he seemed cold and heartless, but that was his way. He had taught himself to be self-contained, not by word or gesture to reveal what he was really thinking. It was all very well for people like the Regent to weep copious tears over nothing at all, but if he had been emotional when he was living with the enemy, when he had to pretend to be at one with them, a show of feeling, even the twitch of an eyelid, could have meant death. It had become a habit hard to break. ‘Do not be so prickly, Sophie,’ he said, trying to unbend a little. ‘Naturally you are welcome, you do not need to question it. And Harriet will love having you for company. Since her husband died, she has not been out and about so much as she was used to and I have not been able to accompany her as I would like.’

Did that mean she was to be an unpaid companion? Perhaps, though Harriet had given no indication that was what she expected. She had taken a liking to Harriet and bearing her company would be no hardship. ‘Thank you, your Grace.’

‘Now, I, too, must leave you,’ he said, rising. ‘I am afraid duty calls.’

‘I understand,’ she said, then laughed. ‘I must not disrupt your routine.’

‘Touché!’ He took her hand to raise her to her feet, then solemnly kissed the back of it. ‘Goodnight, cousin.’ And then he was gone.

She stood for a moment, looking at the back of her hand where his lips had briefly touched, wondering why the mark of it did not show; it had made her feel so hot, almost melting. Sighing, she made her way up to her room, where she went through to the boudoir and sat down at the desk. Drawing a sheet of paper towards her, she picked up a quill, dipped it in ink and then stopped. The flowing phrases she had rehearsed in her head refused to come. Her mind was blank. No, not blank, for it was filled with what had happened that day, from getting up that morning; breakfasting with Lady Myers, who chatted about the Duke as if she had known him for years; to the carriage ride and her arrival at Belfont House; the welcome of Lady Harley, who pretended not to notice the paucity of her luggage; and then the sumptuous dinner and her conversation with the Duke. The Duke more than anything filled her mind.

He intrigued her. One minute he was arrogant and over-bearing, the next trying to put her at her ease. He obviously did not think a great deal of her ambition to be a writer; he was probably one of those men who decried educated women. He had called her a blue stocking which was palpably not true; she was not learned. She could not converse in Latin or Greek, though she could chatter to her heart’s content in French, German and Italian. She knew only a smattering of mathematics and architecture, but she prided herself on getting on well with people. But the Duke wasn’t ‘people’, was he? He was different. He made her heart thump and her hands shake and yet she would not admit she was afraid of him.

Why had he never married? The romantic in her began to weave stories of unrequited love or unfaithful lovers. He had murmured about dukes falling in love as though he wished it were possible and knew it was not. Must he marry to oblige the family with an heir and nothing more? Did he enjoy the work he did for the Regent? Did he have to do it? Was his wealth and prestige dependent on it? Why did she think that was unlikely? Because he was proud, she answered herself, too proud to demean himself to anyone, not even a future king. Would that pride make a broken love affair harder to bear? She laughed softly at her own foolishness; why did she imagine he had been thwarted in love? He had been born and bred an aristocrat, one of the top one hundred, and ever since her mother’s father died, he had known he would be the next duke; it was his manner to be distant, nothing more.

It was no good sitting there being fanciful, nor to try to write; she was too tired to work. She put down her pen and moved into the bedroom to prepare for bed. Perhaps tomorrow she would feel more like it. Tomorrow she would go through her notes and that would start her off. Climbing between the sheets, she turned down the lamp and shut her eyes. Tomorrow…

The Regent was having one of his interminable receptions, showing off his opulence, being the jovial host, making jokes, flirting with the ladies, and James, keeping watch in the background, wished himself anywhere but where he was. He would rather be talking to that dowdy cousin at home than standing here, pretending to enjoy himself. It was strange he had never heard of her before now, yet he had little doubt, and Harriet none at all, that she was who she said she was. From what she had told them, his uncle had not approved of her mother’s choice of husband and Lady Myers had hinted that Lord Langford was a wastrel and a gambler and that, after his wife’s death, Sophie had been forced to work to keep them both. What father worth his salt would allow such a thing? Not that Sophie had complained, had not said a word about it, pretending it was the demise of her father that had forced her to seek sanctuary with her mother’s family. It could not have been easy for her to do that, being proud and wanting very much to be independent. As if writing a book, even if it found a publisher, would achieve that for her!

‘What, all alone?’ a female voice said at his elbow.

He did not need to turn to know who had spoken. Not only did he know every nuance of her voice, every seductive drawl, but, being observant, he had seen her crossing the room towards him, though he had given no indication of it. Ellen Colway had a tall, shapely figure made taller by the huge trio of feathers that adorned her pink satin turban. It matched her gown, which was draped so close to her figure it left little to the imagination, though he did not need imagination when memory served him better. She had firm rosy flesh and she knew how to seduce a man, even one as tightly in control as he had imagined himself to be. He had enjoyed her for a time, but her charms had already begun to pall when she deceived him with his cousin. That he could not condone.

It was not so much her perfidy that hurt but the fact that Alfred was a jackstraw, still attached to his mother’s apron strings, who spent his time gambling, tolerated by the ton because he was heir presumptive to the Belfont dukedom. What Ellen would want with the fellow, he could not think. She surely did not expect him to become the next duke in the foreseeable future, if ever. He did not intend to remain a bachelor all his life. He would marry when he found a suitable bride and in the fullness of time would beget his own heir. Alfred could not prevent that.

He turned towards her, a sardonic smile on his face. ‘Lady Colway, good evening.’

She smiled back, not at all put out. ‘So formal we are, your Grace. Can it be the company you keep? I hear the Regent is a stickler for protocol.’

‘Perhaps it is the company you keep, my lady.’

‘Oh, you are not going to prose on about that, are you? I have told you it was nothing. I was miffed with you and wanted my revenge. I did not expect you to make such a mountain of it.’

‘Then you do not know me very well.’

‘Oh, my dear,’ she said, sidling close to him, ‘I know you very well indeed, every inch of you…’ The voice was seductive and at one time might have had him running with her for the nearest bed, but all it did now was make him laugh.

‘And I, Ellen my dear, know you very well too, not just your beautiful body, but your ugly mind.’

She sprang from him, eyes flashing angrily. ‘How dare you! If Clarence were to hear of your insults, he would call you out.’

‘Would he? He had his chance a year ago and did nothing and from that I deduced he did not care. I have never cuckolded a man in love with his wife, and as you were known for your affairs…’ He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

She returned close to his side and took his arm. ‘Oh, James, do not let us quarrel. Clarence is not worth it and Alfred certainly is not. I came to invite you to a little soirée tomorrow evening. Clarence is still in the country and there will only be a handful of guests. After they have gone home we could be alone…’

‘I am afraid I am promised elsewhere.’

‘Then you will be the loser,’ she said, her vanity stung by his rejection. ‘I bid you goodnight.’

‘What is it they say about a woman scorned?’ Richard murmured, coming up behind him as he watched her cross the floor towards Alfred. ‘You have made an enemy there, my friend.’

‘What can she do? I am not the first, nor will I be the last, and if she makes a public brouhaha of it, her husband will no longer be able to ignore it and will have to do something to stop her excesses. I do not think she will want that.’

‘You may be right.’ He paused. ‘Does that mean you have found a new light o’ love?’

‘Not at all. A man does not have to be on with the new the instant he is off with the old, does he?’

‘Then where are you promised tomorrow evening? I know the Regent does not want you, I heard him tell you so.’

‘I have a mind to escort my sister and cousin to Lady Carstairs’s soirée.’

‘The dowdy little mouse? Good Lord, James, I had not thought to see you brought so low.’

‘Leave off your quizzing, Dick, I have agreed to sponsor the girl for the Season and it behoves me to act the father figure…’

It was a statement that had his friend in gales of laughter. He was so convulsed it was a full minute before he could speak. ‘Father figure! You!’

‘Why not? I am head of the family, am I not?’

‘True.’

‘Then I thank you to keep your mirth to yourself. Harriet has undertaken to dress her so she will not disgrace us and, my duty done, I can forget her.’

Except, of course, she was not easy to forget. Was it her worn and unfashionable garments, the very opposite of the modishly dressed ladies of his acquaintance, that made her stand out, or her composure and belief in herself, which made him think there was more to her than met the eye? Or was it her hair, dark as a raven’s wing, or those amber eyes that could be cold as the charity she disdained, or warm as treacle depending on her mood, which were so memorable?

Even now, with the noise of drunken laughter surrounding him, he could hear her. ‘How dreadful it must be to be despised and unloved in a strange country.’ She had been talking about the Princess of Wales, but it could equally have applied to her. It had unsettled him, made him feel unworthy. Was that what she had intended? And then she had bluntly asked, ‘Am I an encumbrance you would rather do without?’ So clever of her. Oh, how he disliked clever women. But, for all that, he must do his best for her, make her feel part of the family; nothing less would do, not only for his reputation but his self-respect.

Sophie looked at herself in the long mirror and smiled. Being a single girl not yet out, she should have been wearing white, but Lady Harley had said it did not suit her and her life before returning to England had been so unconventional it was not in the least necessary to follow custom slavishly. Nor would she countenance black. Another colour was called for, one to make her stand out in the crowd. Sophie wasn’t sure that she wanted to stand out in the crowd, but when Harriet had taken her to the mantua maker and insisted she try on a gown in a grey-green silk that reminded her of the lakes in Switzerland palely reflecting the green of the trees on their banks, she knew her mentor was right.

The fabric slid over her hips and swirled about her ankles in soft flowing lines and made her feel—oh, she did not know how she felt. Womanly, sensuous, consequential came to mind. She knew she was not beautiful, could never be that, but she found herself wondering if clothes could make a plain person attractive, or was it simply that the excitement of her first public outing was giving her a heightened colour, making her eyes sparkle.

She and Harriet had spent the morning and half the afternoon shopping for clothes. They were looking for something ready made, Harriet had explained, so that she could wear them straight away, but later she could choose some material and have gowns made up for her. In vain did she protest she could manage with the clothes she had, she did not intend to be seen out and about and that it was not right that Harriet should spend money on her.

‘It isn’t my money,’ Harriet had replied, nodding at the assistant who had been serving them to wrap the two day gowns they had chosen, one an azure blue, the other a warm apricot. ‘It is James’s.’

‘Oh, no! What will he say when the bills arrive? I can’t accept them. I really can’t.’

‘He will be insulted if you do not. He told me to buy whatever was necessary.’

‘But is all this necessary?’ She waved her hand at the pile of parcels waiting to be taken out to the coach.

‘Of course it is. You have promised to come out and about with me and you must be properly dressed for each occasion. It would not look well for us if you were not.’

‘But—’

‘I will hear no buts. You shall have a come-out and I will eat my best hat if you do not make a hit.’

Sophie was not sure she wanted to make a hit, especially if it meant being ogled by all the single young men with questioning eyes. How much was she worth? How big a dowry had been settled on her? Was it worth offering for her, even though she was so plain? Perhaps if she could make herself even more unattractive, they would give up. But when she had slipped into the beautiful gown for her first sortie into society, she knew she didn’t want to. It would be lovely, just once, to be admired, to flirt a little, and then retire into the life she had mapped out for herself.

What would his Grace make of her transformation? she wondered. Would he realise there was more to the waif he so disdained than he had at first thought? Would she elicit a smile from him, a genuine smile, not that condescending twitch of the lips that had characterised his exchanges with her until now? But then she stopped herself. He had handed her over to his sister and been relieved to do so, which was hardly flattering, but Lady Harley had been so welcoming and friendly that she more than made up for the shortcomings of her brother. After all, he had far more important things to do than put in an appearance at a musical evening being given by one of Lady Harley’s friends. It was a simple affair, she had told Sophie, a suitable occasion in which to introduce her to society.

Rose, one of the chambermaids who had been promoted to look after her, sat Sophie down at the dressing table and arranged her hair in a soft Grecian style, which went well with the classical lines of the gown, and then fastened her mother’s pearls about her throat. They lay against her skin, picking up the colours of her dress. ‘There, miss, you look lovely,’ Rose said.

‘Thank you.’ She stood up, slipped her feet into her matching slippers and, picking up her fan, drifted out of the room and down the stairs in a kind of waking dream. If only her mother could see her now. She had always talked to her about the grand occasions she had enjoyed as a girl, how she wished she could give them to her, and, if Papa’s ship came in, she would. It was an idle dream and they had both known it, but here she was, her eyes misted with tears at the memory, walking sedately down the grand staircase of Belfont House to be introduced to the beau monde. She was halfway down when she realised someone was in the hall looking up at her, and it wasn’t Harriet.

If she had not had her hand on the banister, she would have stumbled, but she quickly regained her balance, pausing a moment before continuing her stately progress down the stairs. Had she detected a tiny show of appreciation in his blue eyes as he watched her descend? If she had, it was gone so quickly she thought she had imagined it. She must have. He saw beautiful and elegant women every day of his life, was used to the opulence at court, the rich materials, the flashing jewels, the grandeur. In spite of her new clothes, she would be an antidote beside them.

She paused on the bottom stair because he had not moved. She would have to let go of the banister and step to one side to go round him and she did not think she could. Her knees felt as if they would not support her. On this step she was the same height as he was and could see the dark flecks in his blue eyes, his firm mouth and the tiny curls of hair about his ears. He had a tiny scar on his chin, too, which she had not noticed before. It made him slightly less than perfect, more human.

He had been so taken aback by the vision of her coming slowly down the stairs, one gloved hand on the banister, her head held high, her gown fitting so perfectly to a figure just the slim side of the curves fashion dictated that he had been mesmerised. Whatever had made him think she was plain? She was a vision of loveliness; he found his heart beating faster than its usual sedate pace and, for a moment, was deprived of speech. He suddenly realised she was waiting for him to move aside.

‘Miss Langford.’ He bowed slightly and stood to one side, so that as she passed him he caught the scent of violets. He would never be able to smell those tiny flowers again without bringing to mind the picture of Sophie Langford drifting down his staircase like a woodland nymph. Good heavens! He was becoming sentimental. He smiled wryly, more himself. ‘Good evening.’

‘Good evening, your Grace.’ He was dressed in an evening suit of black superfine with velvet facings, a white figured-brocade waistcoat, and an intricately tied white cravat in which nestled a glittering diamond pin. She wondered where he was going; wherever it was, it was not to be as formal an occasion as the evening before when, according to Harriet, he had attended the Regent’s reception.

Her question was answered almost immediately by Harriet who had followed her down the stairs, mature in dove grey taffeta with blue lace trimmings. ‘There you both are! Is the carriage outside?’

‘It is,’ he answered. ‘And has been these last ten minutes.’

‘Good,’ she replied, ignoring his slight tone of impatience. ‘Sophie, James has been so good as to escort us this evening, is that not wonderful?’

Sophie was taken aback. All her self-confidence evaporated at the thought that she would have to be on her very best behaviour. Instead of being able to blend into the background unnoticed, she would be the focus of attention simply because he was escorting her. No wonder he had looked so critically at her; he had been sizing her up to see if he cared to be seen with her in public. She supposed she had passed muster because he had made no comment either complimentary or otherwise. He was looking at her now, evidently expecting her to reply. ‘I am honoured, your Grace,’ she said.

‘It is my pleasure,’ he said, smiling easily now and sounding as if he might mean it. ‘Shall we go?’ He offered both arms and the ladies took one each. The footman sprang to open the door and they went down the three steps to where the carriage waited.

‘Lady Carstairs is a very good friend of mine,’ Harriet explained as they rode. ‘She is also known for a society hostess of the first water. If you are invited to one of her soirées, then you know you will be accepted by the ton and more invitations will follow.’

‘Has she invited me?’ Sophie asked, meaning, had she been foisted on Lady Carstairs by Harriet; it would be difficult to refuse the sister of the Duke of Belfont.

‘Naturally she has. As soon as I told her about you, she wanted to meet you.’

According to Harriet, the party was not to be a large one and she would soon get to know everyone, but when they were ushered into her ladyship’s salon, she found herself wondering what a large party might be like. The room was packed to suffocation, everyone talking and laughing at once; the clamour was unbelievable until the stentorian tones of the footman announced, ‘His Grace, the Duke of Belfont, Lady Harley, Miss Langford.’ The silence that followed was just as overwhelming as the noise had been as everyone stopped in mid-sentence to turn and look towards the entrance where the Duke stood, surveying the scene, his hand lightly under Sophie’s elbow.

He exerted no particular pressure, but she could feel the warmth of his hand through the thin material of her sleeve and was grateful for it; such a light touch and yet so reassuring. He guided her into the room, followed by Harriet, and slowly the broken conversations were resumed, as Lady Carstairs came forward to greet them, her old-fashioned wide skirts billowing around her, a smile of gratification on her face.

‘Your Grace, you honour us. I had no idea—’ She stopped, suddenly aware of Sophie.

‘My lady, may I present my cousin, Miss Langford,’ he said.

‘Miss Langford, I am pleased to meet you. Lady Harley tells me you have recently come home from a protracted stay abroad.’

‘Yes, we could not come home because of the war,’ Sophie answered.

‘And now you are alone in the world.’

‘Not at all,’ James put in before she could answer. ‘Miss Langford has returned to live with her family.’

‘Of course.’ Aware of the set-down, she turned to Sophie. ‘One day you must tell us all about your adventures. But now, do enjoy this evening. We plan to have a little music on the pianoforte and a string quartet is to play for us. Later there will be a few country dances for the young people.’ She paused and addressed the Duke. ‘You will stay for those, will you not? I am sure your cousin will enjoy a measure or two.’

He looked about him. There were dozens of young ladies whose mamas were giving them nudges and whispering. It was always the same whenever he appeared at a gathering like this, which was why he tried to avoid them. He could not, for the life of him, think why he had decided to come tonight. The sooner he escaped, the better. On the other hand, having offered to escort Sophie and his sister, he could hardly drag them away too soon. He bowed an acknowledgement.