Читать книгу The Chaperon Bride - Nicola Cornick, Nicola Cornick - Страница 7

June 1816

The coach from Leeds drew into the yard of the Hope Inn at Harrogate in the late afternoon and disgorged a number of passengers. Although it was still quite early in the season, the spa villages of High and Low Harrogate were starting to fill up with visitors coming to take the health-giving waters and on this occasion there were seven new arrivals. First to descend was a family of four: mother, father, a boy of about sixteen and a girl a year or so older, both with smiling faces and a lively interest in what was going on around them. Next descended an elderly lady wrapped up in a vast shawl and attended by a solicitous young man who might or might not have been her nephew. The other arrival was Annis, Lady Wycherley, carrying a small leather case and dressed in practical black bombazine and an unbecoming bonnet.

Annis Wycherley was not a newcomer to Harrogate, for she had been born near the town and had spent many happy holidays there with her cousins during the times that her papa had been on leave from the navy. The late Captain Lafoy had even bought a small estate out towards Skipton, which Annis had inherited almost a decade before and visited whenever she had the opportunity. She was not in Harrogate as often as she would like, however. Her employment, as a chaperon to spoilt society misses, took her to London or Brighton or Bath, although this latter was considered rather déclassé these days, a shabby genteel place that was not popular with the fashionable crowd. Harrogate, with its romantic setting in the wilds of nowhere, its unpleasantly smelling but healthful spa waters and its rustic northern charm, was fast becoming the new Bath in the eyes of the ton.

Annis, espying her cousin Charles in the crowd thronging the inn yard, hurried across and gave him an affectionate hug. He hugged her back, then held her at arm’s length, looking her over dubiously but with a twinkle in his very blue eyes.

‘Annis, whatever have you done to yourself?’

Annis gave a little giggle. ‘Dear Charles, it is lovely to see you too! I collect that your horror stems from seeing me in my chaperon’s attire? I always dress the part, you know.’

‘It puts years on you.’ Charles gave the black bombazine a bemused look and frowned at the bonnet. ‘Lord, Annis, it’s wonderful to see you again, but I barely recognised you!’

‘You know that it is always a mistake to travel in your best clothes. You end up either mud spattered or dusty. Besides, as a professional chaperon I cannot look too elegant.’

‘No danger of that.’ Charles tried to hide his grin. ‘Was the journey good?’

‘A little precipitate,’ Annis said. ‘I suppose that is why the coach is called the Tally Ho? The driver certainly seemed to take that to heart!’

‘I would have sent the carriage to Leeds for you, you know,’ Charles said, gesturing to a smart black chaise that stood in the corner of the yard. ‘It would have been no trouble.’

‘There was no need,’ Annis said cheerfully. ‘I am accustomed to travelling on the stage.’ She waved at the family of four as the landlord escorted them inside the inn. ‘Dear Mr and Mrs Fairlie…Amelia…James…I shall hope to see you all at the Promenade Rooms before long.’

‘You make friends easily,’ Charles observed as the couple bowed and smiled in return.

‘One must beguile the long journey somehow, you know, and they were a very pleasant family. Not like that young man over there…’ Annis nodded across at the young gentleman who was helping the elderly lady up into a barouche. ‘I am sure he is after her money, Charles. If I hear that she has passed away, I shall be most suspicious!’

‘Annis!’

‘Oh, I am only joking,’ Annis said hastily, remembering belatedly that her cousin could be a bit of a high stickler. ‘Pay no attention! Now you…are you well? And Sibella?’

‘I am very well indeed.’ Charles grinned. ‘Sib is flourishing. She and David are expecting their fourth, you know.’

‘I had heard.’ Annis smiled, tucking her arm through his. ‘She has been very busy whilst you and I, Charles, have let the family down sadly! You are not even married and I only look after other peoples’ children!’

Charles laughed and patted her hand where it rested on his sleeve. ‘Plenty of time for the rest of us. But it is fortunate Sibella did not come to meet you, Annis. She would have disowned you as soon as look at you!’

‘Sibella is lucky in that she can indulge herself as a lady of fashion.’ Annis looked around for her trunks. ‘I am obliged to work for my living. Nevertheless I am grateful to you for swallowing the family pride and coming to meet me, Charles. I know I do you no credit!’

Charles laughed again. ‘It was shock, that is all. I barely recognised you in all that frumpish black. You used to be such a good-looking girl…’

Annis gave him a sharp nudge. ‘You used to be quite handsome yourself! Where did it all go wrong, Charles?’

Charles Lafoy was in fact a very good-looking man, as most of the female population of Harrogate would testify. Like his sister Sibella, he had the fair, open features of the Lafoys, the honest blue eyes and engaging smile. As lawyer to Harrogate’s most prosperous merchant, Samuel Ingram, he had a prestigious position in village society. There was no shortage of inn servants queuing up to help his groom put Annis’s luggage in the carriage. Everyone knew that Mr Lafoy always tipped most generously.

Annis Wycherley was almost as tall as her cousin, having a height unfashionable in a woman but useful in a chaperon, since it helped to assert her authority. Her eyes were hazel rather than the Lafoy blue, but she had the same rich, golden blonde hair. In Annis’s case this rarely saw the light of day, being hidden under a succession of lace caps, ugly bonnets and ragingly unfashionable turbans. She had learned early on that no one took a blonde chaperon at all seriously; it could, in fact, be positively dangerous to display her hair, for it made gentlemen behave in a most inappropriately amorous manner.

The shapeless gowns in dowager black, purple and turkey red were all designed and worn with one intention in mind—to make her look older and unattractive. This was a necessity of her profession. Just as no one would take a blonde chaperon seriously, so would nobody entrust their daughter, niece or ward to a girl who looked as though she had only just left the schoolroom herself. Annis was in fact seven and twenty and had been widowed for eight years, but she had a fair, youthful complexion, wide-spaced eyes, a snub nose and a generous mouth that all conspired to undermine the sense of gravity required by a professional chaperon. Prettiness combined with poverty had always struck her as a recipe for disaster, so she did her best to disguise those natural assets she possessed.

‘I thought that we would go straight to the house in Church Row,’ Charles said, as they made their way across to his carriage. ‘You will have the chance to settle in comfortably before Sibella calls on you this evening. When do your charges arrive?’

‘Not until Friday,’ Annis said. ‘Sir Robert Crossley is escorting the girls up from London himself and Mrs Hardcastle accompanies them as duenna in my absence. I am persuaded that she will have licked them into shape before ever they darken my door!’ She shivered a little in the breeze. ‘Gracious, Charles, I can scarce believe that it is June. The wind off the hills is as cold as ever.’

‘You have gone soft from living too long in the south,’ Charles said affectionately. ‘These charges of yours, the Misses Crossley—do they have a large fortune?’

‘Big enough to buy half of Harrogate!’ Annis said. She grimaced, remembering the interview that she had had in London with the Crossley girls before she had agreed to take them on. ‘I fear that even that will not be sufficient to sweeten the pill of Miss Fanny Crossley’s bad manners, however. The girl is as sharp as a thorn and only passably good-looking. She may well be my first failure!’

‘I doubt it.’ Charles grinned at her. ‘Even here in Harrogate we have heard of the striking success of that matchmaker par excellence, Lady Wycherley! They say that you could catch a husband for any girl, be she ugly as sin and poor as a church mouse.’

‘One or other, perhaps, but not both together!’ Annis laughed. ‘You are not hanging out for a wealthy bride, are you, Charles?’

‘Not I!’ Her cousin watched as the last bags were strapped onto the platform of the chaise. ‘I do have a client who is looking, however. Sir Everard Doble, a very worthy but rather dull man with an estate mortgaged to the hilt. We shall arrange a meeting for him with your charges.’

‘Dear Charles,’ Annis said gratefully. ‘I feel my task is already half done. And Miss Lucy Crossley, unlike her elder sister, is a sweet girl who should make a match easily enough amongst all the half-pay officers who seem to crowd the place. I do not imagine that either sister will make a dazzling match, but it should be possible to settle them creditably. So…’ Annis sighed ‘…I may get them off my hands and then spend some time at Starbeck. It was the real reason that I accepted Sir Robert’s commission to chaperon his nieces, you know. I wanted to spend some time at home.’

Charles frowned slightly. ‘Ah, Starbeck. You know that I have not been able to keep a tenant there for the last few months and that the house is in a poor state? I need to talk to you about it at some point, coz.’

Annis looked at him sharply. There was something odd in his tone, a reluctance that made her heart miss a beat, for it boded ill. The small estate of Starbeck was a drain on her limited income and she knew that Charles thought she was a sentimental fool to hold on to it. He had administered the estate for her since her father died and he had been urging her to sell for several years. The house was tumbledown and swallowed money in constant repairs, Charles had been unable to find a tenant who would stay there for any length of time, and the home farm was so poor its owners could barely scratch a living. Since Annis had no money other than what she earned plus a small annuity, it was financial nonsense to continue to support Starbeck, and yet she did not want to let it go. She had had a peripatetic childhood following her father about the country from posting to posting and travelling abroad with her parents on several occasions. Starbeck was home, the only certainty she knew, and for that reason she did not want to lose it.

‘Of course we may talk—’ she began, but broke off as a green and gold high-perch phaeton swept into the inn yard, scattering the ostlers like nervous chickens.

‘For pity’s sake!’ Charles flushed red in annoyance and skipped out of the way as the offside wheel almost ran over his foot. Annis tried not to laugh. Her cousin had always been slightly stuffy, the responsible one amongst the three of them. Perhaps it stemmed from the fact that Charles was the eldest, or more likely it was because he was the only boy and as such was now head of the Lafoy family. Whatever the case, he deplored frivolity.

The phaeton was gleaming and new and contained two occupants, a lady and a gentleman. The lady, a buxom brunette, was swathed in furs. She was laughing and clutching a saucy hat on her dark curls. Her vivacious brown eyes scanned the assembled company, rested thoughtfully on Charles’s red face and dismissed Annis’s plain one, before she took her companion’s hand and jumped lightly down to join him on the cobbles of the inn yard. The landlord had emerged and was bowing enthusiastically, waving them towards the inn door.

‘Ashwick!’ Annis heard Charles say, under his breath.

She cast him a quick glance. Once again there was an odd note in Charles’s voice, one that she could not place. It was neither envy nor even disapproval, both of which might have been understandable from the country lawyer to the dashing peer of the realm. Annis knew of Lord Ashwick, of course; no one who had sponsored girls in ton society for the last three years as she had could fail to be aware of a man whose recent career consisted mainly of playing high and keeping low company. Adam Ashwick was a friend of such luminaries as the Duke of Fleet and the Earl of Tallant, who had scandalised the town with their exploits for years. Tallant was married now and had become disappointingly uxorious, but the gossips were still entertained by the activities of Sebastian Fleet and Adam Ashwick. It seemed extraordinary to find him in so out of the way a place as Harrogate.

The couple had to pass them to reach the inn door. Annis drew back against the side of the coach, having no wish to push herself forward for notice. To her surprise, however, Adam Ashwick paused in front of them and gave Charles the briefest of bows.

‘Lafoy.’ His tone was cold.

Charles’s own bow was correspondingly slight. ‘Ashwick.’

There was a silence that prickled with tension. Annis, looking from one to the other, sensed all kinds of undercurrents that she was at a loss to explain. Ashwick was watching Charles, an unpleasant smile on his lips, and Annis took the opportunity to study him whilst his attention was diverted.

At first glance, she did not consider him to be a good-looking man in the conventional sense, for his face was too swarthy, and its hard angles were too stern and uncompromising to be considered handsome. His eyes were wide set and a cool grey beneath straight black brows. Although he could only be in his early thirties, his thick, dark hair was turning silver, which added a certain distinction to his looks. He was above average height and had a sportsman’s physique, but he was dressed with what appeared to be deliberate understatement, in tight dove-grey riding breeches and a pristine black coat that made his linen seem a very pure white indeed. Instead of Hessians he was wearing a fine pair of leather riding boots with turned-down cuffs. He had the appearance of a man of action rather than the dissipated aristocrat Annis had been imagining, and he exuded latent power. Annis could feel the effect. It was different from the confidence that Charles possessed as a successful professional man; Ashwick’s authority was instinctive, unquestioned.

His cool grey gaze switched to her and Annis hastily lowered her eyes. She did not wish him to think that she had been staring. Adam Ashwick bowed again, with scrupulous courtesy this time.

‘Madam.’

‘My cousin, Annis, Lady Wycherley,’ Charles said, with such obvious unwillingness that Annis felt her lips twitch. She was not sure if Charles’s reluctance to introduce her sprang from disapproval of Ashwick’s reputation or a more personal dislike. A split second later, she realised that Adam Ashwick was also considering the reasons for Charles’s protective concern. As their eyes met he raised a quizzical brow and they were drawn into a moment of shared amusement. Annis broke the contact hastily, feeling a little disloyal.

She held out her hand politely. ‘How do you do, my lord.’

‘Your servant, Lady Wycherley.’ Adam took her hand. She felt compelled to look at him again, then wished she had not. He was studying her thoughtfully, his gaze moving over her features with deliberation. There was a definite masculine interest in that appraisal and Annis recognised it with a shock. She felt a little shiver go through her and withdrew her hand from his.

Ashwick’s beautiful companion was getting restive at the lack of attention. She pulled on his arm.

‘Are you not to introduce me, Ashy, darling?’ Her French accent was slight and very pretty. She peeked up at him under the brim of the dashing hat with the charm of a wilful child.

Ashy! Annis thought, trying not to laugh at the diminutive. She caught Ashwick’s eye again and looked quickly away, for fear that he might read her mind again. She did not seek such affinity with him.

‘Margot, may I present Annis, Lady Wycherley, and her cousin Mr Charles Lafoy?’ Ashwick sounded pleasantly indifferent now as though the moment of enmity with Charles had never occurred. The lady nodded to Annis and batted her eyelashes at Charles in exaggerated fashion. Annis felt slightly amused and rather more irritated. The whole inn yard seemed to have stopped in order to stare at the Beauty and Annis wondered, as she had on many previous occasions, just why people were always drawn to the obvious. She had lost count of the times that débutantes with charm and fine looks were overlooked when something flashier came along. It was the same here. The ostlers were gaping, the other travellers were staring in admiration and some of the guests were even peering from the inn window to admire Ashwick’s fair companion.

‘I am Margot Mardyn,’ the lady said, with the air of one making an important announcement. ‘You have heard of me, non?’

‘Of course,’ Annis said hastily, as Charles looked blank. ‘I hear that we are will be privileged to have you perform at the Theatre Royal this summer season, Miss Mardyn. My cousin and I shall be sure to attend.’

Margot Mardyn nodded, whilst smiling bewitchingly at Charles. ‘I shall hope to see you after the show,’ she said graciously to him.

She squeezed Ashwick’s arm. ‘Viens, Ashy, I am cold. This “north” of yours is a shockingly barbaric place. Why, do you know…’ she turned back to Charles confidingly ‘…at some of the inns along the way we were obliged to drink in the common tap? Alors! Along with all the hoi polloi! Come along, Ashy!’

Annis looked at Lord Ashwick and was taken aback to see that he was still watching her. He inclined his head and gave her a faint smile, which Annis found even more disturbing. She fidgeted with the seam of her gloves and hoped that her colour had not risen. Famously impervious to the good looks of eligible young gentlemen, she found it very odd that she should be drawn in this curious manner to a man whose style of life was so far removed from her own. Yet she could not deny it; the air between them was sharp with awareness. It was extremely disconcerting.

‘I shall look forward to meeting you again, Lady Wycherley,’ Ashwick said politely. ‘I hope that you enjoy your stay in Harrogate.’

‘Who was that?’ Charles asked in a bemused tone as Ashwick steered his fair companion through the inn door and the excitement in the yard subsided. Annis, observing the rapt expression on his face as he watched Miss Mardyn’s departure, sighed to herself.

‘That was Lord Ashwick,’ she said drily. ‘I collect that you are acquainted with him?’

‘Of course I know Ashwick.’ Charles turned to her impatiently. ‘His family have owned property around here for hundreds of years.’

‘Of course.’ Annis remembered this herself now. The Ashwicks had been part of the long and turbulent history of the Yorkshire moors for centuries, from the time that the first baron had served at the court of Charles II and had been given an estate in the back of beyond for his pains. Presumably Lord Ashwick was in Yorkshire to visit that very estate. Annis found herself wondering if she would see him again.

Charles was still looking over his shoulder in the direction that the couple had gone.

‘Annis? Are your wits wandering? I meant the lady—’

‘Ah, the lovely Miss Mardyn. She is a dancer and singer who has recently graced the stage at Drury Lane.’ Annis looked at him sardonically. ‘Charles, I should be obliged if you would help me up into the carriage. We have been standing here these ten minutes past and, as Miss Mardyn so succinctly observed, it is rather chilly.’

She waited until they were settled back on the fat red squabs of the Lafoy carriage, then added, ‘I heard on the journey up that Miss Mardyn is to entertain us with Harlequin’s Metamorphoses, Escapes and Leaps. Mr Fairlie was telling me about it and he was most excited. I believe the show will sell out, so you had better hurry to get your ticket.’

‘That…child, a dancer?’ Charles’s mouth seemed permanently propped open. ‘She cannot be above seventeen, surely?’

‘Thirty-five if she’s a day,’ Annis said cheerfully, reflecting ruefully that men were always distracted by a pretty face and could never see what was under their nose, ‘and hailing from the Portsmouth Docks rather than Paris, I hear.’

Charles looked appalled and fascinated all at the same time. ‘Good God! And her connection with Ashwick?’

Annis gave him a speaking look.

‘Oh!’ Charles said.

‘Well, it is entirely possible that Lord Ashwick was escorting Miss Mardyn as a favour for a friend,’ Annis said fairly. ‘When I left London the on dit was that she was the Duke of Fleet’s inamorata. Who would have thought that such a bird of paradise would alight in Harrogate, of all places?’

‘You are very free in your conversation, Annis,’ Charles said, his mouth turning down at the corners. ‘It must be the effect of London living. I hope you do not encourage your charges to listen to gossip.’

Annis laughed aloud. ‘I am sorry if I offend your sensibilities, Charles. I had no idea you had turned into such a puritan!’

The coach trundled out of the inn yard and turned on to Silver Street. It was only a step to the house that Charles had hired for Annis in Church Row, but with her trunks it had clearly been impractical to walk. Annis leaned forward to look out of the window at the open ground of The Stray, bathed in the late afternoon sunlight.

‘Oh it is quite delightful to be back! I do believe the last time was two years ago, and a flying visit at that. Tell me, Charles—’ she turned back to look at him thoughtfully ‘—what is the nature of your quarrel with Lord Ashwick? I was not aware that the two of you knew each other.’

Charles shifted uncomfortably. ‘I met him last year when his brother-in-law died. It is a little difficult, Annis.’ Charles sighed. ‘The late Lord Tilney, Ashwick’s brother-in-law, was involved in a business scheme with Mr Ingram, but it failed and Ingram bought all his debts. When he died, Humphrey Tilney owed Ingram a deal of money. Ashwick agreed to pay the debt to save his sister from penury. The situation caused some difficulties.’

Annis raised her brows. Samuel Ingram, Charles’s most powerful client, was a man who rode roughshod over all those who opposed his business dealings. She could imagine a nobleman of Lord Ashwick’s calibre deeply resenting being in debt to such a man.

‘What was this business venture?’

Charles looked gloomy. ‘You probably remember it. It was in all the newspapers. Ingram and Humphrey Tilney were joint owners of the Northern Prince, the ship that went down carrying goods and money to the colonies eighteen months ago. There was the devil of a fuss.’

‘I imagine there would be.’ Annis frowned. ‘Was there not a fortune in gold on the ship?’

‘That is correct, and banknotes and silver and God alone knows what other valuables in addition.’

‘Surely it was insured?’

Charles shifted uncomfortably. ‘Yes, but Humphrey Tilney had overreached himself financially to fund his part in the enterprise in the first place. Under normal circumstances he might have recouped his losses within a couple of years but, as it was, he ended thirty thousand in debt. Ingram bought his debts up to help him rather than let him fall ever deeper into the hands of the moneylenders.’

‘How charitable of him,’ Annis said drily, thinking that a man such as Samuel Ingram seldom did anything out of the goodness of his heart.

Charles frowned to hear the note in her voice. ‘See here, Annis, Ingram charged a very reasonable rate of interest—’

‘And you wonder at Lord Ashwick resenting the fact!’ Annis said, even more drily.

Charles subsided like a pricked balloon. ‘That is the way that business works…’

‘I dare say. I suppose there was no doubt that the ship actually went down? Ingram has not compounded his sins by defrauding the insurers?’

Charles looked horrified. ‘Devil take it, Annis, of course not! Of course the ship went down! For pity’s sake, do not go around saying such things in public!’

Annis was startled at his vehemence. ‘Very well, Charles, there is no need to roast me for it! I only asked the question. Speaking of Ingram, I read in the Leeds Mercury that there had been a fire at his farm at Shawes. Is foul play suspected?’

Charles gave her a very sharp look. ‘Not at all. Why do you ask?’

Annis gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘No need to pretend to me, Charles! I know that Mr Ingram is not popular hereabouts. I have read all about the arson and the threats to his property.’

Charles looked shifty. ‘Yes, well, I will concede there has been a little local difficulty over the enclosure of the Shawes common, and there has been some discussion about rents this year—’

‘You sound like a lawyer!’ Annis said with a sigh.

‘Well, so I am. And Mr Ingram’s lawyer at that. It is my place to be dispassionate.’

‘I would have thought that Mr Ingram would see it as your place to support him,’ Annis said drily. ‘That is what he pays you for.’

Charles blushed an angry red. ‘See here, Annis, must you be so blunt? I’m astounded you ever find a match for those girls of yours if you are as outspoken with their suitors as you are with me!’

‘Fortunately the gentlemen are marrying the girls and not me,’ Annis said cheerfully. ‘I do not seek to marry again, as you know, Charles.’

‘Can’t think why not. At least you would not need to work then.’

‘Thank you, but I prefer to be independent. You know I dislike to be idle. Besides, I found that the married state did not suit me.’

‘Not surprised if you spoke to John as plainly as you do to me!’

Annis locked her gloved hands together and looked pointedly out of the window. It was no secret that she and her elderly husband had been unhappy together, but even after eight years of widowhood the memory caused an ache.

‘Sorry, Annis.’ Charles sounded remorseful. ‘I did not mean to offend you.’

‘It is no matter, Charles.’ Annis spoke briskly. ‘You know that John had decided opinions about women and their place. Now that I am no longer required to respect those views, I fear I have become quite outspoken.’

‘I suppose there are some men who like their wives to read the newspaper and have decided opinions,’ Charles said dubiously.

‘Are there? I have never met any of them.’ Annis smiled. ‘So perhaps it is fortunate that I do not look to marry.’

The carriage slowed before a grey stone house with neat sash windows, then turned through a small archway into a cobbled yard with stables along one side.

‘There is a walled garden at the back,’ Charles said eagerly, ‘and I have engaged a couple of servants for you. You indicated that Mrs Hardcastle was to be housekeeper, so I imagine that she will wish to have the ordering of the household affairs once she arrives.’

‘Of course. Hardy will soon have everything organised.’ Annis looked about her with approval. ‘You seem to have done us proud, Charles.’

‘There is a drawing-room and walk-in cupboards in the bedrooms,’ Charles offered, still trying to make amends for his earlier insensitivity. ‘It is all very modern. I am sure that it is just what you require, Annis.’

‘Thank you.’ Annis took his hand as she descended from the coach. ‘There is a most pleasant aspect to the front.’

‘And the shops are not far away.’

‘I assume that it is a quiet neighbourhood and one suitable for the Misses Crossley? No undesirable alehouses or rowdy neighbours? I would not wish my charges to be subject to unsuitable influences.’

Charles had opened his mouth to reply when there was a loud tally-ho from the road and a green and gold phaeton shot past, its occupants shrieking with laughter. It turned neatly through the archway of the house behind. Annis raised her eyebrows.

‘My new neighbours, I presume?’

‘Oh, dear,’ Charles said unhappily.

‘Ashy dearest,’ Margot Mardyn said sweetly, draping herself over the arm of Adam Ashwick’s chair, ‘whatever would your mama say if she knew that you had brought me here?’

Adam glanced up briefly from the York Herald. The diva’s cleavage was inclining tantalisingly close to his nose. It was plush and pink, and smelled cloyingly of roses. Adam looked thoughtfully at it, then returned to his paper.

‘Margot, my sweet, do go and sit down. You are blocking my light. I am sure that Tranter will be in with the tea in a moment.’

Miss Mardyn flounced away to lay herself seductively along the sofa. ‘Ashy…’ her voice fell several octaves ‘…you have not answered my question.’

Adam sighed and laid his newspaper aside. He knew there was not the least chance of him finishing the item until Miss Mardyn had partaken of tea and been delivered to her palatial suite of rooms at the Granby Hotel. His original intention to deliver her directly there had been thwarted when one of his horses had thrown a shoe, necessitating the stop at the Hope Inn. After that, Margot had insisted that nothing but tea in Church Row would soothe her ruffled sensibilities.

‘I am persuaded that Mama would be delighted to find you here, Margot,’ he said. ‘She will be quite cast down to have been out of town.’

‘But now that we are here,’ Miss Mardyn purred, with a soft fluttering of her lashes, ‘we might find a pleasant way to pass the time, Ashy…’

Adam raised his brows. ‘Indeed we might, sweet. We could talk, and take tea and even…’ he smiled at her ‘…plan a trip to Knaresborough!’

Miss Mardyn scowled unbecomingly. She did not take kindly to teasing.

‘I had something so much more exciting in mind, Ashy!’

‘Did you?’ Adam murmured. ‘I doubt that Seb would appreciate it, my love, if I took you up on that offer!’

‘Sebastian will never know,’ the diva replied. She sparkled at him. ‘Please, Ashy. I am most curious. I beg you to indulge me. Lydia Trent says that you were magnifique—a stallion, en effet!’

‘I am indebted to Miss Trent for her enthusiastic description,’ Adam drawled. ‘Alas, the answer is still no, my sweet. Sebastian Fleet might not know, but I would know that I had betrayed his friendship!’

‘You men and your honour!’ scoffed Miss Mardyn. ‘Am I not worth it, Ashy?’

The answer, Adam reflected, was a decided ‘no’ but even he, renowned as he was for plain speaking, could hardly be so unchivalrous as to say so. He had been widowed for nine years and during those years he had sampled the favours of quite a few opera singers, actresses and dancers like Miss Trent, with the addition of several bored society ladies as well. Even so, he felt he could scarcely lay claim to the title of rake, for all that others awarded it to him. Despite Miss Trent’s extravagant praise, sexual conquest was not even an activity that particularly interested him. There was something deplorably mechanical about the amorous liaisons of many of the ton, whereas he, having once experienced true love, was at heart a real romantic.

Six months before, the past had finally and unexpectedly caught up with him and put paid to any rakish tendencies for good. They had taken dinner at Joss Tallant’s house that night, he, Seb Fleet and a number of other friends. Gradually the others had drifted away to the clubs and balls, leaving Joss and he partaking of a malt whisky and talking over times past and the time to come. At some point, late in the evening, Amy Tallant had come in, kissed her husband goodnight and warned him not to be too late to bed. From the look in Joss’s eye, Adam had guessed that it would not be long at all until he was politely ejected from the house and Joss went hot foot to join his wife. And that was when it had happened. Adam had felt the most sudden and shocking jolt of jealousy and misery go through him like a sword thrust. It was not that he envied Joss his wife, serene and charming though Amy was. It was that for the first time in years he remembered the warmth and intimacy and pure pleasure of marriage, and he felt sick to think that he had had it and lost it all.

Joss had seen the stunned look in his eyes and, old friend that he was, had challenged him on it. They had ended up talking until the morning and finishing the bottle of whisky between them. Adam had sent Amy a huge bunch of flowers the following day with his apologies for keeping her husband from her side. But the ache of loss had not been alleviated and Adam knew he would never find what he was looking for in the scented bordellos of Covent Garden. He would not even try. The favours of Margot Mardyn, so eagerly sought by so many men, were not for him.

Miss Mardyn was aware that his attention had slipped from her. She wafted over to the window and stood twitching the drapes and peering out inquisitively.

‘Alors, Ashy, it is that so-proper Englishman we met at the inn! I do so adore men like that—so prim, so correct. It makes me want to tear off all their clothes and shock them to the core!’

‘I am sure that Lafoy would be delighted were you to do that to him,’ Adam rejoined drily. ‘Do leave that curtain twitching alone, my love. It is so bourgeois!’

But Miss Mardyn was enjoying herself too much to obey him. ‘I do believe they must be your neighbours, Ashy. Oh, do come and look! The freakish cousin is with him. Have you ever seen anything so ugly as that bonnet?’

Adam felt a rush of irritation that had nothing to do with Miss Mardyn’s constant chatter. Why he should feel so protective of Charles Lafoy’s cousin he had no notion, but protective he was. When he had first seen Annis Wycherley at the inn he had thought her a drab creature of that class that were instantly recognisable as governesses and schoolmistresses, frumpish, proper, and dull. Then, when their eyes had met and he had seen the decided twinkle in hers, he had realised his mistake. He had watched her during the conversation and seen her covert amusement at both Margot’s affectations and Lafoy’s discomfort. It argued a certain sophistication of mind that intrigued him, hidden as it was behind the chaperon’s dull exterior. Yet she had also seemed an innocent, so much so that she was not quite able to hide the fact that she was not indifferent to him. It had charmed him—and he had wanted to see her again.

He could see her now, walking under the fruit trees at the bottom of the garden. The garden of his own house sloped down from the terrace to a narrow lane and the wall of the neighbouring garden backed on to it. Under normal circumstance it was not an arrangement that would have met with his approval. He was a man who guarded his privacy jealously, and the Harrogate town houses were too close together to suit him. He preferred his estate at Eynhallow—remote, unspoilt and not overlooked.

Adam watched as Charles Lafoy gave his cousin his hand to help her back on to the path. He disliked Lafoy intensely for his part in helping Samuel Ingram fleece his brother-in-law. Whilst he was able to accept that the sinking of the Northern Prince was nothing more than devilish bad luck, Adam still bitterly resented that Ingram had persuaded Humphrey into a partnership in the first place. Humphrey Tilney had been a weak man, easily led by the thought of making a fortune. Instead he had ended up losing one and bequeathing to his wife the uncomfortable role of Ingram’s debtor.

When Humphrey had died the previous year and Adam had discovered the extent of his debts, he had felt honour-bound to pay them off and rescue his sister from ignominy. It had been a humiliating and infuriating episode. Ingram made no secret of his amusement at the deal and Adam hated him for it.

He could hardly blame Lady Wycherley for her cousin’s sins, however. Finding out that she was a neighbour leant a curious attraction to what would otherwise have been a dull stay in Harrogate. Adam had originally intended only a short visit to his nearby estate at Eynhallow, but now he thought he might stay a little longer and find out about Annis Wycherley as well. It might prove interesting.

‘Look!’ La Mardyn was pointing at Annis now. ‘What a shocking frump! I shudder, darling, positively shudder, to think that there are women like that in the world!’

‘You are such a cat, Margot,’ Adam said lazily. He smiled to himself as he saw that his fair companion was not sure whether to laugh or pout at his unflattering assessment of her character. Eventually she pouted.

‘And you are so cruel, Ashy. I do believe that you are the rudest man in London.’

‘Nonsense! There are plenty with manners far worse than mine. I merely speak as I find.’

‘Then pray do not speak at all.’ Miss Mardyn turned her shoulder. ‘Or, if you must, tell me what you truly think of Lady Wycherley and her ugly bonnet.’

Adam sighed. He could see Annis walking slowly up the path and chatting to her cousin as she went. Certainly the black bombazine dress was unflattering, one might almost say disfiguring. It seemed to weigh her down and take the colour from her, leaving her drab and pale. On the other hand, he noticed that she had a slender figure that swayed with unconscious elegance as she walked. As for the offending bonnet, it was fit only for destruction.

As he watched, Lady Wycherley loosened the ribbons of the bonnet and, with one impatient gesture, flung it away from her. It bowled across the grass and came to rest under one of the trees, and Annis Wycherley laughed. Adam heard her. The late afternoon sunlight fell on her face, upturned to that of her cousin. She looked young and free and happy.

‘Well, bless me,’ Miss Mardyn said, forgetting her accent for once and sounding both older and irredeemably English, ‘look at her hair!’

Adam looked again. Then he stopped. And stared. Loose from the bonnet, Annis Wycherley’s long, blonde hair had come cascading down around her shoulders in a tumble of gold. It shone in the sun like a newly minted coin and framed a heart-shaped face that suddenly looked piquant and pretty.

‘I’ll be damned!’ Adam found that he was smiling. ‘What do you say now, Margot?’

‘Why, I think that she must be an even greater fool to hide such beauty,’ Miss Mardyn said acerbically. She had recovered her poise and now flounced away from the window. ‘Such a thing is incroyable! She would make a passable courtesan with hair like that and a good figure. Not as attractive as me, perhaps, but all the same…’

‘I rather think she disguises herself because she is a chaperon,’ Adam said. He had never met Annis Wycherley in London, but he remembered quite well that she had a reputation for being able to settle even the most unpromising of girls. Now he could see that she had quite a lot of promise herself. ‘No one is going to employ her as a companion if she outshines her charges!’

Miss Mardyn looked uncomprehending. ‘Eh bien, why be a chaperon if one can be a cyprian? I do not understand that, me!’

‘No,’ Adam murmured. ‘I do not suppose that you do.’

He watched Annis Wycherley for a moment, then strolled back to his chair and picked up the paper again as Tranter, the butler, came into the room, accompanied by a footman with the tea tray. There was an item about Samuel Ingram buying the lease to the local turnpike and building new tollhouses on the Skipton road. One of them would be near Eynhallow…

‘What do you think of the current state of the turnpike trusts, my dear?’ he asked Miss Mardyn, as the teacups were handed around.

Miss Mardyn bent a charming smile on the dazzled butler, then turned back to her host. ‘I have no opinion on it, Ashy darling. You should know better than to ask me. Politics, economics…pah! The whole business bores me. I never read the papers.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘If I had realised that you were turning into such a dead bore yourself, I should have agreed to play Cheltenham rather than Harrogate this summer. I hear the shops are better!’

Adam smiled. ‘I do apologise for being such poor company, my dear. Perhaps you will find other gentlemen who please you more. Mr Lafoy, for example.’

La Mardyn dismissed Charles Lafoy with a wave of one white hand. ‘Oh, the conquest would be fun, but after that is over…pouf…I expect he is as dull as ditchwater. Are there no other eligible gentlemen in Harrogate, Ashy? I must amuse myself.’

‘I see that the Earl and Countess of Glasgow are here to take the waters this season,’ Adam said, consulting the paper, ‘though I fear the Earl may be a little infirm for you, Margot, and not very plump in the pocket to compensate. There is Lord Boyles—Boyles by name and by nature, I believe, so again, a gloomy prospect. Ah! Sir Everard Doble. He is a young man, and not ill favoured, if memory serves me. He might be a possibility.’

‘Sir Everard Doble…’ Miss Mardyn repeated. ‘Well, we shall see, Ashy. And how will you amuse yourself?’

Adam’s gaze fell on the paper again. ‘Oh, I have plenty to occupy me, Margot. Estate business will keep me quite busy, I fear…’

From the garden came the sound of feminine laughter, spontaneous and infectious. Adam’s gaze narrowed. He resolved that he would definitely find out more about Annis Wycherley. She seemed a most uncommon chaperon.

‘That sounds lamentably boring, darling,’ Margot Mardyn said, yawning widely.

‘On the contrary,’ Adam said, with a smile. ‘I have the feeling that my stay could be very interesting indeed.’