Praise for Louise Allen:

MARRIED TO A STRANGER

‘Allen delivers a lovely, sweet story, demonstrating how strangers can build a relationship based on lost love. The gentle yet powerful emotions of a grieving brother are sure to touch readers, as will the budding romance between him and a shy but emotionally strong woman. Allen reaches into readers’ hearts.’

—RT Book Reviews

SEDUCED BY THE SCOUNDREL

‘Allen takes a shipwreck spying adventure with lots of sensuality and spins it into a page-turner. The strong characters and sexy relationship will definitely satisfy readers.’

—RT Book Reviews

RAVISHED BY THE RAKE

‘Allen illuminates a unique side of the Regency by setting her latest adventure in India…’

—RT Book Reviews

PRACTICAL WIDOW TO PASSIONATE MISTRESS

‘With the first in her new trilogy, Allen hooks readers with her charming and well-portrayed characters, especially the secondary cast. You’ll cheer on the hero and the strong-willed heroine to the very end of this highly enjoyable and addictive read.’

—RT Book Reviews

Colour rose over Miss Hurst’s bosom and up her throat to stain her cheeks. It was delicious, Ashe thought, like the flush of pomegranate juice over iced sherbet on a hot day.

She was no wide-eyed innocent if she took the meaning of his glance and words so promptly. But then she was obviously no sheltered Society miss.

How old was she? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Attractive, bright, stylish but not married. Why not? he wondered. Something to do with her secret lives, no doubt.

‘I would very much appreciate it if you did not mention that we had met before this evening, my lord.’

‘Members of the ton are not expected to be shopkeepers, I assume?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Hmm. Pity my maternal grandfather was a nabob, then.’ He was unconcerned what people thought of his ancestry, but he was interested in how she reacted.

‘If he was indecently rich, and is now dead, there is absolutely nothing for the heir to a marquisate to worry about. Society is curiously accommodating in its prejudices.’ Her expression was bleak. ‘At least as far as gentlemen are concerned. Ladies are another matter altogether.’

‘So I could ruin you with this piece of gossip?’

‘Yes—as you know perfectly well…’

AUTHOR NOTE

When I finished writing FORBIDDEN JEWEL OF INDIA, which was set in India in 1788, I couldn’t help wondering what would happen in the future to my hero and heroine, Nick and Anusha Herriard. What better way, I reasoned, than to travel forward in time to the Regency and find out?

This story is the result of that time-travelling, and finds the Marquess and Marchioness of Eldonstone—as they now, reluctantly, find themselves—arriving in London with their son and daughter, Ashe and Sara.

Ashe, I discovered, is not enthusiastic about finding a suitable wife, and I was as surprised as he was by the young lady he encounters on the dockside. The Herriards may be unconventional, but are they—let alone Society—going to accept Phyllida Hurst, with her shady background and layers of secrets?

Ashe doesn’t know either, but he can’t help being attracted—even if it leads to adventures with naughty artworks, a wicked crow and a sinister crime lord. I hope you enjoy reading TARNISHED AMONGST THE TON as much as I did writing it.

About the Author

LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember. She finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past—Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Louise lives on the North Norfolk coast, where she shares the cottage they have renovated with her husband. She spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in the UK and abroad in search of inspiration. Please visit Louise’s website—www.louiseallenregency.co.uk—for the latest news, or find her on Twitter @LouiseRegency and on Facebook.

Previous novels by the same author:

THE DANGEROUS MR RYDER* THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM* THE SHOCKING LORD STANDON* THE DISGRACEFUL MR RAVENHURST* THE NOTORIOUS MR HURST* THE PIRATICAL MISS RAVENHURST* PRACTICAL WIDOW TO PASSIONATE MISTRESS** VICAR’S DAUGHTER TO VISCOUNT’S LADY** INNOCENT COURTESAN TO ADVENTURER’S BRIDE** RAVISHED BY THE RAKE† SEDUCED BY THE SCOUNDREL† MARRIED TO A STRANGER† FORBIDDEN JEWEL OF INDIA

*Those Scandalous Ravenhursts **The Transformation of the Shelley Sisters †Danger & Desire

TARNISHED AMONGST THE TON

features characters you will have already met in

FORBIDDEN JEWEL OF INDIA

and in the Silk & Scandal mini-series:

THE LORD AND THE WAYWARD LADY

THE OFFICER AND THE PROPER LADY

and in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:

DISROBED AND DISHONOURED

AUCTIONED VIRGIN TO SEDUCED BRIDE**

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Tarnished Amongst the Ton
Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

First published in Great Britain 2013

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

1 London Bridge,

London SE1 9GF

© Melanie Hilton 2013

eISBN: 978-1-472-00378-2

Version: 2018-10-26

Dedication: With love for AJH— and thanks for all the London walking!

Chapter One

3 March 1816—the Pool of London

‘It is grey, just as everyone said it would be.’ Ashe Herriard leaned on the ship’s rail and contemplated the wide stretch of the River Thames before him through narrowed eyes. It was jammed with craft from tiny skiffs and rowing boats to those that dwarfed even their four-masted East Indiaman. ‘More shades of grey than I had realised existed. And brown and beige and green. But mostly grey.’

He had expected to hate London, to find it alien, but it looked old and prosperous and strangely familiar, even though every bone in his body wanted to resent it and all it represented.

‘But it is not raining and Mrs Mackenzie said it rains all the time in England.’ Sara stood beside him, huddled in a heavy cloak. She sounded cheerful and excited although her teeth were chattering. ‘It is like the Garden Reach in Calcutta, only far busier. And much colder.’ She pointed. ‘There is even a fort. See?’

‘That’s the Tower of London.’ Ashe grinned, unwilling to infect his sister with his own brooding mood. ‘You see, I have remembered my reading.’

‘I am very impressed, brother dear,’ she agreed with a twinkle that faded as she glanced further along the rail. ‘Mata is being very brave.’

Ashe followed her gaze. ‘Smiling brightly, you mean? They are both being brave, I suspect.’ His father had his arm around his mother and was holding her tight to his side. That was not unusual—they were unfashionably demonstrative, even by the standards of Calcutta’s easy-going European society, but he could read his father and knew what the calm expression combined with a set jaw meant. The Marquess of Eldonstone was braced for a fight.

The fact that it was a fight against his own memories of a country that he had left over forty years ago did not make it any less real, Ashe knew. Estranged from his own father, married to a half-Indian wife who was appalled when she discovered her husband was heir to an English title and would one day have to return, Colonel Nicholas Herriard had held out until the last possible moment before leaving India. But marquesses did not hold posts as military diplomats in the East India Company. And he had known it was inevitable that one day he would inherit the title and have to return to England and do his duty.

And so did his own son, Ashe thought as he walked to his father’s side. He was damned if he was going to let it defeat them and he’d be damned, too, if he couldn’t take some of the burden off their shoulders even if that meant turning himself into that alien species, the perfect English aristocrat. ‘I’ll take Perrott, go ashore and make certain Tompkins is here to meet us.’

‘Thank you. I don’t want your mother and sister standing around on the dockside.’ The marquess pointed. ‘Signal from there if he’s arrived with a carriage.’

‘Sir.’ Ashe strode off in search of a sailor and a rowing boat and to set foot on dry land. A new country, a new destiny. A new world, he told himself, a new fight. New worlds were there to conquer, after all. Already memories of the heat and the colour and the vivid life of the palace of Kalatwah were becoming like a dream, slipping though his fingers when he would have grasped and held them. All of them, even the pain and the guilt. Reshmi, he thought and pushed away the memory with an almost physical effort. Nothing, not even love, could bring back the dead.

There must be reliable, conscientious, thoughtful men somewhere in creation. Phyllida stood back from the entrance to the narrow alleyway and scanned the bustling Customs House quay. Unfortunately my dear brother is not one of them. Which should be no surprise as their sire had not had a reliable, conscientious bone in his body and, his undutiful daughter strongly suspected, not many thoughts in his head either beyond gaming, whoring and spending money.

And now Gregory had been gone for twenty-four hours with the rent money and, according to his friends, had found a new hell somewhere between the Tower and London Bridge.

Something tugged at the laces of her half-boots. Expecting a cat, Phyllida looked down to find herself staring into the black boot-button eyes of the biggest crow she had ever seen. Or perhaps it was a raven escaped from the Tower? But it had a strange greyish head and neck, which set off a massive beak. Not a raven, then. It shot her an insolent look and went back to tugging at her bootlaces.

‘Go away!’ Phyllida jerked back her foot and it let go with a squawk and went for the other foot.

‘Lucifer, put the lady down.’ The bird made a harsh noise, flapped up and settled on the shoulder of the tall, bare-headed man standing in front of her. ‘I do apologise. He is fascinated by laces, string, anything long and thin. Unfortunately, he is a complete coward with snakes.’

She found her voice. ‘That is unlikely to be a handicap in London.’ Where had this beautiful, exotic man with his devilish familiar materialised from? Phyllida took in thick dark brown hair, green eyes, a straight nose—down which he was currently studying her—and golden skin. Tanned skin in March? No, it was his natural colour. She would not have been surprised to smell a hint of brimstone.

‘So I understand.’ He reached up and tossed the bird into the air. ‘Go and find Sara, you feathered menace. He swears if he’s confined to a cage,’ he added as it flew off towards the ships at anchor in mid-stream. ‘But I suppose I will have to do it or he’ll be seducing the ravens in the Tower into all kinds of wickedness. Unless they are merely a legend?’

‘No, they are real.’ Definitely foreign, then. He was well-dressed in a manner that was subtly un-English. A heavy black cloak with a lining that was two shades darker than his eyes, a dark coat, heavy silk brocade waistcoat, snowy white linen—no, the shirt was silk, too. ‘Sir!’

He had dropped to one knee on the appalling cobblestones and was tying her bootlaces, allowing her to see that his hair was long—an unfashionable shoulder-length, she guessed—and tied back at the nape of his neck. ‘Is something wrong?’ He looked up, face serious and questioning, green eyes amused. He knew perfectly well what was wrong, the wretch.

‘You are touching my foot, sir!’

The gentleman finished the bow with a brisk tug and stood up. ‘Difficult to tie a shoelace without, I’m afraid. Now, where are you going? I assure you, neither I nor Lucifer have any further designs upon your footwear.’ His smile suggested there might be other things in danger.

Phyllida took another step back, but not away from assaults on her ankles or her equilibrium. Harry Buck was swaggering along the quayside towards them, one of his bullies a pace behind. Her stomach lurched as she looked around for somewhere to hide from Wapping’s most notorious low-life. Nausea almost overcame her. If, somehow, he remembered her from nine years ago…

‘That man.’ She ducked her head in Buck’s direction. ‘I do not want to be seen by him.’ The breath caught in her throat. ‘And he is coming this way.’ Running was out of the question. To run would be like dragging a ball of wool in front of a cat and Buck would chase out of sheer instinct. She hadn’t even got a bonnet with a decent, concealing brim on it, just a simple flat straw tied on top of a net with her hair bundled up. Stupid, stupid to have just walked into his territory like this, undisguised and unprepared.

‘In that case we should become better acquainted.’ The exotic stranger took a step forwards, pressed her against the wall, raised one cloak-draped arm to shield her from the dockside and bent his head.

‘What are you doing—?’

‘Kissing you,’ he said. And did. His free hand gathered her efficiently against his long, hard body, the impudent green eyes laughed down into hers and his mouth sealed her gasp of outrage.

Behind them there was the sound of heavy footsteps, the light was suddenly reduced as big bodies filled the entrance to the alleyway and a coarse voice said, ‘You’re on my patch, mate, so that’ll be one of my doxies and you owe me.’ One of my doxies. Oh God. I can’t be ill, not now, not like this.

The man lifted his head, his hand pressing her face into the soft silk of his shirt. ‘I brought this one with me. I don’t share. And I don’t pay men for sex.’ Phyllida heard Buck’s bully give a snort of laughter. Her protector sounded confident, amused and about as meek and mild as a pit bull.

There was a moment’s silence, then Buck laughed, the remembered hoarse chuckle that still surfaced sometimes in her worst dreams. ‘I like your style. Come and find my place if you want to play deep. Or find a willing girl. Ask anyone in Wapping for Harry Buck’s.’ And the feet thudded off down the alleyway, faded away.

Phyllida wriggled, furious with the one man she could vent her feelings on. ‘Let me go.’

‘Hmm?’ His nose was buried in the angle of her neck, apparently sniffing. It tickled. So did his lips a moment later, a lingering, almost tender caress. ‘Jasmine. Very nice.’ He released her and stepped back, although not far enough for her peace of mind.

She usually hated being kissed, it was revolting. It led to other things even worse. But that had been… surprising. And not at all revolting. It must depend on the man doing the kissing, even if one was not in love with him, which was all Phyllida had ever imagined would make it tolerable.

She took a deep breath and realised that far from being tinged with brimstone he actually smelled very pleasant. ‘Sandalwood,’ she said out loud rather than any of the other things that were jostling to be uttered like, Insolent opportunist, outrageous rake. Who are you? Even the words she thought would never enter her head—Kiss me again.

‘Yes, and spikenard, just a touch. You know about scents?’ He was still far too close, his arm penning her against the wall.

‘I do not want to stand here discussing perfumery! Thank you for hiding me from Buck just now, but I wish you would leave now. Really, sir, you cannot go about kissing strange women as you please.’ She ducked under his arm and out onto the quayside.

He turned and smiled and something inside her did a little flip. He had made no move to detain her and yet she could feel his hand on her as though it was a physical reality. No one would ever hold her against her will, ever again, and yet she had felt no fear of him. Foolish. Just because he has charm it does not make him less dangerous.

‘Are you strange?’ he asked, throwing her words back to her.

There were a range of answers to that question, none of them ladylike. ‘The only strange thing about me is that I did not box your ears just now,’ Phyllida said. And why she had not, once Buck had gone, she had no idea. ‘Good day, sir,’ she threw over her shoulder as she walked away. He was smiling, a lazy, heavy-lidded smile. Phyllida resisted the urge to take to her heels and run.

She had tasted of vanilla, coffee and woman and she had smelt like a summer evening in the raja’s garden. Ashe ran his tongue over his lower lip in appreciative recollection as he looked around for his father’s English lawyer.

I will send the family coach for you, my lord, Tompkins had written in that last letter that had been delivered to the marquess along with an English lady’s maid for Mata and Sara, a valet for his father and himself. The most useful delivery of all was Perrott, a confidential clerk armed with every fact, figure and detail of the Eldonstone affairs and estates.

Given that your father’s rapid decline and unfortunate death have taken us by surprise, I felt it advisable to waste no time in further correspondence but to send you English staff and my most able assistant.

His father had moved fast on receiving the inevitable, unwelcome news. Ashe was recalled from the Principality of Kalatwah where he had been acting as aide-de-camp to his great-uncle, the Raja Kirat Jaswan; possessions were sold, given away or packed and the four of them, along with their retinue, had embarked on the next East Indiaman bound for England.

‘My lord, the coach is just along here. I have signalled to his lordship and sent the skiff back.’

‘The end of your responsibilities, Perrott,’ Ashe said with a grin as he strode along the quayside beside the earnest, red-headed clerk. ‘After seventeen weeks of being cooped up on board attempting to teach us everything from tenancy law to entails by way of investments and the more obscure byways of the family tree, you must be delighted to be home again.’

‘It is, of course, gratifying to be back in England, my lord, and my mother will be glad to see me. However, it has been a privilege and a pleasure to assist the marquess and yourself.’

And the poor man has a hopeless tendre for Sara, so it will probably be a relief for both to have some distance between them. It was the only foolish thing Ashe had discovered about Thomas Perrott. Falling in love was for servants, romantics, poets and women. And fools, which he was not. Not any longer.

His father had done it and had recklessly married for love, which was fortunate or he, Ashe, wouldn’t be here now. But then his father was a law unto himself. In any case, a soldier of fortune, which is what he had been at the time, could do what he liked. His son—the Viscount Clere, he reminded himself with an inward wince—must marry for entirely different reasons.

‘My lord.’ Perrott stopped beside a fine black coach with the crest on the side that had become familiar from numerous legal documents and the imposing family tree. It was on the heavy seal ring his father now wore.

Liveried grooms climbed down from the back to stand at attention and two plainer coaches were waiting in line behind. ‘For your staff and the small baggage, my lord. The hold luggage will come by carrier as soon as it is unloaded. I trust that is satisfactory?’

‘No bullock carts and a distinct absence of elephants,’ Ashe observed with a grin. ‘We should move with unaccustomed speed.’

‘The fodder bills must be smaller, certainly,’ Perrott countered, straight-faced, and they walked back to the steps to await the skiff.

‘There you are!’ Phyllida dumped her hat and reticule on the table and confronted the sprawled figure of her brother, who occupied the sofa like a puppet with its strings cut.

‘Here I am,’ Gregory agreed, dragging open one eye. ‘With the very devil of a thick head, sister dear, so kindly do not nag me.’

‘I will do more than nag,’ she promised as she tossed her pelisse onto a chair. ‘Where is the rent money?’

‘Ah. You missed it.’ He heaved himself into a sitting position and began to rummage in his pockets. Bank notes spilled out in a crumpled heap on the floor. ‘There you are.’

‘Gregory! Where on earth did this all come from?’ Phyllida dropped to her knees and gathered them up, smoothing and counting. ‘Why, there is upwards of three hundred pounds here.’

‘Hazard,’ he said concisely, sinking back.

‘You always lose at hazard.’

‘I know. But you have been nagging me about the need for prudence and economy and I took your words to heart. You were quite right, Phyll, and I haven’t been much help to you, have I? I even call your common sense nagging. But behold my cunning—I went to a new hell and they always want you to win at first, don’t they?’

‘So I have heard.’ It was just that she hadn’t believed that he would ever work that sort of thing out for himself.

‘Therefore they saw to it that I did win and then when they smiled, all pleasant and shark-like, and proposed a double-or-nothing throw, I decided to hold my hand for the night.’ He looked positively smug.

‘And they let you out with no problem?’ The memory of Harry Buck sent shivers down her spine. He would never let a winner escape unscathed from one of his hells. Nor a virgin, either. She blanked the thought as though slamming a lid on a mental box.

‘Oh, yes. Told them I’d be back tomorrow with friends to continue my run of luck.’

‘But they’ll fleece you the second time.’

Gregory closed his eyes again with a sigh that held more weariness than a simple hangover caused. ‘I lied to them. Told you, I’m turning over a new leaf, Phyll. I took a long hard look in the mirror yesterday morning and I’m not getting any younger. Made me think about the things you’ve been saying and I knew you were right. I’m sick of scrimping for every penny and knowing you are working so hard. We need me to attach a rich wife and I won’t find one of those in a Wapping hell. And we need to save the readies to finance a courtship, just as you planned.’

‘You are a saint amongst brothers.’ Which was an outrageous untruth, and this attack of virtue might only last so long, but she did love him despite everything. Perhaps he really had matured as she said. ‘You promised me we could go to the Richmonds’ ball tomorrow night, don’t forget.’

‘Not the most exclusive of events, the Richmonds’ ball,’ Gregory observed, sitting up and taking notice.

‘It would hardly answer our purpose if it was,’ Phyllida retorted. ‘Fenella Richmond enjoys being toadied to, which means she invites those who will do that, as well as the cream of society. We may be sure of finding her rooms supplied with any number of parents looking to buy a titled husband in return for their guineas.’

‘Merchants. Mill owners. Manufacturers.’ He sounded thoughtful, not critical, but even so, she felt defensive.

‘Your sister is a shopkeeper, if the ton did but know it. But, yes, they will all be there and all set on insinuating themselves into society. If they think that Lady Richmond is wonderful, just imagine how they are going to enjoy meeting a handsome, single earl with a country house and a large estate. So be your most charming self, brother dear.’

Gregory snorted. ‘I am always charming. That I have no trouble with. It is being good and responsible that is the challenge. Where have you been all day, Phyll?’

Best not to reveal that she had been looking for him. ‘I was in Wapping, too, buying fans from the crew of an Indiaman just in from China.’ And being attacked by a weird crow and kissed by a beautiful man. As she had all afternoon she resisted the urge to touch her mouth. ‘I’ll go and put this money in the safe and let Peggy know we’re both in for dinner.’

Phyllida scooped up her things and retied her hat strings as she ran downstairs into the basement. ‘Peggy?’

‘Aye, Miss Phyllida?’ Their cook-housekeeper emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands. ‘His lordship’s home with a hangover, I see. Drink is a snare and an abomination.’

‘We will both be in for dinner, if you please.’ Phyllida was used to Peggy’s dire pronouncements upon almost any form of enjoyment. ‘And Gregory has brought both the rent and the wages home with him.’ She counted money out onto the scrubbed pine table. ‘There. That’s yours for last month and this month and Jane’s, too. I’ll pay Anna myself.’ Jane was the skinny maid of all work, Anna was Phyllida’s abigail.

‘Praise be,’ Peggy pronounced as she counted coins into piles. ‘Thank you, Miss Phyllida. And you’ll be putting the rest of it away safe, I’m hoping.’

‘I will. I’m just going to the shop, I’ll be back in half an hour.’

‘Rabbit stew,’ Peggy called after her as she ran back upstairs. ‘And cheesecakes.’

The day that had started so badly was turning out surprisingly well, she decided as she closed the front door, turned left along Great Ryder Street, diagonally across Duke Street and into Mason’s Yard. The rent and the wages were paid, Gregory was finally behaving himself over the campaign to find him a rich wife and there were cheesecakes for dinner.

No one was around as she unlocked the back door of the shop, secured it behind her and made her way through into the front. The shutters were closed and the interior of the shop in shadow, but she could see the flicker of movement as carriages and horses passed along Jermyn Street. She would open tomorrow, Phyllida decided as she knelt before the cupboard, moved a stack of wrapping paper and lifted the false bottom. The safe was concealed beneath it, secure from intruders and her brother’s ‘borrowings’ alike, and the roll of notes made a welcome addition to the savings that she secretly thought of as the Marriage Fund.

Gregory’s marriage, not hers, of course. Phyllida secured the cupboard and, on a sudden impulse, opened a drawer and drew out a package. Indian incense sticks rolled out, each small bundle labelled in a script she could not read, along with a pencilled scribble in English.

Rose, patchouli, lily, white musk, champa, frankincense… jasmine and sandalwood. She pulled one of the sticks from the bundle and held it to her nose with a little shiver of recollection. It smelled clean and woody and exotic, just as he had. Dangerous and unsettling, for some inexplicable reason. Or perhaps that had been the scent of his skin, that beautiful golden skin.

It was nonsense, of course. He had kissed her, protected her—while taking his own amusement from the situation—and that was enough to unsettle anyone. There was no mystery to it.

Phyllida let herself out, locked up and hurried home.

It was not until she was changing in her bedchamber that she realised she had slipped the incense stick into her reticule.

It was a while since she had bought the bundle, so it was as well to test the quality of them, she supposed. The coating spluttered, then began to smoulder as she touched the tip of the stick to the flame and she wedged it into the wax at the base of the candle to hold it steady. Then she sat and resolutely did not think of amused green eyes while Anna, her maid, brushed out her hair.

She would act the shopkeeper tomorrow and then become someone else entirely for a few hours at Lady Richmond’s ball. She was looking forward to it, even if she would spend the evening assessing débutantes and dowries and not dancing. Dancing, like dreams of green-eyed lovers and fantasies of marriage, were for other women, not her. Coils of sandalwood-scented smoke drifted upwards, taking her dreams with them.

Chapter Two

‘May I go shopping, Mata? I would like to visit the bazaar.’

‘There are no bazaars, Sara. It is all shops and some markets.’

‘There is one called the Pantheon Bazaar, Reade told me about it.’

Ashe lifted an eyebrow at his father as he poured himself some more coffee. ‘It is not like an Indian bazaar. Much more tranquil, I am certain, and no haggling. It is more like many small shops, all together.’

‘I know. Reade explained it to me while she was doing my hair this morning. But may I go out, Mata?’

‘I have too much to do today to go with you.’ Their mother’s swift, all-encompassing glance around the gloomy shadows of what they had been informed was the Small Breakfast Parlour—capital letters implied—gave a fair indication of what she would be doing. Ashe had visions of bonfires in the back garden.

He murmured to his father, ‘Fifty rupees that Mata will have the staff eating out of her hand by this time tomorrow and one hundred that she’ll start redecorating within the week.’

‘I don’t bet on certainties. If she makes plans for disposing of these hideous curtains while she’s at it, I’ll be glad. I can’t take you, Sara,’ the marquess added as she turned imploring eyes on the male end of the table.

‘I will,’ Ashe said amiably. Sara was putting a brave face on it, but he could tell she was daunted as well as excited by this strange new world. ‘I could do with a walk. But window shopping only, I’m not being dragged round shops while you dither over fripperies. I was going along Jermyn Street. That’s got some reasonable shops, so Bates said, and I need some shaving soap.’

An hour later Sara was complaining, ‘So I have to be dragged around shops while you dither about shaving soap!’

‘You bought soap, too. Three sorts,’ Ashe pointed out, recalling just why he normally avoided shopping with females like the plague. ‘Look, there’s a fashionable milliner’s.’

He had no idea whether it was in the mode or not. Several years spent almost entirely in an Indian princely court was not good preparation for judging the ludicrous things English women put on their heads and he knew that anything seen in Calcutta was a good eighteen months out of date. But it certainly diverted Sara. She stood in front of the window and sighed over a confection of lace, feathers and satin ribbon supported on a straw base the size of a tea plate.

‘No, you may not go in,’ Ashe said firmly, tucking her arm under his and steering her across Duke Street. ‘I will not be responsible for explaining to Mata why you have come home wearing something suitable for a lightskirt.’

‘Doesn’t London smell strange?’ Sara remarked. ‘No spices, no flowers. Nothing dead, no food vendors on the street.’

‘Not around here,’ he agreed. ‘But this is the smart end of town. Even so, there are drains and horse manure if you are missing the rich aromas of street life. Now that’s a good piece.’ He stopped in front of a small shop, just two shallow bays on either side of a green-painted door. ‘See, that jade figure.’

‘There are all kinds of lovely things.’ Sara peered into the depths of the window display. Small carvings and jewels were set out on a swirl of fabrics, miniature paintings rubbed shoulders with what he suspected were Russian icons, ancient terracotta idols sat next to Japanese china.

Ashe stepped back to read the sign over the door. ‘The Cabinet of Curiosity. An apt name. Look at that moonstone pendant—it is just the colour of your eyes. Shall we go in and look at it?’

She gave his arm an excited squeeze and whisked into the shop as he opened the door. Above their head a bell tinkled and the curtain at the back of the shop parted.

‘Good morning, monsieur, madame.’ The shopkeeper, it seemed, was a Frenchwoman. She hesitated as though she was surprised to see them, then came forwards.

Medium height, hair hidden beneath a neat cap, tinted spectacles perched on the end of her nose. Perfectly packaged in her plain, high-necked brown gown. Very French, he thought.

‘May I assist you?’ she asked and pushed the spectacles more firmly up her nose.

‘We would like to look at the moonstone pendant, if you would be so good.’

‘Certainement. Madame would care to sit?’ She gestured to a chair as she came out from behind the counter, lifting an ornate chatelaine to select a key before opening the cabinet and laying the jewel on a velvet pad in front of Sara.

Ashe watched his sister examine the pendant with the care their mother had taught her. She was as discriminating about gemstones as he was and, however pretty the trinket, she would not want it if it was flawed.

His attention drifted, caught by the edge of awareness that he had always assumed was a hunter’s instinct. Something was wrong… no, out of place. He shifted, scanning the small space of the shop. No one was watching from behind the curtain, he was certain there were only the three of them there.

The vendeuse, he realised, was watching him. Not the pendant for safekeeping, not Sara to assess a potential customer’s reactions, but, covertly, him. Interesting. He shifted until he could see her in the mirrored surface of a Venetian cabinet. Younger than he had first thought, he concluded, seeing smooth, unlined skin, high cheekbones, eyes shadowed behind those tinted spectacles, a pointed little chin. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and moved her hands as though to stop herself clenching them. There was something very familiar about her.

‘How much is this?’ Sara asked and the woman turned and bent towards her. Something in the way she moved registered in his head. Surely not?

Ashe strolled across and stood at her shoulder as though interested in her answer. She shifted, apparently made uncomfortable by his nearness, but she did not look at him.

She named a price, Sara automatically clicked her tongue in rejection, ready to negotiate. He leaned closer and felt the Frenchwoman stiffen like a wary animal. She had brown hair, from what he could see of the little wisps escaping from that ghastly cap. They created an enticing veil over the vulnerable, biteable, nape of her neck.

‘I would want the chain included for that,’ Sara said.

He inhaled deeply. Warm, tense woman and… ‘Jasmine,’ Ashe murmured, close to the vendeuse’s ear. She went very still. Oh, yes, this was just like hunting and he had found game. ‘You get around, madame.’

‘My varied stock, you mean, monsieur?’ She spoke firmly, without a tremor. Her nerves must be excellent. ‘Indeed, it comes from all over the world. And, yes, the pendant suits your wife so well that I can include the chain in that price.’

‘But—’ Sara began.

‘You want it, my dear?’ Ashe interrupted her. ‘Then we will take it.’ Interesting, and subtly insulting, that his acquaintance from the quayside assumed he was married. Perversely he saw no reason to enlighten her immediately, and certainly not to pursue this further with Sara sitting there.

What sort of man did she think he was, to kiss and flirt with chance-met women if he had a wife at home? Ashe knew himself to be no saint, but he had been brought up with the example of marital fidelity before him daily and he had no time for men who were unfaithful to their wives.

Which was why he intended to choose with extreme care. This was England, not India, and flouting society’s rules would not be excused here. The family were different enough as it was, with their mixed blood, his maternal grandfather’s links to trade and his paternal grandfather’s reputation for dissipation.

Ashe had a duty to marry, to provide the next heir, to enrich the family name and title with the right connections and the estate with lands and money. He glanced down at his sister, reminded yet again that her own hopes of a suitable, good marriage depended on respectability. But he would be tied to the woman who brought those connections and that dowry with her. There had to be mutual respect or it would be intolerable. Love he did not expect.

‘This is your own shop?’ he asked as he peeled off his gloves in order to take banknotes from the roll Perrott had provided. He calculated currency conversions in his head, valuing the stock he could see. Even at Indian prices there was a considerable investment represented on the shelves around him.

‘Yes, monsieur.’ She was doggedly sticking to her French pretence. Used to negotiating with hostile Frenchmen in India, he could admire her accent.

‘Impressive. I was surprised that the name is the Cabinet of Curiosity, not Curiosities.’ Without the conflicting stinks of the river and the alleyway the subtle odour of jasmine on her warm skin was filling his senses. His body began to send him unmistakable signals of interest.

‘My intention is to provide stimulation to the intellect,’ she said, returning him his change. Her bare fingers touched the palm of his hand and he curled his fist closed, trapping her.

‘As well as of the senses?’ he suggested. She went very still. Her fingers were warm, slender. Under his thumb he felt her pulse hammering. He was not alone in this reaction. Stimulation to the senses, indeed.

‘To find the treasures here one needs curiosity,’ she finished, her voice suddenly breathless. Her accent had slipped a trifle.

‘You may be sure you have stimulated mine,’ Ashe murmured. ‘All of them. I will return, with or without my… sister.’

Her hand tensed in his and as suddenly relaxed. Oh, yes, she was as aware of him as he was of her and the news that he was unmarried had struck home.

‘I must wrap the pendant, monsieur.’ She gave a little tug and he released her. There was no wedding ring on those long slender fingers with their neat oval nails. The hunting instinct stirred again and with it certain parts of his body that were better kept under control when he was supposed to be escorting his sister on a blameless shopping expedition.

Ashe slipped the flat box into his breast pocket, resumed his gloves and waited for Sara to gather up her reticule and parasol. ‘You open your shop every day?’

‘Non. I open as the whim takes me, monsieur,’ the lady of curiosities said, a little tart now and very French again. He had flustered her and she did not forgive that easily, it seemed. ‘I am often away buying stock.’

‘Down by the Pool of London, perhaps?’

She shrugged, an elegant gesture that made him wonder if she was, indeed, French. But her accent when they first met had been completely English, he recalled and she had slipped up just now. ‘Anywhere that I can find treasures for my clients, monsieur. Good day, monsieur, mademoiselle.’

‘Au revoir,’ Ashe returned and was amused to see her purse her lips. She suspected, quite correctly, that he was teasing her.

Phyllida shot the bolt on the door and retreated into the back room. Him. Here. As though she had not had enough trouble trying, and failing, to get him out of her head. She spread out her right hand, the one he had captured in his own big brown fist. She had felt overpowered, an unexpected sensation. What was most unsettling was that it was not unwelcome. A strong, decisive man after Gregory’s lazy indecision was… stimulating. And dangerous. She reminded herself that for all the charm he was a man and one who probably had no hesitation in seizing what he wanted if charm alone did not work. Men had no hesitation in using their superior strength to take advantage of a woman.

He had been without his devil-bird, but with a charming sister who was, it seemed, as bright as she was pretty. The wretch, after that kiss, to let her think he was with his wife! It did not mean he did not have one at home, of course. Not that she cared in the slightest.

But who was he? He had paid in cash, which must mean he was not one of the ton. If he had been, he would have simply handed her his card and expected her to send him an account. Besides, she had never seen him before yesterday and she knew everyone who was anyone, by sight at least. Whoever he was, he was wealthy. His clothes were, again, superb, with that hint of foreign styling. His sister, too, was dressed impeccably and the simple pearls at her neck and ears were of high quality.

A wealthy trader? If he was with the East India Company it might explain his presence at the docks. A ship owner, perhaps.

Phyllida realised she was twisting the chain of her chatelaine into a knot and released it with an impatient flick of her wrist. He was the first person who had connected any of the elements of her complicated life. But provided he was not in a position to link Mrs Drummond, the dealer who scoured the East End and the docks for treasures for the stock of Madame Deaucourt, owner of the Cabinet of Curiosity, with Phyllida Hurst, the somewhat shady sister of the Earl of Fransham, he was no danger, surely?

Except for your foolish fantasies, she scolded herself. She had never enjoyed being kissed before and that caress by the Customs House had been skilled, casually delivered as it had been. The man was a flirt of the worst kind, Phyllida told herself as she jammed the tinted spectacles back on her nose and went to open up the shop again.

And he must flirt with everything and anything in skirts, she decided, catching sight of herself in a mirror. He could hardly make the excuse that he had been so stunned by her beauty he had not known what he was doing. When properly dressed and coiffed she was, she flattered herself, not exactly an eyesore. But yesterday, in a plain stuff gown with her hair scraped back and hidden in that net, she should never have merited a second glance. Which was, of course, her intention. And it had taken him a while, even with those watchful green eyes, to recognise her in today’s outfit.

The problem was that she found herself wishing with a positively reckless abandon that her nameless man would spare her a second glance. And that kind of foolishness threatened the entire plan of campaign she had set in motion at the age of seventeen and which had cost her so dear. Idiot, she lectured herself. If he looks at you seriously it will be as a mistress, a possession, not a wife. And marriage was only a dream, not a possibility, for her.

‘Bonjour, madame.’ She opened the door and dipped a respectful curtsy to Lady Harington, who swept in with a brisk nod. She was a regular customer who obviously had no idea that she had spent quite fifteen minutes in conversation with Phyllida in her respectable guise only two evenings previously at a musicale.

‘I have received a small consignment of the most elegant fans from the Orient, madame.’ She lifted them from their silk wrappings and laid them out on the counter. ‘Each is unique and quite exclusive to myself. I am showing them only to clients of discernment.’ And they are very, very expensive, she decided, seeing the avid glint in her ladyship’s eyes. Earning the money to drag them back from the edge of ruin and to bring Gregory into complete respectability was everything. Nothing must be allowed to threaten that.

‘Thank you for my present, Ashe.’ Sara slid her hand under his elbow as they made their way from St James’s Square and turned right into Pall Mall. ‘Why did you let the shopkeeper believe we were married?’

‘I corrected her soon enough. It is no concern of hers.’ She was interested, though.

‘You were flirting with her.’

‘And what do you know of flirting, might I ask? You are not out yet.’ One of the problems with being male, single and all that implied was that Ashe was only too aware of the thoughts, desires and proclivities of the other single males who were going to come into contact with his beautiful, friendly, innocent sister. It was enough to make him want to lock her up and hide the key for at least another five years.

‘I was out in Calcutta. I went to parties and picnics and dances. Everything, in fact.’ She tilted her head and sent him a twinkling smile that filled him with foreboding. ‘It is just that you were in Kalatwah and didn’t know what I was up to.’

‘That is different. It is all much more formal here. All those rules and scandal lurking if we trip up on as much as one of them. Especially for you, which is unfair, but—’

‘I know. Young ladies must be beyond reproach, as innocent as babies.’ Sara sighed theatrically. ‘Such a pity I am not an innocent.’

‘What?’ Ashe slammed to a halt, realised where he was and carried on walking. If he had to take ship back to India to dismember whoever had got his hands on his little sister, he would. ‘Sarisa Melissa Herriard, who is he?’ he ground out.

‘No one, silly. I meant it theoretically. You don’t think Mata is like those idiotic women who don’t tell their daughters anything and expect them to work it all out on their wedding night, do you? Or leave them to get into trouble because they don’t understand what men want.’

Ashe moaned faintly. No, of course their mother, raised as an Indian princess, and presumably schooled in all the theory of the ancient erotic texts, would have passed that wisdom on to her daughter as she reached marriageable age. He just did not want to think about it.

He had been away from home too long and his baby sister had grown up too fast. On board ship he hadn’t realised. She had been her old enthusiastic, curious self and there had been no young men to flirt with except the unfortunate Mr Perrott, so Ashe had carried on thinking of her as the seventeen-year-old girl he had left when he went to their great-uncle’s court. But she was twenty now. A woman.

‘Then pretend, very hard, that you haven’t a clue,’ he said.

‘Of course,’ his oh-so-demure little sister said. ‘So, were you flirting?’

‘No. I do not flirt with plain French shopkeepers.’

‘Hmm. I’m not so certain she is plain,’ Sara said. ‘I think she would like to appear so. Perhaps because she has trouble with rakish gentlemen like you.’ They stopped before a rambling pile of red brick with two scarlet-coated guards standing in front. ‘What on earth is that?’ she asked before Ashe could demand why she considered him rakish and how she would know a rake if she saw one.

He had been doing his homework. ‘St James’s Palace. It is very old.’

‘It is a sorry excuse for a palace, in my opinion—the most junior raja can do better than that.’ Sara wrinkled her nose in disapprobation.

‘Come on, we’ll go through to the park.’ Ashe took her past the guards before they could be arrested for lèse-majesté or whatever crime being rude about the sovereign’s palaces constituted.

‘So, are you looking for a mistress?’ she enquired as they went through the improbably named Milkmaids’ Passage and into Green Park.

‘No!’ Yes. But he certainly was not going to discuss that with his little sister. It was far too long since he had been with a woman. There had been women after Reshmi—he was not a monk, after all—but the voyage had lasted months and the ship might as well have been a monastery.

‘You will be looking for a wife, though. Mata said you would be. At least there are lots more women in London to fall in love with than there were in Calcutta society.’

‘I have no intention of falling in love. I need to find a wife suitable for a viscount.’ And one who was heir to a marquisate at that.

‘But Father and Mata made a love match. Oh look, cows wandering about. But they aren’t sacred, are they?’

‘Shouldn’t think so.’ He spared the livestock a glance. ‘Not unless the Church of England has developed some very strange practices. Look, there are milkmaids or cow herds or something.

‘Our parents met and fell in love before they knew Father’s uncle had died, making grandfather the heir,’ he reminded her. ‘Mata even ran away when she found out before the wedding because she did not think she would make a good marchioness.’

‘I know, but it is ridiculous! She is clever and beautiful and brave,’ Sara said fiercely. ‘What more could be needed?

‘She is the illegitimate daughter of an East India Company merchant and an Indian princess—not the usual English aristocratic lady, you must agree. She only agreed to marry Father and to take it on because she loves him—why do you think he stayed in India until the last possible moment?’

‘I thought it was because he and his father hated each other.’

That was one way of describing a relationship where a bitter wastrel had packed his own seventeen-year-old son off to India against his will.

‘Father made his own life, his own reputation, in India. He never wanted to come back, especially with Mata’s anxieties, but they know it is their duty.’ He shrugged. ‘And one day, a long way away, I hope, it will be mine. And I’m not putting another woman through what our mother is having to deal with. So much to learn, the realisation that people are talking behind her back, assessing whether she is up to it, is well bred enough, watching for every mistake.’

‘I had not realised it would be that bad. I am an innocent after all,’ Sara said with a sigh. ‘I will do my best not to add to their worries.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘I can be good if I try. And I suppose if you find the right wife she will be a help to Mata, won’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Ashe agreed, wishing it did not feel so much like buying a horse. ‘She can take on some of the duties of chaperon for you once we are married. And a suitable bride will have social and political connections.’ He knew little about English politics as yet, but the intrigues of an Indian court seemed simple in comparison to what he had read.

‘I want to find someone like Mata found Father. Poor Ashe.’ Sara squeezed his arm companionably. ‘No love match for you.’

He should have answered faster, made a joke of it, because Sara knew him too well. ‘Oh, was there someone?’

‘Yes. Perhaps. I don’t know.’ He was mumbling. He never mumbled. Ashe got a grip on himself. ‘It never got that far.’

‘Who?’ When he didn’t answer she asked, ‘At Kalatwah?’

Reshmi. The Silken One. Great dark eyes, a mouth of sinful promise, a heart full of joy and laughter. ‘Yes.’

‘You left her?’

‘She died.’ Two years ago. It was impossible, he had known it was doomed from the start and finally he had told her, far too abruptly because he didn’t want to do it. They said it was an accident that she had trodden on a krait hidden in the dry grass and he tried to believe that it was chance, that she would never have chosen to kill herself in such a ghastly, painful way. But his conscience told him that she had been too distracted, too full of grief to be as careful as she normally was.

It was his fault. Since Reshmi he had organised his liaisons with clinical care, generously but with no misunderstandings on either side. And no attachments either.

‘It was a long time ago, I don’t think of her now.’ He tried not to, because when he did there was still the ache of her loss, the memory of the sweetness of her lips on his. The guilt at having had so much power over another person’s happiness and having failed her.

He would never find it again, that almost innocent feeling of first love. It had been cut short, like an amputation, and that, and the guilt, was why it hurt. He would never be that young, or foolish, again, which was a mercy because love seemed to hurt both parties. How would the survivor cope with the pain if one of his parents outlived the other?

Sara leaned into him and rested her head against his shoulder for a moment, too sensitive to ask more. After a moment she said, ‘Look, they are milking the cows. Is that not truly incredible? Right by the palace!’ She let go of his arm and ran across the grass, laughing, so he strode after her over the green grass, shaking off the heat and colours of India. That was the past.

Chapter Three

‘How elegantly your daughter dances, Mrs Fogerty.’ Judging by the amount of money lavished on Miss Fogerty’s clothes and the almost painful correctness of her manners, elegant was likely to be a very acceptable compliment to her doting mama.

‘Why, thank you.’ The matron simpered and made room on the upholstered bench to allow Phyllida to sit down. Her efforts to recall to whom she was speaking were painfully visible, but Phyllida did not enlighten her. ‘Her partner is an excellent dancer.’ Mrs Fogerty watched Gregory closely.

‘The Earl of Fransham? Yes, indeed. A very old family.’ Phyllida waved her exquisite fan gently and allowed Mrs Fogerty a good look at the antique cameos she was wearing. All part of her stock, although now when she wanted to sell them she would have to go to another dealer or they might be recognised.

‘You are related to him?’ The older woman was avid for details.

‘A connection.’ If it came to serious courtship, Phyllida was resigned to fading completely into the background. ‘Large estates, of course, and the most magnificent country house.’ With dozens of buckets under the drips, death watch beetle in the roof and pleasure gardens resembling the darkest jungle. ‘Although,’ she lowered her voice, ‘like so many of the really old noble families, the resources to invest are sadly lacking.’

‘Indeed?’ Mrs Fogerty narrowed her eyes and regarded Gregory’s handsome figure and impeccable tailoring with sharpened interest. To Phyllida’s delight she had picked up on the hint that the earl was in the market for a rich wife and was not in a position to be picky about bloodlines.

Mr Fogerty, a self-made Lancashire mill owner, was high on her list of wealthy parents in search of an aristocratic son-in-law and Emily Fogerty seemed bright and pleasant, although perhaps not strong-willed enough to deal with Gregory. She was not the only one under consideration, however, nor her favourite. After a few minutes of conversation Phyllida excused herself and drifted off in search of Miss Millington, the sole child of banker Sir Ralph Millington and her ideal candidate.

‘Phyllida Hurst!’ The Dowager Countess of Malling stood close to the main entrance of the Richmonds’ ballroom.

‘Ma’am.’ She curtsied, smiling. The old dragon scared half the ton into instant flight, but she amused Phyllida, who knew the kind heart behind the abrasive exterior. ‘May I say what a very handsome toque you are wearing?’

‘I look a fright in it.’ The old lady patted the erection on her head and smiled evilly. ‘But it amuses me. Now, what are you up to these days, my dear?’

She was some kind of connection of Phyllida’s mother and had done a great deal to mitigate the damage of her parents’ scandalous marriage and make the Hurst siblings acceptable to the ton, so Phyllida always made time to relay gossip, have her gowns criticised and enquire after the Dowager’s pug dogs, Hercules and Samson.

‘Shall we sit down, ma’am?’

‘And miss all the arrivals? Nonsense.’ Lady Malling fetched Phyllida a painful rap on the wrist with her fan. ‘Give me your arm, child. Now, who is this? Oh, only Georgina Farraday with her hair even blonder than normal. Who does she think she is deceiving?’ The set had just finished, the music stopped and her voice cut clearly through the chatter.

Phyllida suppressed a smile. ‘I dare not comment, ma’am,’ she murmured.

‘Pish! Ah, this is more interesting. Now that is what I call a fine figure of a man.’

Phyllida had to agree. The gentleman standing just inside the entrance was in his late fifties, but she doubted he had an inch of spare flesh on his lean, broad-shouldered body. His hair was silver-gilt, his evening dress was cut with an expensive simplicity that set off his athletic frame and on his arm was a striking golden-skinned woman with a mass of dark brown hair piled in an elaborate coiffure.

‘He is certainly handsome. And so is his lady—see how beautifully she moves. She must be foreign—Italian, do you think?’ And indeed, the curvaceous figure in amber silk made every other woman in the room look clumsy as she came forwards, a faint smile on her lips, head high. There was something faintly familiar about the couple, although surely she would have remembered if she had seen either of them before?

‘Of course,’ the dowager said with a sharp nod of satisfaction as she made the connection. ‘Not Italian, Indian. That, my dear, must be the Marquess and Marchioness of Eldonstone. He hasn’t been in the country for forty years, I should think. At outs with his father, for which no one could blame him. Now the old reprobate is dead they have come home.

‘The wife, so they say, is the child of an Indian princess and a John Company nabob. Interesting to see what society makes of her!’

‘Or she of society.’ The marchioness looked like a panther in a room full of domestic cats. A perfectly well-behaved panther and a collection of pedigree cats, of course, but the fur would fly if they tried to tweak her tail, Phyllida decided, admiring the lady’s poise.

Then the couple came further into the room and she gasped. Behind them were the man from the dockside and his companion from the shop. His sister. No wonder the older couple had looked familiar. Their son—for surely he could be nothing else—had his father’s rangy height and broad shoulders, his mother’s dark brown hair and gilded skin. The daughter’s hair was the gold her father’s must once have been and she moved with the same alluring sway as her mother, a panther cub just grown up. The moonstone pendant she had bought from Phyllida lay glowing on her bosom.

Her shock must have been audible. Beside her the dowager chuckled richly. ‘Now that will be the viscount. The heir to a marquisate and those looks to go with the title—there is a young man who will cause a flutter in the dovecotes!’

‘Indeed,’ Phyllida agreed. Indeed! ‘The daughter looks delightful, do you not think?’ She felt momentarily dizzy. She had dreamt about this man and here he was, in all his dangerous splendour. Dangerous to a spinster’s equilibrium and even more dangerous to a spinster with secrets.

‘Pretty gel. Got style. They all have. I doubt it is London style though, which is going to be entertaining,’ the old lady pronounced. ‘I shall make myself known. Coming, my dear?’

‘I do not think so. Excuse me, ma’am.’ Phyllida disengaged her arm and began to sidle backwards into the throng, all gaping at the newcomers while pretending not to.

Oh, my heavens. Phyllida sat down in the nearest empty alcove and used her fan in earnest. He—the Viscount Whatever—was a member of the ton after all and, with a sister obviously ready to be launched, the family would be here for the Season. He would be everywhere she went, at every social event.

Was there any hope that he might not recognise her? She strove to collect herself and think calmly. People saw what they expected to see—she had proved that over and over again as she served society ladies in the Cabinet of Curiosity. He had never seen her wearing anything other than the drabbest, most neutral day dress, and never with her hair exposed.

Phyllida studied her reflection in the nearest mirrored surface and stopped herself chewing her lower lip in agitation. That was better. There was nothing to connect the elegantly gowned and poised young lady who moved so easily in fashionable society with either the flustered woman he had kissed on the dockside or the French shopkeeper.

And going into hiding for the rest of the Season was not an option, either, there was a match to be made. Phyllida unfurled her fan with a defiant flourish and set out in search of Miss Millington and her substantial dowry.

She would circulate around the room in the same direction as the Eldonstone party and that would ensure she never came face to face with, as her alto ego Madame Deaucourt would doubtless call him, Le Vicomte Dangereux. At least he hadn’t brought his devil-bird to the ball—that would have caused a stir, indeed.

‘There would not appear to be any difficulty in attracting young ladies to you, Ashe,’ his mother said with her wicked chuckle.

‘I fear I am only getting the attention of Father’s rejects,’ he murmured in her ear. ‘You are going to have to do something soon or he will be carried off by saucy widows and amorous matrons.’

‘Nonsense, Nicholas can look after himself.’ Anusha Herriard put her hand on Ashe’s forearm and nodded to where Sara was the centre of an animated group of young ladies with an attendant circle of hopeful men. ‘As can your sister, I think.’

Lady Richmond had begun the introductions, but the Herriards had soon found themselves absorbed into the throng with one new acquaintance introducing them to the next. ‘This is a crush,’ Ashe grumbled under his breath. ‘At least at Kalatwah all one had to deal with was the odd assassination attempt and treacherous French diplomats.’

‘You go and flirt with some young ladies, darling,’ his mother said. ‘That will cheer you up. I will rescue your father and keep an eye on Sara.’

Ashe grinned at her and began to stroll along the edge of the ballroom. As an unaccompanied male he was unable to approach any lady to whom he had not been introduced, which was curiously restful. There had been few ladies on their ship and he had been recalled from Kalatwah with too much urgency to reacquaint himself with European society in Calcutta, so he was finding the presence of so many highly sociable women strange.

Pleasantly strange, he thought, allowing his gaze to skim over white bosoms exposed by low-cut gowns, unveiled faces, unmarried girls talking uninhibitedly to men not of their own family. He’d be used to it soon enough, he thought, making eye contact with a striking blonde who held his gaze for a daring second too long before lowering demure lashes over her blue eyes.

A flash of clear green, like leaves unfurling beside a waterhole, attracted his attention. The unmarried girls were all wearing white or pastel gowns, the matrons strong jewel colours for the most part. That green gown was unusual, delightful in its freshness. Ashe propped one shoulder against a pillar and watched as its owner stood and talked with another lady.

The backs of these gowns were almost as intriguing as their low-cut fronts, he was coming to think. With their wearers’ hair piled high, the columns of white necks, the vulnerable napes, the tantalising loose curls or dangling earrings all had a subtle erotic charm.

It was definitely too long since he had lain with a woman. Ashe shifted against the pillar, but did not take his eyes off that particular neck even though it made the tension in his groin worse. The lady in the green gown had a mass of shiny brown hair caught up in a knot with a single ringlet left to fall on her shoulder. He imagined curling it around one finger, feeling its caress like raw silk. He would pull each pin from her hair and the whole mass would come down, spilling over his hands, veiling her breasts as he freed her from the verdant silk…

A tall young man joined the two ladies and Ashe saw a resemblance between him and the brown-haired charmer at once. High cheekbones, straight noses, that dark hair. She seemed to be introducing the man to her companion and after a moment they walked on to the floor together to join the next set that was forming. The brunette watched as the dance struck up and then strolled away.

Ashe narrowed his eyes as she wandered along the edge of the dance floor, stopping now and then to chat. Three years in an environment where women habitually covered their faces with their dupattas, long semi-transparent scarves, had left him able to identify individuals by their walk, by their posture, their gestures. And he had met that woman before somewhere.

But where? Intrigued, Ashe began to shadow her along the opposite edge of the ballroom. Despite her fashionably languid progress she had an air of suppressed energy about her, as though she would rather run than walk, as if there was not quite enough time in the day for all she wanted to do. He was becoming fanciful, but her quick, expressive gestures when she stopped to talk, the direct way she resumed her trajectory when she parted from each acquaintance, attracted him. He liked energy and purpose.

‘Clere.’

He was so caught up in his pleasantly erotic pursuit it took him a moment to recall that was him. Ashe stopped and nodded to the man who had hailed him. They had been introduced earlier. A baron… Lord Hardinge, that was it. ‘Hardinge.’

‘Enjoying yourself?’

‘Frantically remembering names, if the truth be told,’ Ashe lied to cover his hesitation. He liked the look of the other man who seemed bright, alert, with a humorous glint in his eyes.

‘Stuck with anyone in particular?’

‘I was wondering,’ Ashe said, ‘who the brunette in the pale-green gown was. She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.’

‘Want an introduction?’ The other man was already heading in her direction. ‘She’s Fransham’s sister.’

And who was he? The tall man she had seen on to the dance floor, presumably.

‘Miss Hurst?’ Hardinge said as they reached her. She turned as Ashe was working that out. Miss, so her brother was of the rank of a viscount or lower. That didn’t narrow the field much.

‘Lord Hardinge.’ Her smile was immediate and genuine. Ashe registered warm brown eyes, white teeth, attractive colour on her high cheekbones… And then she turned to smile at him and went pale, as though the blood had drained out of her.

‘Miss Hurst? Are you quite well?’ Hardinge put out one hand, but she flicked her fan open and plied it vigorously in front of her face.

‘I am so sorry, just a moment’s faintness. The heat.’ Her voice was low and husky. Ashe found himself instantly attracted, even as his senses grappled to make sense of what he was seeing. The fan wafted the subtle, sweet odour of jasmine to him and only yesterday those brown eyes, now shielded by lowered lids and fluttering fan, had glared indignantly into his as he lifted his mouth from hers. That mouth.

‘Allow me to assist you to a chair, Miss Hurst.’ He had his hand under her arm, neatly removed the fan from her fingers and was waving it, even before the other man could step forwards. ‘There we are.’ In front of them a window embrasure was shielded by an array of potted palms. The casement had been opened several inches for ventilation and there was a bench seat just big enough for two. ‘It is all right, Hardinge, I have her. Perhaps you could get hold of some lemonade?’ That would get rid of him for a few minutes.

Miss Hurst did not resist as he guided her through the fronds to the padded seat. For a moment he thought she was, indeed, overcome, but as he sat beside her he saw from her expression that she wanted privacy just as much as he did.

‘You!’ she hissed with real indignation. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

Ashe raised an eyebrow in deliberate provocation. The angrier she was, the more off guard she would be. ‘What was I doing when we have met?’ He began to count off points on his fingers. ‘Disembarking from a ship, shopping with my sister, attending a ball with my family. All perfectly innocent activities, Miss Hurst, or whatever your real name is. What is your objection to them?’

‘You are following me… No, you are not, are you? It is just horrible coincidence.’ She sighed, all the fight going out of her, and leaned back against the heavy brocade swags of the curtains as if suddenly weary.

‘I have been called many things, but never a horrible coincidence,’ Ashe said. ‘Ah, here is Hardinge with the lemonade. Thank you so much. Miss Hurst is feeling a little better, I believe. I’ll just wait with her a while so no one disturbs her.’ He smiled the frank smile that seemed to lull most people into believing him completely straightforward.

There was patently no space in the alcove. The other man handed over the glass with good grace. ‘Clere, Miss Hurst.’ He took himself off, leaving them alone in their leafy shelter.

‘Thank you, Lord Clere.’ Miss Hurst took the glass, drank and set it down on the cill. ‘If it were not for you, I would not require reviving.’

Ashe was tempted to observe that all the girls said that, but one glance at her expression warned him that perhaps humour was best avoided. ‘Hardinge never got the opportunity to introduce me. How do you know my name?’ Had she been asking about him?

‘I know your title, that is all, and he just called you Clere. I saw you come in with your family and Lady Malling deduced who you all were. I was attempting to avoid you,’ she added bitterly, apparently with the intent of flattening any self-congratulation that she might be interested in him.

‘My name is Ashe Herriard, Miss Hurst. Have you any other disguises I am likely to meet with?’

‘No, you have viewed them all.’ She regarded him, her head tipped a little to one side. He was reminded of Lucifer assessing a strange object for its potential as food or plaything. ‘Ashe. Is that an Indian name? I know a trader down at the docks called Ashok. He has been here for years and has an extensive business, but he told me he came from Bombay.’ She smiled. ‘A bit of a rogue.’

‘No, that element of my name is from my paternal grandmother’s family. If you want the lot I am George Ashbourne Talish Herriard.’

‘And Talish means?’

‘Lord of the earth.’

‘That seems… appropriate,’ Miss Hurst observed astringently. She was still leaning back, gently fanning herself, but the tension was coming off her in waves.

‘It is somewhat high-flown,’ Ashe agreed. ‘After my great-grandfather, the Raja of Kalatwah.’ He might as well get that out of the way now.

‘Truly?’ Miss Hurst sat up straight, dark arched brows lifting. ‘Does that make you a prince? Should I be curtsying?’ That last, he could tell, was sarcasm.

‘It made my grandmother a princess and it made my mother, who had an English father, confused,’ he explained and surprised a laugh from her. ‘I am merely a viscount with a courtesy title.’

‘She is very beautiful, your mother.’ He nodded. ‘And your father is exceedingly handsome. I imagine most of the women in the room have fallen in love with him.’

‘They will have to get past my mother first and she is not the demurely serene lady she appears.’ He stretched out his long legs and made himself comfortable. On the other side of their jungle screen the ball was in full, noisy swing. Cool air flowed through the gap in the window, wafting sensual puffs of jasmine scent and warm woman to him. There were considerably worse places to be.

‘Demure? She makes me think of a panther,’ Miss Hurst observed.

‘Appropriate,’ he agreed. ‘What is your first name? It seems hardly fair not to tell me when you know mine.’

She studied him, her brown eyes wary. ‘Indian informality, Lord Clere?’

‘Brazen curiosity, Miss Hurst.’

That produced another gurgle of laughter, instantly repressed, as though she regretted letting her guard down. ‘Phyllida. It is somewhat of a burden to me, I have to confess.’

‘It is a pretty name. And have I met Phyllida Hurst on a quayside, in a shop and in this ballroom? Or are there two other names you have not told me?’

‘I will reveal no more, Lord Clere.’

‘No?’ He held her gaze for a long moment, then let his eyes roam over her, from the top of her elaborate coiffure, past the handsome cameos displayed on the pale, delicious, swell of her bosom, down over the curves of her figure in the fresh green silk to the kid slippers that showed below her hem. ‘That is a pity.’

Chapter Four

Colour rose over Miss Hurst’s bosom, up her throat to stain her cheeks. It was delicious, Ashe thought, like the flush of pomegranate juice over iced sherbet on a hot day. She was no wide-eyed innocent if she took the meaning of his glance and words so promptly. But then she was obviously no sheltered society miss.

How old was she? Twenty-five, twenty-six? Attractive, bright, stylish, but not married. Why not? he wondered. Something to do with her secret lives, no doubt.

‘I would very much appreciate it if you did not mention that we had met before this evening, my lord.’ She said it quite calmly, but Ashe suspected that it was a matter of far more importance than she was revealing and that she hated having to ask him.

‘Members of the ton are not expected to be shopkeepers, I assume?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Hmm. Pity my maternal grandfather was a nabob, then.’ He was unconcerned what people thought of his ancestry, but he was interested in how she reacted.

‘If he was indecently rich, and is now dead, there is absolutely nothing for the heir to a marquisate to worry about. Society is curiously accommodating in its prejudices.’ Her expression was bleak. ‘At least, so far as gentlemen are concerned. Ladies are another matter altogether.’

‘So I could ruin you with this piece of gossip?’

‘Yes, as you know perfectly well. Ladies are not shopkeepers, nor do they walk about anywhere, let alone the docks, unescorted. Did you spend much time as a boy pulling the wings off flies, Lord Clere?’

Ashe felt an unfamiliar stab of conscience. This was, quite obviously, deathly serious to Miss Hurst. But it was a mystery why a lady should be in business at all. Was she so short of pin money? ‘I am sorry, I had no intention of torturing you. You have my word that I will not speak of this to anyone.’

The music stopped and dancers began to come off the floor. Another set had ended and he realised he should not be lurking behind the palms with Phyllida Hurst any longer. Someone might notice and assume they had an assignation. He could dent her reputation. ‘Will you dance, Miss Hurst?’

He hoped to Heaven it was something he could dance. He was decidedly rusty and the waltz had not reached Calcutta by the time they left. He was going to have to join in Sara’s lessons.

‘I do not dance,’ Miss Hurst said. ‘Please, do not let me detain you.’

‘I was going in any case. It would be more discreet. But you mean you never dance?’

‘I do not enjoy it,’ she said.

Liar. All the time they had been together on the window seat her foot had been tapping along with the music without her realising. She wanted to dance and for some reason would not. Interesting. Ashe stood up. ‘Then I will wish you good evening, Miss Hurst. Perhaps we will meet window shopping in Jermyn Street one day.’

‘I fear not. It is not a street where I can afford to pay the prices asked. Good evening, Lord Clere.’

He bowed and took himself off, well clear of her hiding place. He watched the couples whirling in the waltz, concluding that professional tuition was most definitely called for before he ventured on to the floor. After an interval Miss Hurst emerged and strolled off in the opposite direction.

Ashe wondered if there were any more unmarried ladies around with that combination of looks, style, spirit and wit. He had expected all the eligible young women to be cut from the same pattern: pretty, simpering, dull. Perhaps hunting for a wife would be more interesting than he had imagined. Miss Hurst had her scandalous secrets, and she was a little older than most of the unmarried girls. But she was certainly still well within her childbearing years and a shop was easy enough to dispose of.

He found his parents, who were watching Sara talk to a group of just the kind of girls he was thinking of so disparagingly. ‘There you are.’ His mother put her hand on his arm to detain him. ‘Lady Malling, may I introduce my son, Viscount Clere. Ashe, this is the Dowager Countess of Malling.’

He shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. This was the lady who had been with Phyllida when they had arrived at the ball. As he thought it he saw her again, talking to the young man he had guessed was her brother.

‘Perhaps you can tell me who that is, ma’am. The tall man with the dark brown hair just to the left of the arrangement of lilies.’

‘Gregory Hurst, Earl of Fransham,’ the dowager said promptly. ‘A good-looking rogue.’

Had his study of the Peerage been so awry? ‘I am a trifle confused. I thought the lady with him was his sister, but she was introduced to me as Miss Hurst and if he is an earl…’

‘Ah.’ Lady Malling lowered her voice. ‘She is his full, elder, sister. However, I regret to say their parents neglected to marry until after her birth. Such a scandal at the time! It makes her, unfortunately, baseborn.’

‘But she is received?’

‘Oh, yes, in most places except court, of course. Or Almack’s. Charming girl. But she won’t make much of a marriage, if any. Even leaving aside the accident of birth, she has not a penny piece for a dowry—goodness knows how she manages to dress so well or where those cameos came from—and Fransham is wild to a fault and no catch as a son-in-law. Except for the title, of course. He may attach a rich cit’s daughter with that.’

Hell and damnation. Eccentricity was one thing, but illegitimacy and no dowry on top of dubious commercial activities were all the complete opposites of what he had set out as essential qualities for a wife. Suddenly doing his duty seemed considerably less appealing.

Even as he thought it Phyllida turned and caught his eye. Her mouth curled in a slight smile and she put her hand on her brother’s arm as though to draw attention to the Herriard party.

Still wrestling with that revelation, Ashe raised one brow, unsmiling, and inclined his head a fraction. The smile vanished as she glanced from him to Lady Malling, then her chin came up and she turned away. Even at that distance he could see the flags of angry colour on her cheeks.

You clumsy fool. That had been ungentlemanly, even if it had been unintentional. He had been surprised and disappointed and… No excuses. You were a bloody idiot, he told himself. Now what? He could hardly go over and apologise, he had already dug himself into a deep enough hole and what could he say? So sorry, I have just realised you are illegitimate and poor as a church mouse and absolutely no use to me as a wife, but I didn’t mean to snub you.

And then he stopped thinking about himself and looked at his mother, the offspring of an Indian princess and a John Company trader with an estranged English wife.

‘Illegitimacy is not a barrier to being received, then,’ she observed as though reading his mind.

One glance at Lady Malling told him she knew exactly what the marchioness’s parentage was. ‘Goodness, no,’ the older woman said. ‘It all depends on the parents and the deportment of the person concerned. And rank.’

‘And money,’ his mother observed coolly.

‘Oh, indeed.’ The dowager chuckled. Her eyes barely flickered in the direction of the suite of stunning Burmese sapphires his mother was wearing. ‘Society can always make rules and bend them to suit itself. Do tell me, which are your days for receiving, Lady Eldonstone?’

‘Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday,’ Mata said. Only her family would know she had made that up on the spur of the moment. ‘I do hope we will see you soon in Berkeley Square, Lady Malling.’

‘Be sure I will call.’

Ashe looked back across the room. Phyllida Hurst had vanished.

The bigoted beast. Phyllida slipped through the crowd and into the ladies’ retiring room before she betrayed her humiliation by marching straight over and slapping Ashe Herriard’s beautiful face for him.

He had flirted—worse than flirted on the quayside—he had joked with her this evening, promised to keep her secret and then, the moment he discovered who she was, snubbed her with a cut direct.

She flung herself down on a stool in front of a mirror and glared at her own flushed expression. Stupid to let myself dream for a moment that I was a débutante flirting with a man who might offer marriage. Stupid to dream of marriage at all. What had come over her to forget the anguish of that struggle to resign herself when she had faced the fact that she would never marry? I will not cry.

‘Is anything wrong?’ She had not noticed it was Miss Millington on the next stool.

‘Men,’ Phyllida responded bitterly as she jabbed pins into her hair.

‘Oh dear. One in particular or all of them? Only I liked your brother very much, Miss Hurst, he is such a good dancer and so amusing. He has not made you angry, surely?’

‘Gregory? No, not at all.’ Gregory was being a positive paragon this evening. ‘No, just some tactless, top-lofty buck. I hope,’ she added vengefully, ‘that his too-tight silk breeches split.’

Miss Millington collapsed in giggles. ‘Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I believe the gentlemen wear nothing beneath them, they are made of such thin knitted silk. What a shocking revelation!’

Phyllida imagined a half-naked Lord Clere for a moment, visualised those long legs and taut buttocks, then caught Miss Millington’s eye in the glass and succumbed to laughter, too. ‘Oh dear. He is very good-looking and has a fine figure, but I suppose it is too much to hope for.’

The other young woman hesitated. ‘I wonder if you might care to call on Mama, Miss Hurst. Perhaps it is forward of me, but I think we could be friends.’

Phyllida cast a hasty glance around the room, but they were alone at one end. ‘United in our desire to study Classical statuary, or perhaps anatomy?’ she asked wickedly. ‘I would like that very much. Will you not call me Phyllida?’

‘And I am Harriet.’ Miss Millington fished in her reticule. ‘Here is Mama’s card. She receives on Tuesdays and Thursdays.’

‘Thank you, I look forward to it.’ Feeling considerably soothed, Phyllida dusted rice powder lightly over her flushed cheeks and went out to look for Gregory.

They found each other almost immediately, both, it seemed, ready to go home. ‘I have done my duty by all six of the young ladies you listed for me,’ he said as he helped her with her cloak in the lobby. ‘If I stay any longer I will get confused between bankers’ daughters, mill-owners’ heiresses and the offspring of naval captains awash with prize money.’

‘Did you like Miss Millington?’ Phyllida asked as he handed her into a hackney.

‘Miss Millington? She’s the tall brunette with a nice laugh and good teeth. She has a certain style about her.’

‘I have good news. She thinks you are a fine dancer, has invited me to call and we are now on first-name terms. I really like her, Gregory.’

‘I did, too,’ he admitted.

‘Now all we have to do is to make sure she falls in love with you and that you do not fall into any scandals that will alarm her fond papa.’

‘And we will do the difficult things after breakfast, will we?’ he asked with a chuckle. ‘I’ll do my best to be a good lad, Phyll.’

Please, she thought. And fall in love, for Harriet’s sake. And then she could retreat to the little dower house in the park and spend her time finding items for her shop, for which she would employ a manager. She would be independent, removed enough not to cause a newly respectable, and wealthy, Earl of Fransham any embarrassment and free from the deceits and dangers of her current situation.

It all seemed so simple. Too simple? No, we can do it.

Phyllida managed to maintain her mood of optimism through the short journey home, a cup of tea by her bedchamber fire and the rituals of undressing and hair brushing.

But when she blew out the candle, lay back and shut her eyes, the image against her closed lids was not of a happy bridal couple in a cloud of orange blossom, but Ashe Herriard’s disdainful face as he watched her across the ballroom floor.

Bigoted, arrogant beast, she thought as she punched the pillow. Your opinion isn’t worth losing a wink of sleep over and so I shall tell you if I am ever unfortunate to meet you again.

At five o’clock the next morning Phyllida was not certain how many winks of sleep she had lost, but it was far too many and lost not to constructive thoughts or pleasant half-dreams, but a miserable mixture of embarrassment and desire. She pushed herself up against the piled pillows to peer at the little bedside clock in the dim light. Quarter past five.

It was hopeless to try to get back to sleep. The best she might hope for was to toss restlessly, remembering the heat of Ashe Herriard’s mouth on hers, his long-limbed elegance as he sat on the window seat. It was bad enough to have thoughts like that without entertaining them for a man who despised her for an accident of birth.

Phyllida threw back the covers and got out of bed to look through the gap in the curtains. It was going to be a nice day. If she could not sleep, at least she could get some fresh air and exercise. A walk in Green Park would relax her and put her in a positive frame of mind for the morning.

The water in the ewer was cold, of course, but that did not matter. She scrambled into a plain walking dress and half-boots, tucked her hair into a net, took her bonnet by its ribbons and threw a shawl around her shoulders.

Anna would be stirring soon, making herself breakfast down in the basement kitchen. Her maid liked to start the day well ahead of herself, as she put it. They could have breakfast together and then go out.

Anna was already halfway down the stairs. ‘What are you doing up and about, Miss Phyllida?’

‘Joining you for breakfast. Then I want to go for a walk.’

‘Not by yourself, I’m hoping!’ The maid went to the pump and filled the big kettle. She was in her forties, plain, down to earth and with a past she never spoke of.

‘No, even at this hour someone might see me, I suppose, and that would be a black mark against my impeccable reputation.’ Phyllida lifted half a loaf from the bread crock and looked for the knife.

‘We wouldn’t want to be risking that, now would we?’ Anna enquired sardonically. She had been with Phyllida for six years now, knew about the shop and was not afraid to say what she thought about her mistress’s life.

‘No, we wouldn’t,’ Phyllida agreed, equally straight-faced. ‘So I’ll have a nice brisk walk and you can take a rug and a journal and sit on one of the benches beside the reservoir so the proprieties will be observed.’

It was just after six when they set out, weaving through the grid of streets that would take them into Green Park. Around them the St James’s area was waking up. Maids swept front steps, others, yawning, set out with empty baskets to do the early marketing. Delivery carts were pulling up at the back entrances for the numerous clubs, hells and shops that served this antheap of aristocrats, rakehells, high-class mistresses and respectable households. The sprawl covered the gentle slopes down to the old brick Tudor palace of St James and, beyond it, St James’s Park.

That would be too risky for an early-morning walk, Phyllida knew. Dolly mops and all their sisters of the night would be emerging from their places of business in the shrubberies, along with the occasional guardsman hurrying back to barracks having served a different kind of clientele altogether.

The early riders would make for the long tracks of Hyde Park, leaving Green Park as a quiet backwater until at least nine. ‘You can sit and read while I go past the lodge and the small pond down to Constitution Hill and back,’ Phyllida suggested as they turned up the Queen’s Walk towards Piccadilly. ‘Unless you want to come with me?’

‘You look in the mood for walking out a snit,’ Anna observed. ‘You’ll do that better alone. Who upset you?’

‘Oh, just some wretched lordling newly arrived in town and shocked to the core to discover he’s been flirting all unwittingly with a baseborn woman.’

‘More fool he. You shouldn’t let him upset you.’ There was nothing to say to that, but Anna seemed to read plenty into Phyllida’s silence. ‘I suppose you were liking him up to then.’

‘Well enough.’ She shrugged.

‘Handsome, is he?’

‘Oh, to die for and well he knows it.’ And he had seemed kind. He had a sense of humour, he loved his sister, he was eminently eligible. If she had not been who she was, then this morning she would have woken hoping for a bouquet from him by luncheon. What would it be like to be courted by a man like that, to hope for a proposal of marriage, to look forward to a future of happiness and children?

‘A good brisk walk, then, and some stones to kick instead of his foolish head.’ Anna surveyed the benches. ‘That one will do me, right in the sun.’

‘Thank you, Anna.’ The maid’s brisk common sense shook her out of her self-indulgent wonderings. ‘If you get chilled, come and meet me.’

She waved and set off diagonally along the path towards the Queen’s House on the far side of the Park. The early sunlight glinted off the white stone in the distance and the standard hung limp against the flagstaff in the still air. Phyllida breathed in the scents of green things breaking their winter sleep to thrust through the earth. That was better. When she was fully awake, feeling strong and resolved, then the weakening dreams could be shut safely away.

Rooks wheeled up from the high trees where they were building nests, jackdaws tumbled like acrobats through the air, courting or playing. Ahead of her the magpies had found something that had died during the night, a rat or a rabbit, she supposed, eyeing their squabbles with distaste as they fought for unsavoury scraps. She would have to detour off the path to avoid the mess.

As though a stone had been thrown into the midst of them the birds erupted up into the air, flapping and screeching at something that landed right next to their prize. For a second she thought it must be a bird of prey, then it turned its grey head and huge black beak in her direction, assessing her with intelligent eyes.

‘Lucifer!’ Surely the city had not been invaded by these grey-hooded crows? It stopped sidling up to the food and began to hop towards her. ‘No, go away! I don’t want you, you horrible bird. Shoo!’

As she spoke she heard the thud of hooves on turf coming up fast behind. The big bay horse thundered past, then circled and slowed as its rider reined it in and brought it back towards her at a walk. ‘Lucifer, come here.’ The crow flapped up to perch on the rider’s shoulder, sending the horse skittering with nerves. The man on its back controlled it one-handed and lifted his hat to her with the other.

‘Miss Hurst. I apologise for Lucifer, but he seems to like you.’

Of course, it had to be Lord Clere.

Chapter Five

Phyllida looked from bird to master. ‘The liking is not mutual, I assure you.’ Why couldn’t Lord Clere ride in Hyde Park like everyone else? Why couldn’t he ride with the fashionable crowd in the afternoon? Why couldn’t he leave the country altogether?

‘I imagine the dislike applies to me as well,’ he said. ‘May I walk with you?’

‘I can hardly stop you. This is a public park.’ It was ungracious and she did not much care. Phyllida started walking again, the crow flapped down to claim its prize on the grass and Ashe Herriard swung out of the saddle.

‘Is it? Public, I mean? I assumed it was, but there are no other riders. I was beginning to wonder if I had broken some dire rule of etiquette.’ He did not sound as though he cared a toss for such rules.

‘The fashionable place to ride is Hyde Park,’ she informed him. ‘Even at this time of day those who wish for some solitude and a long gallop go there, leaving walkers in peace. I suggest you try it.’ Now.

He did not take the hint, but strolled beside her at a perfectly respectable distance, whip tucked under one elbow, the horse’s reins in the other hand. She could not have been more aware of him if he had taken her arm. What did he want? Probably, Phyllida thought, bracing herself, he was going to make some insulting suggestion now that he knew about her birth. He had kissed her by the river, flirted in the ballroom. What would the next thing be?

‘Hyde Park was where I was going, but on the map this looked a more pleasant route than finding my way through the streets. I did not hope to see you.’

‘Why should you?’ Phyllida enquired with a touch of acid.

‘To apologise.’

That brought her to a halt. ‘Apologise?’ It was the last thing she expected him to do. She stared up at him and he met her eyes straight on, his own green and shadowed by thick black lashes. Even in the conventional uniform of a gentleman—riding dress, severe neckcloth, smart beaver hat—he seemed faintly exotic and disturbing. But more disturbing was the expression on his face. He was not teasing her, or mocking her. She could have dealt with that, but he appeared quite serious.

‘For my rudeness last night. I have no excuse. I had just discovered who your brother is, so I was confused by your lack of a title, then I was surprised when Lady Malling explained. Your smile caught me in the middle of those emotions with my thoughts… unsorted.’

‘Do you have to sort your thoughts, my lord?’ It was such a direct explanation with no attempt to excuse himself that Phyllida felt herself thawing a trifle. Dangerous. Little alarm bells were jangling along her nerves. He cannot be anything to you and you do not want him to be, either.

‘My brain feels like a desk that has been ransacked by burglars,’ he admitted and her mouth twitched despite everything. ‘Or one where all the files have been overstuffed and have burst. I am still, even after three months at sea, having to remember to think in English all the time. There are all the rules of etiquette that are different enough to European society in Calcutta to be decidedly confusing and so removed from my great-uncle’s court where I have spent the past few years that they might be from a different planet.

‘Then there is all the family stuff to learn, the estate, the… But never mind that, it sounds as though I am excusing myself after all and that was not my intention.’

‘You did not want to come back, did you?’ Phyllida asked. It was not a lack of intellectual capacity to cope with all those things that she heard in his voice, but the irritation of a man who did not want to be bothered by them, yet was making himself care. How interesting. Most of London society assumed that there was no greater delight and privilege than to be part of it and absorbed in every petty detail.

‘The only one for whom England is back is my father. For my mother and sister it is as strange as it is for me. But I offended you and I apologise.’

‘You are forgiven.’ And he was, she realised. It had not just been good manners that made her say it. Why? Because you have beautiful green eyes? Because you have been honest with me? Because I am deluding myself? ‘So, what do you intend to do with yourself now, Lord Clere?’

‘We will stay in London for the Season and see my sister launched. We all need to outfit ourselves, the town house must be resurrected from fifteen years of neglect. I must learn to be a viscount, the heir and an English gentleman. Dancing lessons,’ he added grimly, surprising a laugh from her.

At some point they had veered from the path towards the Queen’s House. Phyllida looked round and found they had reached the edge of the park close to the point where Constitution Hill met the Knightsbridge Road. ‘You cross here to Hyde Park.’ She pointed. ‘That is the Knightsbridge Turnpike.’

‘Then Tattersalls is near here. I was intending to find it after I had ridden.’ He whistled. The big crow flapped up and perched on the fence, eyeing her bonnet trimmings with malevolent intent.

‘That is not something a young lady knows about, my lord.’ She attempted to look demure. ‘But, yes, it is just around the corner behind St George’s Hospital.’

‘Thank you.’ Ashe swung himself up into the saddle, all long legs, tight breeches, exquisite control. ‘I hope we will meet again, Miss Hurst. Now we know each other better.’

The stuff of every maiden’s dreams. Phyllida suppressed a wince at her choice of words and lifted a hand in farewell as he took the horse out into the traffic and across to the other park. Ashe had been surprised and taken aback at what he had discovered about her and confessed as much, she thought as she made her way back to Anna. It was honest of him to admit it so freely.

And yet, thinking about it without his distracting presence looming over her, she had the uneasy feeling there was more than that in the blank look he had sent her last night, if only she could put her finger on it. He had apologised with disarming frankness, but he had not told her the whole truth. It would be as well to be wary of Lord Clere, however decorative and amusing he might be. Now we know each other better.

That had been a stroke of luck. Ashe turned his hired hack’s head towards what he guessed was the famous Rotten Row and pressed the horse into a canter. He had not wanted to enquire about the Hursts’ address and risk drawing attention to his interest in Phyllida, nor had he wanted to disconcert her by turning up in her shop. This encounter had been ideal, without even a passer-by as witness if she had done what he deserved and cut him dead in her turn.

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