Juliet Landon - Regency Rumours

‘No, she wouldn’t.’ Lord Elyot smiled at her. ‘She is the most kind-hearted lady.’

‘Quite, my lord. You see, she lent me money in the past for which I have never ceased to be grateful. Most grateful.’

‘Really? What was that for, Mr Hurst? More luggage problems?’

‘No, it was for my beloved sister, my lord. A predicament. These things happen,’ he whispered, sadly. ‘Lady Chester was infinitely generous.’ He turned a look upon her that Garrick could have boasted of, full of devotion, adoration, and a sickening intimacy that almost turned Amelie’s stomach.

At that, she caught Lord Elyot’s eye for the first time and, without the slightest effort, conveyed to him all the fury and humiliation of the past half hour. Relieved beyond words to have had his support at this most disturbing interview that had satisfied none of her intended queries, she also felt the repercussions of her grotesque lie banking up behind her like the thunderclouds of doom in some Gothic novel, with the supernatural calm that comes before the storm.

‘I could not agree more, Mr Hurst,’ said Lord Elyot smoothly. ‘Lady Chester’s warmth and generosity are the first things that attracted me to her. Now, my good fellow, I can recommend some excellent inns in Richmond: the Red Lyon and the Feathers are opposite each other, the Greyhound, the Talbot…oh, any number of them. On the other hand, the mail coach leaves for London from the King Street posting-office three times daily. You may wish to take advantage of that as soon as your baggage catches you up. I see you understand me well, sir.’

As he spoke, Lord Elyot reached behind him to open the door where the faithful Henry was waiting for just such a moment.

From beneath his gathered brows, Hurst glowered with deep distrust at his audience, but carefully avoided looking at the money he was forbidden to retrieve. He bowed. ‘Your servant…my lady…my lord.’ Then he was gone.

In spite of her new predicament, Amelie’s relief and gratitude robbed her of words and, if she had been of a weepy frame of mind, she would almost certainly have burst into tears and thrown herself bodily into the arms of her rescuer. But since her rescuer was bound to be expecting some convincing explanations very shortly, she stood with both hands enclosing the entire lower half of her face as if she were praying. Which, in a sense, she was. She was also wondering how on earth to explain herself, not to mention Ruben Hurst.

She realised she was in for a rough ride as soon as Lord Elyot approached her with that maddeningly cryptic expression he favoured, and said, ‘Well, my dear Lady Chester, there’s a dirty dish if ever I saw one. You really do have the oddest friends. I fear I may have to forbid you to see him again once our engagement is formally announced. He won’t do, my dear. Really he won’t. Not up to the mark at all.’

‘You were not expected until this afternoon,’ Amelie mumbled through her fingers.

‘Yes, and you’d have been out, wouldn’t you? Hardly the way to behave towards your intended husband.’

‘Please…stop it! You must have realised that was a last resort.’

‘Thank you. I cannot recall when I was last known as a last resort. Must have been in my schooldays, I suppose.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Then what did you mean? And who was that jackanapes with his bag of moonshine?’

Inside her hands, she shook her head, closing her eyes.

‘You’ll do better like this,’ he said, taking her wrists. ‘It releases the mouth, I find. There now. Come and sit over here.’ Leading her to the chair vacated by Hurst, he lowered her into it. Then, pouring her a glass of some mulberry-coloured liquid from a decanter, he passed it to her. ‘I don’t know what this stuff is, but take a sip.’

‘Blackcurrant juice. Thank you.’ Obediently, she sipped.

A pained expression fled across his eyes. ‘Is that what I’m going to have to put up with? Heaven help me.’

‘Lord Elyot, I owe you an explanation, I know, and an apology for making use of your name. I didn’t think you would ever find out, and that’s the truth of it and, at that particular moment, I desperately needed that dreadful man to believe I had influential friends here.’

‘Well, that’s an improvement on being a last resort, I suppose. But if you didn’t think I’d find out, what d’ye suppose he’ll be doing in the nearest tap-room at this very moment but telling everyone within range that Lady Chester, his very close friend, has an understanding with Sheen’s eldest son? I’m really quite gratified to discover who my next partner is to be before the rest of Richmond does. You must understand my relief, I hope?’

That was a possibility she had not taken time to consider. ‘Would he do that?’ she asked, weakly.

‘Well, I would if I were him. He needs all the clout he can get. Who is he?’

‘A gambler and prime scandalmonger from Buxton. I’m afraid this so-called affection he professes is all in his mind. He was a family friend, my lord, but not any more.’

‘So why let him in?’

‘If I’d thought he would come here to Richmond, I would have told Henry to keep him out, but since he was in, I thought it was best to know exactly what he was up to. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, as they say. I suspected he’d ask for money. He always needs money. So I gave him some, hoping he’d go away and leave me in peace.’

‘Most people would call that blackmail, Lady Chester. You really are not the most worldy-wise of women, are you? A charming naïvety, I suppose some would call it.’ He glanced at the money bag still on the floor.

Stung by the criticism, even though it was accurate enough, she threw him a glance not intended to alter the rhythm of his heart, which it did. ‘I had a good husband,’ she snapped, ‘who was worldly-wise enough for both of us and I have not acquired the knack of it yet.’

‘Then it’s time you had a replacement, my lady. Indeed, you’ve already set the machinery in motion all on your own. I find your reading of my mind quite uncanny.’

Amelie leapt to her feet, slamming the glass down upon her table so hard that the juice slopped on to her toadstool sketch. ‘I’d rather not stay in here with you any longer, my lord. This is my favourite room, not to be shadowed by argumentative men with silly talk. Two in one morning is more than I can bear.’

Glancing around him again, Lord Elyot could well understand her feelings on the matter, even if the expression of them came close to a set-down. The room was obviously special to her, for not only was her work table spread with paints, papers and sketches, but by his side stood a large oak folio stand holding her unframed watercolour paintings, very like the one he had admired on his first visit. He would much rather have given his sister one of those. Leather-bound volumes lined the walls, botanical journals, poetry, and novels in French and Italian. A portrait of a middle-aged businessman holding a roll of parchment looked down from above the marble chimney-piece. Her father, perhaps? Whoever he was, this conversation would be better continued, he thought, out of the man’s hearing.

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘I have a better idea.’ Before she could object to any plan, he hitched the shawl up around her shoulders and threw the long end over to the back. ‘There’s a decided chill in the air. Come with me.’

Without a murmur of protest she went with him downstairs and out through a back door into the garden, boxed into sections by waist-high hedges and paved pathways. Rose-covered columns supported wooden beams across which blowsy roses drooped their wet rusting petals and, at the far end in the shelter of a tall yew hedge, a curved stone bench waited for them, warmed by the sun.