Ann Lethbridge - Regency Society

‘I have come to see what you are doing here, and who you are doing it with.’ Her brother signalled the footman for another cup and sat in the chair opposite her. His presence was so commanding that she thought for a moment that he had invited her to the room to explain herself.

‘It is not necessary for you to watch over me. Nor is it your place,’ she reminded him. ‘I am both grown and married.’

‘If you can call what you share with Adrian a marriage,’ he responded.

‘Says the man who is the same age as my husband, but has no wife of his own.’

The mention of this seemed to make him uncomfortable, so he turned the argument hurriedly back to her. ‘It is your husband I wish to speak of, and not my non-existent wife. I have been to see Adrian, since you have not.’

‘That was not necessary.’

‘I feel it was,’ he said, looking around him at her rooms. ‘I saw you this morning, shopping in Bond Street.’

‘I remember,’ she said coolly. ‘I greeted you, did I not?’

‘But you were behaving strangely. Secretively. There is but one reason that I can think of to explain such behaviour.’

‘Oh, I seriously doubt that,’ she said. Emily could feel herself begin to blush, which would make her look even more guilty. But there was little to be done to stifle the sudden and rather graphic memories of what she had been up to in the days since she had moved from her brother’s house.

‘You have taken up with some man.’ He was staring at her clothing, which was too casual to accept any but a lover, and the flush of her skin. And God forbid that he should look in the bedroom, for he might see the sheets, still rumpled from last night’s activities.

She took another sip of tea to hide her confusion. ‘Hardly, David.’

‘And you have rented rooms so that the meetings could be done in secret.’

‘Not much of a secret, clearly, since you have followed me to them. Was that how you found me?’ But he had clearly not looked too closely into the matter, if he had not identified the man in question.

He showed no sign of noticing her censor. ‘I questioned my coachman, since you seem intent on using my vehicle as your own. And he admitted taking your baggage to this place. But we are not discussing my behaviour. It is yours that is in question. I waited outside this morning. And in the dim light, I saw someone creeping away from here. He was in the carriage and away before I could get a look at him.’

‘Oh, David,’ she said, wincing with embarrassment at this further complication of her plans. ‘Why now? You have not given a thought to my behaviour in years. It is not as if I did not have admirers before.’

‘But you were not serious about them. And even if you were, that was in the country. It was not as if anyone was likely to notice you there.’

So she had been out of sight and out of mind to him as well, had she? ‘I suspect it was easier for you, when I remained there. But you could not expect me to avoid London for ever, could you?’

‘Perhaps not. But I expected that when you returned to town, you would be circumspect in your behaviour. If you cannot manage your reputation, you will come home immediately.’

‘I will not.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And just where do you mean to take me, if I must come home? Not to your house, certainly. I have not lived under that roof since I married.’

‘But perhaps you should, if you mean to disgrace the family.’

‘I am no longer a member of your family. But if Adrian has a problem, after all this time, then he should be the one to come here, and drag me back to the country.’

‘We both know that he will not,’ her brother replied with disgust. ‘If he exercised the discipline necessary in his own house, then the job would not fall to me. And if you did not go to such lengths to make absence easy for him, he might be forced to return home and see to his business.’

‘Then why do you not go to the source of the problem and talk to him? Why do you think it necessary to harass me over the state my marriage?’

‘I have been to him,’ her brother ground out through gritted teeth. ‘I took what I learned to Folbroke, just now. He was already drunk, though it was barely noon. And he showed no interest in my company, nor your presence in town.’

Drinking again? She frowned. Adrian had seemed sober enough when they had been together the previous evening. She had hoped that problem, at least, was in abatement. ‘And that was your only fault with him?’ For there was a significant matter that her brother had not mentioned.

‘Other than his damned stubbornness and bad temper. He barely looked at me the whole time I was there. As though, if he ignored me, he would not have to answer to me.’

‘I see.’ Her poor brother would be even angrier than she had been when he learned of the trick. ‘I expect he liked your interference no better than I do.’

‘Is it truly interference to wish that my oldest friend and my dear sister would find happiness with each other, instead of behaving in ways that are a scandal?’

Emily thought of the things that had occurred in these rooms, which, while exciting, were probably some of the least scandalous things her husband had done since their marriage. ‘Perhaps we shall. Perhaps I have my own plans to rectify the breach. You must trust that I can manage this. You are not married, and cannot understand what goes on between a husband and wife, even when they are not happy.’ She thought for a moment, and smiled. ‘Especially when they are not happy. Although it might not seem so, I find that I am quite capable of managing Adrian, now that I have set my mind to try.’

Her brother shook his head. ‘You had best manage this quickly, then, for my patience with his behaviour is nearing an end. If you cannot bring him home with you, by God, I will drag him back home by the ear. I cannot stand by any longer and watch him destroy himself, Emily. I simply cannot.’

She could see, by the look in her brother’s eyes, that his interference came not from a desire to control, but sincere pain at the way his friend was likely to end. She gave him a pat on the hand. ‘Trust me. A little longer. It will be all right. You will see.’

There was the sound of yet another guest, and Hendricks walked into the room, unannounced, as though he were perfectly at home there.

And Emily saw the narrowing of David’s eyes, as he came to a conclusion that was not evident to her. ‘Mr Hendricks?’

‘Mr Eston.’ There was a similar narrowing of Hendricks’s eyes behind his glasses, as though he answered some unspoken challenge. Then he looked to her. ‘My lady, I bring a letter from your husband.’

‘Do you, now?’ David said, as though he assumed there was some ruse in play.

‘I believe he wrote it at your suggestion, sir,’ Hendricks said innocently.

‘And you were able to deliver it here so quickly without stopping first to find Emily at my town house.’

‘Oh, really, David,’ she said. ‘Mr Hendricks knows the location because he helped me to let it. And if there is a letter from Adrian, you must assume that we are more simpatico than you know. Now, if you will excuse me, I wish to read the thing in private.’

‘Very well, then.’ He shot Hendricks another suspicious look. ‘But if I do not hear of a meeting between the two of you within a week, I will go back to Adrian, and tell him what I have seen here. I suspect he will find it of interest.’

When he had left, Emily looked down at the paper in her hand, thoroughly annoyed with her brother for spoiling what she hoped might be a pleasant read. And then she noticed that it was addressed to Emily, and written in the hand of his secretary. She glared back at Hendricks. ‘So my lord finally summons me, does he?’