Louise Allen - Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

‘Because I think it would be safer if you did.’

It was very tempting. Tallie stared into the grey eyes, but they did not hold the reassurance she was looking for. It would not take very much to make her blurt it all out—she could quite understand why people confessed to crimes when questioned. But the inimical gaze regarding her belonged to the man who did not trust her, did not approve of her friends, who wanted her out of his family’s house and lives. The fact that she loved him did not make it any easier, it simply made the thought of the expression on his face when he discovered the truth harder to bear.

‘No.’ He looked a question and she said angrily, ‘Why should I? You make it quite clear you do not trust me. You disapprove of my friends, you wish me gone from here. Why should I hand you a weapon against me?’

‘Is this a war, then?’ He raised a long-fingered hand and rubbed a hand over his face. It was an uncharacteristically weary gesture.

‘It feels like one.’ Tallie wanted to go round and stand behind his chair, massage his shoulders, gently rub his temples until that tiredness ebbed away and he relaxed. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap.

‘I did not approve of your friends. I was wrong. I apologise. Miss Scott is an intelligent and principled woman. Miss LeNoir is a talented and virtuous one, and Mrs Blackstock seems eminently respectable.’

‘Thank you,’ Tallie said stiffly.

‘If I do not trust you, it is your judgement I mistrust, not your motives. As for your presence in this house—’ He broke off, pushed his hand through his hair and got to his feet, turning as he rose so that she could not see his face. ‘It is my aunt’s house, it is up to her who resides here. She enjoys your company very much. I believe she is proud of your success.’

‘Why, thank you.’

‘I try and fight fair,’ he said ruefully.

Tallie almost fell for it. Then she caught herself. Fight fair? With enquiry agents investigating her? Fight fair when he had discovered that if he took her in his arms she trembled and responded to him with an utterly shameless ardour?

‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘But unfortunately I trust your motives as little as you trust my judgement, so I am afraid we are at a stalemate.’

‘You will not tell me? Is it so very dreadful? You were prepared to speak of it to my aunt, and presumably would have done so if she had not said something that convinced you she already knew.’

‘What I might discuss with another woman—and one who is my patroness—is quite different from what I might discuss with a man,’ Tallie said, casting down her eyes in what she hoped might be mistaken for maidenly confusion. She glanced up through her lashes and saw Nick was regarding her with amusement.

‘A very nice try, Tallie; however, I am not at all convinced by the shrinking maiden who is too shy to reveal her horrid secret to a man.’

‘I most certainly am—’ Tallie broke off, suddenly aware of the large hole her tongue was digging her.

‘A shrinking maiden? Hmm. I am prepared to believe one part of that description, but not the other.’ Only her determination not to give him any further cause for amusement stopped Tallie from an indignant retort. She glared instead. ‘You realise you are effectively challenging me to discover the truth for myself?’ he added.

‘You could simply mind your own business.’

‘But I am enjoying myself, Tallie,’ Nick said, turning towards the door. ‘You are proving an irresistible puzzle.’ With a mocking bow he let himself out, closing the door gently behind him.

Tallie took an angry turn down the length of the room and back. Infuriating man! In an effort to stop thinking about Nick Stangate, she turned her thoughts to his aunt. She should tell Lady Parry the truth about her sittings. It was one thing to be innocently deceiving her, but now she knew Lady Parry did not know the true state of affairs she could not, in all conscience, continue the deception.

Best to do it now, confess while she was feeling determined. Tallie marched over to the door, flung it open and walked into a scene of chaos.

It was a testament to the quality and thickness of the doors that Tallie had not heard the uproar from the dining room.

A young woman in modest, travel-stained but respectable clothing was weeping unrestrainedly on a hall chair despite the housekeeper’s efforts to calm her and wave smelling salts under her nose. William was standing back with the unmistakable air of panic of a man trapped by feminine emotion while his mother was alternating between anxious glances at the hysterical girl and attempts to con a letter she was holding. Lord Arndale, driving coat half-buttoned and hat and gloves in his hand, appeared to have given up trying to get out of the front door and was giving instructions to a footman who turned and hurried off towards the back stairs with unmistakable relief.

Rainbird, emanating disapproval of such a scene in the front hall, was trying to usher the entire party into the drawing room, but for once was being ignored by both family and staff alike.

Tallie decided she could either retire again, add to the chaos or attempt to be useful. With a sigh she stepped into the breach and touched Lady Parry on the arm. ‘I think she might calm down a little, ma’am, if there were not so many people. Shall I try and take her into the morning room?’

‘Oh, would you, Talitha dear? She just cries more when she sees me.’

Tallie was by now making out the tenor of the young woman’s plaint, which appeared to alternate between bitter self-recrimination that she should have so let Lady Parry down and inexplicable references to ‘that monkey being the last straw'.

‘What is her name?’

‘Miss Clarke. Maria Clarke.’

‘Come along, Miss Clarke … Maria. There’s a good girl. You come and sit down in a nice quiet room. No, Lady Parry is not at all angry … yes, this way. Mrs Mills, could you have some tea sent up, please?’

It took half an hour to calm the young woman and at the end of it Tallie was no wiser. However, Miss Clarke was red-eyed but subdued and had been sent off with the housekeeper to lie down and rest.

Feeling as if she had just emerged from Bedlam, Tallie emerged and found the butler surveying the quiet hall with austere satisfaction. ‘Where is her ladyship, Rainbird?’

‘Packing, Miss Grey.’

‘Packing? Is something wrong?’

‘I could not venture to say, Miss Grey. However, Miss Clarke, the young lady who was so afflicted, is the companion to her ladyship’s elder sister, the Dowager Marchioness of Palgrave.’

‘I see.’ Tallie saw nothing at all clearly, although it appeared that some domestic disaster must have struck the Dowager’s household. Could it possibly involve monkeys, or was that simply hysteria? ‘I do not believe I have met the Dowager,’ she began cautiously.

‘Her ladyship lives much retired.’ Rainbird hesitated and unbent further, dropping his voice in case any menial should overhear his indiscretion. ‘Her ladyship is considered … eccentric.’

Oh, dear, the monkey was probably real in that case. Tallie recalled hair-raising stories of Princess Caroline’s menagerie. ‘I had better see if there is anything I can do to assist Lady Parry. Have their lordships gone out?’

‘Lord Arndale has gone to arrange her ladyship’s carriage and outriders, Miss Grey. Lord Parry is, I believe, with her ladyship.’