Louise Allen - The Outrageous Lady Felsham

Lady Belinda did seem to have forgiven him. Her straitlaced late husband could hardly have given her much cause to become used to gentlemen overindulging, so he supposed she must simply be a very understanding woman.

She had been embarrassed, though, he mused, kicking at daisies in the cropped grass as he walked. It was not as though she was one of those dashing widows who would greet the unexpected arrival of a man in their bedroom with opportunistic enthusiasm. Which was a good thing, he thought with a self-deprecating grin; he had been far too drunk to have performed to any lady’s satisfaction, let alone his own.

Lady Belinda had been tolerant, sensible and pragmatic, he concluded, which was more than he deserved. The thought struck him like a punch in the gut that if she had chosen to be difficult she could, very easily, put him in a position where he would have had to marry her. And marriage was absolutely not in his plans. Not for another five years or so, by which time his mother’s gentle nagging would become strident and she would cease merely hinting that Cousin Adrian would make a terrible viscount and order him to do something about the succession before his thirty-sixth birthday dawned.

He had almost succeeded in coaxing Lady Belinda into flirting, which had been agreeable. Ashe began to feel better. Flirting with pretty women was a cliché for the returning warrior, but it was certainly a good way to keep your mind off blood, death and destruction. Ashe returned the sentry’s salute and ran up the steps into Horse Guards. Perhaps civilian life in London, even out of Season, would not be so bad after all.

Bel too, was contemplating her sojourn in London with rather more attention than she had previously given it. She had moved simply to assert to herself and her in-laws that she was an independent woman about to start a new life. Her lovely little house was a gem, she was enjoying the walks and the shopping and now she began to wonder if perhaps there was not some social life she could comfortably indulge in.

The fact that the extremely attractive Lord Dereham might form part of that social life was undeniably an incentive. Bel found she was gazing sightlessly at a row of the very latest sensation novels, plucked a volume off the shelf at random and went to sit in one of the velvet chairs Hatchard’s thoughtfully provided for their browsing customers.

In place of her vague, innocent and completely uninformed dreams of a lover, of passion and excitement, her night-time visitor had presented her with a flesh-and-blood model of perfection. And some valuable, if highly disturbing, practical information about the male animal. Daydreaming about Ashe Reynard would doubtless be frustrating but…delicious. She flicked over the pages and read at random.

Alfonso, tell me I am yours, do not betray me to the dark evil of my uncle’s plans! Amarantia pleaded, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her lover strained her to his breast, his heart beating in tumultuous acknowledgement of her…

Bel gave a little shiver of anticipation and forced herself to consider the realities. She might see Reynard again. He might flirt with her. She might learn to flirt in return. That was, of course, as far as it could go. Actually taking a lover was a fantasy, for she would never dare to go any further than mild flirtation and he showed no sign of wanting to do so, in any case. Why should he? London was full of sprightly and sophisticated feminine company and Lord Dereham no doubt knew exactly where to find it.

No, it was just a game for her to play in the sleepless night hours. A fantasy. Lord Dereham was never again going to strain her to his breast, his heart beating hard against hers as it had last night. She sighed.

‘Belinda!’

Bel gave a guilty start and dropped her book. The spine bent alarmingly. She would have to buy it now. ‘Aunt Louisa!’ Lady James Ravenhurst was fixing her with a disapproving stare over the top of the lorgnette she was holding up. ‘And Cousin Elinor. How delightful to see you both.’ She got to her feet, feeling like a gawky schoolgirl as Elinor retrieved the novel from the floor.

‘The Venetian Tower,’ she read from the spine. ‘Is that a work of architecture, Cousin Belinda?’

‘Er…no.’ Bel almost snatched it back. ‘Just a novel I was wondering about buying.’ Aunt Louisa seemed about to deliver a diatribe on the evils of novel reading. Bel hurried on, knowing she was prattling. ‘I had no idea you were both in London.’

‘As The Corsican Monster chose to escape from Elba at precisely the moment I had intended leaving on a study tour of French Romanesque cathedrals, my plans for the entire year have been thrown into disarray,’ her aunt replied irritably. Her expression indicated that Bonaparte must add upsetting her travel arrangements to the list of his deliberate infamies. ‘I had plans for a book on the subject.’

‘Romanesque? Indeed?’ What on earth did that mean? Surely nothing to do with the Romans? They did not build cathedrals. Or did they? Aunt Louisa was a fearsome bluestocking and her turn for scholarship had become an obsession after the death of Lord James ten years previously. ‘How fascinating,’ Bel added hastily and untruthfully. ‘And you are in town to buy gowns?’ After one glance at Cousin Elinor’s drab grey excuse for a walking dress, that was the only possible explanation.

‘Gowns? Certainly not.’ Lady James trained her eyeglass on the surrounding shelves. ‘I am here to buy books. Our expedition will have to be postponed until next year, so I will continue my researches here. Elinor, find where they have moved the architecture volumes to. I cannot comprehend why they keep moving sections around, so inconsiderate. You have the list?’

‘Yes, Mama,’ Elinor responded colourlessly. ‘Britton’s Cathedral Antiquities of England in five parts and Parkyns’s Monastic and Baronial Remains. Two volumes.’ She drifted off, clutching her notebook. Bel frowned after her. She could never quite fathom her cousin. Elinor, drab and always at the beck and call of her mother, was only two years younger than Bel. At twenty-four she was firmly on the shelf and certain to remain there, yet she neither seemed exactly resigned to this fate, nor distressed by it. She simply appeared detached. What was going on behind those meekly lowered eyes and obedient murmurs? Bel wondered.

‘Belinda.’

‘Yes, Aunt Louisa?’ Bel reminded herself that she was a grown-up woman, a widow who was independent of her family, and she had no need to react to her formidable relative as she had when she was a shy girl at her come-out. It did not help much, especially when one had a guilty conscience.

‘I hear you have purchased a London house of your own. What is wrong with Cambourn House, might I ask?’

What business it was of hers Bel could not say, but she schooled her expression to a pleasant smile. ‘Why, Lord Felsham has it now.’

‘I trust your late husband’s cousin does not forbid you the use of it!’ Lady James clutched her furled parasol aggressively.

‘Certainly not, Aunt. I just do not choose to be beholden to him by asking to borrow it.’ The new Lord Felsham was a pleasant enough nonentity, but his wife was a sharp-tongued shrew and the less Bel had to do with them, the happier she was.

‘Then you have engaged a respectable companion, I trust?’

Bel moved further back towards the theology section, away from any interested ears browsing amidst the novels. ‘I have a mature dresser and a most respectable married couple managing the house.’ And what would you have said if you could have seen me last night, I wonder? The thought of the formidable Lady James beating a drunken Lord Dereham over the head with her parasol while he lay slumped on the scantily clad body of her niece almost provoked Bel into an unseemly fit of the giggles. She had the sudden wish that she could share the image with Reynard. He would laugh, those startling eyes creasing with amusement. His laugh, she just knew, would be deep and rich and wholehearted. ‘I am very well looked after, Aunt, I assure you.’