Louise Allen - Regency Rogues - Unlacing The Forbidden

‘If you will follow me.’ He turned, apparently unconcerned by the fight that had broken out between porters over who would load their luggage onto whose barrows. Hodge, in French almost as good as his master’s, was laying down the law to some effect and Rhys did not appear concerned, so Thea took his arm and allowed herself to be led through the crowd.

‘They are staring,’ she muttered in English.

‘Of course. We are still a novelty and no doubt they are studying us for the latest in English fashions.’

‘Then they will be sadly disappointed in me,’ she retorted. ‘How long are we staying? I must buy one new gown at the very least. I cannot bear this drab old thing for much longer.’

‘It is fine, surely?’ Rhys glanced down at her skirts, protruding limply between the openings of her cloak.

Either he was completely indifferent to fashion or he simply expected her to wear something dowdy. Probably the latter. ‘No, it is not fine. I chose it because it is so dull and worn. I had no wish to draw attention to myself in England. It is my gardening dress and the last thing Papa would expect me to be seen out in. I took the precaution of hiding some of my newest gowns so the description of what I was wearing would be wrong.’

‘You would make an excellent spy,’ Rhys observed. ‘But can you not endure your limp brown skirts until Rouen? I was intending to spend just the one night here, but two there. The shops should be better, too.’

‘Very well, it does seem sensible. But you are going to disappoint Monsieur le Brun when he has taken over an entire hotel just for one night.’ The Frenchman paused to wave them on with a flourish. Behind them, she could hear Hodge nagging the porters to take care with his lordship’s luggage. She had seen less dramatic circus processions.

‘Monsieur le Brun has been promised a generous fee, so he will be advised to put a good face on it whether I stay ten minutes or ten days.’ Rhys regarded their French guide’s flamboyant gestures through narrowed eyes. ‘This hotel had better be a good one.’

‘He did not believe I was just a friend,’ Thea murmured, tweaking her veil. ‘Perhaps the hotelier will not approve….’

‘The hotelier will approve even if we choose to hold an orgy for two, import every one of the Regent’s mistresses or spend the evening playing whist,’ Rhys said with an edge that startled her. ‘It is none of his damn business. I am Palgrave, and if he does not know what that means then he will discover a startling shortage of English visitors of rank over the next few years.’

I am Palgrave. He would never have said that six years ago, and certainly not with that cool threat behind it. He had never spoken to her in that way and suddenly she saw him as others did: an earl, a powerful man by inheritance and his own force of will. Unnerved by his irritation, she stammered, ‘I-it is just that I had not regarded what people might think, provided no one recognised me. And now I feel a trifle… I would not wish to cause you embarrassment.’

‘Cause me embarrassment?’ Rhys stopped dead and frowned down at her, six foot plus of exasperated masculinity. ‘I doubt anything would put me to the blush, but you are my responsibility now.’

‘Th-thank you.’ Thea had to take a little run to catch up with him as he strode off across the cobbles. ‘I had no intention of being a nuisance.’

‘We will talk when we are alone,’ Rhys said. ‘Here, give me your arm, these stones will turn your ankle.’

In other words, I am a nuisance. It felt very much like being summoned to Papa’s study for a lecture. Behind the sheltering veil, Thea grimaced at the haughty profile, fell obediently silent and wished very hard that she had the young Rhys back again.

The hotel, when they reached it, was large, but half seemed in ruin with windows boarded up. There was even a small tree sprouting in the gutters.

‘This looks a wreck,’ Rhys said to le Brun.

‘It is too big these days, too expensive to keep it all in repair. Before the Revolution it belonged to…a family. They no longer needed it, so part was taken over by a citoyen, a citizen of the Revolution, you understand? The same has happened all over the town.’ He shrugged. ‘All over France.’

‘No longer needed it? You mean they were guillotined?’ A citizen. Citoyen, one of the people. Had the landlord been part of the mob who bayed for the death of aristocrats? Thea shivered.

‘Madame, such an unpleasant subject.’ He pursed his lips as though she had made a remark in bad taste. Perhaps she had.

‘The half that is in use seems decent enough,’ Thea said to placate him as he ushered them inside.

He exchanged a flurry of rapid French with the short man who came out to greet them and two maids were despatched upstairs, arms full of linens. ‘They prepare another bedchamber for madame,’ le Brun explained. ‘I show you now to the salon of the suite.’ The landlord was swept aside. ‘There is a chef, a proper man cook,’ le Brun announced with a gesture towards a door at the rear. ‘Not a female cook as so often is the case in England, I understand.’

They followed him upstairs, leaving the porters and Hodge in energetic dispute over how much extra it would cost to have the luggage carried up.

‘Voilà!’ Le Brun flung open a door with a flourish.

They were on the principal floor of the house, in a chamber that had once been an elegant reception room. It was whitewashed now and worn rugs were scattered over a floor of soft red brick, but the fireplace was magnificent and marble. The walls were hung with huge mirrors, damp spotted, their ornate frames bearing faint traces of their original gilding, and the assortment of furniture had once seen far better days.

‘Monsieur le comte, your chamber is here.’ Le Brun opened a door on the far side. ‘Madame, they prepare yours there.’

On the far side, thank goodness. ‘I trust the beds are aired.’ Thea had practised the sentence in French in her head all the way up the stairs.

Le Brun shot her a look of deep reproach. ‘But of course!’

‘We will need hot baths immediately, and then breakfast.’ She threw back her veil and produced a smile. ‘If you please.’

The effect on the Frenchman was curious. He smiled back at her with more genuine warmth than he had shown before, then he glanced at Rhys with a faint smirk. ‘I see to it at once, madame.’

Thea snorted as he closed the door behind himself. ‘He has realised that I am not, after all, your mistress. He will treat me with slightly more respect and he feels rather less for you now.’

‘How did you work that out?’ Rhys turned from the window and his contemplation of the street outside.

‘He saw me unveiled. I told you, I am not mistress material. So he decides I am respectable and you are to be pitied for having the chore of escorting me.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! As if the suitability of a woman for that role has anything to do with looks.’ Rhys’s brain appeared to catch up with his mouth and he shut it with a snap.

‘What does it have to do with?’ Thea asked, overcome with curiosity.

‘Never mind! Will you please stop talking about mistresses?’

‘Certainly! Perhaps, while you are lecturing me, you can tell me what it is we have to discuss in private?’

‘Lecturing?’ Rhys narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Please sit down, Thea.’ This was not the just-awakened man who had made her smile with his precipitous exit from the chaise. It was certainly not the inebriated old friend, sprawled in a chair and harassed by the kitchen cat. This was every inch the adult half stranger she had caught unsettling glimpses of on their journey.