Louise Allen - Regency Rogues - Unlacing The Forbidden - Unlacing Lady Thea / Forbidden Jewel of India

‘To enjoy myself. To be free.’

‘Selfish,’ Rhys commented, with the intent of provoking her. Down in the harbour, fishing boats were running out on the tide, and he pretended to watch them. ‘That’s not like you.’ Or perhaps it was. Six years was a long time. He had changed, she must have, too.

‘I don’t mean mindless frivolity,’ Thea protested. ‘I mean doing things that I consider worthwhile. Something that will tell me I am alive,’ she added so softly he thought he must have misheard her. Surely life in her father’s house was not so stifling? ‘I will set up a charity—that would be satisfying….’

‘To be Lady Bountiful to the grateful poor?’ He let the corner of his mouth curl into a sneer. As it had in the past, his goading worked. Thea glared at him, but he had loosened her tongue.

‘No, certainly not. People do not need to be patronised, to be done good to. I will find something worthwhile and invest in it. Perhaps set some enterprising women up in small businesses, or provide apprenticeships for bright boys. I have a brain with some ideas in it, Rhys. I will suffocate if I don’t use it, if I am not free.’

He hid both his approval and his unease at her vehemence. ‘It does not sound as though you have planned it out.’

‘Of course I have not.’ Thea marched round to stand in front of him, cutting off his view of the harbour. ‘I need to find out exactly what my income is, learn how to manage it and, I hope, increase it. I have to find a suitable companion and somewhere to live. I need to work out all those things and then I can see where I am.

‘Anyway,’ she demanded, ‘what is so important about planning? You used to do things on the spur of the moment. Improvise.’

‘I do not any longer.’ He stood up, rather too close for her comfort, it seemed. Thea cast a harried glance over her shoulder, apparently decided that the cliff edge was a safe distance from her heels and took a long step backwards. ‘These days I plan—the estate, my investments, my political life, the way I live.’

‘Predictable,’ Thea retorted. ‘Boring. Do you schedule your mistresses according to a timetable?’

‘Responsible,’ he flung back, ignoring that last jibe. Rhys planned so that nothing, nobody would have the chance to let him down again, but he saw no reason to justify himself. He caught at the ragged edge of his temper and said coolly, ‘Grow up, Thea.’

‘I have.’ Annoyance was bringing out the colour to her cheeks. ‘But I do not understand why being a responsible adult involves losing spontaneity, joy, surprise. Adventure.’ The look she shot him held reproach. ‘Have you any concept what it would be like to have to dwindle into an old maid or be married off to a man whom you cannot like, let alone respect?’

No, he could not, and it made him damnably uncomfortable that Thea of all people feared those things. His conscience nudged him. She had been his friend and he had all but forgotten her as he had rebuilt his life. But what did he know about respectable women and their emotional needs? Perhaps some practical common sense would help—it was all he had to offer. ‘This is not about me. It is about you, Thea. You have two assets that must last you your lifetime, if you are not to marry.’

She tipped her head to one side, instantly curious. She had never been able to hold on to a bad mood for long. The only time he had seen her stay angry was two hours after the fiasco of his wedding ceremony when he had found her wringing the neck of Serena’s bouquet. And even then, when she had seen him, she had smiled ruefully. ‘Poor flowers, it isn’t their fault.’

‘I have my inheritance, that is all,’ she said now.

‘You have that, and you will need to choose your financial and legal advisers with great care, for those funds must last to finance your independence.’

‘So what is the other asset?’ Intelligent hazel eyes fringed with dark lashes narrowed in thought.

‘Your reputation. Respectable single women with wealth and breeding and a certain interesting eccentricity will be accepted anywhere—look at Godmama. But get a shady reputation, just the hint of loose behaviour, and you will find doors close in your face.’

‘Loose behaviour? Me?’ Thea gave an unladylike snort of derision.

‘Like gadding about the Continent unchaperoned with a man to whom you are not related, for example?’

The charming blush faded. ‘Nonsense. No one is going to find out. Godmama and I will concoct a suitable story involving a courier and a suitable female companion, you’ll see.’ There it was again, just that flash of emotion behind the confidence. Surely it could not be fear of what would await her if she had to return home?

‘I hope so. It is getting cold—let’s go down and see what there is for dinner.’ He stood and offered his arm and she slipped her hand under his elbow. He was apparently forgiven. But then, Thea always did forgive. Rhys felt another twinge of guilt, this time for goading her and, at the same time, for entertaining Gothic imaginings about her father. The earl might not be the best parent in the world, but he would not mistreat Thea, surely?

‘Scallops, I hope. Dieppe is famous for them, I believe.’

‘That sounds good,’ Rhys agreed. ‘I was thinking of a fat lobster, personally.’

He waited until they had left the slippery cliff-top turf for the worn path before he asked, ‘Would it not be better to find a husband after all? Someone to take care of you—and your inheritance?’

‘His inheritance, you mean. Once I marry, I lose all control of my money.’

‘Is that why you are so set against marriage?’ A group of soldiers lounged by a checkpoint on the road out of town. They glanced over at them, then went back to their game of dice. There was something she was not telling him, and he was going to winkle it out of her, however hard she resisted.

‘I am not set against marriage, as such,’ Thea protested. ‘But it is such a risk. A woman hazards so much. I am resolved not to marry unless I fall in love, which seems to me to be the only reason for taking the plunge. And I can tell you, that is highly unlikely.’

‘What about Sir Anthony Meldreth?’

‘As I said, we found we did not suit.’

Perhaps she had sounded unconvincing, for Rhys stopped and looked at her sharply. ‘What happened?’

Bother and blast, I am blushing. ‘Nothing.’

‘Thea…’ Rhys’s tone told her he would not let this go now. ‘Sit down here and tell me.’ He gestured to a bench by the side of the path.

‘Oh, well, if you must pry into every last detail!’ Thea sat down with an inelegant thump and stared at her toes. ‘He led me to believe he loved me, that he was interested in the things that I enjoyed, that he respected my opinions, that he wanted a wife who would be an equal.’

‘And did you love him?’

‘In a way, yes. I thought he would be a good companion and I trusted him when he said he wanted only me, for myself.’

‘And he did not?’ Rhys’s voice was softer now.

‘I overheard him discussing settlements with my father. They had agreed on his approach together so that Papa could get me off his hands and Anthony would gain my inheritance and a piece of land he had been wanting for a long time that Papa had previously refused to sell.’

‘That must have been…difficult to cope with. What did you do? Confront them?’

‘No. I told Anthony that I had changed my mind and I did not think we would suit. He told me I was frigid and not worth what my father offered him.’

‘Frigid? Did he force you?’

‘No.’ It was apparently possible to blush this hard without bursting into flames. ‘I allowed him certain…liberties. When I thought we were in love, you understand.’ Thea fixed her gaze on her clasped hands.