Loretta Chase - Regency Rogues and Rakes - Silk is for Seduction / Scandal Wears Satin / Vixen in Velvet / Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed / A Rake's Midnight Kiss / What a Duke Dares

Marcelline rose, her heart skittering. Matters were complicated enough. The last thing she needed was for the world to have any inkling of her background. People would shun her—and her shop—as though she were the cholera itself. “She’s no such thing,” she said. “It’s acting.”

He gave her an odd look. “In any event, they couldn’t let her wander about London on her own.”

“It never occurred to them to contact the police?”

“I’m sure it did, but one doesn’t, you know,” he said. “For all they knew it was a delicate royal matter, and the police would not be welcome.”

She understood what he meant. The Royal Family had not been renowned for chastity. The king had ten children by a former mistress, an actress.

“They tried to sort matters themselves,” Clevedon was saying. “Various forms of bribery were tried. But her highness the Princess Erroll of Albania accepted all tribute as her due. Then she fell asleep in one of the royal carriages. They didn’t get news of our missing child until early this morning, after they’d sent to the palace for instructions. They had the devil’s own time catching her, I understand, once she realized they meant to take her home. A truce was effected when they promised to take her here. She was presented to me some hours after dawn, with royal compliments.”

Marcelline didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She feared she’d do both, and fall into hysterics.

The whole absurd story was so typical. It was the sort of thing her parents did all the time: brazenly pretend to be something they weren’t. The Countess of This and the Prince of That.

“Well, I’m sorry His Majesty had to be bothered about it,” she said as coolly as she could.

“Lucie, your mother and I need to talk privately,” Clevedon said. “While we’re gone, I recommend you form squares as I explained before, if you hope to repel the French as effectively as the Duke of Wellington did.”

The quadrangle within the gate is in a better style of building, but rather distinguished by simplicity than grandeur; and the garden next the Thames, with many trees, serves to screen the mansion from those disagreeable objects which generally bound the shores of the river in this vast trading city.

Leigh Hunt (describing Northumberland House),

The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events , Vol. 1, 1848

C levedon took her into the garden. They were plainly visible from all the windows facing the quadrangle. It was the best place for a private conversation. Knowing that curious servants would be watching, he’d keep a proper distance from her.

Then he wouldn’t have her scent in his nostrils, in his head, weakening his mind and his resolve.

They stood in the center of the quadrangle, where several paths converged.

“I should never have agreed not to see you again,” he said. “I hadn’t considered how Lucie would take it.”

“Lucie isn’t your responsibility,” Noirot said.

“She had a shocking experience,” he said.

“Children are resilient. She’ll throw a few temper tantrums, as she does sometimes when she can’t get her way, but she’ll recover.”

“Does she commonly run away?”

“No, and it won’t happen again.”

“You can’t be sure,” he said. “It was a desperate thing to do. I don’t think she would have done it if she hadn’t been very deeply upset.”

“She was deeply upset at being thwarted,” Noirot said. “She knows the city streets are dangerous, but she was too furious with us to care about any rules or lectures—and Sarah, unfortunately, doesn’t know her well enough to recognize the signs of rebellion.”

She was as taut as a bowstring. She was tired, clearly, her face white and drawn. Relieved of fear for Lucie, she was probably feeling the fatigue she’d ignored. He’d better keep this short and to the point. She clearly wanted to be done with this conversation, and with him. She was shutting him out of her life and out of Lucie’s.

She was Lucie’s mother, but he knew that parents were not always right, and she was wrong to shut him out.

“I don’t think that’s enough,” he said.

“I think you ought to let me be the judge.”

He made himself say it. He saw no alternative. “When my mother and sister were killed,” he said, “I wanted my father.” He had to take a breath before continuing. He’d never spoken of his childhood miseries to anybody, even Clara, and it was harder than he’d supposed to talk of them now. “It was a carriage accident. He was drunk, and he drove them into a ditch. He lived. I was—I didn’t know how to cope. I was nine years old at the time. I was grief-stricken, as you’d expect. But terrified, too. Of what, I can’t say. I only recall how desperately I wanted him with me. But he sent me to live with my aunts, and he crawled into a bottle and drank himself to death. Everyone knew he was a drunkard. Everyone knew he’d killed my mother and sister. But I was too young to understand anything but that I needed him, and he’d abandoned me.”

He took another breath, collecting himself. “Lucie experienced something terrifying, and I don’t want her to feel I’ve abandoned her. I think we must make an exception for her. I think I ought to visit her, say, once a week, on Sunday.”

A long, long pause. Then, “No,” Noirot said, so calmly. She looked up at him, her pale countenance unreadable.

That was her card-playing countenance. Anger welled up. He’d told her what he’d told no one else, and she shut him out.

“You’re right,” she said, surprising him. “Lucie does need you. She’s frightened. She had a shocking experience. But it up to me to deal with it. You’ll visit her on Sundays, you say. For how long? You can’t do it forever. The more she sees of you, the more she’ll assume you belong to her. And leaving aside Lucie and her delusions, how much more heartache do you mean to cause Lady Clara? How much more public embarrassment? None of this would have happened, your grace—none of it—if you had stuck to your own kind.”

It was not very different from what he’d already told himself. He’d behaved badly, he knew. But he wanted to make it right. He’d confided in her, to make her understand.

The cold, quiet fury of her answer was the last thing he’d expected. His face burned as though she’d physically struck him.

Stung, he struck back. “You’re mighty concerned with Lady Clara’s feelings all of a sudden.”

She moved away and gave a short laugh. “I’m concerned with her wardrobe, your grace. When will you get that through your thick head?”

What was she saying, what was she saying? She’d turned to him when Lucie disappeared, and they’d searched together, sharing the same hopes and fears. He cared for that child and he cared for her, and she knew it. “Two nights ago you said you loved me,” he said.

“What difference does that make?” she said. She turned back to him and lifted her chin and met his gaze straight on. “I still have a shop to run. If you can’t get hold of your wits and start acting sensibly, you’ll force me to leave England altogether. I’ll get nowhere with you causing talk and undermining me at every turn—you and your selfish disregard of everything but your own wants. Think of what you’re doing, will you? Think of what you’ve done, from the time you chased me to London, and the consequences of everything you’ve done. And think, for once, your grace , of someone other than yourself.”