Margaret McPhee - The Regency Season - Gentleman Rogues - The Gentleman Rogue / The Lost Gentleman

It made her feel as though she was the one who had got this all wrong. She reminded herself of the shabby leather jacket and boots he had worn—a disguise. She reminded herself of what had passed between them in the darkness of a Whitechapel alleyway while he was living a double life here. For all his denials he was a liar who had used and made a fool of her.

‘Now that matters are clear between us, there is no need to speak again. Stay away from me, Ned.’

He smiled again. A hard, bitter smile. ‘You need not worry, Emma Northcote,’ he taunted her over her name. ‘I will stay far away from you.’

‘I will be glad of it.’

He studied her eyes, as if he could see everything she was, all her secrets and lies, all her hopes and fears. Then he leaned closer, so close that she could smell the clean familiar scent of him and feel his breath warm against her cheek, so close that she shivered as he whispered the words into her ear, ‘Much more than you realise.’

Her heart was thudding. Her blood was rushing. All that had been between them in the Red Lion and the alleyway, and at the old stone bench, was suddenly there in that ballroom.

They stared at one another for a moment. Then he stepped back, once more his cool controlled self.

‘Smile,’ he said. ‘Every eye is upon us and you wouldn’t want our audience to think we were discussing anything other than the usual petty fripperies that are discussed upon a ballroom floor.’

He smiled a smile that did not touch his eyes.

And she reciprocated, smiling as she said the words, ‘You are a bastard, Ned Stratham.’

‘Yes, I am. Quite literally. But I deem that better than a liar.’

His words, and their truth, cut deep.

The music finally came to a halt.

The ladies on either side of her were curtsying. Emma smothered her emotions and did the same.

Ned bowed. ‘Allow me to return you to Lady Lamerton.’

She held his gaze for a heartbeat and then another. And then, uncomfortably aware that every eye in the ballroom was upon them, she touched the tips of her fingers to his arm and let him lead her from the floor.

* * *

Ned and Rob were in Gentleman John Jackson’s pugilistic rooms in Bond Street the next morning. At nine o’clock the hour was still too early for any other gentleman to be present. After a night of gentlemen’s clubs, drinking, gaming and womanising—which were, as far as Ned could make out, the chief pursuits of most men of the gentry and nobility—gentlemen did not, in general, rise before midday. After a bout of light sparring together, Ned and Rob were working on the heavy sand-filled canvas punchbags that hung from a bar fixed along the length of one wall.

Rob sat on the floor, back against the wall, elbows on knees, catching his breath. Ned landed regular punches to the sandbag.

‘What the hell was that about with Emma Northcote last night?’ Rob asked.

‘I wanted to speak to her.’

‘About what?’

‘To verify her identity.’

‘And you needed to dance with her for that?’

‘I had to put all those lessons with that dancing master to use at some time. I paid him good money.’

Rob raised his eyebrows. His expression was cynical. ‘I take it she is who we think.’

‘What gives you that impression?’

‘Maybe the fact that you’re knocking two tons of stuffing out of that punchbag.’

Ned raised an eyebrow, then returned to jabbing at the sandbag, right hook, then left hook. Right hook, then left. ‘She doesn’t change anything. We go on just as before.’ He landed a left-handed blow so hard that it almost took the punchbag clear off its hook. He ducked as it swung back towards him, punched it again, and again. Kept up the training until his knuckles were sore and his arms ached and the keenness of what he felt was blunted by fatigue.

Rob threw a drying cloth up to him and got to his feet, gesturing with his eyes to the doorway with warning. ‘That it, is it, Stratham?’ he said, reverting to a form of formality now that they had company.

Ned caught the cloth and mopped the sweat from his face as he glanced round to see who it was that had entered.

There was only the slightest of hesitations in the Duke of Monteith and Viscount Devlin’s steps as they saw who was in the training room using the equipment.

Ned met Devlin’s eyes. The viscount returned the look—cold, insolent, contemptuous—before walking with Monteith to the other end of the room.

Ned and Rob exchanged a look.

‘Your favourite person,’ said Rob beneath his breath.

‘It just gets better and better.’ Ned smiled a grim smile, as he and Rob made their way to the changing rooms.

* * *

Within the dining room of Lady Lamerton’s town house a few streets away, Emma and the dowager were at breakfast.

‘It is just as I suspected, Mr Stratham dancing with you at Hawick’s ball is all the gossip, Emma,’ Lady Lamerton said as she read the letter within her hand.

The clock on the mantel ticked a slow and sonorous rhythm.

‘I cannot think why. It was only one dance.’ Emma did not speak while the footman moved from Lady Lamerton’s side, where he filled her cup with coffee, to Emma’s and stood waiting, coffee pot in hand.

She gave a nod, watching while the steaming hot liquid poured from the pot into the pretty orange-and-gold-rimmed cup. The aroma of coffee wafted through the air. She added a spot of cream from the jug and took a sip of the coffee.

Sunlight spilled in through the dining-room window. sparkling through the crystal drops of the chandelier above their heads to cast rainbows on the walls.

Lady Lamerton set the letter down on the growing pile of opened papers and reached for the next one. She glanced up as she broke the seal. ‘Because, my dear, Mr Stratham has not previously been seen upon a dance floor. He does not dance.’

Emma took another sip of coffee and tried to smile, as if what had happened upon the dance floor last night was nothing. ‘That must be somewhat of a disadvantage when he is at an Almack’s ball.’

‘Hardly,’ said the dowager. ‘If anything it is the opposite. It has created rather a stir of interest. The women see it as a challenge. The Lewis sisters have a sweepstake running as to who will be the first to tempt him upon a floor. It is considered to be an indicator of when he has made his choice of bride.’

Emma smiled again to hide the anger she felt at that thought. ‘Well, last night certainly disproved that theory.’

‘Indeed, it did. And will have made the Lewis sisters a deal richer.’ The dowager paused and looked at the letter in her hand. ‘They are all positively agog to know of what he spoke.’

If they only knew. ‘Nothing of drama or excitement. I already told you the details.’ Last night in the ballroom when there had been a subtle questioning which Lady Lamerton had parried with the air of a hawk, with its wings shielding its food for its own later consumption. And in the carriage on the way home the hawk had eaten...although not of the truth.

‘The weather and other trivialities are hardly going to satisfy them, Emma. Especially as the pair of you appeared to be having quite the conversation.’

Emma took another sip of coffee and said nothing.

Lady Lamerton held her spectacles to her eyes and peered at the letter again. ‘Apparently they are taking bets on whether he will dance again. And if it will be with you.’

Emma suppressed a sigh at the ton’s preoccupations. An hour’s walk away and the preoccupations and world were very different.

‘Fetch my diary, Emma, and check when the next dance is to be held.’

‘It is next week, on Thursday evening—the charity dance at the Foundling Hospital.’ Emma knew the line of thought the dowager’s mind was taking. ‘And even if Mr Stratham is there, I made it quite clear to him that my duty is as your companion and not to dance.’