Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise AllenЧитать онлайн книгу.
country dances. George followed her.
‘Look here, Miss France, if there is going to be trouble, don’t you think you should stay well away?’
‘No.’ She sighed as she dodged behind the back of the Marquis of Haverstock. ‘No. Whatever it is will be entirely my fault, I cannot run away from it.’
She reached the edge of the circle of friends and sycophants who always surrounded Lord Randall at any social gathering, stopping where she could watch unobserved from behind a potted palm. He was flirting languidly with a pair of giggling young ladies and his attention, and that of his friends, was focused on the girls and not towards the entrance. Adrian seemed quite unaware of who had entered the ballroom and was now almost directly behind him.
‘We all thought you were lost to us, Lord Randall.’ It was Miss Berwick, a pert blonde who most mamas stigmatised as unbecomingly forward. ‘When we heard you were engaged to be married to Miss France, why, hearts were broken all across London!’
‘What a terrible rumour to put about,’ her friend struck in, eager not to be left out of the contest for his attention. ‘As if Lord Randall would have contemplated such a thing.’
‘Oh, but I did contemplate it, my dear.’ Adrian caressed her with his intense blue gaze and she wriggled like a puppy at the attention. ‘We men are weak, you know—that lovely money can make fools of us all.’
Lily’s hand clamped down on Lord Gledhill’s arm as he exclaimed under his breath and took a step forward. ‘No, please!’ she whispered.
‘But what went wrong?’ The little brunette was gazing up into Lord Randall’s face with an adoration that made Lily want to slap her.
‘Not something one can discuss in front of innocent young ladies such as yourselves, my dear.’ He patted her hand as her eyes grew wide. ‘Suffice it to say, a gentleman expects certain standard of conduct from the lady he marries.’
There were sniggers around the circle of his cronies and both young ladies blushed with horrified delight. ‘Damn it all!’ Lord Gledhill tried to turn Lily away and steer her back into the crowd. ‘You go back to your chaperon, Miss France—I am going to take this fellow to task.’
‘Oh, please, no,’ Lily begged. ‘The last thing I want is a scene, here of all places.’
‘Looks as though you are going to get one anyway,’ George remarked, giving up on his efforts to persuade her to move. ‘Here is your mystery man.’
‘Lord Randall.’ It was Jack—there could be absolutely no doubt about it, although she could hardly see him. The calm, chill voice cut through the giggles and chat like a blade of ice.
Adrian turned. ‘And who might you be?’ His back effectively blocked Lily’s view. She ducked sideways between the palm and a pillar and saw Jack. He was regarding Adrian steadily, his expression perfectly pleasant—until one saw the dark, dangerous, flint of his eyes.
‘Allerton. It is a long time since we were both at Eton, but we have met twice since then. Quite recently.’ Eton? What dangerous game was Jack playing? Was he attempting to purloin the entire identity of the unknown Lord Allerton?
‘Allerton? Good Lord, yes, I recall now. You were a skinny little wretch then, weren’t you?’ Adrian’s laugh was an insult all in itself. ‘And you vanished mid-term one year because your father ruined himself—I remember now. Coal, wasn’t it? Or something equally grubby.’
‘Yes,’ Jack agreed levelly. ‘Coal. And after our recent meetings, I find I have the most pressing desire to discuss matters further with you.’
‘Recent?’ Randall stared at Jack. ‘What can you mean?’ Lily saw the recognition dawn and Adrian’s lips draw back into a snarl. ‘You! You were the man in that coffee house—and you were the one in Li—’
‘Exactly.’ Jack took a step forward. ‘And before you start bandying a lady’s name around, I suggest we go into the retiring room behind you.’
‘Absolutely. Excellent idea.’ George Gledhill strode forward, effectively carrying Lord Randall with him. As he went, he caught the arm of a serious-looking gentleman who had been observing the scene with disapproval. ‘Mountain out of a molehill—see what you can do to smooth things over out here, Perry, there’s a good fellow.’
Ripples of disturbance spread out from the scene, but most of the gentlemen left outside the door turned aside, making conversation, acting as though nothing untoward had taken place. Lily realised what was going on—a matter of honour, a lady involved, bad form to draw attention to it.
Jack had vanished, as had Lord Randall, along with a few of the men who had been close at hand and Lord Gledhill. The door of the retiring room was firmly shut and Lily, unseen behind her sheltering palm, was unobserved.
She found she was shaking and leaned back against the wall to steady herself. Jack had bluffed his way into the ball, apparently set on picking a fight with Adrian. But was he bluffing? Adrian appeared to accept his explanation of who he was. But a title? Trying to pull herself together, she stepped out of her shelter and found herself next to Lord Winstanly.
‘What an extraordinary scene,’ she said lightly. ‘Did you say you knew the gentleman, my lord?’
‘Knew his grandfather, the fourth earl—this one’s the spitting image. Great family, sadly diminished now, of course. I hadn’t realised there were any of them left.’
Earl? Jack was an earl? Emotions chased through Lily, so jumbled she could not distinguish any of them clearly except one. Anger. She looked around; somehow she was going to find out what was going on in that room.
Jack nodded his thanks to the tall man who had so neatly cut them out of the crowded room and into this private chamber. There were six of them, incongruous in a room that had obviously been set aside as a boudoir for ladies to rest in. Flowers decked the little tables, candles shimmered in crystal holders and bowls of dainty sweetmeats stood around. A screen, delicately hand painted, cut off the draught from the door on the far wall.
The six men regarded each other with varying degrees of puzzlement and hostility. Jack held his peace—let Randall blunder himself into a situation where a challenge was inevitable. With any luck it could be achieved without mention of Lily’s name.
‘Well?’ Randall demanded. ‘What do you want of me now? Not to chat about the good old times at school, I imagine?’ One of the men, apparently his crony, sniggered. Jack let his gaze rest on the man and he subsided.
‘No. I came merely to inform you that I consider your presence at any civilised gathering offensive and to request that you remove yourself.’
‘You find my presence offensive!’ The colour was high in Randall’s cheeks. ‘I find you, sprawled in the arms of—’
‘You found me injured in the salon of a lady—whose name you are not going to mention as it is quite irrelevant—and you immediately put upon it a construction that was as deeply offensive to the lady as it was totally inaccurate. When the lady attempted to explain matters to you, you addressed her in terms both immoderate and crude; when I attempted to silence you, you knocked me out with a cowardly blow despite the fact that I was barely conscious.’
There was a murmur around the room. Randall’s crony, who had obviously heard his side of the story before, sneered. The other gentlemen looked serious.
‘You allege you were wounded and Lord Randall struck you?’ It was the tall young man who had taken command outside.
‘Yes.’ Jack raised his hand to the scar on his temple. ‘I had been felled by a thrown cobblestone in the street outside. The lady had me brought into her house to await the doctor. I was barely conscious, blinded with blood. When Randall began to insult the lady, I attempted to stand and was felled to the ground.’
‘Rubbish!’ Randall snarled. ‘I come into the room, find him clutched to the near-naked bosom of