O livia Marney was lying in her bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. The design of her bedroom had been a particular triumph for Olivia, who had taken the floral theme she loved so much and transformed her house into an extension of her garden. The domed starfish ceiling was patterned with trelliswork in delicate green and floral sprays of pale rose, and there were flower stands and brackets attached to the wall, from which cascaded a riot of ivies and miniature, scented limes. There were mirrors inset in the walls and the morning light was soft and ethereal. It was by that pale light that Olivia had noticed the finest of cracks in the bedroom ceiling, cracks which probably no one else would ever see but which quite spoiled her enjoyment of her pastoral surroundings. She would have to do something about the plaster. Perhaps it was the exceptionally dry summer that had made it fracture into a spider’s web of fine lines. She would need to send to London for a plasterer of sufficient skill to make the repairs. The last time she had tried to use a local craftsman, the fool had completely filled in an alcove that she had intended for a cinerary urn…
She became aware somewhat belatedly that something had changed. It took her several seconds to work out what had happened and then she realised that Ross was not moving any longer. In fact, he was propped on one elbow above her, his cynical blue gaze scanning her face.
‘Would you care for me to hand you a magazine?’ he said. ‘That might help you to pass the time.’
He did not wait for any reply, but swung himself off the bed and reached for his dressing-robe. Olivia averted her gaze from his hard, well-muscled body. She could not remember a time when she had permitted herself to look openly on Ross’s nakedness.
‘Naked men look so untidy,’ she remembered her mother, Lady Walton, saying to her on her wedding night. ‘It is best to lie back, close one’s eyes and think about something pleasant. The menus for the week, perhaps, or what one might wear for church on Sunday. You will find that your husband will soon finish and you will have the added benefit of having planned the food for an entire seven days.’
Olivia had often reflected that Lady Walton’s words had been all too true. With Ross, the moment had passed all too quickly. They had been virtual strangers when they had married, in a match that was a long-standing arrangement between their two families. Olivia had wanted to please her parents and had not objected to Ross as a husband. He seemed kind enough and she knew, in the instinctive way that one did, that he admired her. She was pretty and obedient; she thought that she should have been the ideal wife. It therefore caused her great pain when she realised that Ross found her lacking in some way. He almost seemed bored with her. And she, in turn, could not reach him. There was a part of him that had been locked away since she had first known him; the part that had gone to sea at fifteen and had seen naval action around the world, had fought and suffered and inflicted suffering on others. Ross never spoke of his experiences of war. It was other people who told her that he had been a hero.
They had fashioned a compromise in their marriage over the past six years, but occasionally that compromise was upset, as it had been when Ross had overheard her speaking to Deborah the previous week. She had known then that he would come to her and make love to her, almost as though he had something still to prove. Almost as though he still cared. And now he had come to her and she had been thinking about decorating the ceiling…If only she could be more like Deb-more open, more spontaneous, more capable of saying how she felt…
Olivia swallowed a sharp lump in her throat. Ross had his back to her as he tied the sash of his robe, but she could see his reflection in one of the inset mirrors. He was tanned from all the time that he spent outdoors, and his thick black hair tumbled across his forehead. There was a heavy frown on his brow. He looked up abruptly and his narrowed blue eyes met Olivia’s in the mirror. She hastily covered herself with the tumbled bedclothes and saw a parody of a smile touch Ross’s firm mouth.
He turned towards her and his gaze swept comprehensively over her as she huddled beneath the coverlet.
‘Do not worry, my dear,’ he said. ‘There is no enjoyment to be had from making love to a piece of statuary. I shall never trouble you again.’
He went through the painted door into his dressing room and closed it with studied quiet. Olivia’s bedroom resumed its bucolic peace. For a long moment she stared at her reflection in the mirror-the tumbled fair hair about her shoulders, the thin pale face that looked so bereft, the slender body that should still be desirable to her husband. She felt dreadfully lonely.
Rolling over, she rang the bell beside the bed to summon her maid. Her mind seemed strangely blank, but she was aware that if she did not get up and do something, she would probably cry. So she would go out. She would go out and see Deborah and her sister’s irrepressible spirits would cheer her. It was no great matter if she was not on intimate terms with her husband. Most people rubbed along together tolerably well without being madly in love. A sob caught in her throat and she gulped, taking a deep breath as the maid came in, and turning a smiling face in her direction.
‘Jenny, is it not a beautiful day? I shall go out to see my sister at Mallow. She is in need of some advice on her garden. I fear it is in a sad state of decay, but then Deb only ever wanted those plants that would flower immediately…’
And chattering inconsequentially, she made her toilette and shut out the knowledge in the maid’s eyes that said that she and the entire household knew that Lord and Lady Marney were estranged and that Lord Marney would shortly be seeking consolation elsewhere.
Deb was trying to write a letter that morning. It was a strange business, but she had found that since she had spent more time in Lord Richard Kestrel’s company, she seemed to have even less inclination to hire herself a temporary fiancé. It was odd, and she could see no direct connection between the two facts, but it was undeniable. To become betrothed, no matter how briefly, no matter how practically, seemed some sort of betrayal of her feelings. She was out of all patience with herself.
She sighed and re-read the missive.
Dear Lord Scandal, I need to be certain that you are a man of honour before I agree to a meeting. Though I have adopted so strange a mode of proceeding, I mean to be cautious in my choice. I confess that I am undecided. I shall write again to you shortly, and if you are still interested in rendering me assistance, perhaps we may meet…
Deb sighed and crumpled up the paper, throwing it inaccurately in the direction of the fire grate. It was her fifth attempt and it still was not quite right. The first had been too coy, the second too vague, the third too bold. She had had no idea that this business of advertising for a fiancé would be quite so difficult, nor that she would be so short of choice. She had visited the Bell and Steelyard Inn again the previous day and there were still no more replies to her advertisement. It seemed inexplicable.
Deb paused at the sound of a step in the corridor outside, for she had not told Mrs Aintree that she was pressing ahead with her plan. She felt a little ashamed of this, but she had lain awake for a long time into the night whilst she puzzled the whole matter out. She could find a fiancé or she could confess all to her father and accept his reproaches as her due. If it would end there, then perhaps she might have taken it on the chin. But it did not. Lord Walton was of choleric disposition and Deb knew that once he was aware that she had no matrimonial plans, he would compel her to return to live in Bath. If she refused, he would cut off her allowance. There would be no discussion.
Deb rested the quill pen on the inkpot and pushed the paper away from her. After three years away it would be impossible to go back and to live at her parental home. It had been bad enough before she had run away with Neil. The atmosphere there had been stifling. Her father had ruled with a rod of iron and her mother had practically pushed her into the lap of any eligible man who passed by. So, before her parents tried to marry her off again, she had to find her own fiancé.
Dear Lord Scandal, you simply must help me. I have told my father that I am engaged to be married, but unfortunately this is not the case. I do not have a betrothed and most earnestly seek a gentleman who can fulfil the duties of a fiancé during the period of my brother’s wedding. This is crucial to me if I am to avoid the ignominy of being dragged home to live with my parents again…
Deb ran a hand through her disordered honey-coloured curls. She could not help but wonder what Lord Richard Kestrel would make of her attempts to hire herself a fiancé. Although it was the merest business arrangement, she felt the same wave of disloyalty sweep over her again. She groaned. This was ridiculous since she owed Lord Richard no loyalty at all. For all her affinity with him, she did not know whether he was trifling with her or not, although her blood burned to believe him faithful.
Both reason and observation were against Lord Richard Kestrel. Deb had heard of his conquests and seen him flirt with a great many ladies. For all his fine words, she suspected that he had tried to fix her interest in order to discover more about the Midwinter spy. All in all, he was not to be trusted, no matter what her instincts told her. And he was not a marrying man. Since Deb considered herself not to be a marrying woman, this should not have mattered, and yet, unaccountably, it did. Her feelings had been made starkly plain on the subject when Lily Benedict had cornered her at Lady Sally’s soirée a few days before and helpfully whispered that did she know that Lord Richard Kestrel had once been engaged to a lady who had found him in the arms of a Cyprian on the night of their betrothal ball…
‘Malicious cat!’ Deb said now, aloud. Even so, she knew that Lord Richard was a man one might flirt with or even take as a lover, but that marriage would be out of the question. And she told herself that she had no desire to enter that state again after her experience with Neil. She knew exactly how unfaithful, unreliable and downright cruel a man could be and she would not put herself in that position again.
She was about to pick up her quill with renewed energy to frame her letter to Lord Scandal when there was a commotion in the corridor outside and Olivia erupted into the room. Her face was flushed pink, her eyes bright, her hat tilted askew on her flyaway curls. For a moment it was almost like looking at a mirror image of Deb herself. Deb got up, smiling, and then she saw the expression in her sister’s eyes and her smile turned to a frown of concern as her insides turned to ice. Something was dreadfully wrong.
‘Liv?’ she said. ‘What has happened? What’s the matter?’
And then Olivia did something that Deb had never seen her do in her entire life. She burst into tears.
‘I am sorry, I am so very sorry…’ It was ten minutes later and Olivia was finally able to speak again, although not in any coherent way. Her words were making no sense to Deborah at all.
‘I cannot help it. I cannot stop crying!’ Olivia gulped. ‘Oh, Deb, you would not believe what has happened this morning…I simply have to tell someone. I cannot bear it any longer!’
She stopped and looked at Deb with tear-drenched eyes, as though daring her sister to contradict her. Deb waited. Olivia took a deep breath.
‘Ross was making love to me,’ she said. ‘Ross was making love to me and I was thinking about decorating the ceiling. The ceiling, Deb! I was entirely engrossed. So Ross stopped and looked at me and I realised what had happened and how angry he was, and I felt ill-quite sick with fear and misery-and Ross stormed off and I believe this is the end for us, the absolute end, Deb-’
‘Wait!’ Deb besought. She noticed that Olivia’s nose was running, so she rummaged around in her sleeve but could not find a handkerchief. Instead she was obliged to give her sister the small cambric cloth from the table instead. Olivia blew her nose heartily and did not even notice the unorthodox nature of the handkerchief.
‘Wait,’ Deb said again, as her sister dabbed at her reddened eyes and seemed about to burst into renewed speech. ‘Give yourself time to draw breath.’
Olivia sighed and Deb looked at her curiously. She was very shocked by Olivia’s outburst, for she would never have believed her sister capable of such strong feeling. She was also fascinated to see that Olivia did not cry in a pretty way at all. Somehow she had expected her sister to look pale and interesting with tear-wet eyes. Instead, Olivia’s nose had turned red and appeared twice its normal size. Deb felt a great rush of affection for her. She slid along the sofa and put an arm around her.
‘Now then, Olivia,’ she said calmly, ‘I am afraid that you will have to explain yourself more clearly. What it all this about Ross and the ceiling?’
‘I told you,’ Olivia sniffed. ‘Ross was making love to me and I was not paying attention.’
‘You mean actually making love, or…?’ Deb waved her hands about vaguely.
Olivia looked irritated. ‘Actually making love as opposed to-what, Deb?’
‘As opposed to kissing, or…’ Deb shrugged, trying to look knowledgeable. She hoped that her exceptionally limited knowledge of the ways of the world would not let her down here.
‘Yes,’ Olivia sounded ruffled. ‘Making love, Deb! Please do not interrupt me again!’
‘I am sorry,’ Deb said. ‘Do go on.’
‘Whilst Ross was busy, I was lying there, gazing at the ceiling,’ Olivia said, clearly unable to stop talking even had she wanted to do so, ‘and I noticed a hairline crack in the trellis work painted above the bed, so I started to plan how I might have it mended…’
‘Oh, dear,’ Deb said.
Her sister cast her a sideways look. ‘Indeed. So I was intending to call a decorator from London, and really I was quite carried away by my plans, and after a little while I suddenly returned to the present and realised that Ross had paused in what he was doing-’
‘How long?’ Deb asked.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Olivia wrinkled up her reddened nose.
‘How long do you think your mind was on other matters?’
‘Ten minutes?’ Olivia guessed. ‘Perhaps fifteen?’ Her voice faded. She looked stricken. ‘I cannot be certain. Once Ross starts, you see, he can sometimes go on for quite a while because he likes to-’
‘Please do not tell me the intimate details!’ Deb spoke hastily. ‘I would never be able to look Ross in the eye again.’
Olivia gave a watery giggle. ‘No, I suppose you would not. Oh, dear, I am being very indiscreet. I do not seem to be able to help myself!’
‘Never mind that,’ Deb said. ‘You have been discreet enough in the past six years. I expect it will do you good to be indiscreet for a change.’ She frowned. ‘Olivia, there is something I must ask. When Ross makes love to you, do you not join in at all?’
Now it was Olivia’s turn to frown. She looked at Deb in a puzzled way. Deb looked back.
After a moment Olivia said uncertainly, ‘Mama never said anything about joining in. Is one supposed to?’
Deb’s frown deepened still further. She fidgeted and avoided her sister’s bewildered gaze. ‘I think one is. I mean, I do not know. I thought that you would know…’
‘I don’t know,’ Olivia said, her forehead wrinkling. ‘I do not know anything about the way one is supposed to behave in the marriage bed. That is what I have been telling you, Deb. I feel completely stupid.’
They looked at each other again and then Olivia clapped a hand to her mouth. Above it, her eyes were very bright but with laughter this time, not tears.
‘Oh, how funny! I cannot believe that we are both so utterly without a clue…’
‘At least you had the benefit of Mama’s talk about the duties of a wife,’ Deb pointed out. ‘I never had that. I ran away and so she did not have time to warn me about what to expect.’
‘Mama never said anything about participating,’ Olivia said, torn between incomprehension and laughter. ‘It was all about gowns and menus-’
‘Menus?’ Deb stared. ‘How on earth could that possibly be relevant?’
Olivia smothered another snort of amusement. ‘That was Mama’s suggestion of a topic to think about whilst your husband was busy. The only other mention she made was of how untidy naked men look…’ She gave an unladylike guffaw. ‘Which they do, of course, all dangling bits and-’
‘Liv!’ Deb blushed scarlet. She put both hands over her ears. ‘Oh! You are shocking me!’
‘Isn’t it splendid?’ Olivia said, giggling. ‘Do you want to hear what happened after I realised that Ross had stopped?’
‘No!’ Deb shrieked.
‘Well, I shall tell you anyway! We looked at one another and then Ross offered to find me a magazine to help pass the time!’
Deb could not help herself. Her natural curiosity overcame her scruples. ‘Was he still…I mean, were you still…conjoined at this point?’
‘Yes!’ Olivia shrieked with laughter. ‘But after that he dwindled away…’
Deb could not help but give a snort of laughter herself and, once she had started, she could not stop. The sisters fell into each other’s arms, still laughing uproariously, and hugged each other hard.
‘I was so upset!’ Olivia gasped, between huge guffaws. ‘And now I find it so terribly amusing! Is it not strange…?’
There was gentle tap at the door. The sisters fell apart, Deb pressing a hand to her side. ‘Oh! Do not make me laugh any more. It hurts!’
Clarissa Aintree put her head around the door with an enquiring look. ‘Is everything quite all right, girls?’
‘Oh, yes thank you, Clarrie!’ Olivia said, gulping. ‘Everything is very fine! Would you care to join us for tea?’
‘I would not dream of intruding,’ Mrs Aintree said, her blue eyes twinkling, ‘but I will send in a pot.’
She closed the door softly behind her. Olivia wiped her eyes on the tablecloth and looked at Deb. She sobered slightly.
‘I am sorry, Deb,’ she said, ‘That was very funny and you have made me feel much better, but it was monstrous thoughtless of me to raise this subject with you. Forgive me?’
Deb shook her head slightly. ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ she said, but she knew her face betrayed her.
Now that her hysterics had subsided, the familiar mix of blame and misery returned like a shadow to her mind. Mrs Deborah Stratton…She had no real claim to the name, nor to the status that her supposed widowhood gave her. She had never been properly married.
She knew why Olivia felt guilty. Her sister had assumed that she would understand about her difficulties in the marriage bed and Deb did and that was the precise problem. Very few people knew that Neil Stratton had already been married when he had eloped with Lord Walton’s younger daughter. With good fortune, no one would ever find out. And yet Deb felt haunted by the truth and even more troubled by her seduction at the hands of so skilled and callous a man.
It had been Olivia who, in the painful weeks after Deb had discovered herself betrayed, had pointed out to her gently and beautifully that Deb should never consider herself dishonoured because she had given herself to Neil in good faith, thinking him her husband. Deb had wept for days, knowing that Olivia spoke a logical truth, but also knowing that it made no difference to her feelings. She blamed herself. If only she had not been so impetuous, so quick to be persuaded into an elopement, so foolish in thinking that what she was doing was romantic…It had never crossed her mind that Neil might be a fortune hunter intent on catching a larger dowry than the one he had originally married. She had aided her own downfall by playing into his hands and, if anyone ever discovered the truth, she would be ruined.
She had not been married to Neil Stratton when she had made love with him, even though she had thought herself to be his true wife at the time. It was only after his death that Deb had discovered about Neil’s wife and child, and she was left feeling used and tainted, both by her faith in his love for her and by his casual taking of her body. She could not see how she could ever conquer the feeling of dishonour. She could not see how she could ever trust a man again.
Olivia was watching her and put out a sympathetic hand. ‘Oh, Deb, I am sorry…’
‘Do not be.’ Deb gave her sister a quick smile. ‘It was a long time ago. These days, I scarce think on it. And at least I know that you understand why I could not contemplate marriage, no matter how Papa presses me…’
Olivia looked stubborn. ‘With someone else it might be different.’
Deb shook her head. ‘No, no marriage.’ She cleared her throat, anxious to push her worries back into the dark corner where they belonged. ‘I thought we were talking about you, Liv, not about my difficulties in that respect.’
‘I think that we have done quite enough talking on that subject,’ Olivia said, trying to regain her previous composure. ‘It is not in the least genteel of me to divulge so much intimate detail. I cannot think what possessed me.’
‘Yes,’ Deb said, ‘but since you have done, what is to be done about Ross, Liv? You cannot carry on like this.’
Olivia blushed slightly. ‘No, we cannot. I suppose that I must talk to Ross and try to build up some sort of understanding with him. And next time that he comes to my room I will try to…to join in…’
‘Do you want to?’
Olivia blushed harder. ‘I can try. It might be quite nice.’ She looked up at Deb, a smile still lurking in her eyes. ‘I do not wish to spend the rest of my married life in a passionless desert,’ she said. ‘And after all, Ross is quite an attractive man.’
‘He is prodigiously attractive,’ Deb said drily.
‘Yes. And I would not wish someone else to think so and offer to console him. It is not that I dislike him, Deb.’ Olivia frowned. ‘It seems that there is a huge gulf between us that we do not understand how to bridge. The only problem is that Ross swore he would not trouble me again.’
There was a pause whilst the maid bustled in with tea, but once the door was closed again, Deb jumped to her feet.
‘If you truly wish to attract Ross, then I have just the thing for you,’ she said. ‘I received a letter from Rachel Newlyn this morning-’
Olivia’s face lit up. ‘Oh, how is she?’
‘Very well,’ Deb said. She gave Olivia a dry look. ‘I think that she may be enjoying married life rather more than you or I did!’
Olivia giggled. ‘Would you not, with Cory Newlyn? He is devastatingly attractive…’ Olivia waved her hands around descriptively.
‘I know,’ Deb said meaningfully.
She passed her sister the letter and went across to the desk in the corner on the room. Rachel’s parcel was still there, where Deb had unwrapped and left it earlier in the morning.
Olivia read aloud: ‘I am sending a pot of balm for Lord Marney’s collection of rare breeds, for I hear from your sister that the pigs have a skin complaint-’
‘No, not that bit,’ Deb said hastily as Olivia gave her a curious look. ‘The next paragraph.’
‘I am also sending a pot of my own rose-scented face cream, made from a recipe discovered by Mama in an ancient Egyptian text. It is certainly extremely good for the complexion, but I have to counsel you not to use it unless you wish to attract a great deal of masculine attention!’ She paused and raised her eyebrows.
‘Read on,’ Deb said, laughing.
‘It contains a special ingredient that the Egyptians swore was an aphrodisiac-oh, my!-so I am warning you to use it sparingly, unless you wish to bewitch Lord Richard-’
‘Quite so!’ Deb said, snatching the letter. She had forgotten the last bit and felt herself colouring up. ‘So if you wish to borrow it-’
‘Not so fast,’ Olivia said, laughing at her sister. ‘Are you sure that you do not wish to use it yourself?’
‘For what purpose?’
‘To attract Lord Richard Kestrel,’ Olivia said. She eyed Deb with amusement. ‘On reflection, however, I do not believe that you require any artificial assistance in that task, not when you appeared out of the conservatory at the ball looking as though you had been thoroughly kissed!’
Deb smiled reluctantly. ‘Actually, that was the one occasion on which Lord Richard did not kiss me!’
Olivia opened her eyes very wide. ‘The one occasion he did not? You mean on every other occasion-’
‘Almost,’ Deb said.
‘When he escorted you back from Marney a few days ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘And before that-at the musicale?’
‘Yes.’
‘And in the wood-’
‘Yes, but you knew about that already. I mentioned it to you myself that afternoon we took tea.’
Olivia looked riveted. ‘And?’
Deb shrugged a little awkwardly. ‘I do not know, Liv.’ She frowned and smiled simultaneously. ‘It is quite absurd, but I find that I like him…I cannot seem to help myself.’
‘It was bound to happen sooner or later,’ Olivia said gently, ‘and Lord Richard is very likeable.’
‘Yes, but…’ Deb gave her sister a guilty, sideways look. ‘I have been thinking of him a great deal, Liv. I do not understand myself. On the one hand I feel I simply have to avoid him, and on the other I would like…Well, you know what I would like! It is the most appalling and wanton thing. I cannot trust a man, I have no desire for marriage and yet I long for the fulfilment of a physical relationship. I am quite shocked at myself.’
There was an unhappy silence.
‘It is most understandable,’ Olivia said, after a moment. She patted her sister’s hand. ‘Do not be so hard on yourself, Deb. You have been cheated of every natural emotion and every good experience that you might have expected to find in marriage. Yet you are young and full of life, and you feel things passionately. You are starving yourself of love…’
‘I know,’ Deb said shakily. She got up and walked over to the window. The tears blurred her eyes and thickened her throat.
‘There was no tenderness in your relationship with Neil,’ Olivia said, after a moment, ‘and since then you have been the very pattern-card of respectable widowhood. It is only natural that you feel the way that you do. Do not reproach yourself for it.’
‘Almost you convince me,’ Deb said unhappily. ‘But why have I fixed upon Lord Richard? I have a lowering feeling that it is simply because he is there.’
Olivia looked at her for a long moment and then she shook her head. ‘No, Deb. You do not believe that. Do not demean your feelings like this. If you were only looking for an affaire, then you might have chosen any of the personable gentlemen who have been in Midwinter this year past. Sir John Norton, for example-’
Deb shuddered. ‘Never!’
‘Exactly. Whereas you have known Richard Kestrel for several years and, despite your protestations, are most attracted to him. There is an affinity between you whether you like it or not.’
Deb shook her head. ‘It is an affinity that can come to nothing. I cannot compound my previous folly by entering into a relationship like this with my eyes open. What, am I to indulge in not one but two relationships outside the bond of marriage? I should be nothing but a wanton!’
‘It is not like that,’ Olivia said, ‘and you know it. Neil-’
‘Oh, very well, I acknowledge that I was tricked by Neil!’ Deb raised her hands in a vehement gesture. ‘The fact remains, Olivia, that I have never been truly married and yet I have given myself to one man and I will not compromise my own honour by giving myself to another. I cannot!’
Deb realised that she was shaking, and when Olivia came across to her and put her arms about her she allowed her sister to hold her like she had done when they were children comforting each other.
‘I am sorry,’ Olivia said, after a moment. ‘It was wrong of me to offer advice. You must do what you believe is right.’ She laughed a little bitterly. ‘Hark at me! And I am the one reaching for the Ladies Magazine when my husband makes love to me! It is always easier to give guidance than to take it.’
Deb laughed too. She went over to the desk and pushed the pot of hand cream towards Olivia. ‘At least one of us may yet get this right. So take this with my blessing, Liv. I wish you luck.’
‘What about the ointment for Ross’s pigs?’ Olivia asked, tucking the pot of face cream in her reticule.
‘Oh, yes!’ Deb jumped up and hurried over to the window seat, where she had left the rest of Rachel’s parcel half-unpacked. ‘Here you are!’
Olivia took the second pot and pressed a kiss on her sister’s cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly. She paused in the doorway. ‘If you do decide to act on your feelings, Deb, then I wish you every happiness.’
After Olivia had gone, Deb went across to the grate and removed one of the scrunched up pieces of paper. Sitting at her desk, she rested her chin on her hand and bit the end of the quill pen. Forget Richard Kestrel, she instructed herself sharply. Her task was to find a discreet and reliable gentleman to be her fiancé, not a disreputable knave to be her lover, no matter how her body ached for him. She tried to concentrate.
Dear Lord Scandal…
She put the pen down again. Damnation, Deb thought, as well ask a rake to be her fiancé as a man with such an alias.
Dear Lord Scandal, are you a trustworthy and honourable gentleman? I suspect not, with a name like yours. However, my need for assistance is acute. I should therefore deem it a kindness on your part if you were prepared for us to meet…
A day later, Lord Richard Kestrel pocketed the letter that was waiting for him under the alias of Lord Scandal at the Bell and Steelyard Inn, and passed two guineas to the innkeeper, one for the safe delivery and the other for the suppression of all the other missives addressed to Lady Incognita. He went out and climbed straight back into his carriage, waiting until the vehicle was on the move before he broke the seal. Resting one elbow against the window, he perused the contents. An appreciative smile touched his mouth. Lady Incognita certainly had a way with words. And she wanted to meet him. Sensibly, she had chosen a public place for their tryst, but one that gave them the opportunity to be alone if they wished to talk in private. He wondered whether she would bring a chaperon to meet him. He tried to imagine the look on the chaperon’s face, and on Deb’s face, when they saw him.
The assignation was arranged for the following day. He would certainly be there. In fact, he could barely master his impatience.