Regency Rumours

Mr Soane must have come through a connecting door, but there was no sign of the viper-tongued Mr Harker. Where was he? Isobel scanned the room, conscious of butterflies in her stomach. The evidence of nerves gave her another grudge against Mr Perfection.

The children saw her first. ‘Ma’am.’ Philip bowed. ‘Welcome to Wimpole Hall.’

‘Are you our Cousin Isobel?’ Lizzie was wide-eyed with excitement at being allowed to a grown-up party. Isobel felt her stiff shoulders relax. He was not here and the children were charming.

Giles Harker straightened up from his contemplation of the collection of Roman intaglio seals in a small display table set against the wall. Lady Isobel had entered without seeing him and he frowned at her straight back and intricate pleats of brown hair as she spoke to Philip and Lizzie. She was a confounded nuisance, especially in a household presided over by a lady of known high standards. Lady Hardwicke’s disapproval would blight his chances of commissions from any of her wide social circle. She might be a blue-stocking and a playwright, but she was the daughter of the Earl of Balcarres and a lady of principle.

The Yorke daughters were charming, modest and well behaved, if inclined to giggle if spoken to. But this distant cousin was another matter altogether. At his first sight of her a tingle of recognition had gone down his spine. She was dangerous, although quite why, Giles would have been hard pressed to define. There was something in those wide grey eyes, her best feature. Some mystery that drew his unwilling interest.

Her frank and unabashed scrutiny had been an unwelcome surprise in an unmarried lady. He was used to the giggles and batted eyelashes of the young women making their come-outs and made a point of avoiding them. His birth was impossibly ineligible, of course, even if his education, style and income gave him the entrée to most of society. But he was unmarriageable and dangerous and that, he was well aware, was dinned into the young ladies he came into contact with.

Yet those very warnings were enough to make some of them think it irresistibly romantic that the illegitimate son of the Scarlet Widow was so handsome and so unobtainable.

For certain married ladies Giles Harker was not at all unobtainable—provided his notoriously capricious choice fell on them. Something the son of the most scandalous woman in society learned early on was that one’s value increased with one’s exclusivity and he was as coolly discriminating in his sins as his mother was warmly generous in hers. Even in her fifties—not that she would ever admit to such an age despite the incontrovertible evidence of an adult son—her heart was broken with delicious drama at least twice a year. His remained quite intact. Love, he knew from observation, was at best a fallacy, at worst, a danger.

Lord Hardwicke and Soane straightened up from their litter of plans, young Lord Royston blushed and the countess smiled. ‘Come in, my dear. Philip, bring that chair over to the sofa for Cousin Isobel.’

Giles watched as she walked farther into the room with an assurance that confirmed him in his estimate of her age. ‘Thank you, Lord Royston,’ she said as he brought her chair. ‘And you are Lady Lizzie?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I think I must be Cousin Isobel to you and Philip, for your mama assures me we are all related. Will you take me and introduce me to your sisters?’

Giles let the lid of the display table drop for the last fraction of an inch. Lady Isobel turned at the small, sharp sound. There was a friendly smile on her lips and it stayed, congealed into ice, as her gaze passed over him without the slightest sign of recognition.

A most-accomplished cut direct. It seemed an extreme reaction. He had sent her that chilling look in the hall out of sheer self-defence, as he did with any over-bold young woman who seemed interested. Mostly they took the hint and retreated blushing. This one seemed to have taken deep offence instead. She turned back and went to take her seat, sinking on to it with trained elegance.

For the first time in a long time Giles felt a stirring of interest in an utterly ineligible woman and it made him uneasy. That meeting of eyes in the hallway had been astonishing. He had intended to warn off yet another wide-eyed virgin and instead had found his snub returned with interest and hostility. Why she was so forward, and why he was so intrigued, was a mystery.

The earl began to pour drinks for the ladies without troubling to ring for a footman. Giles strolled over. ‘Allow me to assist, sir.’ He took the two glasses of lemonade for the youngest girls, noting how tactfully their father had used wine glasses to make them feel grown up. He came back and fetched the ratafia for Lady Anne and Lady Isobel, leaving the earl to serve his wife.

‘Lady Isobel.’ He proffered the glass, keeping hold of it so that she had to respond to him.

‘Thank you.’ She glanced up fleetingly, but did not turn her body towards him. ‘Would you be so good as to put it on that side table, Mr Harker?’ He might, from her tone, have been a clumsy footman.

Giles put the glass down, then spun a chair round and sat by her side, quite deliberately rather too close, to see if he could provoke her into some reaction. He was going to get to the bottom of this curiosity about her, then he could safely ignore her. As good breeding demanded, Lady Isobel shifted slightly on the tightly stuffed blue satin until he was presented with her profile.

Now she was rested from her journey she was much improved, he thought, hiding a connoisseur’s assessment behind a bland social smile. Her straight nose was no longer pink at the tip from cold; her hair, freed from its bonnet, proved to be a glossy brown with a rebellious wave that was already threatening her hairpins, and her figure in the fashionable gown was well proportioned, if somewhat on the slender side for his taste.

On the other hand her chin was decided, her dark brows strongly marked and there was a tension about her face that suggested that she was braced for something unpleasant. Her mouth looked as though it could set into a firm line of disapproval; it was full and pink, but by no stretch of the imagination did the words rosebud or bow come to mind. And she was quite definitely in at least her fifth Season.

Lady Isobel took up the glass, sipped and finally turned to him with a lift of her lashes to reveal her intelligent dark grey eyes. ‘Well?’ she murmured with a sweetness that did not deceive him for a second. ‘Have you studied me sufficiently to place me in your catalogue of females, Mr Harker? One well-bred spinster with brunette plumage, perhaps? Or do I not quite fit into a category, so you must bring yourself to converse with me while you decide?’

‘What makes you think I have such a catalogue, Lady Isobel?’ Giles accepted a glass of claret from the earl with a word of thanks and turned back to her. Interesting that she described herself as a spinster. She was perhaps twenty-four, he guessed, five years younger than he was. The shelf might be in sight, but she was not at her last prayers yet and it was an unusual young woman who would admit any danger that she might be.

‘You are studying me with scientific thoroughness, sir. I half expect you to produce a net and a pin to affix me amongst your moth collection.’

Moth, he noted. Not butterfly. Modesty? Or is she seeing if I can be provoked into meaningless compliments?

‘You have a forensic stare yourself, ma’am.’

Her lips firmed, just as he suspected they might. Schoolmarm disapproval, he thought. Or embarrassment, although he was beginning to doubt she could be embarrassed. Lady Isobel seemed more like a young matron than an unmarried girl. She showed no other sign of emotion and yet he could feel the tension radiating from her. It was strangely unsettling, although he should be grateful that his unwise curiosity had not led her to relax in his company.

‘You refer to our meeting of eyes in the hall? You must be tolerant of my interest, sir—one rarely sees Greek statuary walking about. I note that you do not relish being assessed in the same way as you study others, although you must be used to it by now. I am certain that you do not harbour false modesty amongst your faults.’

The composure with which she attacked began to nettle him. After that exchange she should be blushing, fiddling with her fan perhaps, retreating from their conversation to sip her drink, but she seemed quite calm and prepared to continue the duel. It confirmed his belief that she had been sounding him out with an intention to flirt—or more.

‘I have a mirror and I would be a fool to become swollen-headed over something that is due to no effort or merit of my own. Certainly I am used to stares,’ he replied. ‘And do not welcome them.’

‘So modest and so persecuted. My heart bleeds for you, Mr Harker,’ Lady Isobel said with a sweet smile and every appearance of sympathy. Her eyes were chill with dislike. ‘And no doubt you find it necessary to lock your bedchamber door at night with tiresome regularity.’

‘That, too,’ he replied between gritted teeth, then caught himself. Somehow he had been lured into an utterly shocking exchange. A well-bred unmarried lady should have fainted dead away before making such an observation. And he should have bitten his tongue before responding to it, whatever the provocation. Certainly in public.

‘How trying it must be, Mr Harker, to be so troubled by importunate members of my sex. We should wait meekly to be noticed, should we not? And be grateful for any attention we receive. We must not inconvenience, or ignore, the lords of creation who, in their turn, may ogle as much as they please while they make their lordly choices.’

Lady Isobel’s voice was low and pleasant—no one else in the room would have noticed anything amiss in their conversation. But Giles realised what the emotion was that had puzzled him: she was furiously angry. With him. Simply because he had reacted coldly to her unladylike stare? Damn it, she had been assessing him like a housewife looking at a side of beef in the butchers. Or did she know who he was and think him presumptuous to even address her?

‘That is certainly what is expected of ladies, yes,’ he said, his own temper rising. He’d be damned if he was going to flirt and cajole her into a sweet mood, even if Lady Hardwicke noticed their spat. ‘Certainly unmarried ones—whatever their age.’

Her chin came up at that. ‘A hit, sir. Congratulations. But then a connoisseur such as yourself would notice only ladies who offer irresistible temptation. Not those who are on the shelf and open to advances.’

She turned her shoulder on him and immediately joined in the laughter over some jest of Philip’s before he had time to react to the emphasis she had put on some of her phrases. It took a second, then he realised that she was quoting him and his conversation with Soane a few minutes earlier.

Hell and damnation. Lady Isobel must have been outside the door. Now he felt a veritable coxcomb. He could have sworn he had seen the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. Now what did he do? His conscience stirred uneasily. Giles trampled on the impulse to apologise. It could only make things worse by acknowledging the offending words and explaining them would simply mire him further and hurt her more. Best to say nothing. Lady Isobel would avoid him now and that was better for both of them.

CHAPTER THREE

‘DINNER IS SERVED, my lady.’ There was a general stir as the butler made his announcement from the doorway and the party rose. Giles made a hasty calculation about seating plans and realised that ignoring Lady Isobel might be harder than he had thought.

‘We are a most unbalanced table, I am afraid,’ the countess observed. ‘Mr Soane—shall we?’ He went to take her arm and the earl offered his to Lady Isobel. Giles partnered Lady Anne, Philip, grinning, offered his arm to fifteen-year-old Catherine and Lizzie was left to bring up the rear. When they were all seated Giles found himself between Lady Isobel and Lizzie, facing the remaining Yorke siblings and Mr Soane. Conversation was inevitable if they were not to draw attention to themselves.

Lizzie, under her mother’s eagle eye, was on her best behaviour all through the first remove, almost unable to speak to him with the effort of remembering all the things that she must and must not do. Giles concluded it would be kinder not to confuse her with conversation, which left him with no choice but to turn and proffer a ragout to Lady Isobel.

‘Thank you.’ After a moment she said, ‘Do you work with Mr Soane often?’ Her tone suggested an utter lack of interest. The question, it was obvious, was the merest dinner-table conversation that good breeding required her to make. After his disastrous overheard comments she would like to tip the dish over his head, that was quite clear, but she was going to go through the motions of civility if it killed her.

‘Yes.’ Damn it, now he was sounding sulky. Or guilty. Giles pulled himself together. ‘I worked in his drawing office when I first began to study architecture after leaving university. It was a quite incredible experience—the office is in his house, you may know—like finding oneself in the midst of Aladdin’s cave and never knowing whether one is going to bump into an Old Master painting, trip over an Egyptian sarcophagus or wander into a Gothic monk’s parlour!

‘I am now building my own practice, but I collaborate with Soane if I can be of assistance. He is a busy man and I owe him a great deal.’

Lady Isobel made a sound that might be interpreted, by the wildly optimistic, as encouragement to expand on that statement.

‘He employed me when I had no experience and, for all he knew, might prove to be useless.’

‘And you are not useless?’ She sounded sceptical.

‘No.’ Hell, sulky again. ‘I am not.’ Deciding what to do with his future during that last year at Oxford had not been easy. It would have been very simple to hang on his mother’s purse strings—even her notorious extravagances had not compromised the wealth she had inherited from her father, nor her widow’s portion.

Somehow the Dowager Marchioness of Faversham kept the bon ton’s acceptance despite breaking every rule in the book, including producing an illegitimate child by her head gardener’s irresistibly handsome soldier son, ten months after the death of her indulgent and elderly husband. She was so scandalous, so charming, that Giles believed she was regarded almost as an exotic, not quite human creature, one that could be indulged and permitted its antics.