Tarnished Amongst the Ton Part 3

How old was she? Twenty-five, twenty-six? Attractive, bright, stylish, but not married. Why not? he wondered. Something to do with her secret lives, no doubt.

'I would very much appreciate it if you did not mention that we had met before this evening, my lord.' She said it quite calmly, but Ashe suspected that it was a matter of far more importance than she was revealing and that she hated having to ask him.

'Members of the ton are not expected to be shopkeepers, I a.s.sume?'

'Precisely.'

'Hmm. Pity my maternal grandfather was a nabob, then.' He was unconcerned what people thought of his ancestry, but he was interested in how she reacted.

'If he was indecently rich, and is now dead, there is absolutely nothing for the heir to a marquisate to worry about. Society is curiously accommodating in its prejudices.' Her expression was bleak. 'At least, so far as gentlemen are concerned. Ladies are another matter altogether.'

'So I could ruin you with this piece of gossip?'

'Yes, as you know perfectly well. Ladies are not shopkeepers, nor do they walk about anywhere, let alone the docks, unescorted. Did you spend much time as a boy pulling the wings off flies, Lord Clere?'

Ashe felt an unfamiliar stab of conscience. This was, quite obviously, deathly serious to Miss Hurst. But it was a mystery why a lady should be in business at all. Was she so short of pin money? 'I am sorry, I had no intention of torturing you. You have my word that I will not speak of this to anyone.'

The music stopped and dancers began to come off the floor. Another set had ended and he realised he should not be lurking behind the palms with Phyllida Hurst any longer. Someone might notice and a.s.sume they had an a.s.signation. He could dent her reputation. 'Will you dance, Miss Hurst?'

He hoped to Heaven it was something he could dance. He was decidedly rusty and the waltz had not reached Calcutta by the time they left. He was going to have to join in Sara's lessons.

'I do not dance,' Miss Hurst said. 'Please, do not let me detain you.'

'I was going in any case. It would be more discreet. But you mean you never dance?'

'I do not enjoy it,' she said.

Liar. All the time they had been together on the window seat her foot had been tapping along with the music without her realising. She wanted to dance and for some reason would not. Interesting. Ashe stood up. 'Then I will wish you good evening, Miss Hurst. Perhaps we will meet window shopping in Jermyn Street one day.'

'I fear not. It is not a street where I can afford to pay the prices asked. Good evening, Lord Clere.'

He bowed and took himself off, well clear of her hiding place. He watched the couples whirling in the waltz, concluding that professional tuition was most definitely called for before he ventured on to the floor. After an interval Miss Hurst emerged and strolled off in the opposite direction.

Ashe wondered if there were any more unmarried ladies around with that combination of looks, style, spirit and wit. He had expected all the eligible young women to be cut from the same pattern: pretty, simpering, dull. Perhaps hunting for a wife would be more interesting than he had imagined. Miss Hurst had her scandalous secrets, and she was a little older than most of the unmarried girls. But she was certainly still well within her childbearing years and a shop was easy enough to dispose of.

He found his parents, who were watching Sara talk to a group of just the kind of girls he was thinking of so disparagingly. 'There you are.' His mother put her hand on his arm to detain him. 'Lady Malling, may I introduce my son, Viscount Clere. Ashe, this is the Dowager Countess of Malling.'

He shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. This was the lady who had been with Phyllida when they had arrived at the ball. As he thought it he saw her again, talking to the young man he had guessed was her brother.

'Perhaps you can tell me who that is, ma'am. The tall man with the dark brown hair just to the left of the arrangement of lilies.'

'Gregory Hurst, Earl of Fransham,' the dowager said promptly. 'A good-looking rogue.'

Had his study of the Peerage been so awry? 'I am a trifle confused. I thought the lady with him was his sister, but she was introduced to me as Miss Hurst and if he is an earl...'

'Ah.' Lady Malling lowered her voice. 'She is his full, elder, sister. However, I regret to say their parents neglected to marry until after her birth. Such a scandal at the time! It makes her, unfortunately, baseborn.'

'But she is received?'

'Oh, yes, in most places except court, of course. Or Almack's. Charming girl. But she won't make much of a marriage, if any. Even leaving aside the accident of birth, she has not a penny piece for a dowry-goodness knows how she manages to dress so well or where those cameos came from-and Fransham is wild to a fault and no catch as a son-in-law. Except for the t.i.tle, of course. He may attach a rich cit's daughter with that.'

h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation. Eccentricity was one thing, but illegitimacy and no dowry on top of dubious commercial activities were all the complete opposites of what he had set out as essential qualities for a wife. Suddenly doing his duty seemed considerably less appealing.

Even as he thought it Phyllida turned and caught his eye. Her mouth curled in a slight smile and she put her hand on her brother's arm as though to draw attention to the Herriard party.

Still wrestling with that revelation, Ashe raised one brow, unsmiling, and inclined his head a fraction. The smile vanished as she glanced from him to Lady Malling, then her chin came up and she turned away. Even at that distance he could see the flags of angry colour on her cheeks.

You clumsy fool. That had been ungentlemanly, even if it had been unintentional. He had been surprised and disappointed and... No excuses. You were a b.l.o.o.d.y idiot, he told himself. Now what? He could hardly go over and apologise, he had already dug himself into a deep enough hole and what could he say? So sorry, I have just realised you are illegitimate and poor as a church mouse and absolutely no use to me as a wife, but I didn't mean to snub you.

And then he stopped thinking about himself and looked at his mother, the offspring of an Indian princess and a John Company trader with an estranged English wife.

'Illegitimacy is not a barrier to being received, then,' she observed as though reading his mind.

One glance at Lady Malling told him she knew exactly what the marchioness's parentage was. 'Goodness, no,' the older woman said. 'It all depends on the parents and the deportment of the person concerned. And rank.'

'And money,' his mother observed coolly.

'Oh, indeed.' The dowager chuckled. Her eyes barely flickered in the direction of the suite of stunning Burmese sapphires his mother was wearing. 'Society can always make rules and bend them to suit itself. Do tell me, which are your days for receiving, Lady Eldonstone?'

'Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday,' Mata said. Only her family would know she had made that up on the spur of the moment. 'I do hope we will see you soon in Berkeley Square, Lady Malling.'

'Be sure I will call.'

Ashe looked back across the room. Phyllida Hurst had vanished.

The bigoted beast. Phyllida slipped through the crowd and into the ladies' retiring room before she betrayed her humiliation by marching straight over and slapping Ashe Herriard's beautiful face for him.

He had flirted-worse than flirted on the quayside-he had joked with her this evening, promised to keep her secret and then, the moment he discovered who she was, snubbed her with a cut direct.

She flung herself down on a stool in front of a mirror and glared at her own flushed expression. Stupid to let myself dream for a moment that I was a debutante flirting with a man who might offer marriage. Stupid to dream of marriage at all. What had come over her to forget the anguish of that struggle to resign herself when she had faced the fact that she would never marry? I will not cry.

'Is anything wrong?' She had not noticed it was Miss Millington on the next stool.

'Men,' Phyllida responded bitterly as she jabbed pins into her hair.

'Oh dear. One in particular or all of them? Only I liked your brother very much, Miss Hurst, he is such a good dancer and so amusing. He has not made you angry, surely?'

'Gregory? No, not at all.' Gregory was being a positive paragon this evening. 'No, just some tactless, top-lofty buck. I hope,' she added vengefully, 'that his too-tight silk breeches split.'

Miss Millington collapsed in giggles. 'Wouldn't that be wonderful? I believe the gentlemen wear nothing beneath them, they are made of such thin knitted silk. What a shocking revelation!'

Phyllida imagined a half-naked Lord Clere for a moment, visualised those long legs and taut b.u.t.tocks, then caught Miss Millington's eye in the gla.s.s and succ.u.mbed to laughter, too. 'Oh dear. He is very good-looking and has a fine figure, but I suppose it is too much to hope for.'

The other young woman hesitated. 'I wonder if you might care to call on Mama, Miss Hurst. Perhaps it is forward of me, but I think we could be friends.'

Phyllida cast a hasty glance around the room, but they were alone at one end. 'United in our desire to study Cla.s.sical statuary, or perhaps anatomy?' she asked wickedly. 'I would like that very much. Will you not call me Phyllida?'

'And I am Harriet.' Miss Millington fished in her reticule. 'Here is Mama's card. She receives on Tuesdays and Thursdays.'

'Thank you, I look forward to it.' Feeling considerably soothed, Phyllida dusted rice powder lightly over her flushed cheeks and went out to look for Gregory.

They found each other almost immediately, both, it seemed, ready to go home. 'I have done my duty by all six of the young ladies you listed for me,' he said as he helped her with her cloak in the lobby. 'If I stay any longer I will get confused between bankers' daughters, mill-owners' heiresses and the offspring of naval captains awash with prize money.'

'Did you like Miss Millington?' Phyllida asked as he handed her into a hackney.

'Miss Millington? She's the tall brunette with a nice laugh and good teeth. She has a certain style about her.'

'I have good news. She thinks you are a fine dancer, has invited me to call and we are now on first-name terms. I really like her, Gregory.'

'I did, too,' he admitted.

'Now all we have to do is to make sure she falls in love with you and that you do not fall into any scandals that will alarm her fond papa.'

'And we will do the difficult things after breakfast, will we?' he asked with a chuckle. 'I'll do my best to be a good lad, Phyll.'

Please, she thought. And fall in love, for Harriet's sake. And then she could retreat to the little dower house in the park and spend her time finding items for her shop, for which she would employ a manager. She would be independent, removed enough not to cause a newly respectable, and wealthy, Earl of Fransham any embarra.s.sment and free from the deceits and dangers of her current situation.

It all seemed so simple. Too simple? No, we can do it.

Phyllida managed to maintain her mood of optimism through the short journey home, a cup of tea by her bedchamber fire and the rituals of undressing and hair brus.h.i.+ng.

But when she blew out the candle, lay back and shut her eyes, the image against her closed lids was not of a happy bridal couple in a cloud of orange blossom, but Ashe Herriard's disdainful face as he watched her across the ballroom floor.

Bigoted, arrogant beast, she thought as she punched the pillow. Your opinion isn't worth losing a wink of sleep over and so I shall tell you if I am ever unfortunate to meet you again.

At five o'clock the next morning Phyllida was not certain how many winks of sleep she had lost, but it was far too many and lost not to constructive thoughts or pleasant half-dreams, but a miserable mixture of embarra.s.sment and desire. She pushed herself up against the piled pillows to peer at the little bedside clock in the dim light. Quarter past five.

It was hopeless to try to get back to sleep. The best she might hope for was to toss restlessly, remembering the heat of Ashe Herriard's mouth on hers, his long-limbed elegance as he sat on the window seat. It was bad enough to have thoughts like that without entertaining them for a man who despised her for an accident of birth.

Phyllida threw back the covers and got out of bed to look through the gap in the curtains. It was going to be a nice day. If she could not sleep, at least she could get some fresh air and exercise. A walk in Green Park would relax her and put her in a positive frame of mind for the morning.

The water in the ewer was cold, of course, but that did not matter. She scrambled into a plain walking dress and half-boots, tucked her hair into a net, took her bonnet by its ribbons and threw a shawl around her shoulders.

Anna would be stirring soon, making herself breakfast down in the bas.e.m.e.nt kitchen. Her maid liked to start the day well ahead of herself, as she put it. They could have breakfast together and then go out.

Anna was already halfway down the stairs. 'What are you doing up and about, Miss Phyllida?'

'Joining you for breakfast. Then I want to go for a walk.'

'Not by yourself, I'm hoping!' The maid went to the pump and filled the big kettle. She was in her forties, plain, down to earth and with a past she never spoke of.

'No, even at this hour someone might see me, I suppose, and that would be a black mark against my impeccable reputation.' Phyllida lifted half a loaf from the bread crock and looked for the knife.

'We wouldn't want to be risking that, now would we?' Anna enquired sardonically. She had been with Phyllida for six years now, knew about the shop and was not afraid to say what she thought about her mistress's life.

'No, we wouldn't,' Phyllida agreed, equally straight-faced. 'So I'll have a nice brisk walk and you can take a rug and a journal and sit on one of the benches beside the reservoir so the proprieties will be observed.'

It was just after six when they set out, weaving through the grid of streets that would take them into Green Park. Around them the St James's area was waking up. Maids swept front steps, others, yawning, set out with empty baskets to do the early marketing. Delivery carts were pulling up at the back entrances for the numerous clubs, h.e.l.ls and shops that served this antheap of aristocrats, rakeh.e.l.ls, high-cla.s.s mistresses and respectable households. The sprawl covered the gentle slopes down to the old brick Tudor palace of St James and, beyond it, St James's Park.

That would be too risky for an early-morning walk, Phyllida knew. Dolly mops and all their sisters of the night would be emerging from their places of business in the shrubberies, along with the occasional guardsman hurrying back to barracks having served a different kind of clientele altogether.

The early riders would make for the long tracks of Hyde Park, leaving Green Park as a quiet backwater until at least nine. 'You can sit and read while I go past the lodge and the small pond down to Const.i.tution Hill and back,' Phyllida suggested as they turned up the Queen's Walk towards Piccadilly. 'Unless you want to come with me?'

'You look in the mood for walking out a snit,' Anna observed. 'You'll do that better alone. Who upset you?'

'Oh, just some wretched lordling newly arrived in town and shocked to the core to discover he's been flirting all unwittingly with a baseborn woman.'

'More fool he. You shouldn't let him upset you.' There was nothing to say to that, but Anna seemed to read plenty into Phyllida's silence. 'I suppose you were liking him up to then.'

'Well enough.' She shrugged.

'Handsome, is he?'

'Oh, to die for and well he knows it.' And he had seemed kind. He had a sense of humour, he loved his sister, he was eminently eligible. If she had not been who she was, then this morning she would have woken hoping for a bouquet from him by luncheon. What would it be like to be courted by a man like that, to hope for a proposal of marriage, to look forward to a future of happiness and children?

'A good brisk walk, then, and some stones to kick instead of his foolish head.' Anna surveyed the benches. 'That one will do me, right in the sun.'

'Thank you, Anna.' The maid's brisk common sense shook her out of her self-indulgent wonderings. 'If you get chilled, come and meet me.'

She waved and set off diagonally along the path towards the Queen's House on the far side of the Park. The early sunlight glinted off the white stone in the distance and the standard hung limp against the flagstaff in the still air. Phyllida breathed in the scents of green things breaking their winter sleep to thrust through the earth. That was better. When she was fully awake, feeling strong and resolved, then the weakening dreams could be shut safely away.

Rooks wheeled up from the high trees where they were building nests, jackdaws tumbled like acrobats through the air, courting or playing. Ahead of her the magpies had found something that had died during the night, a rat or a rabbit, she supposed, eyeing their squabbles with distaste as they fought for unsavoury sc.r.a.ps. She would have to detour off the path to avoid the mess.

As though a stone had been thrown into the midst of them the birds erupted up into the air, flapping and screeching at something that landed right next to their prize. For a second she thought it must be a bird of prey, then it turned its grey head and huge black beak in her direction, a.s.sessing her with intelligent eyes.

'Lucifer!' Surely the city had not been invaded by these grey-hooded crows? It stopped sidling up to the food and began to hop towards her. 'No, go away! I don't want you, you horrible bird. Shoo!'

As she spoke she heard the thud of hooves on turf coming up fast behind. The big bay horse thundered past, then circled and slowed as its rider reined it in and brought it back towards her at a walk. 'Lucifer, come here.' The crow flapped up to perch on the rider's shoulder, sending the horse skittering with nerves. The man on its back controlled it one-handed and lifted his hat to her with the other.

'Miss Hurst. I apologise for Lucifer, but he seems to like you.'

Of course, it had to be Lord Clere.

Chapter Five.

Phyllida looked from bird to master. 'The liking is not mutual, I a.s.sure you.' Why couldn't Lord Clere ride in Hyde Park like everyone else? Why couldn't he ride with the fas.h.i.+onable crowd in the afternoon? Why couldn't he leave the country altogether?

'I imagine the dislike applies to me as well,' he said. 'May I walk with you?'

'I can hardly stop you. This is a public park.' It was ungracious and she did not much care. Phyllida started walking again, the crow flapped down to claim its prize on the gra.s.s and Ashe Herriard swung out of the saddle.

'Is it? Public, I mean? I a.s.sumed it was, but there are no other riders. I was beginning to wonder if I had broken some dire rule of etiquette.' He did not sound as though he cared a toss for such rules.