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‘You are not a regular visitor to this house?’
She shook her head. ‘I have only been in London a few days,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know anyone.’
‘Apart from the lady you are with. Your...aunt?’
Mary shook her head again. ‘I had never even met her before I turned up on her doorstep with a letter of introduction from my lawyer. And to be perfectly frank, I’m not at all sure the connection is...’
Suddenly Mary wondered why on earth she was telling this total stranger such personal information. It couldn’t be simply because there was something about him that put her in mind of her brother and his fellow officers, could it? Or because he’d given her that look, earlier, that had made her feel as though he was genuinely interested?
How pathetic did that make her? One kind word, one keen look, a smile and a touch of his hand and she’d been on the verge of unburdening herself.
Good grief—she was as susceptible to a good-looking man as the cousins she’d decried as ninnies not an hour earlier. She, who’d sworn never to let a handsome face sway her judgement, had just spent a full five minutes wondering how he managed to keep so fit and speculating about the cut of his clothes, and what lay beneath them.
‘You don’t really have any family left to speak of, is that what you were about to say?’
She couldn’t recall what she’d been about to say. Nor even what the question had been. Her mind kept veering off into realms it had never strayed into before and consequently got lost there.
‘Your...aunt, or whatever she is,’ he persisted, while her cheeks flooded with guilty heat, ‘said you are in mourning. Was it...for someone very close?’
Well, that dealt with the strange effects his proximity had been wreaking in her mind and body. He might as well have doused her with a bucket of cold water.
‘My mother,’ she said. ‘She was all I had left.’
She might be in a crowded ballroom tonight, on the arm of the most handsome and eligible man in the room, but the truth was that she was utterly alone in the world, and destitute.
‘That’s c...’ He pulled himself up short and patted her hand. ‘I mean to say, dreadful. For you.’
They’d reached the doorway now and beyond she could see tables laid out with a bewildering array of dishes that looked extremely decorative, but not at all like anything she might ever have eaten before.
Since they’d both come without an invitation, space was found for them at a table squeezed into the bay of a window.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said when he noted her gaze darting about anxiously. ‘I shall make sure we find your aunt once we have eaten and return you to her side in complete safety.’
She was amazed he’d noticed how awkward she felt. And that he’d correctly deduced it was being separated from her aunt that had caused it. Most men couldn’t see further than the end of their noses.
He must have noticed the way she’d eyed the food with trepidation, too, because he took great care, when offering her dishes, to ask if she liked the principal ingredient of each. Which deftly concealed her ignorance. For he could have explained what everything was, making her feel even more awkward, whilst puffing off his own savoir faire. As it was, since the other men at their table were passing dishes round, and helping the ladies to slices of this, or spoonfuls of that, nobody noticed anything untoward.
Eventually, her plate, like that of everyone else at the table, was piled high and conversation began to flow.
Except between Lord Havelock and her.
She supposed he’d gone to the length of his chivalry. She supposed he was waiting for her to make some kind of remark that would open up the kind of light, inconsequential conversations that were springing up all around them.
But for the life of her she couldn’t dredge up a single topic she could imagine might be of interest to a man like him. Or the kind of man she suspected he was. She didn’t really know a thing about him.
And though she was grateful to him for the way he’d behaved so far, she began to wish she was with her aunt and cousins. They would know how to entertain him, she was sure. They wouldn’t let this awkward silence go on, and on, and on...
He cleared his throat, half turned towards her and said, ‘Do you...?’ He cleared his throat again, took a sip of wine and started over. ‘That is, I wonder, do you enjoy living in town, or do you prefer the country? I suppose,’ he said with a swift frown before she could answer, ‘I should have enquired where you lived before you had to come to London, shouldn’t I? I don’t know why I assumed you had lived in the country before.’
‘I lived in Portsmouth, actually,’ she said, relieved to be able to have a question she could answer without having to rack her brains. ‘And I haven’t been here long enough to know whether I prefer it, or not.’
‘But do you have any objection to living in the countryside?’
It was her turn to frown. ‘I cannot tell. I have never lived anywhere but in a town.’
Oh, what a stupid, stupid thing to say. She should have made some remark about how...bustling London was in comparison to Portsmouth, or...or how she missed the sound of the sea. Or even better, asked him about his preferences. That was what men liked, really, wasn’t it? To talk about themselves? Instead, she’d killed the potential conversation stone dead.
They resumed eating in silence for a few more minutes before he made a second, valiant attempt to breach it. ‘Well, do you like children?’
‘Yes, I suppose in a general way,’ though she couldn’t imagine why he might ask that. But at least she’d learned her lesson from last time. She would offer him the chance to talk about himself. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, no reason,’ he said airily, though the faint blush that tinged his cheeks told her he was growing a bit uncomfortable. ‘Just making conversation.’ He reached for his wine glass and curled his fingers round the stem as though in need of something to hang on to. And then blurted, ‘What do people talk about at events like this?’
For the first time in her life, she actually felt sorry for a man. He’d come here expecting to enjoy himself and ended up saddled with the dullest, most boring female in the room. And far from betraying his exasperation with her ignorance, and her timidity, he’d done his best to put her at ease. He’d even been making an attempt to draw her out. And wasn’t finding it easy.
‘I expect it is easier for them,’ she said, indicating the other occupants of the table. ‘That is...I mean...they all know each other already, I think.’
He looked round the table and she couldn’t help contrasting the animated chatter of all the other females, who were universally fluttering their eyelashes at their male companions in the attempt to charm them. Then he looked back at her and smiled.
‘Well, we’ll just have to get to know each other then, won’t we?’
Oh, dear. Did he mean to ask her a lot of highly personal questions? Or expect her to come up with some witty banter, or start flirting like the other women? That’s what came of throwing a man even the tiniest conversational sop. She’d made him think she was interested in getting to know him.
‘What,’ he said abruptly, ‘do you think about climbing boys?’
‘I beg your pardon? Climbing boys?’
‘Yes. The little chaps they send up chimneys.’
All of a sudden, the odd things he said, and the abrupt way he said them reminded her very forcibly of her own brother’s behaviour, when confronted by a female to whom he was not related. He was trying his best, but this was clearly a man who was more at ease in the company of other men. Lord Havelock had no more idea how to talk to a single lady than she had as to how to amuse an eligible male.
He was staring at his plate now, a dull flush mounting his cheeks, as though he knew he’d just raised a topic that was not at all suitable for a dinner table, let alone what was supposed to be the delicate sensibilities of a female.
And once again, she felt...not sorry for him. No, not that. But willing to meet his attempts to entertain her halfway. For he was exerting himself to a considerable extent. A thing no other male she’d ever encountered had ever even considered doing. And though men did not usually want to hear what a woman thought, he had asked, and so she girded up her loins to express her opinion. It wasn’t as if she was ever likely to see him again, so what did it matter if he was offended by it?
‘It is a cruel practice,’ she said. ‘I know chimneys have to be cleaned, but surely there must be a more humane way? I hear there are devices that can produce results that are almost as good.’
‘Devices,’ he said, turning to her with a curious expression.
‘For cleaning chimneys.’
‘Really? I had no idea.’
‘Oh? But then why did you ask me about them?’
His brows drew down irritably.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said hastily, hanging her head meekly. Whatever had possessed her to question him? How could she have forgotten the way her father had reacted should her mother have ever dared to question his motive for saying anything, no matter how absurd?
There was a moment’s awkward pause. She darted him a wary glance to find he’d folded his arms across his chest and was glaring at his plate as though he was contemplating sweeping it, and its contents, from the table before storming off.
A kind of dim terror crept over her. A mist rising up from her past. Her own appetite fled. She pleated her napkin between nervous fingers, fighting to stay calm. He couldn’t very well backhand her out of the chair, she reminded herself. Not even her father had taken such drastic action, when she’d angered him, not in public, at any rate.
No—Lord Havelock was more likely to return her to her chaperon in frosty silence and vow never to have anything to do with her again.
She felt him shift in his seat, next to her. ‘Entirely my fault,’ he growled between clenched teeth. ‘No business bringing such a topic up at a dinner table. Cannot think what came over me.’
The mist shredded, blasted apart by the shock wave of his apology. She turned and stared at him.
‘I dare say you can tell that I’m just not used to conversing with...ladies.’
Good grief. Not only had he apologised, but he, a man, had admitted to having a fault.
‘I...I’m not very good at it myself. Not conversing with ladies, obviously, I can do that. I meant, conversing with members of the opposite...’ She floundered on the precipice of uttering a word that would be an even worse faux pas than mentioning the grim reality of chimney sweeps.
And then he smiled.
A rather devilish smile that told her he knew exactly which word she’d almost said.
With an unholy light in his eyes that sent awareness of her own sex flooding from the pit of her stomach to the tips of her toes.
Chapter Three (#ulink_1d8f51c5-1bb7-51fa-b65f-c8c5241b4c1d)
‘So you found your mouse,’ remarked Morgan, as they strode out into the night.
‘I’ve found a young lady who appears to meet many of my requirements,’ Havelock testily corrected him. He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when the bashful creature he’d had to coax out from behind her potted plant had admitted to being an orphan.
‘The only problem is,’ he said with a scowl, ‘the very things I like most about her make it devilish difficult to find out what her character is really like.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, it was damn near impossible to pry more than a couple of words out of her at a time.’ To think he’d congratulated himself on so deftly separating her from her more exuberant cousins, only to come unstuck at the dinner table.
‘I made a complete cake of myself.’ He sighed. She wasn’t like the girls he was used to sitting with at such events. Girls who either flirted, or threw out conversational gambits intended to impress and charm. She’d left all the work to him. And he discovered he was a very poor hand at it. In his determination to delve to the heart of her, he’d asked the kind of questions that had both puzzled and alarmed her.
Climbing boys, for God’s sake! Who in their right minds asked a gently reared girl about such a deplorable topic? Over a supper table?
Though in fairness to Miss Carpenter, she’d swiftly rallied and given an answer of which he could heartily approve. And shown her head wasn’t stuffed with goose down. Devices for sweeping chimneys, eh? Where could she have heard about them? If they even existed.
‘You know,’ said Morgan as they turned in the direction of their club, ‘either of her cousins would be only too glad to get an offer from you. Wouldn’t be so much work, either. That’s why I made them known to you. Family not that well off, eager to climb the social ladder. Have known them some time, so I can vouch for them both being good girls, at heart.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Havelock firmly, recalling the way they’d fluttered and preened the moment they heard he had a title. ‘Miss Carpenter is the one for me.’
‘Very well,’ said Morgan with a shrug. ‘Perhaps you will get a chance to discover more about her when we go and visit her tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said gloomily. He wished now that he had been more in the petticoat line. Had more experience with plumbing the depths of women’s natures. He’d plumbed other depths, naturally, to the satisfaction of both parties involved, but had always avoided anything that smacked of emotion. The moment a woman started to seem as though she wanted to get ‘close’, he’d dropped her like a hot potato.
He’d thought it was safer.
And it had been. Not one of them had ever managed to get under his skin. The trouble was, keeping himself heart whole had left him woefully unprepared for the most important task of his life.
* * *
‘Good morning, my lord,’ gushed Mrs Pargetter.
Havelock favoured her with his most courtly bow. If he was going to be frequenting these premises, he needed to be on good terms with the hostess.
Miss Carpenter’s cousins, whose names escaped him for the moment, fluttered at him from their strategic locations on two separate sofas, indicating their willingness to have him join them. Or Morgan. The hussies didn’t appear to mind which.
Miss Carpenter, on the other hand, was sitting on a straight-backed chair by the window, looking very much as though she would like to disappear behind the curtains.
Morgan made straight for the younger chit, so he went and sat beside the elder. He’d paid this kind of duty visit to dance partners, the day after a ball, before. But he’d never realised how frustrating they could be if a fellow was serious about pursuing a female. You couldn’t engage in meaningful conversation with teacups and macaroons being thrust under your nose every five minutes. Not that he’d had much success in the field of conversation when he had got her to himself.
‘We hope you will permit us to take your lovely daughters out tomorrow,’ Morgan was saying. Havelock scowled. He didn’t want to take either of them anywhere.
The girls looked at each other. Then their heads swivelled towards the window where Mary was sitting.
‘And you, too, Miss Carpenter, of course,’ said Havelock, taking his cue from them. Morgan had been right. Man-hungry they might be, but they weren’t totally ruthless in their pursuit of prey. They were willing to offer Miss Carpenter a share in their spoils.
‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Carpenter, blushing. ‘Really, I don’t think...’
‘Nonsense, Mary,’ said her aunt briskly. ‘It will do you the world of good to get out in the fresh air.’
Her brows rose in disbelief. Since rain was lashing at the windowpane, he could hardly blame her.
‘It isn’t really the season for driving in the park, now, is it,’ said Morgan with just a hint of a smile. ‘I was thinking more in the lines of visiting somewhere like Westminster Abbey.’
Westminster Abbey? Was the fellow mad? Walking about looking at a bunch of grisly tombs? How was he going to find out anything, except whether the girl knew her kings and queens, by taking her to Westminster Abbey?
‘It is so kind of you,’ said the girl he was sitting next to, with a flutter of eyelashes up at Morgan, ‘to think of taking us all out to see the sights. And Mary would love that, wouldn’t you, Mary? She hasn’t seen anything of London at all.’
Before Miss Carpenter had the chance to voice her horror at the prospect of being dragged out on an expedition to examine a lot of mouldering tombs, the door flew open and a boy, who looked as if he was about eight or nine years old, and was covered in flour, burst in.
‘Mother, Mother, you have to come see...’
‘Will, how many times have I told you,’ shrieked Mrs Pargetter, ‘not to come barging in here when we have callers?’
At the same moment, Miss Carpenter leapt from her chair and cut off his headlong dash into the room by dint of grabbing him about the waist.
She alone of the four women in the room was smiling at him.
‘You’re all over flour, Will,’ she pointed out as he looked up at her in bewilderment. ‘You don’t want to spoil your sisters’ pretty clothes, do you?’
She didn’t seem to care about her own clothes, though. There was a little boy-shaped smudge on her skirts and a white handprint on her sleeve.
‘No, ’spose not,’ he said grudgingly, rubbing his twitching nose with the back of one hand, making him twice as likely to sneeze. ‘But you’ve just got to see...’
‘Come on,’ said Mary, taking his dough-encrusted hand in hers. ‘You can show me whatever it is that’s got you so fired up. And later, when these visitors have gone, I’m sure your mama will want to see, as well.’
