Reprobate Lord, Runaway Lady. Isabelle Goddard

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a public conveyance. What harm can I come to?’

      ‘But it’s not right. All sorts of vulgar people take the stage—you’ll be squashed in with the likes of clerks and pedlars and I don’t know what. And I’ve heard it’s dangerous. There are highwaymen on Hounslow Heath and they’ll slit your throat for a necklace. And if they don’t get you, then the coachman will get drunk and land you in a ditch.’ Fanny shook her head ominously.

      ‘Nonsense. If other people travel on the stage, I can, too.’

      ‘But, miss, you’re Quality,’ Fanny maintained stubbornly. ‘Quality don’t travel on the stage. And you mustn’t go alone.’

      ‘I have to, and no one must know where I’ve gone. I need time to reach Lady St Clair and explain the situation to her before my father realises where I am.’

      ‘But you can’t have thought.’ Fanny’s voice sank low. ‘You’ll be unchaperoned, you’ll receive Unwanted Attentions,’ she whispered in a horrified voice, emphasising the last two words.

      ‘Well then, I must do something to blend into my surroundings,’ her mistress said practically.

      She was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Who wouldn’t be noticed on a stagecoach, I wonder? A maidservant such as yourself? I’ll go as a maidservant and you can lend me the clothes.’

      ‘No, miss, that I won’t.’

      ‘Fanny, you’re the only friend I have in this house. You must help me. No one will know and once I’m established at my grandmother’s, I’ll send for you. Now, we must plan. First we need a ticket.’

      She went to the bottom drawer of the walnut chest that had been her mother’s and brought out a small tin box. How lucky it was she still had most of her quarterly allowance. She pulled out a roll of bills and thrust them into Fanny’s reluctant hand.

      ‘Here, use this to buy a ticket for the stage tomorrow.’

      ‘But, miss, even if I can buy a ticket, how will you find your way to Fetter Lane?’

      ‘I’m sure I’ll manage. I’ll walk until I find a hackney carriage. That can take me to the inn, and once there I’ll take care to stay concealed until the coach is ready to leave. There’s bound to be crowds of people and a lot of activity—I imagine the Bath stage isn’t the only one leaving the White Horse in the morning. It should be easy to find a hiding place.’

      Her maid still looked unconvinced and Amelie put her arms around her and sought to soothe her worries. ‘Don’t fret, it’s going to work. When you return, get some suitable clothes ready for me, but keep them in your own room. And then stay away from me for the rest of the day so that no one will suspect anything.’

      Fanny seemed rooted to the spot. ‘Go on,’ her mistress urged, ‘do it quickly before supper and then you won’t be missed. Bring me the clothes and ticket at dawn tomorrow. I wouldn’t ask you to do this for me, Fanny, if I were not truly desperate. But I must escape this nightmare.’

      In the City some miles from Grosvenor Square, Gareth Denville was also contemplating escape. He sat uncomfortably in the shabby offices which housed Messrs Harben, Wrigley and Spence, solicitors, and wished himself elsewhere. But his demeanour betrayed nothing of his emotions. His straight black brows and hard blue eyes kept the world at bay. He could be accounted a handsome man, thought Mr Spence, who sat opposite him, but for the harshness of that gaze. And the decided lack of fashion he exhibited. He was a well-built man slightly above average height with good shoulders and an excellent form for the prevailing fashion of skin-tight pantaloons. But instead he wore buckskins, his coat fitted far too easily across his broad shoulders to be modish and his necktie was negligently arranged. Rather than the gleaming Hessians of tonnish fashion, he wore topboots, still dusty from his long journey.

      Mr Spence gathered together the papers scattered across the huge oak desk and sighed inwardly. The new Lord Denville was likely to find it difficult to adjust to life in the capital. He looked up and encountered Gareth’s austere gaze and quickly began the task at hand. Over the next quarter of an hour, Mr Spence carefully enumerated the full extent of Gareth Denville’s inheritance while the beneficiary remained unnervingly silent.

      The news of his grandfather’s death several weeks ago had been accompanied by a polite request from the solicitors for his immediate return to England. His first reaction to their letter had been to shrug indifferently and carry on with his life, but his grandfather’s man of business was nothing if not persistent, and after several summons of increasing urgency, he had bowed to the inevitable. He had been travelling a night and a day now without pause, but his powerful frame appeared not greatly fatigued and his air of cool detachment never left him.

      The situation was not without its humour, of course, but that did not prevent a slow burning anger eating him from within. He’d known as he travelled to England after seven years’ absence that he was now the Earl of Denville whether he wished it or not. But as Mr Spence drily read the pages of his grandfather’s will, the size of his inheritance astounded him. Infuriated him, too, when he recalled the shifts he’d been forced to adopt simply to maintain the appearance of a gentleman. Charles Denville had husbanded his estate well. How ironic that such care and duty should ultimately benefit him, the black sheep, the grandson who could never be spoken of again. His grandfather could not deny him the title, but he must have tried and failed to leave his estate elsewhere. Gareth could imagine the old man’s fury that such an unworthy successor was about to be crowned.

      ‘Are you sure, Mr Spence, that there are no other legitimate heirs to the estate?’ he asked crisply.

      ‘None whatsoever, Lord Denville. We have done our searches very carefully, particularly …’ and here he coughed delicately ‘.in the light of the peculiar circumstances surrounding your lordship’s inheritance.’

      The solicitor was far too circumspect to mention details, but Gareth knew well that Mr Spence referred to his banishment as a young man for the gravest of sins in ton circles. He had cheated at cards, or so it was alleged, a transgression that had brought instant shame to him and to his family. His grandfather had bundled him out of the country overnight, refusing to listen to his version of events.

      ‘Like father, like son,’ Lord Denville had said grimly. ‘I was stupid enough to let your father stay in the hope that he would reform his way of life, but he died in the gutter where he belonged. I’ll make sure that you at least cannot disgrace the family name further.’ And what, thought Gareth, had the family name come to after all?

      It had all once been so different. He’d been everything to his grandfather, an unexpected light after the black years of his own father’s ruin. He remembered his childhood at Wendover Hall, his grandfather teaching him to ride and to shoot, watching over his progress to manhood with pleasure and anticipation. And then disaster, just three months on the town and accused of marking his cards.

      That night was etched on his brain. The heat of the room, the guttering candles, the disarray of empty glasses. And the four other men who sat round the table: his dearest friend, Lucas Avery, General Tilney, an old ally of his grandfather’s, the languid form of Lord Petersham, whose customary lethargy belied a sharp intelligence, and Rufus Glyde, playing recklessly that night, his spiteful tongue unusually stilled. It was the General who had first seen the mark on the card and raised the alarm. He remembered the incredulous stares of his companions as it became obvious to all who had cheated.

      But he hadn’t cheated. Someone there had done so, but why and how remained impenetrable. The men he played with were wealthy СКАЧАТЬ