A Regency Earl's Pleasure: The Earl Plays With Fire / Society's Most Scandalous Rake. Isabelle Goddard

cared deeply for her and could no longer consider marrying Domino de Silva? What traitorous thoughts, what stupid thoughts, she chastised herself.

      ‘I wanted to apologise,’ he began again. ‘I wanted to tell you how deeply sorry I am for any upset I’ve caused since my return to London.’

      ‘Any upset? You must know that you deliberately set out to distress me.’

      ‘I won’t deny it, but I am still sorry.’

      He was looking contrite, unusually so, and she felt emboldened to question him.

      ‘I cannot understand why you have been so intent on hurting me. Why?’

      He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer with any truth. I don’t know myself. When I disembarked at Southampton, I thought the past was dead and buried for me.’

      ‘But it wasn’t,’ she said flatly.

      ‘No, it wasn’t.’ He paused and then said with deliberation, ‘I’ve behaved foolishly, I’m willing to admit, but if I could understand the past, then I think it would finally die for me.’

      She wore a puzzled expression and he turned towards her, looking at her directly, his gaze searching and serious. ‘If I knew, if I could understand, why you did what you did.’

      She gave a small, uncertain laugh. ‘I could echo your own words. I can’t answer with any truth, I don’t know myself.’

      They rounded the corner of Curzon Street and, with an effort, she tried again. He deserved that at least.

      ‘Put it down to naïvety, youthful stupidity, if you will. When you are young and untried, it’s easy to be dazzled by surfaces. I was living in a world I’d never known before, a world heady with excitement.’

      ‘But to be taken in by a creature such as Joshua,’ he protested.

      ‘You were equally taken in,’ she reminded him sharply. ‘He was your friend.’

      ‘And that surely makes it worse. It makes me more stupid and you more venal.’

      She flinched at the word. ‘He made me feel special,’ she said defensively.

      ‘And I didn’t?’

      ‘I was just part …’ and she strove to find the phrase which would adequately convey her sense of his indifference’ … I was just part of the furniture of your world.’

      ‘Never!’ He felt stunned. He had been drowning in love for her and she hadn’t noticed! ‘How could you not know—?’ He broke off, biting back the words of passion he’d been about to utter.

      But Christabel, deep in that distant past, had hardly noticed. ‘Joshua made me feel that I mattered to him, really mattered. I know now that I was a fool.’ Her voice was barely more than a murmur and she glanced down at the delicate kid sandals she wore, as though hoping she might be absorbed into the pavement. ‘In fact, I knew that almost immediately.’

      ‘You parted very soon? I never knew.’

      ‘Why would you? I can’t imagine you wanted to hear any news from home.’

      He grimaced at the truth of the observation.

      ‘It was never going to work.’ She sighed. ‘Joshua was charm itself, but he was an opportunist.’

      ‘A here and thereian?’ It was doing Richard good to hear how miserably the affair had ended.

      ‘If you like.’

      ‘But someone who wreaked destruction wherever he went,’ he pursued, his tone now one of quiet sympathy.

      ‘I won’t make him an excuse,’ she said robustly. ‘I caused damage to everyone who cared for me. I recognise that. But as you were happy to remind me just yesterday, I can’t undo it. Any of it.’

      ‘But you don’t need to compound it.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Don’t make another bad choice.’

      She bridled. ‘And how might I do that?’

      ‘I’m hardly the right person to give advice, but you must know that the future you’re proposing is wrong—for you, for everyone. You’ve earned your freedom, so live free.’

      ‘You’re quite correct,’ she responded tartly, ‘you are hardly the right person.’

      They had reached the door of Number Twelve and with this parting shot, she climbed the front steps. His face, as he raised his hat in farewell, was blank of all expression. He turned around and walked away down the road and Christabel was left bewildered. He’d shown himself sorry for his conduct, sorry for the distress he’d caused. He’d conversed seriously, dared to talk about the past with her, and amid the barbs of resentment there had been sympathy. It seemed that he’d had a change of heart. But why? And what did he mean, that she should live free? How dared he presume to tell her how to shape her life? It was well enough for a man to say ‘live free’. He had the luxury of choice but, as a woman, she did not.

      The door opened and she was ushered into Loretta Blythe’s drawing room. She knew most of the faces gathered there and it was an easy matter to smile sweetly and murmur the necessary vacuous compliments. But while she observed the social niceties, her mind was roving through every detail of the recent encounter. Was it just luck that she’d met Richard where and when she had? She thought not. It was clear to her that he’d been visiting at Curzon Street. And he would have come, not to sit drinking tea with Lady Blythe and her intimates, but to see Domino. He’d been visiting Domino, the girl he intended to marry. Naturally they would have wedding plans to discuss for when his period of mourning was at an end, even now perhaps arrangements to make for the girl to visit Madron. Christabel quailed at the thought, but that was something she must grow accustomed to. It was possible that his forthcoming marriage had contributed to a new generosity of spirit, his willingness finally to forgive and forget the past. She should feel grateful for that, she supposed.

      That night she slept better than she had for days. Whether it was sheer exhaustion or the fact that she and Richard were no longer enemies, she didn’t know. But his interference in her life appeared to be at an end. So did his interest, another voice whispered unkindly. But that voice was swiftly squashed. She must bury the past as Richard was doing, bury it and move on to a new and different existence. That evening she’d had plenty of time for reflection, the family for once spending it by their own fireside, and by the time she’d crawled into bed, she was ready to fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. Not even Benedict’s noisy return with the dawn had the power to waken her.

      Benedict’s mission to enjoy himself to the full had been so successful that when the next day, bleary eyed and slumped over the breakfast table, his mother reminded him that he’d agreed to escort his sisters to St James’s Park, his only answer was a heartrending groan.

      ‘We really don’t need him, Mama,’ Sophia chirped. She was in fine form, still bubbling from the two long dances she’d managed to extract from Sir Julian at the Seftons’ party. To add to her pleasure, Christabel appeared of late to have lost her usual bloom.

      ‘Stebbings will be with us and that will be sufficient. In fact, Bel can stay home too. She still doesn’t look at all the thing,’ she added solicitously.

      ‘What nonsense. You cannot possibly go driving with just a groom for company.’ Lady Harriet looked anxiously across the table at her elder daughter, ‘You will go with Sophia this morning, I trust?’

      ‘Yes, of course, Mama, it’s arranged that we meet the Misses Banham at eleven.’

      She couldn’t remember exactly why she’d agreed to drive with two sisters she privately considered bird-witted in the extreme, but managed to finish brightly, ‘It’s another beautiful day for a drive in St James’s.’

      She went quickly upstairs after breakfast to complete her toilette. Sophia