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

criticise the young lady in question? Rest assured that I’ve already done so. She’s received a trimming she’ll not forget. But she has youth on her side and youth has one great advantage, I find—it can learn from its mistakes.’

      ‘I’m sure Miss de Silva will. No doubt you are a proficient teacher, sir,’ she replied sharply.

      ‘I trust so. I certainly should be. I was lucky enough in my own youth to have an equally proficient teacher who taught me to learn from my biggest mistake.’

      His face was grim and she had an overpowering desire to flee, but he was barring her way and escape was impossible. She steadied her nerves and refused to be intimidated.

      ‘I hardly know the young lady, of course, but she seemed well able to manage her own affairs.’

      ‘She gives that impression to the uninitiated, but to those who know her well,’ he said meaningfully, ‘the case is otherwise. Her spontaneity is certainly entrancing, but is like to run away with her. She needs someone to exercise a firm control.’

      ‘I hope she sees the situation as you do.’

      ‘And if she does not?’

      ‘Then she will reject that control and simply be herself,’ she threw at him.

      ‘Naturally I should have expected you to say that, Miss Tallis. But for the moment I’d forgotten that you are an arch advocate of self-expression, no matter what the cost.’

      His smile was belied by the frost in his cold, grey eyes and she felt her stomach twist into knots. It seemed he’d accosted her quite deliberately in order to bait her, but she could not let him ride roughshod.

      ‘You misunderstand me, sir. I was not encouraging Miss de Silva to break rules, simply proposing that everyone must have the freedom to make some mistakes.’

      ‘Ah, yes, you would know a deal about such freedom. Dare I suggest that restraint is a more admirable quality?’

      ‘Restraint and youth do not sit easily together,’ she retorted.

      ‘Yet for most they can be negotiated. Dishonour is a powerful deterrent, would you not say?’

      She was weary of the cat-and-mouse game he seemed to relish and made to walk forwards. ‘If you will excuse me, I am meeting my sister here and would not wish to keep her waiting.’

      He made no move to allow her to pass, but instead looked around him mockingly. ‘I don’t see her. She is certainly nowhere in the shop. Are you sure you were supposed to meet her here?’

      ‘Yes, indeed. She will no doubt be outside.’

      ‘And if she is not, you will have no companion to accompany you home. May I offer my escort?’

      ‘I thank you, but no,’ she said hastily, ‘I have my carriage.’

      ‘I fear you’re out of luck. There was no sign of a carriage on the road when I entered the shop. It must have left without you—but then perhaps Sir Julian Edgerton is close by to take you home?’

      She shook her head.

      ‘No? I made sure that he would be. From our meeting yesterday, he seemed a most attentive gentleman.

      Our untimely descent on you perhaps interrupted an important conversation. I do apologise if this was so—I wouldn’t want to frighten him away. Where is he now?’

      She was angered by his insinuations and also bewildered. How had he known that Sir Julian was about to propose?

      ‘He is visiting his country estate,’ she said in a ruffled tone. ‘If you wish to see him, I suggest that you call at his town house in a few days’ time. It is in Brook Street, I believe.’

      ‘There you are, Bel. I’ve been looking for you every where.’

      Sophia bounced suddenly into view, almost running around the adjacent bookcase and only just preventing herself from cannoning into Richard. He turned round with annoyance; the interview had just been getting interesting. He’d followed Christabel into the shop on impulse, feeling an overpowering need to confront her with the words he’d kept suppressed for so long. Even more compelling had been the need to protect himself from her, to keep her at a safe distance, by wielding ugly recriminations. ‘Good gracious, are you who I think you are?’ Sophia had been just twelve when Richard quit England and had only a vague memory of her sister’s former fiancé.

      ‘Whatever are you doing here?’ Sophie continued a trifle too bluntly.

      Christabel intervened. ‘Lord Veryan is newly arrived in town. We met yesterday in Hyde Park when there was a slight accident. He has been kind enough to enquire how I am, but I think it’s time for us to go.’

      Richard glanced at Sophia with disfavour. She had never been an appealing child with her insistence on frills and furbelows and the constant preening in every mirror she could find. To his jaundiced eye she looked very little improved. Christabel as a child had been so different—a skinny, reckless tomboy of a girl with a tangle of red hair and freckles to match. She had always been ready for adventure and just as always ready to drag him into whatever trouble she had been brewing.

      Looking at her now, a slender vision in eau-de-nil silk, a matching ribbon threaded through those wonderfully fiery curls, he smiled inwardly, forgetting for the moment his purpose in accosting her. No greater contrast between past and present could there be. He remembered the day he’d returned from Oxford to find his one-time playmate transformed, a butterfly fluttering the hearts of all the local beaux. He had gazed at her in wonder, drinking in her beauty, spellbound.

      His reverie came to an abrupt end as he became aware of Sophia still scowling at him from a few feet away. With a brief bow, he moved aside for the sisters to make their exit.

      ‘Where were you? I’ve been an age looking for you,’ Sophia scolded as she marched forcefully towards the glass-paned doors. ‘The carriage was causing an obstruction and Stebbings has had to move it. We’ll have to walk the whole of Picadilly now.’

      Christabel made no reply, but moved swiftly along the flagged thoroughfare in deep thought. Richard had appeared in Hatchards at the very time that she’d chosen to call at the shop. It was as though he’d been shadowing her, waiting for an opportunity to confront her. And it had been a confrontation. She recalled the ice in his eyes and the anger in his voice, as he sought to remind her of her crime.

      And he’d been at pains to emphasise his new-found intimacy with Domino de Silva, while a few hours earlier the young girl had made it clear that she admired Richard greatly and that in her eyes he could do no wrong. Christabel didn’t blame her for that idolisation. Richard was the perfect hero for an adolescent dream—a honed body, a handsome face alight with intelligence and an air of innate strength, which more than matched his elegance. And, if she were honest, he was a hero for more than adolescent girls. When he’d appeared so suddenly before her, polished and powerful and blocking her escape, she’d felt a charge of pure sexual magnetism. But it was momentary and quickly evaporated as it became plain that he intended only to distress her. She must not dwell on his beautiful form and face, nor on his seeming desire to exact some kind of retribution. Her life would soon resume its normal peaceful rhythm. Sir Julian was returning and, she told herself severely, she would look forward to that. By dint of repetition she was sure she would come to believe it.

       Chapter Three

      ‘You’ve not forgotten that Lady Russell is to collect you at eleven o’ clock?’ her mother prompted the next morning, whisking through the hall on her way to consult with the housekeeper.

      ‘Lady Russell?’ Christabel grappled with the name for a moment.

      ‘Sir Julian has arranged it, has he not? The tickets for Montagu House?’

      ‘Ah,