A Most Unconventional Courtship. Louise Allen

to judge? And yet he was. Which made him a hypocrite.

      Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps this Spiro had come to mend a broken bed frame. And perhaps I’m the Duke of York, Chance thought grimly, waiting for the thumping to stop, which it did after a few minutes. The murmur of voices reached him again and after an interval the bedroom door opened.

      By twisting painfully Chance could catch a glimpse of the room through the join in the screen. Spiro was a stocky middle-aged man, just now rather flushed in the face. No tool bag. Whatever he had been doing in there, he had not been mending the furniture.

      Alessa was a trifle pink in the face as well. He watched grimly through his spy hole as she smoothed back her hair. There was another knock at the door. This time it was a younger man, favouring his left leg with a slight limp. Again the greeting, the rapid flow of conversation, the firm click of the bedroom door latch.

      This time there was silence from the room. Chance realised he was straining to hear and shook his head sharply in self-condemnation. He was furious with himself for listening, furious with Alessa for putting him in this position—furious that she had shattered his illusion of the hard-working, virtuous young widow.

      A tap on the door was followed by it opening. Chance missed being able to see who had entered beyond a glimpse of a man’s coat, but the creak of a chair seat told him that the new visitor was waiting.

      How many more, for heaven’s sake? The sound of a man’s voice raised in a gasping cry penetrated from the bedroom. Chance lay down, put a pillow over his head and waited grimly for it all to be over.

      He was roused from his uncomfortable doze by the sound of the screen being pulled back. Alessa was regarding him, hands on hips, an expression of amusement on her face. ‘Whatever are you doing?’

      ‘Attempting not to eavesdrop.’ Chance hauled himself up into a sitting position.

      ‘Eavesdrop?’ Now she looked thoroughly confused. Just how brazen was this woman?

      ‘Yes, on your business transactions.’

      They stared at each other for a long moment, then Alessa asked slowly, ‘Just what, exactly, do you think I was doing in there?’

      Chance said nothing, but she could read the message in those expressive brown eyes as though he had written her a placard. He thought she was prostituting herself and he was struggling to find a way to avoid answering her direct challenge.

      Alessa felt sick. Then angry, both with herself and with him. She should have realised how it would look and said something first. But why should I have to explain myself in my own home? I did not invite him here.

      ‘You think I was having sex with them? For money?’

      Silence. Her frank speaking must have shocked him even more. The gentry did not like to call things by their true, ugly, names. Then something seemed to change in the atmosphere of the room.

      ‘No. I do not think that. I do not know why I do not, in the face of what I have just seen and heard. I would be a hypocrite to condemn you for it in any case. But I do not believe it, and I am glad.’ Chance’s mouth twisted. ‘There’s a jumble of muddled thinking for you.’

      ‘Indeed.’ She stared at him, fighting her way through her own muddle of emotions. What did she feel? Embarrassment, anger, disappointment that he should have thought such a thing of her, pleasure that he rejected the evidence, complete confusion over why his opinion should matter. ‘Why?’ she demanded, before she could stop herself. ‘Why do you not believe it?’

      That direct question had taken him aback. What were the women of his acquaintance like, that he was so surprised by direct questions, a willingness to argue? ‘Because I think I know you, even after so short a time. Because I do not think you would use your own children’s bedroom. Because, if it were so, I would be jealous.’

      The last words were soft, as though he was speaking only to himself. Her eyes, which had been watching his hands, powerful and elegant on the homespun blanket, flew to his face. He had taken himself by surprise as much as he had her.

      ‘Jealous—?’

      The knock on the door cut off what would have been an impossible question. Alessa tore her eyes from Chance’s and went to open it. ‘Mr Williams! Please come in. I had not expected you until this afternoon, but Lord Blakeney will be delighted to see you so early, I am sure.’

      The Lord High Commissioner’s steward stepped into the room with the polite half-bow he always favoured Alessa with. It amused her, and puzzled her too, that he should treat one of the Commission tradespeople with such courtesy, but he was unfailingly punctilious where she was concerned. She managed an answering smile and bobbed a curtsy.

      ‘Sir Thomas was most concerned when he received the message, Kyria Alessa. Although, with your skills, we knew his lordship could not be in better hands.’ Alessa could almost feel the waves of curiosity emanating from the couch as the steward turned towards it. ‘How do you find yourself, my lord? We are all appalled that you should have encountered such violence and criminality in a town under English governance.’

      ‘I am justly punished for my recklessness in wandering around alone at night in an unknown town, Mr Williams, but I will recover soon enough, thanks to Kyria Alessa.’ His smile was warm, even though she was conscious of a certain constraint in it. The things that had passed between them were too recent and too strangely intimate to leave either of them comfortable.

      The two stalwart footmen who had followed Mr Williams were waiting just inside the door. ‘Have you brought a change of linen for his lordship?’

      Roberts, the one she knew best, hefted a portmanteau. ‘All in here, Kyria, just like young Demetri said.’

      ‘Perhaps you can assist his lordship to dress, in that case.’ Alessa indicated the screen and drew the steward to the other end of the room, leaving Chance to the mercy of his helpers. She caught Mr Williams’s eye with a smile as a grunt of pain and a hasty apology from one of the men marked his lordship’s progress with his clothes. ‘He is not seriously hurt,’ she assured the steward. ‘But I imagine both his hip and ankle are extremely painful and it would be best if you can see that he rests for several days. He will be guided by Sir Thomas’s own doctor, of course.’

      ‘Doctor Pyke will not venture to contradict your diagnosis in such matters.’ Mr Williams took out his pocket book and handed Alessa a list. ‘He asked if you had any of these salves in stock. If not, he would like to order them.’

      Alessa opened the big press and began to lift pots down. ‘All except the lemon balm ointment, which I am potting up today, and the sage wash. I will have some of that ready by the end of the week—it is still infusing. Here, it will all go in this rush bag with his lordship’s clothes. His linen is still in the wash; I will bring it with the rest of the Residency laundry.’

      Further muffled curses heralded Chance’s emergence from behind the screen. He was hopping on one foot, the other unshod, his hand gripping Robert’s shoulder. ‘We can carry you, my lord,’ the footman was protesting. ‘Make a seat with our hands. You’ll not manage the stairs otherwise.’

      ‘I am not drunk and I am not dead,’ Chance retorted grimly. ‘I can manage a flight of stairs.’ The look he shot Alessa was defiant, but she refused to gratify him with feminine flutterings and protestations that he take care, despite the fact that his lips were set in a thin line and he had gone white under his tan. He was a grown man, and he could take the consequences of being too proud to be carried in front of a woman.

      ‘Kyria, I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me. I apologise that you have been put to such inconvenience by my actions, and, if in my…confusion, I blundered.’

      Do not go, not until you explain what you meant…The words were so clear in her mind that for one awful moment Alessa thought she had spoken them out loud. ‘There is nothing to apologise for, my lord,’ she said calmly. ‘Xenia, hospitality to strangers, is important to us. You may best repay it by taking care of yourself. And,