Tangled Reins. Stephanie Laurens

      ‘I want you to find a coachman staying here, name of Lang, coachman to the Misses Darent. Miss Darent wishes to leave at eight tomorrow, to avoid the inevitable action around here. She obviously cannot deliver the message in person.’

      ‘Yes, m’lord.’

      ‘And Jim?’

      ‘Yes, m’lord?’

      ‘Tomorrow morning the Darent party is to leave here by eight. If there’s any difficulty in achieving that departure I want you to see I’m summoned. Is that clear?’

      ‘Yes, m’lord.’

      ‘Wonderful. Goodnight, Jim.’

      Jim departed, not the least averse to an early morning if it led to a clear sight of this Miss Darent. He had witnessed, distantly, the exchange in the coachyard. To his mind, his lordship was not behaving in his usual manner. Losing his temper with young ladies was definitely not his style. Jim was burning to see what the lady who could throw his master off balance looked like.

      Hazelmere, fortunately oblivious to the speculations of his underling, strolled back through the main entrance of the inn and paused outside the open taproom door. Noise, like a cloud, rolled out over the threshold to greet him. Through a bluish haze of tobacco smoke he saw the group of young blades from whom he had rescued Dorothea standing at the end of the bar. It took him longer to locate the last of their number, seated at a small table in the corner, deep in conversation with Sir Barnaby Ruscombe. After considering the scene for a moment, he walked on to the private parlour he always had when staying at the Feathers. Entering, he saw Fanshawe, feet up on the table, carefully peeling an apple.

      Fanshawe looked up with a grin. ‘Ho! So there you are! I was wondering whether it’d be prudent to come and rescue you.’

      A ghost of a smile greeted this sally. ‘I had a few errands to attend to after returning Miss Darent to her room.’ Hazelmere removed his driving cloak, remembering to extract the glass from the pocket before he threw it on a chair. He moved to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of wine.

      ‘And who the hell is this mysterious Miss Darent?’

      The Marquis raised his black brows. ‘No mystery. She lives at the Grange, which borders Moreton Park. She and her sister are travelling to London to stay with their grandmother, Lady Merion.’

      ‘I see. How is it, I ask myself, that I’ve never heard of the girl, much less set eyes on her?’

      ‘Simple. She’s lived all her life in the country and hasn’t moved in the circles we frequent.’

      Fanshawe finished his apple and swung his feet down from the table as the door opened to admit Simms, bearing trays loaded with food. ‘At last!’ he cried. ‘I’m famished.’

      Simms placed the platters on the table and, checking that all was in order, turned to Hazelmere.

      ‘Everything’s taken care of, m’lord, as you requested.’

      Hazelmere nodded his thanks, and Simms retired. Fanshawe looked up from heaping his plate, but said nothing.

      The friends took their meal in companionable silence. They had quite literally grown up together, being born on neighbouring estates within a month of each other, and had shared their schooldays at Eton and, later, Oxford. During their past ten years on the town the bond between the Lords Hazelmere and Fanshawe had become almost a byword. Over the years there had been few secrets between them, yet, for reasons he did not care to examine, Hazelmere had omitted to mention his acquaintance with Dorothea Darent to his closest friend.

      Once the platters were cleared and they had pushed their chairs back from the table, savouring the special claret brought up from the depths of Simms’s cellar, Fanshawe, dishevelled brown locks falling picturesquely over his brow, returned to the offensive. ‘It’s all too smoky by half.’

      Resigned to the inevitable, Hazelmere nevertheless countered with an innocent, ‘What’s too smoky by half?’

      ‘You and this Miss Darent.’

      ‘But why?’ The clear hazel eyes, apparently guileless, were opened wide, but the thin lips twitched.

      Fanshawe frowned direfully but agreed to play the game. ‘Well, for a start, as she doesn’t move in the circles we frequent, tell me how you met her.’

      ‘We met only once, informally.’

      ‘When?’

      ‘Some time last August, when I was at Moreton Park.’

      The brown eyes narrowed. ‘But I visited you at Moreton Park last August, and I distinctly remember you telling me such game was very scarce.’

      ‘Ah, yes,’ mused Hazelmere, long fingers caressing the stem of the goblet. ‘I do recall saying some such thing.’

      ‘And I suppose Miss Darent just happened to slip your mind at the time?’

      The Marquis smiled provokingly. ‘As you say, Tony.’

      ‘No, dash it all! You can’t possibly expect me to swallow that. And if I won’t swallow it no one else will either. And, as that fellow Ruscombe’s about somewhere, you’re going to have to come up with a better explanation. Unless,’ he concluded sarcastically, ‘you want all London agog?’

      At that the dark brows rose. Hazelmere drew a long breath. ‘Unfortunately you’re quite right.’ He still seemed absorbed in his study of the goblet. Fanshawe, who knew him better than anyone, waited patiently.

      Sir Barnaby Ruscombe was a man tolerated by society’s hostesses purely on account of his trade in malicious gossip. There was no chance that he would abstain from telling the story of how Hazelmere had rescued a lady from a prizefight crowd in an inn yard. The fact that Hazelmere was sure to dislike having his name bandied about in such context would ensure its dissemination throughout the ton. Although not in itself of much import, the story would reveal the interesting fact that the Marquis had some previous acquaintance with Miss Darent. And that, as Fanshawe was so eager to point out, would lead to complications.

      After some minutes had passed in silence Hazelmere raised his eyes. ‘Confessions of a rake, I’m afraid,’ he said, both voice and features gently self-mocking. Seeing the surprise in Fanshawe’s brown eyes, he continued, ‘This time the truth will definitely not do. The details of my only previous meeting with Miss Darent would keep the scandalmongers in alt for weeks.’

      Tony Fanshawe was amazed. Whatever he had expected, it was not that. He knew, none better, that, while Hazelmere’s affaires among the demi-monde might be legion, his behaviour with women of his own class was rigidly correct. Then he thought he saw the light. ‘I take it you mean that when you met her in the country she was unchaperoned?’

      The curious smile on Hazelmere’s lips deepened. The hazel eyes held Fanshawe’s for a moment, before dropping to the goblet once more. ‘I am, naturally, devastated to contradict you. You’re right in assuming we were unchaperoned. But what I meant is, if the truth ever became public property Miss Darent would be hopelessly compromised and I, in all honour, would be forced to marry her.’

      It was not possible to misinterpret that. ‘Good lord!’ said Fanshawe, thoroughly intrigued. ‘Whatever did you do?’

      Hazelmere, sensing the wild speculations running through his mind, hastened to bring him back to earth. ‘Control your satyric imaginings! I kissed her, if you must know.’

      ‘Oh?’ Fanshawe was positively agog.

      Feeling horrendously like a schoolboy describing to his more backward friends the details of his first encounter with a wench, Hazelmere regarded him with amusement tinged with irritation. Correctly interpreting the slightly awed expression in the brown eyes, he nodded. ‘Precisely. Not a peck on the cheek.’

      Fanshawe stared at Hazelmere for a full minute before saying, his voice quavering with suppressed incredulity,