A Wayward Woman: Diamonds, Deception and the Debutante / Fugitive Countess. Helen Dickson

knows what will come from our association? I will tell you now that I consider my independence of great importance. I am not necessarily anxious to give it up immediately now I have returned home, but I may just decide to forget the promise I made to myself to remain a bachelor and take you to wife just to show you what delights can be had between a married couple.’

      Belle glowered at him and spoke with derision. ‘What subtle ploys you practise, Lord Bingham. If you think to get me into your bed with your liberal use of the word marriage, you will find I am not as gullible as you think.’

      Lance laughed outright. ‘I get the message, Belle, so continue with your parties and concentrate on finding a husband—which is what the Season is all about. I’ve seen the many smitten swains following at your heels. I would think you’d find it difficult to choose among them. Although I can almost pity the man you eventually settle on. The poor man won’t have a moment’s peace.’

      ‘Like you I am in no hurry to wed, and Grandmother is not putting pressure on me to do so. I have only recently come to England and I am testing the water, so to speak. I am quite happy with my single state.’

      ‘Ah, but you will be caught and settle down to connubial bliss with one of your suitors ere long.’

      Angry and humiliated beyond anything she had known in her life, as she watched him turn to retrieve his discarded jacket, Belle vowed to make him regret in a thousand different ways that he’d tampered with her. Her eyes settled on a small table where he had put the pouch and the smile that tempted her lips was one of cunning. Starting with the necklace.

      So, he thought he had outwitted her, did he, by telling her some lame story about it belonging to his own grandmother? How easily she had swallowed it. How gullible she had been, but no more. She would not give him his victory. While picking up the pouch, which she slipped into her pocket, she grabbed hold of her hat, dropping it. She bent to retrieve it, and, turning round, Lance halted abruptly, for he found himself confronting a very fetching derrière stuck up in the air.

      He emited a low groan with the gnawing hunger she aroused in him, for he had never seen anything quite so stimulating as those snugly bound buttocks, for the tight trousers left nothing to the imagination. Tempted to go to her and slide his arm around her waist and pull her back to him, to forget all logic and again sweep her down on to his bed, he halted, prone to wonder if he was having another lewd fantasy involving this precocious young woman, and it came as no surprise to him that she had sharply awakened his manly cravings like none other before. He stepped back as she straightened up, having retrieved her hat.

      Aware of the pouch in her pocket, unaware of Lance’s lewd thoughts, her smile turned to one of triumph at her own cleverness. It was the perfect payback. Pulling her hat down over her ears, tucking her wayward locks beneath it, she turned to the door.

      They were descending the stairs when Belle’s worst nightmare was realised. Rowland Gibbon emerged from the dining room without bothering to close the doors behind him. Some of Lance’s guests followed him into the hall. Cursing softly, Lance immediately took Belle’s arm and was already pulling her back up the stairs in an attempt to forestall a calamity, but too late. Rowland had seen them. He let out a loud gusto and started towards the bottom of the stairs, his heels clicking on the black-and-white tiled floor.

      ‘Ha! What’s this, Lance? Trying to hide from your guests. I won’t have it. Already Lady Marlow and the other ladies are feeling quite bereft and have sent me to find you.’

      Realising the futility of trying to escape, Lance and Belle made a final descent of the stairs.

      Rowland’s eyes shifted to Lance’s companion, whom he thought to be a youth hanging back. Rowland raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘And who have we here?’ he asked, bending over to peruse the face under the hat. He turned to Lance with a grin. ‘So, you had another engagement. Are you not going to introduce me?’

      ‘You’ve already had that pleasure.’

      ‘I don’t think so—although the lad does seem somewhat familiar.’ Without more ado he snatched the hat from Belle’s head, drawing a shocked gasp of furious indignation from her. Rowland uttered a soft whistle when her hair cascaded about her shoulders. His exclamation was one of disbelief and he chuckled softly. ‘Why, ‘tis no lad I see before me.’

      The guests let out a collective gasp, and a few giggles came from the maids of the house, who had stopped in their tracks to gawp at the youth who had a definite feminine air about him, only to be shooed away by an irate butler.

      ‘Leave it, Rowland,’ Lance uttered through his teeth.

      Rowland wasn’t going to let it drop. With Belle’s identity revealed, he turned his incredulous look on Lance and back to the slender, black garbed figure. ‘Good Lord! If it isn’t Miss Ainsley!’

      Belle felt physically ill and glanced towards Lord Bingham’s guests. She recognised several of them as being elite members of the ton. The expressions on their faces ranged from amusement to icy condemnation. Knowing there was no help for it but to brazen it out, in a defiant gesture she thrust out her chin and squared her shoulders.

      ‘As you see, sir,’ she replied coolly. ‘Please don’t ask me to explain what I am doing here dressed like this. You would not believe it.’

      Smiling broadly, Rowland laughed. ‘I might. I shall certainly enjoy hearing it.’

      ‘Miss Ainsley took the opportunity of me being otherwise engaged to steal into my house to retrieve the necklace I took from her last night,’ Lance told him, careful to keep his voice low. It was bad enough that his guests had witnessed Belle coming down his stairs with him attired as she was, without providing them with her reason for being in his house.

      Comprehension dawned in Rowland’s eyes, quickly followed by astonishment. ‘Ah, she did?’

      ‘Indeed. My disguise didn’t deceive this clever young lady and she must be complimented on her success. She was about to walk off with the necklace when I returned home unexpectedly and took it back.’

      ‘Did she, now? Then she is to be congratulated, but I’m sorry you got it back. I would have been in order to demand my money back, for I would have considered I’d won the bet.’

      Belle frowned, but what Sir Rowland was implying didn’t sink in immediately. Until she saw Lance cringe.

      ‘Take no notice of what Rowland says, Belle.’

      But as if he hadn’t spoken, she said, ‘A bet? Am I to understand last night, when you posed as a highwayman and put me through hell, was all about a bet?’

      ‘It wasn’t like that.’

      ‘It wasn’t?’

      ‘No,’ Lance assured her. ‘I told you, I was simply retrieving my own property.’

      ‘That’s what you told me,’ she flared. ‘But now I am not inclined to believe you.’

      ‘It’s true. Believe me.’

      ‘And the bet?’

      ‘Was merely a reaction to Rowland’s scepticism.’

      Belle glanced at Sir Rowland to see him somewhat shamefaced now. ‘You mean he didn’t believe you would succeed?’

      ‘I didn’t,’ Rowland said. ‘Not for a minute.’

      Belle didn’t reply immediately. All she could think of was Lord Bingham and his friend laughing together at her when they’d made their bet. As the colour mounted high in her cheeks and warmed her ears, the people crowding in the doorway became a blur.

      ‘Well, I’m glad you had some fun at my expense—enjoying yourselves enormously, I don’t doubt.’ The look she turned on Lance was murderous. ‘You accost me in the early hours—at gunpoint, I might add—you steal my grandmother’s necklace, scare me half out of my wits by threatening to shoot me—and all because you had money riding on it.’ Moving to stand before him, she thrust her face close