Regency Surrender: Passion And Rebellion. Louise Allen

ladies of Stanley Basset accused her of doing?’

      ‘Stanton. It’s Stanton Basset. Well, when she arrived with a baby, but no husband in evidence, rumours started to fly. You can imagine the sort of thing that provincial, narrow-minded women with too much time on their hands can invent. They’re always ready to believe the worst of people, without a shred of evidence to support it. Particularly if that person has nobody to vouch for her,’ she said indignantly. ‘And it was all the more unfair because Fenella is really a very moral person. Well, until she started misbehaving with Monsieur le Prune, I would have said she had never put a foot wrong in her life. Apart from marrying a plausible rogue the first time round. Honestly,’ she huffed, as they moved up yet another place in the receiving line, ‘you would have thought she’d have learned her lesson where men are concerned.’

      Although had she learned anything from her experience with Nathan? Here she was, seeking him out and confiding everything to him as though he was her closest, most trustworthy friend. Just as she’d done before.

      What right had she to question Fenella’s judgement when it came to men? At least Fenella had gone for a man she swore was completely different from the feckless charmer she’d eloped with as a girl. Gaston was clever, she declared, and hard working and capable, and he never, ever lost his temper.

      After that description of his merits, she saw that he was exactly the kind of man Fenella would fall for. She’d confessed she wanted a man to lean on. Someone dependable and patient. His looks were irrelevant.

      She might find the thought of getting amorous with him totally repellent, but he’d managed to put a bloom on Fenella’s cheeks. He was making her feel like a desirable, vibrant woman. Just as Nathan—

      Nathan, she suddenly realised, had gone awfully quiet. When she darted a glance up at him he was staring fixedly at the back of the stout man in front of them in the receiving line, a forced tightness about his lips.

      He was probably getting bored with her stupid prattle. Desperately, she strove to find some other topic of conversation.

      ‘You never did tell me,’ she said with determined brightness. ‘What is your connection to these people and why they have invited you tonight?’

      He turned to her then, his face twisting into a mask of harsh cynicism.

      ‘I know Wilson from my days as a Member of Parliament. We both, at that time, had very ambitious wives. They got on well together.’

      He didn’t look as though that fact pleased him. And when she frowned her confusion at him, he continued, ‘You seem to think that if she is so ambitious for her husband to succeed, they would have done better to stay in England, don’t you? Open your eyes, Amy, and look at the people they have attracted to their home.’

      As they were almost at the head of the stairs, by peering round the stout man in front of them, and his partner’s flounces, she could easily have caught glimpses of the glittering crowd thronging a large salon beyond.

      ‘Not that I am likely to recognise any of them,’ she retorted, stung by his patronising attitude.

      ‘Much better you don’t,’ he said harshly, tucking her arm firmly into his as they reached the landing. ‘But I will tell you the kind of people she is gathering about her in Paris. Influential people. She is using this trip to cement friendships she could never have forged in London. When Wilson returns to England, she will continue to use the connections she has made here to push him up the greasy pole.’

      ‘That’s not strictly true, though, is it? She invited you, even though...’ She trailed off.

      ‘Even though she was my wife’s friend, rather than mine, and my career is currently at such a low ebb it would be nothing short of miraculous for me to resurrect it?’ He raised one eyebrow, his tone challenging.

      ‘I was going to say,’ she replied, ‘that you cannot be of use to her any more, since you are no longer involved in politics.’

      He looked at her steadily for a few moments, then appeared to relent towards her.

      ‘It isn’t easy to understand this world until you’ve been a part of it. I certainly didn’t look beneath the glittering surface to the lethal undercurrents before I plunged in. I was even foolish enough, when I first got elected, to think I needed to go to the House upon occasion and listen to debates.’ His mouth twisted into a harsh sneer. ‘And that was even though I knew that Lucasta’s father had bought the votes of the potwallopers in my borough. But I soon learned that isn’t how a man succeeds in politics. He needs to ingratiate himself with the right people. Do deals in secret. Be prepared to perjure his soul in return for promotion.’

      ‘But...’

      ‘You cannot see how I can be of use to these people, is that what you were going to say? Oh, Amy...’ he laughed, bitterly ‘...have you forgotten? My father is, and always will be, the Earl of Finchingfield, and he wields enormous political influence. Who knows but that one day he might forgive me? If I find favour in his sight again, those who have supported me at this...low tide...might find him grateful. And prepared to be generous.’

      ‘That’s a horribly cynical way to look at life.’

      ‘I prefer to say realistic. Amy, I spent years amongst these people. I know how they operate. Believe me, the more cynical you are about them, the less likely you are to be hurt by them.’

      She frowned. ‘I wonder you bothered to come tonight, then. They all sound perfectly horrid.’

      ‘They have their uses,’ he said darkly. The most urgent being to send a message to his father. Somebody, from this gathering, was bound to return to England with the news that his reprobate youngest son had taken up with the very woman he’d done his utmost to separate him from. And, for once, he would taste defeat. Know that all his machinations had been in vain. Amethyst had found her way back to him.

      ‘Uses? What do you mean?’

      Nathan rubbed his nose with his thumb. He couldn’t admit that he wanted to flaunt her in his father’s face. That he was using her.

      She didn’t deserve to become a pawn in his ongoing battle with his father. Pawns got hurt. His father certainly hadn’t hesitated to blacken her name ten years ago. To him, she was nothing. A mere inconvenience to be swatted aside like a pesky fly.

      ‘I shouldn’t have brought you here,’ he said, a cold knot forming in his stomach. He could have taken her anywhere. Why had he exposed her to the possibility of getting hurt all over again?

      ‘You are no match for these sort of people. It is like throwing a lamb to the wolves.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ she snapped. ‘Do you think I am a country bumpkin with straw for brains?’

      ‘No! That is not what I meant at all. You are just too...straightforward to know how to survive in this kind of environment. You have no idea how to smile while uttering a threat, or make someone believe you are their friend whilst plotting how to stab them in the back.’

      Simple. He thought she was simple. Not up to cutting it in his world.

      Well, why should she be surprised? It was what he’d thought ten years ago, too. Well, she’d show him.

      But before she had the chance to work out exactly how she was going to prove that she was not the simpering, weak-willed kind of ninny that needed a man to protect her from all the big bad wolves in the world of politics, the stout couple in front moved away and she and Nathan were finally standing face to face with their host and hostess.

      ‘Oh, Mr Harcourt, what an unexpected pleasure to see you here,’ gushed the bejewelled woman, flashing a lot of teeth and bosom in his direction. Though how it could be unexpected, since she must have sent him an invitation, Amethyst couldn’t imagine.

      ‘I would have thought our sort of gathering would be much too tame for you,’ she said archly, before going off into a peal of shrill laughter.

      So why invite