The Outrageous Lady Felsham. Louise Allen

stood up with a sudden lurch, grabbed for the bedpost, missed and looked around, swaying back on his heels. ‘Who moved my bed? And what the dev…what on earth is that?’ He pointed at Horace.

      ‘A polar bear. You fell over him.’ Bel got to her feet, her cramped muscles protesting. ‘Who are you?’

      ‘Reynard.’ He ran a hand over his stubbled chin and grimaced.

      ‘A fox?’

      ‘No, not reynard.’ His French accent was good, she noted. ‘Reynard. Ashe Reynard. Major. Viscount Dereham. Didn’t I tell you when I hired you?’ He yawned mightily, displaying a healthy set of white teeth. ‘I beg your pardon.’

      ‘Dereham.’ Of course. It made sense now. ‘You sold this house. I live here now.’ She had purchased it through his agent, who had told her that Viscount Dereham was on the continent with Wellington’s army. That at least explained the way he had got in; she had not thought to change the locks.

      ‘Ah. I sold it, then?’ He swayed, sat down on the bed, and blinked at her. Then he looked down at the bearskin, the burnt-out candles, up at her nightgown. ‘So you are not a Drury Lane vestal? Not a little ladybird I hired for the night. You are a lady. Oh, hell.’ He drove both hands through the mane of golden hair as though to force some focus into his head. ‘Have I just spent the night pinning you to the floor?’

      Chapter Two

      Bel glanced at the mantel clock. ‘We have spent about two hours of the night on the rug.’ He—Lord Dereham, for goodness’ sake!—got up, hanging on firmly to the bedpost. His gaze appeared to be riveted on her body. She glanced down and realised all over again just what she was wearing and how the early light was streaming through it. She took two swift steps, caught up the négligé and pulled it on. Reynard rocked back on his heels as she brushed past. He looked as if he truly did have the most crashing hangover.

      ‘My…’ pologies…’ His eyes were beginning to cross now.

      ‘Come on.’ She tugged his arm. Goodness, he was solid. ‘Come and get some sleep in the spare bedroom.’

      ‘Haven’t got one. Remember that.’

      ‘You did not, I do. I expect it was your study. Come along.’ She closed both hands over his arm and tried to drag him like a reluctant child.

      ‘In a minute.’ Doggedly he turned round and walked off into her dressing room. Of course, he would know about the up-to-the-minute privy installed in a cupboard in the corner along with the innovative—and unreliable—shower bath. Bel left him to it and went across the landing to turn down the spare bed.

      The little house had a basement with the kitchen, store rooms and the set of compact chambers occupied by Hedges and Mrs Hedges. Space on the ground floor was chiefly occupied by the dining room and a salon, with above them her bedchamber, dressing room and what had been a study, now transformed into her spare room by dint of adding a small canopied bed.

      ‘You moved my desk,’ Lord Dereham complained from the doorway.

      ‘Never mind that now.’ Bel took him by the sleeve again and towed him into the room. He was proving remarkably biddable for such a large man. ‘Take off your jacket and your neckcloth.’

      ‘A’right.’ The slur was coming back. Those garments shed on to the floor, she gave him a push and he tumbled on to the bed. Which left his boots. Bel seized one and tugged, then the other, and set them at the foot. Reynard was already asleep as she dragged the covers over him, the blue eyes shuttered, the ludicrously long lashes fanning his cheeks.

      ‘What am I doing?’ Bel wondered aloud, bending to retrieve the jacket and neckcloth from the floor. But what was the alternative? She could hardly push him downstairs and he would probably fall if she made him walk. Rousing Hedges to throw him out seemed unfair to the butler, who would be up and working soon enough, and she could hardly leave him in her own bedroom. ‘And I don’t expect you will stir until luncheon time either, will you?’ she asked the beautiful, unresponsive, profile.

      His answer was a gentle snore. Bel hung his clothes over the chair back and took herself off back to bed, feeling that her eyes were beginning to cross quite as much as the major’s had.

      She was awoken, far too soon, by a female shriek. It seemed to come from the landing. Bel sat up, rubbing her eyes. Silence. Goodness, she was tired. And there was something she should remember; she was puzzling over it as her door burst open. Millie, the housemaid, eyes wide with shocked excitement, rushed in, followed by Philpott, her dresser, and bringing up the rear, Mrs Hedges, red in the face with the effort of running up the stairs.

      ‘My lady,’ Philpott pronounced in tones of throbbing horror, ‘there is a man in the spare bed!’

      A man in the spare bed? A man? Lord! Of course there was. Why had she not thought what her staff would find when they started the day’s chores?

      ‘Yes?’ Bel enquired, more brightly than she felt. ‘I know.’

      All three women were staring at her bed, she realised. Staring at the smooth, untouched pillow next to her own, the tightly tucked-in bedding on that side, the perfectly unrumpled coverlet, the chaste order of the whole thing. She could almost see their thought processes, like the bubble above a character’s head in a satirical cartoon. Despite the outrageous presence of a man next door, no one, quite obviously, had been in her ladyship’s bed, other than her ladyship. She raised her eyebrows in haughty enquiry.

      ‘If I had known your ladyship was expecting a guest—’ Mrs Hedges crossed her arms defensively ‘—I would have aired the sheets.’

      ‘I was not expecting him myself,’ Bel said, adopting a brisk tone. ‘It is Lord Dereham, from whom I bought the house. He was taken suddenly ill, most fortunately almost upon our doorstep, and, having a key, sought refuge in here.’

      ‘But the front door is bolted, my lady. Hedges bolts it every night.’

      ‘The back-door key, it must have been.’ Bel wondered where she had suddenly acquired three such assiduous chaperons from. ‘I assume his lordship was passing the mews when he became unwell.’

      ‘Should I send for the doctor, my lady?’ the housekeeper asked.

      ‘Er…no. His lordship’s indisposition is not medical, it is something that will wear off in the fullness of time.’

      ‘He was drunk?’ Philpott was aghast. ‘It does not bear contemplating. What is the watch coming to, to allow such a rakehell to roam the streets in that condition? What outrage might he not have inflicted upon a helpless woman!’

      ‘Lord Dereham was perfectly civil, and er…respectful.’ If one did not count nuzzling her ear and giving her the prolonged benefit of the intimate proximity of his magnificent body. She stifled a wistful sigh at the thought of just how magnificent it had felt.

      ‘What shall we do with him now, ma’am?’ Mrs Hedges, ruffled, made it sound as if Bel had imported an exotic animal into the house.

      ‘Leave him to sleep, I suppose.’ Bel wriggled up against the pillows and tried to think. ‘When he wakes up, then Hedges can fetch him coffee and hot water. My husband’s toilet gear is in the small trunk in the dressing room, if you could find that, please, Millie; no doubt he will wish to have a shave. And then, depending on what time of day it is, it would be only hospitable to offer a meal.’

      Her staff scattered, Mrs Hedges to bustle downstairs to update her husband on the situation, Millie to fetch her morning chocolate and Philpott to sweep around the room, tweaking everything into place. ‘What shall I put out for you, my lady?’ She retrieved the volume of poetry from the hearth, rattled the poker back into its stand and straightened Horace’s head with the point of her toe. Bel watched out of the corner of her eye, suddenly incapable of looking Horace in the face.

      ‘The new leaf-green morning dress, please, Philpott. I had intended walking to Hatchard’s, but I suppose