The Regency Season: Gentleman Rogues. Margaret McPhee

last night?’ Rob asked.

      ‘I wanted to speak to her.’

      ‘About what?’

      ‘To verify her identity.’

      ‘And you needed to dance with her for that?’

      ‘I had to put all those lessons with that dancing master to use at some time. I paid him good money.’

      Rob raised his eyebrows. His expression was cynical. ‘I take it she is who we think.’

      ‘What gives you that impression?’

      ‘Maybe the fact that you’re knocking two tons of stuffing out of that punchbag.’

      Ned raised an eyebrow, then returned to jabbing at the sandbag, right hook, then left hook. Right hook, then left. ‘She doesn’t change anything. We go on just as before.’ He landed a left-handed blow so hard that it almost took the punchbag clear off its hook. He ducked as it swung back towards him, punched it again, and again. Kept up the training until his knuckles were sore and his arms ached and the keenness of what he felt was blunted by fatigue.

      Rob threw a drying cloth up to him and got to his feet, gesturing with his eyes to the doorway with warning. ‘That it, is it, Stratham?’ he said, reverting to a form of formality now that they had company.

      Ned caught the cloth and mopped the sweat from his face as he glanced round to see who it was that had entered.

      There was only the slightest of hesitations in the Duke of Monteith and Viscount Devlin’s steps as they saw who was in the training room using the equipment.

      Ned met Devlin’s eyes. The viscount returned the look—cold, insolent, contemptuous—before walking with Monteith to the other end of the room.

      Ned and Rob exchanged a look.

      ‘Your favourite person,’ said Rob beneath his breath.

      ‘It just gets better and better.’ Ned smiled a grim smile, as he and Rob made their way to the changing rooms.

      * * *

      Within the dining room of Lady Lamerton’s town house a few streets away, Emma and the dowager were at breakfast.

      ‘It is just as I suspected, Mr Stratham dancing with you at Hawick’s ball is all the gossip, Emma,’ Lady Lamerton said as she read the letter within her hand.

      The clock on the mantel ticked a slow and sonorous rhythm.

      ‘I cannot think why. It was only one dance.’ Emma did not speak while the footman moved from Lady Lamerton’s side, where he filled her cup with coffee, to Emma’s and stood waiting, coffee pot in hand.

      She gave a nod, watching while the steaming hot liquid poured from the pot into the pretty orange-and-gold-rimmed cup. The aroma of coffee wafted through the air. She added a spot of cream from the jug and took a sip of the coffee.

      Sunlight spilled in through the dining-room window. sparkling through the crystal drops of the chandelier above their heads to cast rainbows on the walls.

      Lady Lamerton set the letter down on the growing pile of opened papers and reached for the next one. She glanced up as she broke the seal. ‘Because, my dear, Mr Stratham has not previously been seen upon a dance floor. He does not dance.’

      Emma took another sip of coffee and tried to smile, as if what had happened upon the dance floor last night was nothing. ‘That must be somewhat of a disadvantage when he is at an Almack’s ball.’

      ‘Hardly,’ said the dowager. ‘If anything it is the opposite. It has created rather a stir of interest. The women see it as a challenge. The Lewis sisters have a sweepstake running as to who will be the first to tempt him upon a floor. It is considered to be an indicator of when he has made his choice of bride.’

      Emma smiled again to hide the anger she felt at that thought. ‘Well, last night certainly disproved that theory.’

      ‘Indeed, it did. And will have made the Lewis sisters a deal richer.’ The dowager paused and looked at the letter in her hand. ‘They are all positively agog to know of what he spoke.’

      If they only knew. ‘Nothing of drama or excitement. I already told you the details.’ Last night in the ballroom when there had been a subtle questioning which Lady Lamerton had parried with the air of a hawk, with its wings shielding its food for its own later consumption. And in the carriage on the way home the hawk had eaten...although not of the truth.

      ‘The weather and other trivialities are hardly going to satisfy them, Emma. Especially as the pair of you appeared to be having quite the conversation.’

      Emma took another sip of coffee and said nothing.

      Lady Lamerton held her spectacles to her eyes and peered at the letter again. ‘Apparently they are taking bets on whether he will dance again. And if it will be with you.’

      Emma suppressed a sigh at the ton’s preoccupations. An hour’s walk away and the preoccupations and world were very different.

      ‘Fetch my diary, Emma, and check when the next dance is to be held.’

      ‘It is next week, on Thursday evening—the charity dance at the Foundling Hospital.’ Emma knew the line of thought the dowager’s mind was taking. ‘And even if Mr Stratham is there, I made it quite clear to him that my duty is as your companion and not to dance.’

      ‘Much as I admire your loyalty, my dear, you are quite at liberty to dance with him. Indeed—’ she glanced with unmistakable satisfaction at the unusually large pile of letters the morning post had brought ‘—it would be quite churlish not to.’

      ‘He will not ask me.’ Stay away from me, Ned.

       You need not worry, Emma Northcote. I will stay far away from you. The echo of their words rang in her head. And she remembered again, as she had remembered in the night, the look in his eyes—cool anger and other things...

      Emma smiled as if it were nothing and led the conversation away from Ned Stratham. ‘What are you wearing tonight for dinner at Mrs Lewis’s?’

      Her tactic worked. ‘My purple silk and matching turban. I thought you could wear your dove-grey silk to complement me.’

      ‘It would match well,’ Emma agreed and listened as Lady Lamerton discussed a visit to the haberdashery to buy a feather for the turban.

      Ned would stay away from her. And she would be glad of it.

      More glad than you realise.

      And a tingle ran over the skin at the nape of her neck at what those strange words might mean.

      * * *

      ‘I see Mr Stratham is here,’ Lady Lamerton said sotto voce not five minutes after they had entered the drawing room of Mrs Lewis’s Hill Street house that night.

      ‘Is he? I had not noticed,’ Emma lied. He and his steward, Rob Finchley, were over by the windows talking with Lord Linwood and another gentleman, one whom Emma vaguely recognised but could not quite place. Ned was smartly dressed in the best of tailoring, his fair hair glinting gold in the candlelight. He looked as at ease here as he had in Whitechapel. Beneath that polished surface emanated that same awareness, that same feeling of strength and danger held in control. His eyes met hers, hard, watchful and bluer than she remembered, making her heart stumble and her body shiver. She returned the look, cool and hard as his own, and curved her lips in a smile as if he bothered her not in the slightest, before returning her attention to Lady Lamerton.

      Their hostess appeared, welcoming them, telling Lady Lamerton how wonderful she looked and asking which mantua maker was she using these days.

      Emma saw some of the women who had been friends of hers in what now seemed a different life. Women who had attended the same ladies’ educational seminary, who had made their come-outs at the same time, and against whom her competition in the marriage mart had necessitated spending a fortune