Regency Affairs Part 2: Books 7-12 Of 12. Ann Lethbridge

I can be happy in London again. I hope you know, Rosalie, that I will be there whenever you want me. Yours, Helen.

      Alec was watching her. ‘Are you all right, Mrs Rowland?’

      She pushed some loose strands of hair back from her cheeks. ‘Helen is leaving London for a little while. I—I think she feels I’ve rejected her.’

      ‘You did so for very good reasons,’ he reminded her quietly. ‘Unselfish reasons. Some day, you’ll be able to tell her so.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ll leave you to rest.’

      She lay back against the pillows.

      Now, she really was on her own.

      Whenever she was by herself she would get up from her bed and try to walk a little further around the room, but Rosalie was frightened by how weak she was after these days of illness. Katy was brought up to her regularly, but was always happy to return to her new friends.

      Time for Rosalie hung heavily, until she noticed some books on a shelf by the window. She was surprised by their quality. Several of them, she realised, were sketchbooks that must have belonged to someone in the army. Quickly she became captivated by the swiftly but skilfully drawn portraits of soldiers at rest, or marching, the deft watercolours of mountains and villages, in Spain, she guessed. There were also other, heavier volumes containing reproductions of the work of more famous artists.

      Mary had brought her some spare clothes, and on her seventh morning there Rosalie took off her nightgown and pulled on a sleeveless cotton chemise, intending to wear the plain rose-pink cambric dress that lay over the foot of the bed. But it was warm in here with the sun pouring through the window, so she decided to continue reading the book on Boucher she had found while sitting curled on the bed. The doctor had been and there was no danger of any other visitors just yet.

      She was fast learning the rhythms of the household. She’d heard from Mary, always willing to chatter, that the soldiers were usually up and about early. Some went off to local places of work, at building sites or timber yards. Others were organised by Sergeant McGrath into doing repair work around this ungainly great building. Alec was often out until his fencing lessons began in the early evening.

      But now, as Rosalie sat cross-legged on the bed in that flimsy chemise, engrossed in her book, Alec Stewart walked in, carrying a tray laden with a steaming teapot, china cups and a plate of bread and butter. He almost dropped everything. He clutched the tray and steadied it with a clatter of crockery, but not before one of the cups had rolled off and smashed on the floor.

      He said, ‘My God.’

      She dropped the book and jumped off the bed, putting it between herself and him. With his tousled dark hair, his rumpled white shirt, black boots and breeches that clung to every inch of his muscular thighs, he looked utterly devastating.

      Her pulse was hammering. ‘If you’d knocked first,’ she declared, ‘you might have saved yourself a broken cup! How dare you just march in?’

      ‘It’s my damned house,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘And Mary asked me to bring your tea. Normally you’re hiding under the sheets. I had no idea you’d be putting on such a display.’ To be truthful, Alec was flummoxed. He knew he should leave. But—he was entranced. He felt lust stroking his loins. In that simple white chemise, she looked exquisite.

      Already she was tugging on the rather faded rose-pink gown.

      But that was hardly any better at concealing her charms either, thought Alec, cursing under his breath as he picked up pieces of the broken cup, because the soft fabric had moulded itself tightly to her small but rounded breasts. Earlier she must have tied back her hair, but now some blonde tendrils had escaped to cling enchantingly round her face. And as she gazed up at him with those defiant turquoise-blue eyes, he saw that they were shadowed with fear.

      He sighed. He poured her some tea. ‘Please sit down again. How are you feeling? I see you were looking at one of my books.’

      The big book still lay outspread by her pillow. She struggled to fasten the last button and sat on the edge of the bed because her legs were suddenly unsteady again. ‘I’m feeling a good deal better, thank you. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have looked at them without your permission …’

      ‘Permission? Don’t be ridiculous! What were you looking at?’ He’d pulled up a stool by the bed and was reaching to examine the open pages. ‘These paintings are French, aren’t they? By François Boucher. You told me about Boucher at the Temple of Beauty, remember?’

      Rosalie swallowed. Be prim. Be polite. But as she watched his lean brown hand gently lifting and turning the corners of the pages, some sort of inner turmoil set her blood racing.

      ‘I remember,’ she said as steadily as she could. Oh, Lord, how could she forget? Just before that kiss. ‘And they’re in Boucher’s early style,’ she went on, pointing. ‘In fact, he served his apprenticeship as an engraver, but moved on to historical paintings and portraits—’ She broke off. ‘I’m sorry, I sound as if I’m giving a lecture.’

      ‘You’re knowledgeable.’

      ‘Only because my father was an artist. He painted watercolours and studied the French artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.’

      ‘Why French artists?’

      ‘Because he lived for some years in Paris and married my mother there.’

      ‘She was French?’

      ‘Yes. My father died when I was seven.’

      There is no hope. No hope at all, I’m afraid, madame …

      Memories. The doctor, talking to her mother in Paris, at her father’s sickbed. Her father, holding Rosalie close with what little strength he had. ‘Be a brave, good girl, my Rosalie. Look after your mother and your little sister for me …’

      Alec said, ‘Was that when you came to England?’

      ‘Yes. My father had told my mother, often, about a cottage he owned in Oxfordshire.’

      ‘And is your mother still there?’

      She gazed up at him, her blue eyes wide with loss. ‘She is dead, too.’

      Alec tried not to look at the slenderness of her neck. The faint pulse beating there. What had happened to her life next? he wondered. An impulsive early marriage, he supposed, and pregnancy followed by her husband’s early demise, leaving her penniless with a child to support. So she’d decided to come to London to seek her fortune—as a writer? As a courtesan? Whatever, somehow she’d made bad enemies.

      Yet he found it so damned hard to believe she was capable of selling herself. She’d looked so innocent when he’d come in just now, wearing that pure white bit of nothingness and intently poring over that book …

      He forced himself to remember how she’d been parading on stage at Dr Barnard’s—for sale, or as good as. Unfortunately, the memory did nothing to quell the nagging of harsh desire between his thighs. A French mother—perhaps that explained her grace, her allure, her beauty, damn it all.

      ‘Being left alone with a child to take care of can’t be easy,’ he said. ‘But you must admit you’ve made some rash decisions.’

      She closed the book rather abruptly. ‘I have always paid my own way, I assure you, Captain Stewart. And I have never before been forced to stay in a place like this!’

      He was angry now. ‘No one is forcing you. And considering you were dragging a small child round London with nowhere to go except Lord Maybury’s on the night I found you, you can hardly claim to be a model parent!’

      She’d risen shakily to her feet, her colour high. ‘I’ve done what I could for Katy. How dare you criticise, when you’ve no idea!’

      He stood up, too, to make her sit down again. ‘Hush. Hush, I’m sorry. Everyone can see that you adore her.’

      ‘Everyone