Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

as neutral as if she had been discussing a minor matter of business.

      ‘That would have been inadequate. You could have been killed.’ Lily turned to Lady Allerton. ‘I did try and stop it—’

      ‘You did what?’ It seemed she had penetrated Jack’s chilly calm at last.

      ‘I spoke to Lord Gledhill, and to Doctor Ord, but they both explained that there was nothing I could do. I did think of informing the magistrates, but Lord Gledhill said you would only find another place to fight.’

      ‘Where did you speak to Lord Gledhill?’ The very quietness of Jack’s tone should have warned her.

      ‘I went to his lodgings—’

      ‘You, an unmarried lady, went to a bachelor’s lodgings—without your chaperon, I make no doubt—I wonder why I should trouble to defend your honour when you are so careless of it!’

      ‘Jack!’ Out of the corner of her eye Lily was aware of Miss Lovell bending to murmur in her mother’s ear. Lady Allerton subsided and her daughter slipped from the room.

      ‘Well, it was my fault you were fighting, I had to do what I could to stop it!’

      ‘No, you did not!’ They were both furious now. Lily found she was on her feet, her palm itching to slap him. His face was so white that the faded bruises of his fight with Lord Dovercourt were starkly visible. ‘And I suppose you were there, on Hampstead Heath? Which idiot did you persuade to take you? If it was Gledhill, I swear I am going straight back down to London to call him out!’

      ‘It was Doctor Ord. Don’t you dare bully the poor man—he is twice your age.’

      ‘Poor man? I imagine he must be senile to have allowed such a thing. Of all the bird-witted, brazen-faced things to have done—’

       ‘Jack!’

      ‘I am sorry, Mama.’ He sounded anything but sorry, despite lowering his voice. ‘But what a totty-headed—’

      ‘You,’ Lily pronounced with awful dignity, gathering up her reticule, ‘are the rudest, most stubborn, most prideful man I have ever met. Lady Allerton, I apologise for being the cause of your son putting himself in the way of harm, and I am deeply thankful for your sake that nothing worse came of it. Thank you for your hospitality. If your butler could please summon my carriage, I will leave you.’

      ‘Oh, but you are staying, are you not, Miss France?’ It was Miss Lovell, coming back into the room without showing the slightest consciousness that she was stepping into the eye of a storm. ‘I sent your carriage back to Newcastle quite five minutes ago. They have brought in your luggage. I thought the White Bedchamber, Mama?’ She smiled round at her stony-faced brother, her younger sisters, both wide-eyed with horrified excitement, her astonished mother, and hesitated when she got to Lily.

      ‘Is something wrong, Miss France?’

      ‘I am staying with my agent, Mr Lovington and his wife, in Newcastle.’

      ‘But all your luggage was in the carriage, and your maid said you had stayed at the Queen’s Head last night and had paid your shot this morning.’

      ‘I was intending to call upon Mr Lovington as soon as I returned to Newcastle today,’ Lily explained with as much calm as she could muster.

      ‘Taking him unawares?’ Jack observed. ‘Very wise.’ Lily tried to ignore him.

      ‘Perhaps a servant could be sent after the carriage, Lady Allerton? I regret appearing ungracious, but as you have no doubt become aware in the last few minutes, it would be highly unsuitable for me to stay here a moment longer.’

      ‘But there are no horses available,’ Caroline interjected. ‘I am so sorry, Miss France, but the carriage team is down at the Home Farm, er … ploughing. And the smith is here attending to the shoes on all the saddle horses—none of them are fit to be ridden for at least two hours, he always starts by removing all the old shoes. And by the time a rider caught up with your carriage it would be back in Newcastle.’ She hesitated, a look of doubt on her face. ‘Oh, dear, and I have no idea where they will have gone. Does the coachman have your agent’s address?’

      ‘No,’ Lily said between clenched teeth. ‘Presumably he will go to a livery stable. And no doubt there are numerous such establishments in Newcastle.’

      ‘Dozens.’ After a long, cool, look at his sister, Jack had strolled away to lean one arm on the massive carved overmantel.

      ‘And it is coming on to rain now,’ Caroline added. ‘Never mind, it can all be sorted out tomorrow, I am sure. Will you not come up and see your chamber, Miss France?’

      Lily looked around the room, receiving no help from either Jack’s expressionless face or his amiably smiling family.

      ‘Please, do indulge us and stay, Miss France.’ It was hard to resist a direct request from Lady Allerton. ‘My two eldest children appear between them to have placed you in an uncomfortable situation, but I beg that you will not consider it. I would very much welcome your company for as many days as you are able to spare—it would give us great pleasure to hear all the news from London. Lovell has done his best, but his eye for the latest mode in bonnets is not perhaps the sharpest, and his ear for gossip is positively non-existent.’

      All the women started as a sudden vicious burst of rain hit the windows. The room darkened. Lily knew that to insist on sending a servant on horseback into Newcastle to hunt up a carriage at an unknown livery yard in this weather was quite impossible. ‘Thank you, Lady Allerton. I would be delighted. You are most kind.’

      Miss Lovell opened the door and stood waiting. Yielding to the inevitable, Lily followed her out into the Great Hall, wondering how much she had heard of that furious exchange with Jack. His family appeared to take the situation with amazing calm; gloomily Lily decided this must be a sign of their superior breeding and that her own outburst would have damned her utterly in Lady Allerton’s opinion, however polite the countess was being.

      ‘Now, you must not worry if you get lost,’ Miss Lovell was saying cheerfully as she led the way up the great stone staircase past several more suits of armour and a vast, almost black, oil painting. ‘All our guests do. Just tug a bell pull or keep going down whatever stairs you come to. Sooner or later everything ends up back in the Great Hall.’

      ‘It is a wonderful building.’ Lily tried to catch glimpses of the rain-swept grounds outside through narrow lancet windows set deep into the walls.

      ‘It is,’ Caroline agreed, flipping aside a tapestry to reveal a door. ‘I had better tie this back or you will never find it again. We all adore it, even though it is draughty and inconvenient and far too big. And one turret fell down at the time my father inherited the title. Mind you, it needs structural work all the time, never mind the turret, so goodness knows if Jack could ever manage to get round to rebuilding that on top of everything else. He says running Allerton is like standing in front of a fire throwing on five-pound notes,’ she added cheerfully.

      ‘Oh.’ Lily followed through the door and up a winding wooden staircase with carved beasts on the finials. And if I had not blundered so tactlessly …

      ‘Jack is talking about doing some redecoration, though.’ Caroline opened a door at the end of the corridor. ‘I believe he got some ideas in London. He was telling us about a house with crocodiles and how it was decorated in the Egyptian style, but I think that can only be a joke. Now, what do you think of this room?’

      ‘Lovely.’ Lily pushed the hurtful thought that Jack had been laughing about her to the back of her mind. ‘It is just like a princess’s room from a fairy tale.’

      ‘That is what I always feel.’ Miss Lovell seemed pleased with her response. ‘When I was little, I would climb up into this window seat and watch for my handsome prince to come.’

      Lily walked across the room and joined her. The window was cut deep into the thick stone walls and a seat had been formed