Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

working clothes, if you please. I am going to the mine.’

      ‘But it is pouring with rain, my lord.’

      ‘Not underground it isn’t Denton.’ And there it was safe from interfering sisters, reproachful mothers—and Lily.

      ‘You will need to take care of that arm, my lord.’ Denton, radiating disapproval, opened the chest where he meticulously segregated Jack’s working clothes. Jack was well aware that his valet considered it a disgrace that an earl should so much as set foot in a mine. If he did, it should be to view the operation only, at a safe distance and taking the advice of his manager. The fact that Jack was frequently found wielding a pick or puzzling over a problem with the ventilation shutters shocked Denton to the core and he rebelled in the only way he knew how, by insisting that Jack’s filthy, torn, clothes were always immaculately laundered, mended and pressed after every wearing.

      Jack pulled off his coat, threw down his fine linen shirt on to a chair and accepted a much-patched woollen smock in return. He sat on the edge of the bed and drew on thick stockings, a pair of loose canvas trousers and thrust his feet into the stout studded boots that Denton produced at arm’s length.

      ‘I do wish you would stop trying to get a shine on these.’ The valet sniffed, not deigning to enter into a long-running wrangle, extracted a crisply ironed red-spotted kerchief from a drawer and placed it on the bed next to a leather waistcoat and a battered tricorne hat.

      ‘You will wear the oiled coat, my lord?’

      Jack regarded his transformed figure in the long mirror and grinned, suddenly relaxed, anticipating a long afternoon of down-to-earth, uncomplicated, male company. ‘Yes please, Denton. Thank you. I will be returning for dinner, should Lady Allerton ask.’

      ‘Yes my lord. I will ensure that there is plentiful hot water: it would not do to present a begrimed appearance with a guest present.’

      Fully aware that Denton was attempting to make him feel like a grubby schoolboy skipping lessons, Jack ran downstairs, whistling between his teeth, to the further scandal of his butler and a footman.

      ‘Jack! For goodness’ sake, you are not going to the mine now?’ It was Caroline, her arms full of fabric, crossing the landing into the room known to the staff as The Young Ladies’ Sitting Room.

      ‘I haven’t been below ground since I got back from London. There are things to be done, to be looked at.’

      ‘But where is Lily?’

      ‘In the Long Gallery.’ Something in his face must have betrayed him, for Caroline dumped the muslin unceremoniously into the sitting room and came back to glare at him. ‘What have you done now?’

      It was on the tip of his tongue to say ‘I had a damn good try at seducing her’ and see what Caroline would do, but he swallowed the words. ‘We argued. I will be back for dinner.’

      The rain had stopped, some time during her journey back to her bedchamber. Lily found she could begin to navigate about the castle, more by looking out for distinctive suits of armour, than by anything else. ‘Battle axe, sword, pointy thing on top …’ she muttered to herself. She located the stairs leading up to her room and hesitated, wondering if she should seek out Caroline. But she rather suspected she was betrayingly flushed and damp-eyed and the thought of curling up in the window seat and having a long brood over the rain-soaked landscape felt safer.

      Now what to do? What had possessed Jack just now? On the face of it, that was a foolish question. He had done it out of sheer lust and frustration. The uncomfortable idea that he had done it because of her money obtruded, but she dismissed it. If Jack was cynical enough to decide, after all, that he wanted her wealth, then he would hardly have proposed they become lovers in such a way. He would have kept his temper, and his passion, in check and wooed her in a civilised, if hypocritical, manner. Like Adrian had.

      What would she have done if that scene had played out differently, if they had not been angry? What would have happened if he had tried to seduce her with soft words and gentle lovemaking?

      What would it be like to be wooed by Jack? The hot pulse still beat distractingly inside her, the aftermath of their violent, angry passion. Lily found the thought of gentle courtship a comforting fantasy as she gazed out from her eyrie. Flowers, hand-kissing, compliments, a little flirtation, murmured sweet nothings. All the time in the world to think about what she should do, what she should say.

      ‘Oh yes,’ Lily whispered, a smile curving her lips. Below, a door banged shut and a tall figure strode out across the courtyard, his black greatcoat flapping behind him in the wind. It was unmistakably Jack; his long stride, the width of his shoulders, betrayed him. Lily glimpsed trousers, boots, a battered old hat and realised he must be on his way to the mine.

      A frisson like the one that had run through her on the duelling ground made her shiver: he was so strong, so masculine. His command had nothing to do with title or class, it was bred in his bones and everything feminine in her responded to it, however hard she tried for control.

      ‘Lily?’ It was Caroline, peeping round the door. ‘Am I interrupting? Are you resting?’

      ‘I was a little tired,’ Lily fibbed. ‘It was rather dark in the gallery and difficult to see the pictures. Lord Allerton has gone out.’

      ‘He has gone to the mine,’ Caroline said briskly. ‘He will be back for dinner.’ She sounded a trifle out of spirits—it must be the weather.

      ‘Oh, it wasn’t that I was wondering or anything …’ Lily could hear she was floundering and made an effort to pull herself together. ‘I would love to see the mine one day—could you take me to see it? When it stops raining, of course.’

      ‘Certainly.’ Caroline came and perched on the window seat beside Lily. ‘But why not ask Jack? I understand quite a lot, at least about the work above ground, but not much about the deep mine.’

      ‘Because he will think I want to interfere again,’ Lily replied bleakly. ‘But I am very interested. I think I might persuade my trustees to invest in mines in the Midlands, where there are canals. They are so dubious about the transport up here, or the lack of it, that is the trouble. Such old stick-in-the muds about new technologies, bless them.’ And she wanted to see the place that obsessed Jack so much, touch him in some way through it. Touch him in the only way that seemed to be safe.

      Chapter Nineteen

      Lily did not expect to see Jack at dinner, but he strolled into the salon where the ladies were congregating before the meal, looking immaculate. Her surprise must have shown on her face, for he came over to her side, one brow raised quizzically.

      ‘Did you expect to see me with black fingernails and coal dust in my hair? I scrub up reasonably well, I believe.’

      Lily had had an afternoon, in the intervals between adjudicating in spirited arguments over fashions, to decide on her future tactics with Jack. She could not make her excuses to Lady Allerton, pack her bags and sweep out, nor could she be thrown into blushing confusion every time she saw him. She was too honest to believe that this was all his fault, so there appeared to be only one tactic: ignore it and play games.

      She smiled, lowered her eyelashes and murmured, ‘You most certainly do.’ She was rewarded by both his brows flying up and a glint of grudging amusement in his eyes.

      ‘Society tricks, Miss France?’

      ‘My aunt always emphasises how important it is to minister to a gentleman’s vanity,’ she replied sweetly.

      ‘And why is that? You appear to have only just recalled this piece of advice, unless I have been very unobservant.’

      ‘Firstly, because if one does not, then they sulk; secondly, because it is the best way to get what one wants.’

      ‘And have you ever observed me to sulk, Lily?’

      ‘Well …’ Lily flirted her fan and was rewarded by a reluctant grin.