Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

was a practical joke, certainly. No mistake could account for it. Who disliked her so much that they would go to so much trouble? A name came easily to mind, now she was thinking calmly: Lady Angela Hardy. And she had certainly succeeded if her intention had been to cause Lily the greatest possible amount of trouble and public embarrassment. In fact, she had succeeded beyond her wildest hopes and had ensured that her cousin was no longer involved with the despised Miss France.

      ‘Lily dear?’ Aunt Herrick peered round the door. ‘Have they all gone?’

      ‘Almost. But I think we should stay inside today.’

      ‘But what was it? I really cannot understand. Had they all mistaken the address?’

      ‘I believe it was a malicious trick by Lady Angela Hardy,’ Lily said grimly. ‘I upset her a month ago at Almack’s.’

      ‘Oh, dear.’ Mrs Herrick frowned. ‘You must make it up with her as soon as possible. Lord Randall will be most displeased when he finds out that you have quarrelled with a close relative of his.’

      ‘It is rather too late for that: I have broken off the engagement.’

      ‘You have what? But, Lily …’

      ‘Adrian was angry when he found how my money has been left in trust and he was upset because of the uproar outside—which he seems to blame me for. He behaved very badly, so I broke it off.’ Saying it out loud brought nothing but a wave of relief. She should never have let herself become entangled with him, never let herself be persuaded that it was right to buy a husband and a title when she did not even feel liking for the man himself.

      It was dawning on her that Papa and her family might be wrong and that her instincts were all too correct. It felt like treason—could it be true? No, surely not. Papa had always been right.

      ‘But, Lily—whatever will people say?’

      Lily got slowly to her feet, staring at her aunt’s appalled face. Fear roiled through her stomach; it was worse than what people might say about the hoax or the simple breaking of her engagement. She had let Adrian compromise her. For one error of judgment she could be ruined and Adrian, furious with her, would no doubt do nothing to protect her good name.

      ‘Miss France, Dr Ord asks if you will join him.’

      ‘The doctor!’

      ‘Aunt, please, it is merely that a gentleman was injured in the street. None of our household is hurt. I will just go and speak to the doctor, there is nothing to be concerned about.’

      Leaving Aunt Herrick lamenting behind her, Lily followed Blake back to the guest room. Thinking about her ruined reputation would just have to wait. Jack Lowell was lying quite still, his head bandaged and his shoulders bare above more strips of linen encircling his chest.

      ‘His skull is not fractured,’ the doctor said immediately on seeing her anxious face. ‘In fact, it must be as hard as rock to have withstood that blow. His back is a mass of bruises; he will have hit the steps as he fell.’

      He began to pack his case. ‘But your man’s no stranger to injuries. I would be a little careful, Miss France. It is hard to guess what his background is. He has got more scars than the average soldier, but not bullet or sabre wounds. His back has been damaged before, but not, I am happy to say, as a result of flogging. He is well fed and fit and muscled like a navvy. If his knuckles were scarred differently I would guess at a prize-fighter, but, although he has worked hard with his hands, they are well kept. I cannot make him out—and I do not like puzzles.

      ‘There is nothing to be done for him but to wait until he comes round, then give him plenty to drink—that cordial on the table there is for his headache—and keep him resting. Call me if there is any bleeding from nose or ears or if, when he regains consciousness, his vision is blurred.’

      Doctor Ord bowed his way out, escorted by Blake, leaving Lily gazing dubiously at her guest. She was still standing there, wondering how long it would take Angela Hardy and Adrian between them to spread the news of her disgrace and the hilarious tale of her discomfiture, when his eyelids flickered and she found herself looking directly into a pair of dark grey eyes.

      Chapter Four

      ‘Where am I?’ Not the most original of opening lines, Jack told himself, focusing on the magnificently dressed figure in front of him. He should recognise her; flashes of memory—of an angry aristocrat, a crowded coffee shop, of crowds, a bear, his schooldays and, improbably, of an angel—tried to force their way through the headache that was an almost physical presence in his skull.

      He shifted his gaze, but not his throbbing head, found himself staring at a sphinx—of all things—and hastily looked back at the young woman. The beautiful young woman, now he could see past the ornately piled hair, the frills and flounces and the jewellery.

      ‘You are in my house in Chandler Street, sir.’ She moved closer, forcing him to refocus painfully. ‘You were injured coming to my aid outside—do you not recall?’

      ‘Some sort of riot? I came because you wrote … Miss …?’ He frowned with the effort of recall. ‘Have I met you before?’ For some reason she seemed to be blushing.

      ‘France. Lily France. You came to my aid a month ago in Piccadilly—can you remember that? As for this—it was a hoax, someone was playing a malicious trick on me. A fight broke out and you were hit by a cobblestone. The doctor says you bruised your back badly on the steps as you fell.’ Which no doubt accounted for the fact that he felt as though he’d been flogged. But why, if he had fallen on his back, did his jaw ache? Jack raised a hand and prodded it, wincing.

      ‘Did someone land me a right hook at the same time?’

      Now what had he said to make her blush even deeper? ‘I am afraid so. My … the man to whom I was betrothed hit you.’

      ‘What the hell—sorry—for? Miss France, please will you not sit down? I can focus better on the level and for some reason I keep seeing sphinxes when I look up.’

      She came and sat by the bed in a rustle of silk that whispered money to a man who had three sisters. ‘That’s because the room is decorated with a gilded frieze of them,’ she said, pride evident in her voice. ‘This room is in the Egyptian style, you know, quite the height of fashion.’

      Jack risked a glance around and repressed a shudder. And quite the worst of taste. ‘Why did he hit me?’ he asked again. Shreds of memory were coming back: a woman’s gasp of pain, a sneering voice. Fog.

      ‘Because he was angry with me for having you brought into the house, and he mistook the situation—but he was angry in any case. I broke our engagement, he raised his voice and you—somehow—managed to get to your feet. You were trying to protect me, which was very gallant of you. But you could hardly see I imagine, what with all the blood, and Adrian took advantage of that and hit you. The coward,’ she finished, vehemently.

      ‘Adrian?’

      ‘Lord Randall.’

      Well, that explained some of the memories. It seemed that Randall was still picking on those smaller or weaker than himself—undersized boys, women, injured men. Strange that neither of them had recognised the other in the coffee house, even after sixteen years. That evening in Hatchett’s was coming back now. ‘It took you rather a long time to get rid of him.’

      ‘Four weeks,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I should have listened to my own feelings and not done what everyone else said was right.’

      ‘Why agree to marry him in the first place if you do not like him?’ His head was thudding and the gilded ornamentation of the room seemed to shimmer in the candlelight, but Jack found himself fascinated by the play of emotion on Lily’s face. Her expression of self-deprecation changed to one of surprise.

      ‘He is a baron,’ she stated as though he had asked a very foolish question.

      ‘Er, yes.