Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

was ostensibly decent—he was certainly better covered than most Classical statues that she had seen—but the impact of bare legs, one exposed shoulder and most of his chest suggested all too vividly the nakedness that the sheet concealed.

      ‘Mr Lovell. Get back to bed!’

      The door opened to reveal Blake with a loaded tray. He stopped dead at the sight of the apparition facing him, then stepped forward hastily as someone behind him must have pushed. Aunt Herrick bustled past him, glanced round, saw Jack and let out a piercing scream. Blake dropped the tray, showering all of them with Soupe de Cressy and claret as Percy shot into the room, alarm on his face.

      ‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ He stared around wildly, then gawped at the near-naked man dominating the bedchamber.

      ‘No, I am not all right!’ Mrs Herrick waved a frantic hand at Jack. ‘This … brute was trying to assault my niece— send for the constables!’

      Lily, torn between laughter and horror, pressed her hands over her mouth as Jack took a hasty step forward. ‘Madam, I assure you my intention—’

      He could not have untucked all of the sheet from under the mattress. With his long stride it caught at the back with a jerk, pulled from his grip and fell to the floor. Lily stared, realised what she was doing, and clapped her hands over her eyes. With a gasp Aunt Herrick slid to the floor in a dead faint. Blake, kneeling amidst the wreckage of the supper tray, let out one startled expletive and was silent.

      For a moment the tableau was frozen, then Lily, keeping her back to the bed, hurried to her aunt’s side. Mrs Herrick had subsided safely on to the thick pile of the carpet and was moaning, apparently more in shock and outrage than from any bruises.

      ‘Mr Lovell, please go back to bed this minute. Percy, fetch Mrs Herrick’s woman, and my maid, and then help Blake clear this up.’ She waited a moment. ‘Mr Lovell, are you decent?’

      ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He sounded chastened. Good. So he should be, the reprobate!

      Still on her knees, Lily turned slowly round and regarded the dishevelled bed and its occupant, now decidedly paler than before he had got up. He looked at her with rueful apology, and somewhere, at the back of those expressive grey eyes, wicked amusement.

      This was dreadful. Lily bit her lip. Aunt would have fits when she came round, the carpet with its special border of golden crocodiles and papyrus foliage was going to have to be cleaned and Blake’s be-frogged livery was covered in claret. It was also very, very funny. Coming on top of a day packed with horrible surprises, it was too much. She turned away, tried to control herself and failed utterly. With a gasp she sank back on her heels, buried her face in her handkerchief and wept with laughter.

      ‘Miss France—Lily! I am sorry … hell, I did not mean to make you cry.’

      ‘Don’t you dare get up again,’ she threatened, raising her flushed face from the linen. ‘It is so unfair—you create havoc and then you make me laugh. Oh Maria, Janet, help Mrs Herrick to her room—she fainted, but she does not appear to be hurt. That’s right—’ she turned to the footmen who were sponging the soup off the carpet ‘—do the best you can and we will have to look at it again tomorrow when the light is better. And fetch Mr Lovell another supper tray, please.

      ‘Not that you deserve it,’ she scolded, approaching the bed and wrenching the coverings straight as the footmen hurried out. Lecturing him was the only defence she could find to hide the shock and embarrassment—and fascination—of seeing his naked body. ‘Now, will you promise me you will stay there?’

      ‘Will you finish your supper up here?’ Jack was managing to sound reasonably contrite; Lily did not trust him one inch.

      ‘Certainly not. Aunt would never allow it after what she has just seen. I mean …’ Oh, Lord, that could have been better put! ‘I mean, she thought you were unconscious. Please do not be difficult.’

      Without thinking she put out one hand imploringly and Jack caught it in his and raised it to his lips. ‘I apologise Lily. I would apologise to your aunt too if I did not think it would set her off again. But I can stay for one night only.’ He released his grip and Lily thrust her hand safely behind her back. ‘And thank you. I am sorry if I seem ungrateful, but I am not used to accepting favours, and I am not good at being told what to do.’

      ‘I had noticed,’ Lily remarked with a smile as she closed the door behind her and left Mr Lovell alone with his crumpled sheets and a strong smell of claret.

      Aunt Herrick was propped up on the chaise-longue in her chamber, smelling bottle in one hand, fan in another, while Janet and Maria hovered with cordials and pillows. To Lily’s surprise she waved them away when she saw her niece. ‘Leave us, off you go. Well.’ She eyed Lily’s flushed face with a knowing eye. ‘And just what have you brought home, miss?’

      ‘I have not brought him home,’ Lily protested, perching on the end of the chaise. ‘He was knocked out on our doorstep—what was I supposed to do with him? Leave him to bleed to death outside the front door?’

      ‘He is a well-built young man, that I’ll say for him.’ The older woman chuckled at Lily’s blush. ‘What is he?’

      ‘He owns a mine in Northumberland and he is looking for investors for steam pumps for it.’

      ‘Oh. Trade. Then he’s no use to us.’

      ‘Aunt!’

      ‘Well? You have lost your baron, young lady—what are you going to find to replace him with?’

      ‘Not Mr Lovell, that is for sure,’ Lily retorted, resolutely ignoring a disturbing mental image of muscular thighs and narrow hips. ‘Infuriating man.’

      ‘Handsome, though, so long as you aren’t looking for the languid elegant type. He would turn out quite well with a good suit of clothes and his hair cut. Pity he’s not got a title.’

      ‘I like his hair,’ Lily said without thinking. ‘Not that that is anything to do with anything, so stop teasing me, Aunt, please. I really do not know what I am to do. Today’s events will be all over town by tomorrow, so even if it were not for Lord Randall, everyone would be talking about me.’

      ‘Laugh about the hoax and say you broke it off with him, who’s to know any better? Put on your best new dress and your diamonds and find another lord.’

      ‘It is not as simple as that,’ Lily confessed, twirling the bullion fringe on the chaise between restless fingers. ‘About a month ago I let Adrian drive me back from Almack’s and he … he tried to make love to me in the carriage and I repulsed him and ran away. And Mr Lovell rescued me. But I was alone with Adrian, and then I was in this coffee house on Piccadilly with Jack, even though nothing happened. And sooner or later Adrian is going to realise that the man he hit today was the one who told him I was not in the coffee house, and—’

      ‘He will put two and two together and make twenty-seven,’ Aunt Herrick finished for her. ‘I do not pretend to understand half of this tale, but if Lord Randall chooses to be spiteful then you’re in trouble, Lily, my child.’

      ‘I know.’ Lily’s fingers had twisted the bullion fringe into a knot. She released it and watched it spring back into its own intricate twirls. ‘I think I am probably ruined.’

      Chapter Five

      Lily spent a restless night. Fretting about Adrian and her reputation was fruitless, she decided at about one in the morning. Either she was ruined or she wasn’t and there did not seem to be very much to be done about it, unless Lady Billington had any good ideas. And as Lily was paying Jane Billington a very favourable retainer for her services, it would be in her interests to think of something as soon as possible.

      More immediate was what to do about Jack Lovell, even now sleeping in her best guest room. The prudent answer, she supposed, giving up on sleep and plumping the cushions