Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

table and lifted the first piece of paper from its pile with great care. Jack would never know she had been there—not until the trustees had made their decision.

      Jack stayed out all day, giving Lily time to creep nervously into the studio twice more to check that she had left everything exactly as she had found it. He was still out when she kissed her Uncle Frederick goodbye after extracting his promise that there would be an extraordinary meeting of the trustees the next afternoon to consider her mysterious proposal.

      ‘You aren’t usually totty-headed, my girl. Coal mines, indeed!’ Her great-uncle peered at her suspiciously from under beetling grey eyebrows. He was past seventy, a canny old merchant who ruled his own silk importing company—and his three adult sons—with a rod of iron. He did not approve of women meddling in business, although he was prepared to admit that Lily was less foolish than most of her sex. Always provided she paid attention to what her male advisers told her, of course.

      ‘And I am not being so now,’ she assured him affectionately. ‘I believe you will be very interested in this opportunity. After all, you did say only the other month that we ought to think about diversifying into canals.’

      ‘Canals are a very different matter to coal mines, child.’

      ‘I know, dearest Uncle Frederick. One is horizontal, the other vertical.’ He snorted at her frivolity, but patted her cheek.

      ‘Modern girls! I do not know what the world is coming to.’

      She was sure he was still grumbling away as his carriage bore him off back to Brown’s Hotel, which sombre establishment always enjoyed his austere patronage.

      But grumble as he might, he would be sure to appreciate the merits of Jack’s mine and the prospect of rich seams of coal, just waiting to be exploited. If there was one thing her trustees understood, it was the importance of having a market for your goods, and London would never cease to devour thousands of tons of coal every year.

      The lack of canals in the area was a problem, she could understand that now she had thought about the problems of hauling such a bulky and heavy product. But among Jack’s notes had been some ideas about steam locomotion. Lily was not at all sure she understood how that worked, it all sounded very dangerous, but Jack seemed excited about it. Once she had persuaded the trustees to let her invest in the mine, it would be an easy next step to venture into this new world of iron and steam.

      And if Jack became rich and successful and covered northern England in these new steam tramways … Lily was still sitting in the blue salon, her chin cupped in her hand, dreaming of herself on the arm of the newly ennobled Lord Lovell of Somewhere, wealthy and influential industrialist, when one of the maids came in to draw the curtains.

      ‘Are you all right, Miss France?’

      ‘What? Oh, I am sorry, Katy. I did not hear you come in.’

      ‘Only you were sighing, Miss France, all gusty-like, and I wondered if you were feeling quite right.’

      ‘Just daydreaming, Katy. Just daydreaming.’ Lily stood up, realising it was time to go and change for dinner. But what a daydream! Papa would approve, and how much better to marry a man who had reached the heights through his own efforts than one of these frivolous aristocrats who had wasted their inheritance.

      It was a long step from securing an investment in Jack’s mine to seeing him ennobled, of course. Lily bit her lip, a little daunted at the prospect. He would probably have to go into politics as well, to gain the influence needed. Would Jack want to do that? Papa always said that one should aim high, but then, he had never come across the stubborn Mr Lovell. For the first time in her life, Lily realised, she was coming up against a will that was a match for hers. And this time, it was not a matter of money being lost if she did not succeed, but her chance of love and happiness.

      Chapter Ten

      Lily kept well away from the studio that evening and the next morning, although she turned her chair around at her desk so that she could glance up at Jack’s windows as she worked on her notes for the afternoon’s meeting. She had to get her trustees briefed, and in a positive frame of mind, before Jack appeared, for she had not the slightest confidence that he would agree to meet them. If she had to trick him, then she should prepare the ground as much as possible first.

      Percy carried off a note, asking Mr Lovell if he would care to take tea with Miss France at three that afternoon. ‘If he should ask, say that you believe Mrs Herrick will be there. And do not mention that my trustees are meeting this afternoon.’

      ‘Yes, Miss France.’ Puzzled, but obedient, Percy took the note and returned ten minutes later to report that Mr Lovell would be glad to accept. ‘I think he is intending to leave soon, Miss France.’

      Lily’s stomach sank with a sickening lurch. ‘Why? What has he said?’

      ‘He asked me to get his portmanteaux sent over. And he has started bundling up all those papers and tying them together.’

      The door closed behind the footman, leaving the room in silence. Lily realised her vision was blurred. Furious with herself, she dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘Do not be so feeble, Lily France! You haven’t lost him yet—time and enough to cry when you do.’

      Jack glanced at the clock, put down his pen and regarded his inky fingers wryly. He seemed to have spent more time lately with a pen in his hand than he had since he left school.

      Time to wash and make himself respectable to take tea with Lily. Time to thank her for her hospitality and to explain that he was taking the stage from the Bull and Mouth at St Martin-le-Grand tomorrow afternoon. And time to acknowledge to himself that what he was taking away from London was not money, but a great deal of information, new ideas and fresh resolve. And what he was leaving behind was the woman he had come to love improbably, impossibly and, he very much feared, irrevocably.

      Like Lily, he had a duty to marry, to have heirs. And now, leaving Lily, he knew that whoever he did eventually wed, it was not going to be someone he loved. He had always imagined, when he thought about it at all, that he would find someone, fall in love and marry her. Foolishly romantic, many would say, for a man in his position. Now, marriage had become another act of duty to put alongside all the others. The ache of missing Lily was simply another pain to be borne; he knew how to cope with physical pain. Would emotional pain be any different?

      He washed, tied back his hair, put on a clean shirt and took pains with his neckcloth while he rehearsed small talk for the tea table in his mind. The weather, things that he had seen in London that seemed worthy of comment, the virtues of Lily’s new horse, the presents he had purchased for his mother and sisters. That would tide over a polite three-quarters of an hour comfortably.

      Lily would be upset that he was leaving, he knew that. She had decided she was going to solve his problems because she always was able to solve anything that simply required the application of money. She was not going to like being thwarted in that. She regarded him as a friend, he thought, as he shook out his coat and pulled it on. What she made of his lovemaking he was not certain, for she had shown no embarrassment or shyness afterwards. Nor did she seem to expect him to make love to her again, so, with her characteristic practicality, she had no doubt put it down to experience—and out of her mind.

      The memory of Lily, quivering and responsive in his arms, the sweet heat of her mouth on his, the innocent passion, struck him with desire so violent it was like a blow. God, I want her. I love her and I want her. How had he managed to keep that under control the other night? How was he going to be able to sit with her and her aunt, politely discussing commonplaces when all he wanted was to drag her off to bed and make love to her until they were both exhausted?

      One thing was certain, he was not going anywhere until he had got both his body and his imagination under control.

      As a result, the clocks had finished chiming three before Jack entered the house through the garden door and his mind was busy memorising the towns on the stagecoach route back to Newcastle, the most unerotic activity he could think of on the spur of the