Unlacing Lady Thea. Louise Allen

has put you to the blush?’ he asked without preamble.

      She wished she had resumed her veil, but it hardly seemed friendly, not while they were travelling through open country. ‘I was thinking about a man.’ After all, she had always been able to tell Rhys everything. Almost everything.

      ‘Really?’ Rhys stopped slouching in his corner and regarded her quizzically. ‘A very romantic man, by the look of those pink cheeks. Fallen in love with the drawing master?’

      ‘No.’ He obviously could not stop thinking of her as a sixteen-year-old. ‘Not the drawing master and no one romantic. Men do not woo me romantically. They check that I am not a complete ninny-hammer, assure themselves that I have all my own teeth and do not giggle and then they trot off and talk to Papa about the size of my dowry and whether he can assure them my mother’s family will never make themselves known.’

      ‘Thea, give it a chance. Just because you haven’t taken yet it doesn’t mean you won’t get a perfectly reasonable proposal or two.’

      ‘Rhys, I have not taken in three Seasons. I am not a beauty. I am not pretty. I am not even interestingly eccentric in my looks. I am perfectly ordinary. Average height, average face, ordinary eyes, mouse-brown hair which does not cascade into tumultuous waves to my waist when I take it down.

      ‘If any man wrote poetry to my eyebrows I would fall about laughing and suggest he bought eyeglasses. When I do laugh no one compares it to the trill of a lark or the ripple of running water. I can sing and play the piano adequately and no one is so foolish as to ask for an encore.’

      Rhys looked rather daunted. ‘But you—’

      ‘If you say I have a wonderful sense of humour, I will lose all respect for you,’ she warned. ‘Such a cliché.’

      ‘Well, you do have. But what I was going to say is that you have a talent for friendship.’

      ‘Oh.’ Now he had surprised her. What a very lovely thing to say. He had always been generous with his friendship—to her, to Paul who had betrayed him. She had not realised he had valued that in her and she was touched he recalled it now. ‘You have made me blush in earnest now,’ Thea said as lightly as she knew how. ‘I hope I am a good friend. But I do have a talent, and you will see what it is in Paris.’

      ‘Shopping?’

      ‘Not quite. Where are we now?’

      ‘Gravesend. We will change horses again at Strood. But you have evaded the subject. Who is this man that the mere thought of him makes you blush? Did he break your heart?’

      He was teasing, that was all. Thea found her smile from somewhere. ‘Not deliberately. He had no idea of my feelings, you see, and besides, he was in love with someone else.’

      ‘He was?’

      ‘Is, I am sure. He was never the fickle sort. But don’t look so indignant on my behalf. It was ages ago.’

      Simply a youthful tendre, the delicious, painful quivering of first love. Puppy love. That was behind her now, thank goodness. That girl and that young man no longer existed. Except in dreams, sometimes, but it would be too cruel to give up on dreams of love.

      But they were dangerous things to hold on to. If she had realised that then, she would never have believed Anthony sincere when he began to court her, never have thought that she could find an adult love, prosaic and sensible perhaps, but true and honest nevertheless. It had made the disillusion even greater when she had overheard her father discussing the terms of her dowry, the extra lands he was adding to compensate Anthony for taking his plain, awkward daughter off his hands.

      Rhys had the tact to stop questioning her, which was a relief because she was not certain how long she could maintain a mask of indifference in the face of direct interrogation. She should never have said as much as she had. ‘Look,’ she said as she drew down her veil. ‘This must be Strood.’

      * * *

      They arrived in Dover at a quarter to five and Rhys ushered his small party into private rooms at the Queen’s Head on the quayside. ‘I’ll go along to the ship and send for you in about an hour.’

      Thea balked at the threshold. ‘I will come with you.’ The prospect of sitting in a stuffy parlour with a yawning maid and a ramrod-backed valet perched on the edge of his chair had no appeal. ‘You go and lie down and get some sleep, Polly.’

      One of the things she had always liked about Rhys was the way he would never try to persuade her out of the harmless things that stuffy convention decreed girls were not supposed to do. She tucked her hand under his arm and walked along the quayside. The wind flipped her veil back from her face, but there was no one around who might recognise her.

      ‘The wind is quite strong.’ Waves slapped high against the stonework. ‘And the sea looks rather rough, even in the shelter of the harbour.’

      ‘Do you get seasick?’

      ‘I don’t know. I am fine in a rowing boat on the lake and as cool as a cucumber in a punt on the river.’

      ‘They do not have waves.’

      ‘No.’ Thea took a deep breath of bracing sea air and found it was composed of an equally bracing mix of rotting seaweed and drains. ‘I am sure it is all a case of mind over matter.’

      ‘Or stomach. Perhaps I should acquire a basin.’ Rhys nodded towards a chandler’s shop. ‘They probably have some.’

      ‘We should write a book together. A practical guide to elopement. You do it from the male point of view, I will do the hints for the ladies. It should have a list of things to take that can fit in a small valise....’

      ‘Very small. No cabin trunks,’ Rhys said with feeling. ‘A rope ladder.’

      ‘Sensible shoes for climbing down a ladder. Smelling salts.’

      ‘A road book and plenty of money. A good team of horses to start with and close-mouthed postilions.’

      ‘A compass to make certain the gentleman really is heading for the Border.’

      ‘Cynic! And that obviates the need for a basin. No sea crossing.’

      ‘So it does. Oh, dear,’ Thea said mournfully. ‘I was so enjoying the vision of an amorous young gentleman, tiptoeing around the corner at the dead of night, lantern in his teeth, rope ladder tripping him up, basin under one arm.’

      Rhys chuckled. ‘Why would he take the basin with him for the ladder-climbing part of the proceedings?’

      ‘Because he is young and romantic and silly. Of course,’ she added hopefully, ‘his true love may be overcome with nerves and need it. Or he could use it to knock out a pursuing parent.’

      Rhys disentangled himself from her grasp and caught her hand in his. ‘You,’ he said with a grin, ‘are a bad girl.’

      ‘I wish I was. I fear I am simply too prosaic.’

      ‘If leaving home disguised as a boy, bullying a half-cut gentleman into escorting you across the Channel and spinning fantasies about elopements is prosaic, then I hope I may never meet an adventurous lady.’ He looked down at her, more intently. ‘Thea, how old did you say you are now?’

      Having Rhys smile at her was such a relief it affected her like one glass of champagne too many. It was going to be all right. He really would take her, not change his mind at the last moment. ‘Twenty-two. I am six years younger than you, just as I have always been.’ She laughed up at him and, distracted, tripped over a mooring rope.

      Rhys spun her round and caught her up in his arms before she fell on the rough cobbles. ‘Steady! Are you all right?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ Tight in his embrace, close against his body and breathless with laughter, Thea looked up into intent blue eyes and smiled.

      And then he went very still and his arms tightened around her as his eyes went dark.