In Debt To The Earl. Elizabeth Rolls

      He glanced at her. ‘What else? Your father probably sold the fellow’s debts to this Kilby. Did he see you?’

      ‘Who?’ She looked rather puzzled at first, but then her brow cleared. ‘Oh, the man who followed Papa home? No. I told you. I was asleep. And it wasn’t here anyway.’

      ‘Not here?’

      She went very pink. ‘We’ve only been here a couple of months. It was just before we moved.’

      A ball of tension unknotted in his gut. He’d seen enough of the men Hensleigh associated with to feel cold all over at the thought of any of them knowing about this girl. Apparently the man had the sense to change his lodgings every so often to throw any pursuit off the scent. ‘Good,’ he said.

      She was watching him, an odd expression on her face. ‘If you’re going to take the money for the coal off what you owe Papa, he won’t like it.’

      ‘What?’ For a moment he had no idea what she was talking about. ‘What I owe—?’ Too late he realised that he had tripped himself up. ‘Look, the coal was nothing. It doesn’t—’

      But her eyes had narrowed. He could see her putting it together. He braced himself.

      ‘If you owed him money,’ she said finally, ‘there was no reason to come back today, let alone wait.’ Her voice was very quiet. ‘You could hardly suppose he wouldn’t call on you as soon as he returned. But if he owes you money—’ she bit her lip and he knew an urge to reach out, stroke away the small hurt ‘—then there was every reason to return and wait, wasn’t there?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said. There was no point denying it, even if he could bring himself to lie to her again.

      ‘So you lied to me,’ she said, as if being lied to was perfectly normal. ‘How much?’

      His mind blanked for a moment. ‘How much for what?’ he countered. What sort of idiot couldn’t keep a lie straight in his head? Somehow this girl unravelled his wits and scattered them to the winds.

      She swallowed and the silent jerk of her throat stabbed at him. ‘How much does he owe you?’

      He didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved that she wasn’t offering to barter herself for the debt.

      He hesitated. She was already pale, her mouth set as if braced for a blow. A blow he didn’t want to strike. He clenched his fists, gritting his teeth. The time for lies was past. Well, almost. ‘One hundred pounds.’ He could not bring himself to tell her the full amount.

      * * *

      It was a shameful fact that Lucy had never, not once in her life, come close to fainting. Her cousin Jane had prided herself on her ability to faint dead away with becoming grace at the slightest provocation, be it a spider, a snake or the admiring glance of an eligible gentleman. Jane had been as much admired for her exquisite sensibility as for her beauty. Lucy never felt so much as dizzy. Spiders didn’t bother her, she thought the occasional snake she saw was far more scared of her than she was of it and gentlemen never noticed her.

      But now the abyss along which her father had skirted, week after week, month after month and year after year, gaped at her feet, a black, fathomless pit that threatened to swallow her whole. Her vision greyed... She couldn’t really be off balance, because there didn’t seem to be a floor to be off balance on, and she was falling...and then, not.

      For a blinding instant she was conscious of the power of his arms, the sheer strength of his body, as he caught her, steadied her. For one wild, insane moment she knew the urge to remain there. Safe. Then, with a fierce wrench, she fought to free herself, shoving away from him, willing her head to stop spinning, her knees to hold and her lungs to draw air. Safe? Whatever else this man might be, he wasn’t safe.

      ‘Let me go!’ She struggled, but he held her tightly.

      ‘Don’t be an idiot, Lucy!’ he said. ‘You damn near fainted on me!’

      ‘I don’t faint!’ Somehow she was sitting in the chair he had vacated, his hands still gripping her shoulders. ‘And I have not said you may call me Lucy!’

      He snorted. ‘What else should I call you? We both know Hensleigh is not your real name.’

      That struck home. She said quietly, ‘Please let me go.’ If he didn’t—

      He let her go and she reached up to rub her shoulder where he had gripped her, where the shock of his touch shivered in her flesh.

      His brows snapped together. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said stiffly, as though the words shamed him. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

      She couldn’t explain that he hadn’t hurt her. She couldn’t explain that shivery feeling even to herself. Her throat worked. ‘One hundred pounds.’ The words jerked out all anyhow. ‘How? When?’ Clearly Papa was not with his mistress—one hundred pounds was a fortune and Papa had run.

      And he didn’t take you. Didn’t even bother to warn you. Heat pricked behind her eyes. With that much money she could—

      ‘That amount shocks you?’

      The bitter tone, more than the words, did it. Inside her something shattered into molten shards, drying her eyes in the white-hot blaze. What did he have to be bitter about? Her father might or might not come back. All the money he had won a few weeks ago was gone. At best he had left town to play elsewhere until he had enough to pay off—

      ‘I suppose Remington is not really your name, sir?’ she forced out.

      He looked annoyed as he pulled out an elegant silver card case. ‘Cambourne.’ He handed her a card. ‘Remington is the family name.’

      Family name? She looked at the card. Cambourne. And not merely Mr Cambourne, but Lord Cambourne, a belted earl, no less. No wonder Papa had run. There would be very few places he could play profitably in London without having paid off this debt. Fear choked her. She knew her father’s code. A debt like this would be paid before all else. Before the rent for their lodgings, before food—well, food for her. He’d buy himself a meal on the way home, give Mrs Beattie a shilling to keep her sweet and tell his daughter there was no money. Why on earth had she ever thought she owed him the least vestige of loyalty? And yet...he was her father. She remembered him from her childhood before Mama died, kind when he was at home, often bringing her a present, a sweet or a cake. Once a painted wooden brooch—a bird perched singing on a twig.

      And he sold the jewellery Grandmama left you. Her fingers went to her chest, felt the locket through the threadbare gown. Not quite all. Just what he’d known about. Sold it and pocketed the money. Sworn he’d make their fortunes. He’d made that fortune, all right. She’d been dazed, dazzled, sure that at last she was safe, that she’d have a proper home. And then he’d lost most of it the following week.

      Lord Cambourne said nothing and she fought to ignore his presence. One hundred pounds. Papa had won five times as much a few weeks ago. He’d let her have some money that time. Enough to buy food, the beeswax and pay off the arrears on their lodgings. Otherwise Mrs Beattie would have kicked them out. There was nothing left of what he’d given her. And with what she could earn, she would be lucky to have enough to eat for a week if she ate one meal a day, and only then if Mrs Beattie didn’t insist on being paid again next week.

      ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said again. Folly to keep repeating it. Either Lord Cambourne believed her, or he did not. There was nothing she could do about it.

      He was watching her. Those dark-grey eyes seemed to look right through her and see things she preferred to keep hidden. She lifted her chin, praying that the choking fear was not apparent. Praying that he would leave so that she could think.

      ‘You should leave.’ Pretending that Mr Remington, or Lord Cambourne, or whatever he wished to call himself, was a welcome visitor was beyond her.

      * * *