Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire by Juliet Landon Page B

sir.’
    As he spoke, Lord Elyot reached behind him to open the door where the faithful Henry was waiting for just such a moment.
    From beneath his gathered brows, Hurst glowered with deep distrust at his audience, but carefully avoided looking at the money he was forbidden to retrieve. He bowed. ‘Your servant … my lady … my lord.’ Then he was gone.
    In spite of her new predicament, Amelie’s relief and gratitude robbed her of words and, if she had been of a weepy frame of mind, she would almost certainly have burst into tears and thrown herself bodily into the arms of her rescuer. But since her rescuer was bound to be expecting some convincingexplanations very shortly, she stood with both hands enclosing the entire lower half of her face as if she were praying. Which, in a sense, she was. She was also wondering how on earth to explain herself, not to mention Ruben Hurst.
    She realised she was in for a rough ride as soon as Lord Elyot approached her with that maddeningly cryptic expression he favoured, and said, ‘Well, my dear Lady Chester, there’s a dirty dish if ever I saw one. You really do have the oddest friends. I fear I may have to forbid you to see him again once our engagement is formally announced. He won’t do, my dear. Really he won’t. Not up to the mark at all.’
    ‘You were not expected until this afternoon,’ Amelie mumbled through her fingers.
    ‘Yes, and you’d have been out, wouldn’t you? Hardly the way to behave towards your intended husband.’
    ‘Please … stop it! You must have realised that was a last resort.’
    ‘Thank you. I cannot recall when I was last known as a last resort. Must have been in my schooldays, I suppose.’
    ‘That’s not what I meant.’
    ‘Then what did you mean? And who was that jackanapes with his bag of moonshine?’
    Inside her hands, she shook her head, closing her eyes.
    ‘You’ll do better like this,’ he said, taking her wrists. ‘It releases the mouth, I find. There now. Come and sit over here.’ Leading her to the chair vacated by Hurst, he lowered her into it. Then, pouring her a glass of some mulberry-coloured liquid from a decanter, he passed it to her. ‘I don’t know what this stuff is, but take a sip.’
    ‘Blackcurrant juice. Thank you.’ Obediently, she sipped.
    A pained expression fled across his eyes. ‘Is that what I’m going to have to put up with? Heaven help me.’
    ‘Lord Elyot, I owe you an explanation, I know, and an apology for making use of your name. I didn’t think you would ever find out, and that’s the truth of it and, at that particular moment, I desperately needed that dreadful man to believe I had influential friends here.’
    ‘Well, that’s an improvement on being a last resort, I suppose. But if you didn’t think I’d find out, what d’ye suppose he’ll be doing in the nearest tap-room at this very moment but telling everyone within range that Lady Chester, his
very
close friend, has an understanding with Sheen’s eldest son? I’m really quite gratified to discover who my next partner is to be before the rest of Richmond does. You must understand my relief, I hope?’
    That was a possibility she had not taken time to consider. ‘Would he do that?’ she asked, weakly.
    ‘Well, I would if I were him. He needs all the clout he can get. Who is he?’
    ‘A gambler and prime scandalmonger from Buxton. I’m afraid this so-called affection he professes is all in his mind. He
was
a family friend, my lord, but not any more.’
    ‘So why let him in?’
    ‘If I’d thought he would come here to Richmond, I would have told Henry to keep him out, but since he was in, I thought it was best to know exactly what he was up to. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, as they say. I suspected he’d ask for money. He always needs money. So I gave him some, hoping he’d go away and leave me in peace.’
    ‘Most people would call that blackmail, Lady Chester. You really are
not
the most