An Improper Lady (The Powder and Patch Collection) (3 page)

Chapter Four

There had been no opportunity for Bella to engage in private speech with Sir Peregrine on the carriage ride back to her house. But, as he escorted both ladies to the door of Bella’s elegant townhouse, his expression told her, very clearly, that he was remembering their earlier encounter.

Much later, Bella had finally settled a somewhat overawed Primrose into a pretty guest chamber and ensured that she had everything she would need, including one of Bella’s own nightgowns and a hairbrush. Pausing as she removed her jewellery, Bella allowed herself a moment to dwell on the evening’s events. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that Sir Peregrine’s intentions had changed
before
Miss Chorley burst in on them. She was certain that something else had caused him to stop just as they were on the verge – they could not, indeed, have been any closer! - of consummating their lust. She wondered what it was. One thing was for sure, Sir Peregrine Pomeroy was, without doubt, the most frustrating, maddening and utterly adorable man she had ever met!

***

Sir Peregrine arrived the next day, just as the two ladies were finishing their breakfast. Bella rose to greet him and he clasped her hand, the warm glow she had come to depend on lighting his eyes as he looked at her.

Primrose blushed becomingly when he kissed her fingertips, and murmured her gratitude for his intervention. The expression in her eyes was nothing short of worshipful, and Bella felt a pang of something suspiciously like envy.
Am I turning into a jealous crone?
Was Sir Peregrine perhaps comparing Bella’s polished beauty with Primrose’s delightful freshness?
Worse than that, are his comparisons unflattering to me?
Bella gave no sign of these troubled emotions as she poured coffee for Sir Peregrine, who joined them at the table.

“
Been thinking the thing through,” he said, stretching his long legs before him and flicking an infinitesimal speck of lint from his riding breeches. “Likely to be the very devil of a dust kicked up about you going missing, Miss Chorley. I mean to make a push to find this cavalry officer of yours, but that may take me out of town. Don’t mind telling you, I’m not happy about leaving Lady Bella to stand the nonsense if it’s discovered you are here!”

Primrose cast a guilty look at Bella. “No, indeed! Oh, how very dreadful of me to ask you to hide me away, my lady! I would not, for all the world, cause you any trouble.”

“You didn’t ask me, I offered,” Bella reminded her coolly. “And why should anyone discover you are here? My servants are
very
discreet.” Sir Peregrine appeared to choke slightly on his coffee at this, and she threw him a challenging look. He begged pardon, and Bella continued as if the interruption had not happened. “You need not show your face outside of this house while Sir Peregrine tracks down your betrothed, and I have no engagements I cannot cancel.”

Primrose blanched at the suggestion that her fashionable hostess should curtail her busy social life on her account. Since she was, however, greatly in awe of Bella, her weak attempt at a protest fizzled out under that lady’s brilliant gaze.

“How do you propose to find Ned?” Bella asked Sir Peregrine.

He rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Start with a visit to Horse Guards. Know a few chaps over there,” he explained. “Find out which regiments have recently been moved on from a posting in Cheshire. Then travel to their new location, and make enquiries there.”

“Oh, Sir Peregrine, how very clever you are!” Primrose exclaimed, clapping her hands together delightedly. The unlikely recipient of this effusive praise blushed and disclaimed.

“
Fear not, Miss Chorley,” he said in a hearty voice that was quite unlike his usual tone. “I will have him here within the week!”

“
I do not doubt it!” Miss Chorley murmured softly, both of her dainty little hands reaching out impulsively to clasp Sir Peregrine’s strong wrist. “Oh, Sir Peregrine, just knowing that you are going to take care of me makes me feel so much better!” There was pure, undiluted devotion in the large, pansy-like eyes that were raised so sweetly to Sir Peregrine’s face. Bella, glancing from one to the other, wisely kept her inevitable reflections to herself. But, she thought crossly, would her pride
ever
recover should her nose be pushed out of joint by a chit from the schoolroom?

***

In the event, Sir Peregrine was gone for rather longer than a week, during which time Bella felt that her life slowed to a crawl. Her usual activities were suspended, and her wide acquaintance informed that she was indisposed. Primrose’s guilty apologies for being the cause of her curtailed pleasure were profuse, but, oddly, Bella found she did not miss the social scene at all.

Primrose’s conversation was not scintillating, and Bella’s only hobby – other than fashion - was not one she could indulge while an innocent girl was residing under her roof! The sight, therefore, of their dashing Lady Bella poring over a book at her own fireside each evening would have caused many a raised brow amongst her swain.

But who was to know if her mind was on the words before her? When Primrose spoke her name several times, and received no response, she assumed her ladyship was engrossed in the story. How could she guess it had wandered and was dwelling pleasurably on the smile in a pair of steady grey eyes, or the memory of strong hands probing the secrets of her body?

I will not miss him!
Bella told herself each day when she awoke. Yet by breakfast time, her ears were straining for the sound of a horse on the cobbles outside.

She narrowly avoided slapping Primrose, when the girl asked, for what felt like the hundredth time, “Will he come today, do you think?”

“I do not have the answer to that question, any more than you do,” Bella replied, with a patience she did not feel.

Primrose was curled up in the window seat, watching the street below. With a sigh, she turned back to Bella, who was frowning over a letter. “Do you not think, my lady, that Sir Peregrine is
truly
the most heroic man you have ever encountered?”

Bella’s lips twitched. “No, I do not, you nonsensical child!” She laughed at the image Primrose’s words conjured. “I cannot imagine anyone less likely to earn that accolade!” She saw that the girl was looking crestfallen and added, “He is a dear, kind man, who would do all he could to help another out of a fix, as we have seen. But, seriously, Primrose, do you picture him as some sort of knight in shining armour?”

Primrose considered the matter, her head on one side. “Perhaps not,” she conceded. “But I thought
you
must view him as such, my lady. After all, are you not in love with him?”

Bella opened her mouth to refute this ridiculous suggestion, but found herself oddly reluctant to do so. Before she could answer, however, Primrose let out a most unladylike squeal. “Oh, my lady! He is here! He is here at last.” She flew up from her seat in excitement, just as the butler announced, in ponderous tones, that Sir Peregrine Pomeroy wished to know if the ladies were at home to visitors.

Sir Peregrine was alone, a circumstance which did not bode well for the success of his quest. He paused on the doorstep, his solemn expression lightening considerably when he saw Bella. She thought, as he started impulsively towards her, that, had Primrose not been present, he might have forgotten convention and embraced her. Not for the first time, she wished her young visitor at the devil! Instead, he halted and contented himself with a kiss pressed onto the back of her hand.

When he had divested himself of his cloak and was seated with a glass of wine in his hand, Bella ventured to say, “I surmise, Sir Peregrine, that you have, thus far, been unable to locate Mr. Smith?”

“I have searched the length and breadth of the country, believe me!” he said in a tone of grim frustration. “Wretched chaps at Horse Guards have sent me on a damned wild goose chase! Not once have I come across any trace of an officer named Edward Smith!”

“
Edward?” Primrose gave a trill of girlish laughter. “Oh, Sir Peregrine, whatever made you think his name was
Edward
?”

“
But you called him Ned!” he said in confusion. “’Tis short for Edward, surely?”

“
Oh, yes,” she agreed, nodding her head so that her flaxen curls danced. “In the usual way of things. But
my
Ned came by it in an entirely different way! His grandfather was known as Ned, and his family called
my
Ned by the same name because he resembled the old gentleman so much. Is it not a droll story?”

Bella felt her hands clench involuntarily into fists, and was forced to quash the impulse to soundly box Primrose’s silly ears. Sir Peregrine merely regarded her in dumbfounded silence.

“Primrose,” Bella’s flinty tone made the girl turn wide, questioning eyes upon her. “What
is
his name?”

“
John,” she supplied helpfully, “John Smith.” Sir Peregrine groaned, and she giggled. “I know! Is it not nonsensical that he should have such a plain name? Particularly when one considers his family circumstances.”

“
Which are?” Sir Peregrine asked, his words somewhat stifled by dint of being spoken through a clenched jaw.

“
Why, that his great uncle is the Marquis of Nedlesham!” she exclaimed. Registering their stupefaction, she looked from Bella to Sir Peregrine and back again, “Have I not mentioned that? Oh, how dreadfully silly of me!”

“
Warty Nedlesham?” Sir Peregrine asked. “Cantankerous old fool is a member of my club! I’ll be off at once to enquire from him where I might find this soldiering great nevvy of his. Your servant, Lady Bella, Miss Chorley…”

Bella, feeling that she might have drifted by accident into a scene from a farce, resisted the impulse to place her head in her hands and indulge in a bout of hysterical laughter.

“Oh, oh, oh!” Primrose exclaimed, as they heard the front door close, “Sir Peregrine has forgotten his cane! I will go after him…” and she rushed out like a small whirlwind before Bella could remonstrate with her.

Primrose was too late to catch Sir Peregrine, who had just departed in a hack. She did, however, hurtle straight into Sir Edmund Tunstall, as he strolled along the street in the direction of his own club.

Chapter Five

Mrs. Grimwald, having been informed by an irate Sir Edmund that her errant niece was residing in the home of a woman who was little better than a high-class courtesan, lost no time in steaming round to Curzon Street to confront the hussy.

Bella, having correctly interpreted Primrose’s hysterical outpourings to mean that Sir Edmund had discovered her whereabouts, sent her guest off to her bedchamber to compose herself. She sat down to await the arrival of Primrose’s aunt.

That lady, having endured the indignity of an encounter with Bella’s supercilious butler, was spoiling for a fight by the time she was admitted to the drawing room. She paused on the doorstep, her pugnacious expression fading as her hostess moved forward to greet her.

Bella’s drawing room was furnished with exquisite taste, in delicate pastel shades and with each item of furniture chosen for its aesthetic qualities. Mrs. Grimwald was evidently struggling to equate this elegant house, and the beautiful, softly spoken lady who owned it, with all she had heard of Lady Cavendish.

Bella offered her uninvited guest refreshments but Mrs. Grimwald, heaving her considerable bulk into a chair refused. “I will be honest with you, my lady,” she said with a sigh. “My nerves will not stand for sweet tidbits at this time. Now, a plate of bread and cheeses, well, that would be a different matter.”

Bella, eying her large frame, kept her thoughts to herself and murmured sympathetically.

“I have come to take my niece back into the bosom of her family,” Mrs. Grimwald stated, a note of challenge entering her tone.

Bella, who had the measure of her opponent by this time, opened her dark eyes very wide. “Your niece?” she asked, in apparent confusion.

“Aye! Primrose Chorley, the nasty, ungrateful girl I took in out of the goodness of my heart,” she broke off, pressing a handkerchief against her lips as her emotions threatened to overcome her.

Bella maintained her slightly puzzled demeanour. “I do not think…”

“My lady!” Mrs. Grimwald’s rose slightly, wobbling on the verge of hysteria. “Do not, I beg of you, trifle with me! Why, I had it from Sir Edmund Tunstall himself, not an hour since, that he was minding his own business, heading for his club when the wretched girl came out of this house bold as brass! Then, he said, having seen him – and fairly knocked him off his feet, mind! – she let out a screech and ran back in here!”