Compromised Miss (6 page)

‘Knowing my sister, I suppose she spent the night at your side, in this room.’

A warning flitted across his skin, like a draught from an ill-fitting window. ‘Your sister, sir? I have no knowledge of your sister.’

With a grunt, Sir Wallace promptly turned on his heel and marched to the door. Opened it. ‘Jenny?’ he bellowed, followed by a distant reply of assent. ‘Tell my sister I wish to see her here immediately.’

Then he continued to stand beside the door, arms folded.

Lucius rummaged unsuccessfully through his incomplete recollections. He recalled Jenny, the dark-haired maid. But Lydyard’s sister? ‘As I said, as far as I have any memory of last night, I am not acquainted with your sister, sir.’

But Sir Wallace’s lips curled in marvellous disbelief. ‘Do you presume that your birth and title will allow you to compromise my sister? She spends a night here with you, in this very bedchamber, and her honour is
besmirched
.’ He lingered on the word. ‘However well bred she might be, however excellent her connections, she is unwed and, apart from myself, defenceless. What will her reputation be now? I had a marriage in line for her, but the bridegroom will surely cry off when he gets wind of this, my lord.’

‘As far as I am aware, my care was undertaken by the Captain of the smug—the sailing vessel that rescued me. Harry Lydyard, your brother.’

‘Ha! Such pretence does not become you, my lord!’

Light footsteps echoed on the stairs. Sir Wallace flung the door back.

‘Come in. Come in. There’s scandal in the air, with you at the centre of it, my dear sister. I should have known!’ His tone, Lucius noted, despite his expressed concern, was not that of a compassionate brother, but rather that of a hanging judge. ‘Once again you have put the Lydyard reputation in jeopardy, leaving me to smooth over the unpleasantness.’

A young woman stepped into the room.

So this was the Lydyard sister. Lucius cast a briefly appraising eye over her. Nothing like her brother in looks, thank God, but nothing more than a country girl with no hint of town bronze. Tall for a girl, her hair was dark, unfashionably long, tied carelessly with a ribbon to cascade in a thick mass of curls to her shoulders and beyond. A neat figure, fine boned and well proportioned. Pleasing enough features in an oval face with well-marked dark brows and a straight uncompromising nose. Her lips as this
moment were tense and unsmiling. He would never have guessed at the relationship between the two, except that she did not refute her brother’s harsh welcome. Her dress was unfashionably full-skirted and high-collared, drab and plain in an unflattering shade of green. As Lucius was forced to admit, he would not have given the young woman, who looked nothing more than a lowly governess, a second look in a crowded salon in Mayfair. Yet she bore herself with a confidence and an elegant simplicity at odds with her garments. Perhaps because she was no schoolroom miss, but a lady of more than twenty years. She stood just inside the door, calmly waiting for whatever would happen next, her eyes firmly on her brother.

‘Miss Lydyard. It is an honour to meet you.’ Lucius bowed as gracefully as he could manage despite the torn muscles. He smiled bleakly. ‘As I have informed Sir Wallace, we have no prior acquaintance. Any accusations on his part are misinformed. Your honour is without blemish.’

Sir Wallace waved the apology away, his attention on his sister. ‘Your guest at the Pride is Lucius Hallaston, Earl of Venmore,’ he announced with relish. ‘Were you aware of that?’

Entirely composed, Miss Lydyard ignored her brother and curtsied, eyes now lowered. ‘My lord. I see you are much recovered.’

It was the voice that did it for Lucius. Cool, low tones, carefully controlled, calmly confident. Astonishing in the circumstances. And then the eyes confirmed it as they rose to meet his across the room. Oh, yes, he could not mistake those eyes. As cool as her voice, grey, almost silver in the morning light, like the flash of sunlight on water at daybreak. And her hands, now clasped firmly before her, her knuckles white, if he were not mistaken. So perhaps
she was not as composed as he had thought. Longfingered, capable hands, able to pull on a rope or manoeuvre a barrel on a moving deck. Or bathe a man’s forehead with cool water and bind a wound…

The suspicion transformed itself into a certainty. This was Captain Harry. The knowledge, the memory of the Captain’s intimate ministrations, lurched uncomfortably in Lucius’s belly.

‘So Harry Lydyard tended to you, did he, my lord? I fail to see how you could be unaware.’ The words burst from Sir Wallace. ‘A foolish notion that no man of sense would believe. This is my sister, Miss Harriette Lydyard. Whom you, my lord, have dishonoured!’

Seeing a chasm opening up before his feet, Lucius viewed the occupants of his borrowed bedchamber with distaste. Miss Lydyard continued to make no response to her brother’s recriminations, a matter that earned his reluctant respect, except for the little line that had dug itself between her brows and a tinge of colour to her cheeks. She was not afraid of her brother, nor of the situation, even though her brother was accusing her of immodesty and him of some form of lascivious seduction, remarkable given the condition he had been in! As for the brother…Had he imagined it or had Lydyard’s interest grown as soon as he knew his title? Lucius’s head might ache, but there was nothing wrong with his wits. Here was a situation that had the makings of a trap set to catch a man of wealth and consequence and some degree of honour. How to snap up a prize for a spinster sister who was not in the first flush of youth or blessed with obvious beauty. And he, the Earl of Venmore, was to be the prize. Lydyard had said he already had a marriage arranged for his sister. Like Hell, he had! Lydyard had an eye to the main chance and had leapt to secure it.

Well, he would not be caught in that trap. Lucius’s nostrils flared at the audacity of the man. And at the same time caught the eyes of the lady. Grave and solemn, they touched his and held there, and if he were not mistaken there was a plea in their silver intensity. But for what? Perhaps that he should not make it worse for her than it already was. He set himself to do his best. He owed her that much.

‘As I recall, Lydyard, not that I recall much of it, I was unconscious for most of the night. I could have spent the night with an entire gang of smugglers in the room, together with their contraband and an invading force of Preventive officers, and been unaware of it.’

But Lydyard’s smile widened to show an array of unpleasantly discoloured teeth. ‘And would the gossipmongers of London society believe that? That Earl Venmore spent the entire night with my sister in his room, in an empty house, with her honour still intact at daybreak? Hardly, my lord. My sister will be disgraced. Nor, I hazard, will it do much for your own reputation, robbing an innocent girl of her good name. We may be distant from London, but news and gossip travels. One of the biggest catches in the marriage market as you are, if I am not mistaken, reduced to seducing and abandoning innocent girls. Will the gossips believe the innocence of all concerned? And your presumed unconsciousness throughout?’

The chasm not of Lucius’s making yawned wider. ‘No, probably not.’

‘For certain they will not! You have rendered my sister unmarriageable, sir!’

And Lucius saw Harriette Lydyard grow pale, as she had never done when she had his blood on her hands. He saw horror dawn and spread over her face in a tightening
of the skin along her cheekbones. Still she made no reply. On her behalf as much as his own, anger bubbled up, enough to make him light-headed in his weakened state. He had been neatly trapped, had he not, one disaster following upon the next, but if he read the girl’s reaction right, she was as much a victim as he.

So he would take control of this situation. He had had quite enough in recent weeks—more than any man could tolerate—of being outmanoeuvred and manipulated, outwitted and outgunned. Jean-Jacques Noir might have got the better of him in France, but he was damned if he would allow Sir Wallace Lydyard to do so in—where was this God-forsaken place?—Old Wincomlee! Nor would he allow the man to take such a bullying tone of voice with his innocent sister. A vulnerable, gently reared girl did not deserve that.

Hell and the devil! Did he not have enough to plague him without this? But those grey eyes were suddenly dark like a winter sea, wide and anxious.

Harriette continued to stand where she had stood since the beginning of this appalling scene, a mere step into the room, wishing with all her heart that she could remain Captain Harry for just a little while longer. Or that the rotten floorboards of the chamber would collapse beneath her feet and swallow her down into a black hole. Her heart sank to the depth of her scuffed satin shoes. She had hoped to make her escape back to Whitescar Hall with no one being the wiser, certainly without any further conversation between herself and her wounded spy. And here she was, summoned by her brother as if she were a servant. She had managed, if nothing else, to dispose of her breeches, which would have added kindling to the flames, but Wallace,
damn him, had come hotfoot. Wallace was furious. She slanted a look towards his unappealing features and her attention was caught. Perhaps Wallace was not so furious as he might wish to appear. Manipulative was more the order of the day. Her half-brother had seen an opportunity and was intent on making the most of it. Harriette did not know whether to descend into hysterical laughter or weep from the sheer incongruity of the whole situation

An earl! Her spy was an earl! Ridiculous. And was, furthermore, accused of dishonouring her. As if her private dreams had blossomed into reality. What arrant nonsense was that?

No point in her arguing the case with Wallace. When he was in this mood, he would listen to neither excuse nor reason, so she might as well keep her silence until he ran out of foolish accusations and the exquisite Earl had made his inevitable rapid escape from Lydyard’s Pride.

She risked another glance at the Earl.

The ripple of laughter almost won despite the horrors. Because the Earl of Venmore was a Corinthian. All that Wallace wanted to be, tried so ineffectually to ape, here was his heart’s desire in the flesh. Wallace had the ambition to be a sportsman, proficient and lauded for his abilities in the saddle, with pistol and rapier. To be admired for his splendid physique, his handsome looks. To be recognised as a leader of fashion. He never could. And here standing before him was the epitome of all his dreams.

And hers.

Washed, shaved, his hair settling into shining, elegant dishevelment, the Earl cut a splendid figure. He was taller than she had thought, more than six feet, his shoulders impressively broad beneath the lurid monstrosity, and did she not know at first hand how the muscles ran sleek and
smooth, as water over a rock, beneath his skin, the athletic moulding of his strong thighs and firm belly? Did she not know the smooth satin of his skin beneath her palms when she had washed and bound his wounds? And Harriette felt her face and her blood heat at the memory.

How degrading that he should look at her with such arrogance printed on his features, as if she were of no consequence to him. But then why should she be? If he were a man of intellect, the Earl of Venmore would have quickly detected Wallace’s disgraceful plotting to catch a husband for her.

Her concentration was dragged back as her brother’s anger filled the room.

‘You have dishonoured my sister, Venmore. I demand retribution.’

‘No…! There was no dishonour,’ Harriette gasped, a knot of ice forming in her belly.

‘Be silent!’ Wallace rounded on her. ‘This is not for you. Although many would say you brought it on yourself, cavorting as you do with the Free Traders.
I
will settle this. What hopes for a suitable match if this gets out—as it surely will?’

‘Then there is only one remedy, is there not?’ A cold interjection in the heat.

The Earl walked across the room towards her, slowly but steadily enough. His eyes were on her face, and Harriette saw banked fire there and recognised a lethal fury at her brother’s wily methods. Even so, he bowed before her with inestimable grace.

‘Miss Lydyard. There is one solution to restore your good name in the eyes of the world. Would you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?’

Marriage! To become the wife of this man? The knot of ice melted in a rush of heat. If she could choose her heart’s
desire, would it not be this gift that was being offered to her, as in a childhood fairytale? A precious jewel on a silk cushion? She might have damned him as a traitor, but now she must acknowledge the depth of honour that he should come to her rescue, much as a knight of old would ride to slay the dragon—Wallace—and carry off the damsel in distress.

Would not this miraculous offer make her heady dreams come true?

But Harriette heard herself reply, her voice as distressingly matter of fact as his. ‘No, my lord. There is no need. As we both know, my brother was ill informed. I am grateful and will never forget your kindness in making so great a sacrifice, but I must refuse your generous offer.’

She saw him react. That was not what he had expected. The muscles along his jaw tightened. ‘Perhaps you do not quite understand the situation, Miss Lydyard.’

‘I am not a fool, my lord.’ A flash of impatience, which she strove to temper, but without much success. ‘I understand
the situation
perfectly. As I see it, there is no
situation
between us.’ And gasped as her brother grasped her wrist with painfully hot fingers.

‘Show some sense, girl—’

‘Sir Wallace,’ the Earl interrupted icily, raising a peremptory hand as Harriette tugged ineffectually for her release, ‘I need a moment’s private conversation with your sister. Alone, if you will. Is there a library or drawing room in this establishment that we can use?’

Sir Wallace drew himself up to his most pompous. ‘I’ll not allow it. It’s not appropriate that you—’

‘Sir,’ the Earl interrupted bitingly, without finesse, ‘if I spent the night with Miss Lydyard behind locked doors as you imply, luring her into my bed and proceeding to destroy her reputation by the physical demands of my body
on hers, five minutes in a library in the full light of morning will not make matters any the worse.’