Lord Scoundrel Dies (17 page)

‘You
seem much sought after,’ Sarah had said accusingly, when Harry
came to stand at her side. While normally a generous girl, Harry
had realised that her cousin was not used to being cast into the
shade. She was pretty enough, and vivacious enough to have a great
many admirers. Harry, trying to find her feet and her place in
Society, had been an object of compassion and Sarah had been more
than willing to help establish her. She hadn’t anticipated that her
less cosmopolitan country cousin would upstage her,
however.

‘Don’t be pettish,’ Harry sighed. ‘For I am
not enjoying myself in the least.’

Sarah turned and raised an eyebrow. ‘Men are
queuing to ask you to dance. The viscount – Lord Talisker of all
people – is clearly besotted with you. How could you not be
enjoying yourself?’

‘Very easily. And he
is
not
besotted
with me.’

‘You spoke together for
over
ten
minutes.
The entire room saw it.’

‘Society,’ Harry observed bitterly, ‘is far
too interested in other people’s business. It was just a
conversation. People have them every day.’

‘Not those kinds of conversations. What did
you expect?’ Sarah had demanded. ‘He is Talisker, for goodness
sake!’

Which was clearly remarkable, Harry had
reflected with an inward roll of the eyes. What a pity that
Talisker had joined Mr. Lampforth and herself that night in
Sutton’s library. What a pity it had not been some nonentity or a
man who did not excite interest whenever he left his house. She was
prepared to wager that Charles Lampforth was not nearly so
fascinating.

Although Mr. Lampforth would not have been
as useful when it came to returning those chits to Mr. de Veer. I
am rather glad I don’t have to do that myself…

She supposed that the man had some uses,
after all.

She’d seen Olivia Messingham across the
room. The girl had been tantalizingly visible for most of the
night, a taunting apparition that stayed just out of her reach.
Every time Harry tried to maneuver closer, Miss Messingham had
drifted in the opposite direction. It was all very frustrating for,
while she didn’t have to return the girl’s bracelet that night, it
seemed a dreadful pity to waste the opportunity when they were in
the same room together.

‘Don’t be cross at me,’ she said to her
cousin wearily. ‘It’s hardly my fault the man asked me here
tonight.’

‘So you admit that he is interested?’

Harry had hesitated. Oh what a tangled web
we weave… ‘He certainly seemed to want to talk to me,’ she’d
admitted with perfect truth. ‘But I don’t think you or Aunt
Margaret should consider posting the banns yet. I doubt the man is
serious.’

‘But that would be terrible!’

Harry had been confused. ‘Terrible? In what
way?’

‘Well if he is interested in you but then
backs away from making a commitment it clearly indicates he finds
you lacking.’ The prospect of her cousin suffering such a
humiliation had softened Sarah considerably and she had touched
Harry’s arm consolingly. ‘But we needn’t despair yet. I mean, he
appeared to be entirely fascinated when the two of you were
talking. Clearly you were holding his attention.’

Harry had resisted the urge to say words she
had heard in the stable back home. Bad words that a young lady
should never speak. The more she understood the implications
involved in accepting Mrs. Finch’s unexpected invitation, the more
she wished that she had stayed away and let his lordship think of
another way of talking to her.

Later in the evening when she had more or
less given up hope, she had finally encountered Miss Messingham –
entirely unexpectedly – as she had been passing into another
salon.

‘Miss Messingham!’ she had exclaimed.

Olivia Messingham had looked startled,
hardly surprising as Harry had been a little too enthusiastic.
‘Oh…’ the girl had paused uncertainly. ‘Have we met?’

They hadn’t, actually as the girl had not
been about much. Sarah had mentioned that she’d been ill. She had
certainly looked pale, her light hazel eyes large in a face that
was a little pinched.

‘Harriet Honeywood,’ Harry had said warmly.
‘My cousin, Sarah Astley, has mentioned you.’

‘Miss Astley,’ Miss Messingham had repeated,
rather blankly. ‘Oh, yes.’ She did not appear overjoyed at being
accosted. There had been a skittish air about her that reminded
Harry of a finely bred foal that had been spooked. That air of
abstraction had not been a very propitious start to the
conversation and seemed to suggest that Miss Messingham was not
going to suggest an intimate chat any time soon. Olivia’s white
hands had fluttered like restless birds and her glance never seemed
to settle anywhere. She spent a great deal of time staring over
Harry’s shoulder, which made Harry want to look around as well to
see what the girl was looking at. After only a few minutes, when
Harry had done her best to be conversationally riveting, Miss
Messingham had excused herself in a breathless voice, leaving Harry
disconsolately staring after her.

Really, the night had been a sad failure all
round. She had not been successful in returning that bracelet and
she had not the stomach to tackle Lady Vickers and undergo what was
sure to be another exhausting conversational skirmish. In fact,
after several hours, Harry decided enough was enough and was keen
to leave. Especially as Celeste Finch had discovered her again and
proceeded to engage her in conversation, which had felt more like a
gentle interrogation than a cordial exchange of words. Not that
Mrs. Finch had been intrusive or unpleasant in any way. She had
been sweetness itself, relentlessly so, prying Harry’s antecedents
out of her with a will of iron, for all that it was encased in
velvet. And the quizzing had not stopped there; suddenly Society
was extremely eager to learn about the female who had fixed the
interest of that most elusive of bachelors, especially when the
viscount had sought her out for a dance. He had only done so to be
polite, no doubt but it had not helped. To everybody else it just
looked even more like Harry, a complete unknown, was going to pull
off the match of the Season and most every female who possessed a
tongue in their head and a bone of curiosity in their bodies wished
to know why. It had been an immense relief when Aunt Margaret
finally agreed to leave.

‘Still,’ she reassured herself, sitting up
in bed and pushing back the covers, ‘when nothing comes of this
unlikely romance all the interest will die away.’ At least she
hoped it would.

And today, perhaps she
would have better luck? She was meeting Lord Talisker to return Mr.
de Veer’s chits. The prospect of getting them off her hands was an
enormous relief. It was, she told herself firmly, the only reason
that she was looking forward to their forthcoming meeting. She
was
not
pleased by
the prospect of spending more time with such an attractive man.
Looks were not everything. Her governess had always maintained that
the true worth of a person lay on the inside and could not be found
on the face. Harry had often reflected that must have been of
enormous comfort to dear Prudie, for
her
face had borne an uncanny
resemblance to one of Harry’s mother’s beloved pugs.

‘Besides, he is merely doing it because he
thinks I will make a mess of it so it’s not as if he has any
fondness for my company,’ Harry muttered, thrusting her feet into
slippers. ‘Although I suppose I should be grateful that he does not
want anything unpleasant to happen to me. And while I might protest
that he has put me in an unpleasant position with his ridiculous
insistence that I attend his sister-in-law’s party, is it really so
bad that Society thinks I am a… a prime article?’

She recalled the interest
she had generated last night, the uncomfortable conversations, the
calculating gleam she had seen in the eyes of males and females
alike and decided that yes, it was every bit as bad. Lord
Talisker’s managing ways had thrust her squarely into controversy.
Drat the creature; he was everything she did not care for.
Arrogant, self-assured and far too sure of his importance. So what
if he
was
frightfully good-looking. It was all very well, if one liked
that sort of thing… Harry paused at this thought, then grinned at
her own idiocy. Truthfully, who wouldn’t like that sort of thing?
There were so many men in Society who possessed receding chins and
weak mouths, whose pale eyes boggled or Adam’s apples, as large as
eggs, danced behind their carefully tied neck clothes. Dandies and
fops and gentlemen whose clammy hands held on a little too tightly
when they whirled one around the dance floor. She might be shallow
but it could not be denied that his lordship was a visual tonic.
Indeed, he was quite the most delicious looking man in London and
if she hadn’t met him under such inauspicious circumstances she
would probably have been inclined to sigh over him like every other
foolish girl. But having met him, she was inclined to believe his
charms would be enhanced tenfold if he would just remain
mute.

‘I would do well to stick to the business at
hand,’ she told herself severely. Men like Talisker were certainly
not interested in girls like her. Indeed, he wouldn’t even know she
existed if it had not been for the fact that they had an unsavory
history in common. And while she was prepared to admit that he had
been quite amiable the night before, she also knew that he
thoroughly disapproved of her, something that pleased her
enormously. Smug people needed to have their feathers ruffled. It
was character building.

Her reflections were interrupted by the
arrival of Hyacinth who brought warm water and a cup of tea. Harry
instructed the girl to bring out her riding habit, glad that the
outfit had been newly made just before coming up to town and was,
if not the height of London fashion, at least not too far away from
it. With its closely fitted bodice, adorned with military style
braid and small gold buttons across the bodice, it suited her
slender figure without overwhelming it. The deep green brocade
complimented her vivid hair and pale skin, as did the impertinent
tricorne hat of chipped straw, embellished with a green velvet
rosette on one side. All in all it was a very flattering ensemble
and she decided she would do very well. She might not be up to
Georgina Fleet’s unparalleled style, but she did not look a dowd,
not by any means. Satisfied, she went down to breakfast, giving
instructions to have the bay mare saddled in an hour as she
intended to go riding.

‘Riding, Miss,’ Bunting,
the Astley’s aged and disapproving butler said lugubriously. It was
not a question, exactly. But it
was
a rebuke. Bunting was quite marvelous at giving
cleverly disguised rebukes to the newly arrived Harriet
Honeywood.

‘Riding,’ she agreed firmly, well aware that
this stalwart individual considered a lady riding to be the height
of impropriety. ‘And I will need a groom to accompany me.’

Bunting pursed his lips tightly. ‘If you say
so, Miss.’

‘I do say so,’ she assured him pleasantly,
but firmly, knowing that she must not show any weakness. Servants
like Bunting pounced on signs of weakness and the butler had been
keen to attempt to direct the country mouse when she first arrived.
It had taken several days to disabuse him of the notion that she
could be bullied. Harry was averse to any kind of bullying,
especially if it were directed towards herself. ‘In an hour, if you
please.’

She was unsurprised to find that she was
alone at the breakfast table. Her aunt usually took breakfast in
her bed after a night out and Sarah would sleep for at least
another hour, probably more. As for Uncle Isaiah… he could be at
his club or still abed or bunkered down in the library. For a man
who was master of his own household, Isaiah Astley was something of
a ghost. Harry was not averse to breakfasting alone and fed herself
contentedly from the warming dishes on the sideboard. She had just
finished her eggs when Bunting entered. He stood just inside the
door and gave her an inscrutable look.

Harry looked right back at him. ‘Yes,
Bunting?’

‘A young gentleman is requesting an
audience, miss.’

‘A young gentleman?’ Harry repeated
blankly.

‘Yes, miss.’

‘Who?’ She could not imagine who would do
anything of the kind. It was not at all the thing to ask to see an
unattached female at this hour. Or at any hour, if the truth be
known.

Bunting made a show of looking at the card
in his hand, although he undoubtedly knew the caller. ‘A Mr.
Charles Lampforth.’

Harry blinked in surprise. Mr. Lampforth was
here? And at such an hour? Cold settled into the pit of her stomach
for this could not be a good thing. Something must have happened
regarding the death of Lord Sutton. But what?

‘Where is Mr. Lampforth, please?’

‘I put him in the yellow drawing room.’

The second best receiving room. Mr.
Lampforth, while being of good stock, was not a titled gentleman
and he had blotted his copybook by turning up in such an
unprecedented manner. Bunting had vented his disapproval by
demoting him to the second best parlor.

Harry thought for a moment, then nodded.
‘Bring him in here, if you please. And may we have some more
coffee, please? I’m afraid what’s in the pot has gone cold.’

‘Very good, Miss,’ the butler said
stiffly.

‘And several more slices of toast?’ Mr.
Lampforth struck her as the type who had a robust appetite. He
would probably appreciate warm toast.

She was trying to make the best out of a
difficult situation. Receiving a young man in the breakfast room
could not, surely, be as bad as seeing him in a parlor, could it?
Breakfast rooms were for eating, not for illicit trysts. Even the
thought of Mr. Lampforth having an illicit tryst was so
extraordinary that Harry couldn’t quite bring herself to send for
Hyacinth to chaperone them. Besides, whatever Mr. Lampforth had to
say should probably be said in private.