“Good heavens, a bluestocking!”

“That, sir, is better than being a milksop, dependent on the generosity or otherwise of a man who can give it or withhold it at his pleasure.”

James had a sudden vision of what it might be like to be a young lady alone in the world. He was used to the ladies of the ton, or demi-reps who flouted convention. But the woman who faced him now was neither. He wished he had not been so sharp with her, but he did not know how to retrieve the situation.

MARY NICHOLS

Born in Singapore, Mary Nichols came to England when she was three, and has spent most of her life in different parts of East Anglia. She has been a radiographer, school secretary, information officer and industrial editor, as well as a writer. She has three grown children and four grandchildren.

Bachelor Duke
Mary Nichols

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

April 1814

The slight breeze that played along the shaded balcony took the heat from the afternoon sun and allowed the scent of bougainvillaea and orange flowers to drift past Sophie and mask the less pleasant aromas from the street below. But she was unaware of odours, either pleasant or unpleasant, as she gazed over the pink tiled roofs to the glittering blue sea of the Bay of Naples. There were more things on her mind than pleasing views and contrasting scents. She was in a dilemma of such magnitude, she did not know how she was going to come about. Her father had died, having ruined his health with wine and spirits, and followed her darling hard-used mother to the grave; now she was alone in a foreign country. Twenty-one years old, unmarried, with no close friends and no relatives who were prepared to acknowledge her, and, to top it all, the rent of this tiny villa was due at the end of the week.

The knock at the door had to be repeated before she heard it; by that time the lady doing the knocking had opened it and was tripping into the room. ‘Sophie, my dear, such news, such wonderful news!’ The middle-aged Lady Myers was short and plump, dressed in a light muslin gown more fitting to someone of Sophie’s years. Her hair, under an enormous bonnet intended to protect her complexion from the sun, was dyed black as a raven’s wing. But she had kind hazel eyes and a warm smile. Seeing her, Sophie realised she had been wrong about having no friends; she did have one. ‘The war is over. Napoleon Bonaparte has capitulated. The allies are in Paris. We can all go home.’

‘Home,’ Sophie repeated. Where was home? In the last ten years, she had lived for a time in France, a strange place of contrasts since the revolution; in Spa in Belgium; in Chamonix in Switzerland, where the sweet mountain air and wonderful landscape had served to raise her mother’s spirits for a short time until they were forced to flee again. Oh, Papa never admitted they were running away, but that is what it was; a vain bid to escape his creditors. Living abroad was cheaper than in England and they might have managed tolerably well but for her father’s vice, which pursued them wherever they went.

After Switzerland there was Vienna, where she and her mother spent hours exploring and her father filled his time with gambling among other expatriates, convinced he was on the verge of the ‘big win’ and they would once more be in funds and able to look their friends in the eye, not to mention hoteliers, landladies and mantua makers. The coup never came and Papa was the only one surprised at that, but it meant that they could no longer pay their hotel bill and had to make a hurried exit in the middle of the night, which the fifteen-year-old Sophie had found exciting, but which did her mother’s nerves no good at all. They went to Venice, then Milan, Turin, Florence and Rome in turn, always one jump ahead of the dunners, until two years ago they had arrived in Naples. By then her mother was seriously ill, but she had been cheered to discover Lady Myers living close by. ‘She came to live near us when she married Lord Myers and we became friends,’ Mama had told her. ‘Lord Myers was in the diplomatic service and they were always on the move, and later so were we and we lost touch. Now we can renew our acquaintance.’

Their small entourage of valet, footman and maid had already gone in order to save paying wages. Now they were forced to stay in one place. The coachman had gone too, and the sale of the coach and horses and most of her mother’s jewellery had kept them going for a time, particularly as Papa, overcome by guilt, swore he had turned over a new leaf. But it was too little too late. As far as Mama was concerned, they were stranded in a foreign country in the middle of a war with no hope of returning to England; though Papa continued to maintain he would soon set all to rights, Mama gave up believing it and soon gave up on life.

Lord Langford’s grief at his wife’s death had been astonishing to behold. He wept for days, wallowing in remorse and self-loathing, asking Sophie for her forgiveness and drinking copious amounts of wine and cognac to deaden his pain. Sophie had been numb with grief herself and had no comfort to offer him. She went about in a daze, knowing it was no good relying on him to provide for them and she would have to do something herself if they were not to starve.

A month before her twentieth birthday she had become the breadwinner, teaching Italian children English and conducting foreign tourists about the city. Few of them were English because the war had put a stop to sending young men on the Grand Tour, but as Sophie had a keen ear for languages she was able to act as guide in French, German or Italian. Now Papa had died, and violently too, making his drunken way home one night, and Lady Myers talked of going home!

‘Yes,’ her ladyship said, concerned by Sophie’s long silence, but then the poor girl had only recently lost her papa so it was not to be wondered at that she was a little distracted. She was sitting there in a dowdy black dress, her dark hair tied roughly back with a ribbon, but in spite of that the chit had a natural grace. Her complexion was a little more tanned than fashion dictated, but she had good bones and her brown eyes were uncommonly lustrous. ‘Home to England.’

‘It is good news, of course, but I cannot go.’

‘Why ever not? You cannot possibly stay here alone. Surely you have relatives in England who will give you a home? Lord Langford…’

Sophie gave a bitter laugh and bent to pick up a crumpled ball of paper from the floor where she had flung it a few minutes before. ‘You mean my father’s brother? I wrote out of courtesy to tell him of Papa’s demise, though I have no doubt the lawyers will have told him immediately he had inherited the title.’

‘And?’

She smoothed out the paper. ‘This is his reply. He repudiates me.’

‘But that is wicked! You were only a child when you left England and none of your father’s troubles was your fault. Are you sure?’

‘Oh, he leaves me in no doubt. He says if my father had not been trapped into a disastrous marriage he would never have been a gambler. My uncle says if I think to throw myself upon his generosity, I may think again, and as for stooping so far as to work among foreigners, it has undoubtedly coarsened me and made me unfit for polite company.’ It was said in a flat tone that did not disguise the bitterness she felt. ‘He requests me not to write to him again.’

‘My dear child, that is appalling. I never heard the like. I have a good mind to write to him myself.’

‘Oh, please do not do that. It would mortify me. I have never begged and I will not do so now. I shall carry on doing the work I have been doing. Now the war is over, English people will be travelling again.’

‘No doubt they will, but you can be sure the beau monde will not ask you to show them the sights. It might have served while your papa was alive, but a young lady living alone would be frowned upon as outside the bounds of decent society. No, Sophie, that is not to be countenanced.’

Sophie had not thought of that, but her ladyship’s words had the ring of truth, so what was she to do? Teaching English alone brought in no more than a pittance. ‘I’ll take up writing,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘I will write a book about my travels. Mama and I spent hours and hours exploring everywhere we went and she encouraged me to make notes, not only about the places and buildings we visited, but the customs and the people. I could write about those.’

‘I have no doubt of it, but how will you live while your book is in the writing?’ She paused, but, when Sophie did not vouchsafe an answer, went on. ‘Come back to England with us. Surely there is someone you can approach. What about your mother’s relatives?’

‘Mama was a Dersingham, niece of the third Duke of Belfont, but he was quite old when we left England and I am sure Mama said he had died. He had no son, and, as Mama’s father, the next in line had predeceased him, their younger brother, Henry, became the heir. That would be my great-uncle, would it not?’

‘Yes, but surely he would give you a home?’

‘I never met him and the connection is so distant…’

‘Sophie,’ her ladyship said firmly. ‘You have no choice but to appeal to him. I cannot believe you will be turned away…’

‘The Dersinghams did not approve of the marriage either. I suppose they knew what Papa was like. But he could be very charming when he chose and Mama loved him…’

‘None of which has anything to do with you.’ Her ladyship paused. ‘I’ll tell you what we will do. You shall come and stay with me and Lord Myers until we can arrange to go home, then you shall come with us and we will take you to his Grace. And if that gentleman is so insensitive as to turn you away, then I will undertake to launch you into Society myself and find you a husband.’

‘I never thought of marriage, my lady…’ How could she have done so? She had been too busy nursing her mother, then taking care of her father. In any case, who would marry the penniless daughter of a compulsive gambler who could not rustle up a penny piece for a dowry?

‘Well, it is about time you did. I shall not take no for an answer. Whatever would people think of me if I were to go home to England and leave the daughter of my dear friend to fend for herself?’

‘Oh, Lady Myers, you are so good to me, I cannot think how I shall repay you.’ She laughed suddenly, the first time she had laughed with genuine amusement in the month since her father’s death. ‘I will become rich and famous from my book and then I will see you are rewarded.’

‘If that comes to pass, then I shall accept payment in the spirit it is given, but we will not think of that now. I shall go home and send my carriage back for you, so begin packing at once. The sooner you are safely under my wing, the better.’

She rushed off, leaving Sophie smiling. Her ladyship was indeed like a plump mother hen, but Sophie was not at all sure she would like being under her wing. She was, after all, an independent woman used to going out and about on her own, not a naïve schoolgirl, but on the other hand, with Lady Myers she would not feel so bereft and lonely, even if the price of that was to suffer her ladyship’s clucking.

Packing did not take long; she had so few possessions. Her mother’s gowns had been sold long ago, and after Papa’s funeral she had disposed of his belongings in order to pay the rent; there was just enough left to cover what was still owing. The only thing of value she had refused to part with was a pearl necklace, given to her mother by her own father on her come-out and in its turn given to Sophie. She would starve before she sold that.

She had half a dozen serviceable gowns in lightweight materials, which was all she needed in the heat of Naples; a few petticoats, chemises and hose; two pairs of shoes and a pair of boots. She had two bonnets, one velvet and one straw; a light pelisse and a warm cloak with a hood. Heaped on her bed, waiting to be packed into her trunk, the collection looked pitifully inadequate. If her memory served her correctly, England was a cold place, even in summer. And the gown she was presently wearing was the only one she had in black. She had bought it to go into mourning for her mother nearly two years before and had brought it out again on her father’s demise. But if she were honest with herself, she could not mourn him as she ought and it seemed hypocritical to invest what little money she had in black clothes.

Taking a deep breath, she folded everything and put it into the trunk, added the jewel case containing the pearls, some toiletries, a brush and comb, a tiny miniature of her mother and her travel notes, and slammed down the lid. The whole process had taken less than half an hour. When she thought of the mountains of luggage they had brought with them when they first came out to the continent, luggage that needed a second coach to transport, it made her shrivel up with shame. She sat on the trunk and looked about the bare room. She was sitting on the sum total of her life. The only baggage she had was her memories. And the future? What did that hold?

Suddenly she straightened her back and lifted her chin. She had nothing to be ashamed of and would not go about looking cowed. She had had an excellent education, one that many a young man might envy, thanks to her mother, who had been something of a blue stocking, and she would put it to good use. If her great-uncle was good enough to offer her a roof over her head, that was all she would ask of him. She would use her brain to earn a living. And if he did not? Then there was nothing else for it, she must accept the help offered by Lady Myers and hope to be able to repay her. As for finding a husband, that idea was laughable. She did not want a husband, if husbands were all like her father.

Lord Langford had been an inveterate gambler and a dissolute soak, as well as a charmer. He would tell the most outrageous lies about how his fortune had been delayed in reaching him; or he had had his money bags stolen; or the lawyers were holding up his inheritance over a technicality, which would soon be resolved; or he had been cheated by a scoundrel, none of which was true, but it was said with a charming smile, an air of apology, even a false tear or two, and somehow he would find someone to believe him and lend him money. Sophie had made up her mind she would never put her trust in a man, though she had once loved her father. He had been fun when she was a small child, giving her little treats when he was in funds, taking her out riding on her little pony, talking to her of things way above the heads of most children of her age, which she soaked up like a sponge. Surely an education such as she had enjoyed must stand her in good stead?

Before she left she meant to say goodbye to her parents and so she put on her straw bonnet, tied with black ribbons in deference to her state of mourning, and set off for the nearby church where so many British people were buried: soldiers, sailors, diplomats who had died while on a tour of duty, tourists who had succumbed to the climate or to sickness, exiles like her parents. She knelt a little while by their graves, murmuring tearful goodbyes, then stood up and consciously straightened her shoulders, ready to meet her future with courage.

They should not miss the opportunity to go to Paris, Lord Myers maintained over supper the evening Sophie arrived, when they were discussing the best way to reach England. ‘The Comte de Provence has been declared King Louis XVIII and has arrived in Paris to take up his throne; according to my informant, the whole world is flocking there in his wake, all eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Duke of Wellington.’ The British commander had won the last great battle of the campaign by taking Toulouse and had been honoured with a dukedom for it. He was expected to stop in Paris to pay his respects to the new king and greet his ally Marshal Blücher before returning home. ‘We could be there, when he is there. What do you say, Alicia, my dear?’

He was only slightly taller than his wife, a little more rotund than she was, with a round red face and pale whiskers. Sophie was unsure who wore the breeches, him or his wife, but they seemed to jolly each other along, being excessively polite to each other. ‘Why, I should like that very much,’ her ladyship said. ‘You know how I dislike the sea, especially in the Bay of Biscay.’ She gave a little shudder and turned to Sophie. ‘I shall never forget the voyage coming out. The ship nearly overturned and I was so unwell I thought my end had come.’

‘I am happy to do whatever you say,’ Sophie said.

‘Then I think we should set out as soon as possible, or we shall miss him,’ his lordship decided. ‘Lady wife, when can you be ready?’

‘Goodness, my lord, you should know me by now. I can be ready tomorrow if you so wish.’ She turned, laughing, to Sophie. ‘We moved so often when Lord Myers was in the diplomatic service I had it down to a fine art. Everything is labelled to match the chests and trunks, so that it is only a question of organising the servants while Lord Myers deals with the transport.’

‘I’ve done that,’ he said. ‘The bulk of the stuff will go by sea, we shall take only what is needed for our personal comfort. I noticed Miss Langford likes to travel light, which is very sensible of her.’

Sophie smiled. He was as kind as his wife to make excuses for her lack of baggage. ‘I need not unpack then. My only hesitation is because there has been no time to receive a reply to my letter to the Duke of Belfont.’

‘That is of no consequence, my dear,’ Lady Myers put in. ‘We have already agreed that you shall come to England with us, so it makes no difference what his reply is. We will deal with the Duke when we arrive.’

How did one deal with a duke? Sophie asked herself. Lady Myers was evidently not daunted by the prospect, but Sophie herself could not help wondering about him. He was obviously younger than his brother from whom he had inherited the title, but, even so, he must be in his sixties. Was he a crabby old man, or had age made him tolerant? She hoped the latter if he was to overcome the family’s antagonism towards the Langfords, of which she was one. If the reaction of her father’s brother was a yardstick of what she might expect, then she had a mountain to climb. Going home overland would delay the moment of truth and for that reason alone she was willing to fall in with Lord Myers’s plans. Besides, seeing Paris again and being able to compare it with the Paris of ten years before, and talking to the people, would provide more material for her book. She was beginning to set great store by the book.

Two days later they set out in his lordship’s coach, followed by another bearing his valet, a footman and her ladyship’s maid and their luggage. They were all hardened travellers so the discomfort of the journey, bad roads, unsavoury inns, baking sun and torrential rain were endured with fortitude. It took a week to cross into France and then the hazards were not so much natural as man-made. Napoleon might have abdicated and been exiled to the island of Elba, but he was far from discredited with his people. Bands of marauding soldiers with no one to lead them attacked travellers, shouting ‘Vive L’Empereur’ and ‘He will be back!’ It was only Sophie’s skill as a linguist that convinced them they were not the enemy, but friends who would rejoice at Bonaparte’s triumphant return. It was quite frightening at times, worse than being an alien in Italy, which was itself a conquered nation, and she was relieved when their carriage drew up outside the Hôtel de Luxembourg in Paris.

The city was so full it was almost impossible to move and if Lord Myers had not sent ahead to bespeak rooms, they would never have found a pillow on which to lay their heads. Their rooms were comfortable, but they were so tired it would not have mattered what they were like and Sophie slept soundly.

After breakfast the following day the two ladies, accompanied by her ladyship’s maid and the footman, set out on foot to explore the city while Lord Myers went off to call on the Duke of Wellington and to pay his respects to the new monarch, though how long the latter could hold on to his crown, Sophie was doubtful. He was no more popular with his subjects than the Regent was in England.

Although the city had been spared a battle it looked shabby and dirty, a state that was not improved by the mass of common soldiery, mostly Austrian and Prussian, who roamed the streets and lived in tented quarters in the parks, behaving like turkey cocks, mixing with the tourists who came in the thousands. The ladies were agog to see the fashions, rakes and dandies come to chance their arms either with the ladies or at cards; some had come to view the art treasures Napoleon had looted from the cities he occupied, some even to sample the food and wine, though how they expected that to be as good as before the war Sophie did not know.

Strolling down the wide boulevards and busy side streets, Sophie was startled by the contrast between the rich tourists and well-stocked shops and the abject poverty of the inhabitants who importuned them for alms or offered items for sale that Sophie, even in her own pocket-pinched state, would have consigned to the midden heap. ‘I do not feel at all comfortable,’ her ladyship said, as they were roughly pushed aside by an officer trying to control a mob bent on raiding a baker’s shop. ‘Let us go back to our hotel.’

It took them half an hour to battle their way through the throng and by that time both had had more than their fill of Paris. ‘Henry, I think we should set off for England at once,’ Lady Myers told her husband when he joined them for supper. ‘I have seen enough of France; besides, if we stay here, Sophie will miss half the Season…’

‘Oh, please do not take that into account,’ Sophie said. ‘I shall be content simply to have a roof over my head.’

‘Fustian! I undertook to bring you out and bring you out I shall. That is if Dersingham is so ungracious as to refuse you, which I am persuaded he will not. After all, he is a duke and duty-bound to look to his family. Lord Myers, are you set on staying?’

‘Not at all, my love. We will set off for Calais tomorrow. The King is going to England himself and we can follow his retinue, it will be safer.’ Why the King, who had only just returned to Paris after years of exile, should decide to leave it again so soon was a mystery to Sophie.

Trailing behind the new king was an exhausting business. Sometimes they travelled at breakneck speed because his aides feared ambush, sometimes they crawled because his Majesty was tired and wished to sleep, so that his coach crawled along. In Calais they had to wait about while the packet carrying the royal party set sail and then negotiate a passage on the next one. It was not until they were halfway across the Channel on The Sea Maid that Sophie began to wonder what lay ahead of her in England.

Would the Duke acknowledge her? Would his wife welcome her? There would be children and grandchildren, other cousins surely? Lying on her bunk while the ship tossed about on the rough sea of the Channel, she wondered what he would be like. Fat or thin? Proud or jovial? And his home? Her mother, in one of her rare moments of nostalgia, had said Dersingham Park in Suffolk was a huge palace with hundreds of rooms and extensive grounds, but in late April the Duke would no doubt be at his London mansion in South Audley Street. Unless, of course, he was too old to indulge in the Season’s amusements and preferred to remain in the country all the year round. Then perhaps his sons and daughters would have come to London for the Season and what would they make of her, the poor relation?

All this conjecture only served to show her how little she knew of the family and how foolish she was to expect anything from them. She was beginning to regret the letter she had sent introducing herself. She had not exactly thrown herself on his Grace’s mercy, but had told him she was alone and returning to England and would like to call on him. Had it sounded like begging? Or too proud? Tossing and turning, as the vessel tossed and turned, she could find no rest and wished herself at the bottom of the sea, a wish she expected to be granted at any moment. But she slept at last; when she woke, the sea was calm and so was she. Whatever lay ahead she would meet head-on. Her pride would sustain her.

‘Harri, do I know anyone called Sophia Langford?’ James asked his sister.

‘My dear man, you surely do not expect me to remember the names of all your little bits of muslin? They change almost daily. Why do you ask? Is some young lady importuning you? Oh, you haven’t landed yourself in a coil, have you?’

‘No, certainly not. Credit me with a little discretion, I beg you. And do you suppose I would forget the name of any lady with whom I choose to spend my time?’

James Dersingham, fifth Duke of Belfont, was neither old nor married. Yet. But when a Duke is single and very wealthy, he is bound to attract the attention of mamas with marriageable daughters; if he is also young and handsome, those same mamas will eagerly fall over themselves to make sure their daughters are noticed. He would have to be made of stone not to be flattered. This particular Duke had a string of hopeful would-be brides hanging on his every word and gesture, and it mattered not one jot that he had the reputation of being something of a rake. Money and an elevated position in society would more than compensate for that. But he was becoming very bored with it all.

‘Then why did you ask?’

‘This Sophia Langford claims to be kin. And you may be right about her importuning. I have a letter here in which she says her mother died two years ago and now her father has died too and left her without support. She is lodging with a friend of her mother’s in Naples, but she cannot continue to impose on her good will. I gather she thinks I should make myself responsible for her.’

‘Langford,’ Harriet said thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t Papa have a niece who married a Langford?’

‘Did he?’

‘Yes, now I come to think of it, he did. Do you remember Uncle Robert? He was Papa’s older brother and would have inherited if he had not died so young. He had a daughter, Louise—I think it was Louise—who married Lord Langford. He was a gambler and a wastrel and the family refused to acknowledge him. I think he ruined them and they went to live abroad.’

Lady Harriet Harley, at thirty-six, was two years older than her brother and, since the death of their mother when they were both young, had been his mentor and confidante, which continued even after her marriage to Sir Granville Harley. Their father, the fourth Duke, had died the year before and James had inherited a vast fortune, several properties and the responsibility that went with them, much sooner than he had expected to; he was finding it hard work. It was doubly so at this time because he was on the Regent’s staff, one of those responsible for his security, and, what with the celebrations attached to the victory over Napoleon and his Highness’s unpopularity, he was expected to be everywhere at once. The last thing he wanted was the added responsibility of a child. ‘That accounts for the letter coming from Italy. But what can I do about it? I am a bachelor. I don’t know anything about children…’

Harriet tilted her head on one side and smiled half-mockingly at her brother. ‘If you found yourself a wife, you might soon learn…’

He gave a bark of a laugh. Harriet was always urging him to settle down and marry, but he had never yet met a woman who came anywhere near his exacting standards. Either they were too young and foolish, too serious and stiff-rumped or too old and ugly. Besides, he was too busy and, when he wasn’t busy, was amusing himself with young ladybirds who had no ambition to be duchesses, which relieved him of the problem of having to think about it. ‘That has nothing to do with this.’ He tapped the letter in his hand. ‘I can’t have her here. And how can I be sure she is who she says she is? She might be an impostor.’

‘I have no doubt we could soon establish her credentials with a few pertinent questions.’

‘We?’

‘Of course we. As you so correctly pointed out, you are a bachelor. I could not leave the matter to you, could I? You would frighten the poor thing to death. And, I confess, I am curious. When is she arriving?’

Her referred again to the letter. ‘She doesn’t say, which only goes to prove how empty-headed she is. Does she suppose I will sit at home and wait for her arrival?’

‘No doubt she is waiting for you to reply and invite her to stay.’

‘And you think I should?’

‘James, she has lost her parents. She is alone and probably very frightened. You would give a stray puppy a home under such circumstances, so why not a child? Why, Dersingham Park is so big, you would not even notice she was there.’

This was true, but he was still reluctant. He could foresee all manner of problems. What did a girl brought up in Italy know of English life? Was he expected to provide her with a maid, a companion, a school mistress and a school room to put her in? Would he have to entertain her? Did she know how to behave in polite society? And, in the fullness of time, would he have to give her a come-out and a dowry? It was all beyond him. It was not the cost—he could bear that and not even notice it—it was the responsibility. Oh, he knew he would have to put his mind to such things when he married and had children of his own, but other people’s? Besides, he had no intention of marrying until he was good and ready, and a little waif was not going to make him change his mind about that, whatever Harriet said.

On the other hand, if she really was a relation and in dire straits… James Dersingham, fifth Duke of Belfont, man of the world, reputed rake and steadfastly single, had a compassionate heart and could readily imagine what it must be like to be alone and unprotected. He smiled at his sister; it was a smile that transformed his rather austere countenance. His grey-blue eyes twinkled and his firm mouth curved into a smile, so that his whole face lightened. ‘Very well, but you write to her. It would be much better coming from you.’ Which was a statement with which she heartily agreed. ‘Besides, I must go. His Highness has taken it into his head to meet the King of France at Dover and I have been given the task of organising the coaches and outriders. He is not content but that we must have a triumphal procession.’

Having left the problem of Sophia Langford in the capable hands of his sister, he went on his way, prepared to forget all about the little waif. It would take weeks for the exchange of letters and even more before the child arrived; by then, perhaps the frenzy that had seized the populace over winning the war might have died down and he could give her the attention she deserved. By the time he arrived at Carlton House, the Regent’s residence, he was once more the urbane and efficient equerry, who appeared to have no other life than pleasing his sovereign.

In spite of being several hours behind the royal vessel, The Sea Maid was obliged to ride at anchor outside Dover harbour while the King and his retinue disembarked, which did nothing to calm Sophie’s mounting nervousness. The first sight of the cliffs of her homeland had had a strange effect on her, which was totally unexpected. It was almost twelve years since she had left it, a nine-year-old child, looking forward to the adventure, unafraid because she had two loving parents to take care of her. She had no idea she would not set foot on English soil again for so many long years in which she would live through a savage war, lose both her parents and grow up all too quickly. Deep inside her, she felt a stirring of a strange emotion, a feeling of coming home, as though the place, if not the people, welcomed her. It made her impatient and she paced the deck, unable to stand still.

‘Ah, we are on the way again,’ Lord Myers said as the rattle of the anchor being wound up came to their ears. ‘It should not be long now and we will be on terra firma again.’

‘Lady Myers will be much relieved,’ Sophie said, for her friend had been confined below decks with mal de mer for the whole of the eight-hour crossing.

Sailors swarmed along the spars and the sails filled and gradually they inched their way into the quayside beside the royal vessel and came to a stop. Sophie went below to help Lady Myers on deck, while his Lordship spoke briefly to the captain about the unloading of their baggage. Half an hour later they were standing on the quay looking about them. The area was thronged with people, far more than any of them had foreseen. Besides seafaring men and the populace of the town, there was a company of Horse Guards in magnificent uniforms and civilian gentlemen on horseback dressed lavishly, their riding hats decorated with white cockades. ‘In honour of the Bourbons,’ Lord Myers said.

It seemed to be organised chaos, for in the middle of it all were several carriages, one of which bore the arms of the Regent. Of that gentleman there was no sign, nor of the King of France, but there was a man standing by the last coach, directing affairs. Sophie found herself surreptitiously watching him. In the face of all the confusion, he seemed calm. He was not in uniform, but in a magnificent riding coat of blue cloth that fitted his figure so closely she was able to make out the bulging muscles of his shoulders and arms beneath it. He wore soft doeskin breeches and boots that would have done duty for mirrors, a pale blue waistcoat and a pristine white cravat. His hair, beneath his tall riding hat, was fair and curled into his neck. Her heart gave a wild leap as he looked towards her, but the glance was only momentary before he turned away to speak to one of the uniformed officers, almost as if she were invisible. Perhaps she was. She felt suddenly forlorn and dowdy in her brown cloak and straw bonnet with its black ribbons.

‘I suppose they have come to meet the King,’ Lady Myers said. ‘And we shall be left to lag behind as we were before.’

‘It certainly looks like it, ‘her husband agreed. ‘I am come to think that it was not a good idea to attach ourselves to his entourage. I am very sorry to have suggested it, my love.’

‘Let us go into the hotel and have some refreshment,’ she said. ‘Perhaps by the time we are rested the crowd will have dispersed and we can continue our journey in peace.’

Lord Myers led the way, but they were stopped from entering by the same gentleman Sophie had noticed earlier, who had evidently seen their intent and hurried to intercept them. ‘I am sorry, sir, ladies,’ he said politely but firmly. ‘But you cannot enter, not until his Royal Highness and the King leave.’

‘Why not?’ Sophie demanded. ‘It is an inn, is it not, and bound by law to provide refreshment?’

He turned towards her. The brown cloak and the plain bonnet did not indicate a young lady of substance; she was probably the older lady’s companion, someone who was supposed to melt into the background, a shadow of her employer, but the sharp rejoinder and the bright eyes told him she did not enjoy her role. Those eyes were blazing defiance, but at the same time there was in their brown depths a hint of doubt. She was sure of her facts, but not of her position. It made her seem vulnerable. On the other hand, he could not allow her to dictate to him. His job was to protect his royal employer and he would be failing in his duty to allow anyone to cross the threshold. Assassins—those who wished the Regent ill, and there were many—could be female as well as male.

‘Indeed, miss, but the needs of his Highness must be met first.’

‘Then where are we to go?’ Lady Myers put in before Sophie could make matters worse by insisting on entering. ‘We have come off the packet and need refreshment before continuing our journey.’

‘Then let me direct you to the garden at the rear. There are tables and chairs there. I will ask Captain Summers to request the landlord to bring you cushions and refreshments. I am sorry I must deny myself the pleasure of conducting you myself, but my duties do not allow me to leave the escort.’ He turned and beckoned to a young officer and spoke briefly to him before bowing and returning to the carriage, just as two very fat gentlemen waddled out of the inn and made for the Prince’s coach.

‘My, is that the Regent?’ Sophie whispered, recognising the other as the one-time Comte de Provence, now King of France.

‘Yes, it is,’ Captain Summers, who was young and cheerful, answered her as the coach creaked ominously when the pair were helped into it. ‘I am afraid you are bound to be delayed if London is your destination. There is quite a procession and it will not be travelling very quickly.’

‘Oh, we are becoming used to it,’ Sophie told him.

They watched the procession set off: the Horse Guards, outriders, carriages containing the royal retinue and, last of all, the state carriage drawn by eight cream horses, its occupants smiling and waving to the crowds who seemed singularly disinterested. Behind and a little to one side rode the handsome aide who had so taken Sophie’s attention, riding a magnificent black stallion. He looked about him as he rode as if expecting trouble.

‘You may enter the inn now,’ Captain Summers said, conducting them inside. ‘Regretfully I must leave you and take up my position in the cavalcade.’ He touched his tall hat in salute and strode away to where his horse was tethered.

‘What a fuss!’ Lady Myers said as they found their way to the dining room. ‘My Lord, let us stay here until they are well on their way, for I should be mortified to be too close behind those two pretentious coxcombs. We might be mistaken for one of the party.’

His lordship agreed and, in a way, so did Sophie, who had been less than impressed by the two rulers. On the other hand, the gentleman on the black stallion and the young captain of the Horse Guards were much more interesting, especially the taller one; she would not mind following on behind him. If only she was not dressed so shabbily, if only she had a little more aplomb, she might have smiled at him and then, instead of looking straight through her, which he had done, even when addressing her, he might have smiled back… She shocked herself to think she could have such improper thoughts and quickly turned her attention to her host, who was reciting the bill of fare in a swift gabble as if he could not wait to be rid of all his guests and have a little peace and quiet. She must remember she was in England now and must behave with the decorum Lady Myers expected of her. And that meant not challenging authority. If she wanted the Duke to give her a roof over her head—she could not call it a home, having no idea if it could ever be that—she must curb her tongue and be meek and docile. Any rebellious or unladylike thoughts and opinions must be kept for her book.

Chapter Two

Sophie woke up the next morning, wondering where she was. It was much more sumptuous than her room in Naples. She sat up and looked about her. The sun was shining through lightweight curtains and she could make out solid furniture; besides the big bed there was a washstand, a wardrobe, a dressing table, another small table in the window flanked by two chairs and a couple of cupboards in the fireplace recess. A clock on the mantel told her it was half past ten. She had not slept so late in years! She scrambled from the bed, padded across the thick carpet and drew back the curtains to find herself looking out on a busy street. Not Naples, not Paris, but London.

It all came back to her then: the long, exhausting journey by land and sea, the slow progress behind the Regent’s procession, which they had come up with only an hour after leaving Dover. The Regent was either very vain or very stubborn because he had insisted on stopping to greet his people, even when they were only a half a dozen on a street corner who looked to Sophie as if they had only been waiting to cross the road. Whenever they stopped the tall equerry was in evidence, shepherding people away from the royal carriages, looking about for trouble, trying his best to keep the cavalcade moving. Sophie wondered what his name was and if he had a title and decided he must be a lord at the very least. In her imagination she dubbed him Lord Ubiquitous because he seemed to be everywhere. No doubt if anything bad befell his charges, he would have to answer for it.

He had controlled his horse with consummate skill, was polite if a little frosty to the people around him and smiled when speaking to the Regent and his guest. Not for a moment had he shown any sign of impatience, but somehow Sophie sensed it was there, carefully hidden. It revealed itself in the way he carried himself, in small gestures, in the lifted eyebrows to Captain Summers when his Highness insisted on stopping. On one occasion the Regent had beckoned to a little urchin playing in the dirt and given him some small token, though the child seemed to have no idea what to do with it. Lord Ubiquitous had leaned down from his mount and whispered something, which made the boy laugh and he had run off, clutching his prize.

There had been no possibility of overtaking the royal carriages, so Lord Myers had instructed the coachman, hired at Dover, to stay well back, and Sophie was able to look about her. The countryside was verdant, the sun had a gentle warmth, not the uncomfortable heat of Naples. There were people working in the fields, plodding behind working horses. In the meadows cattle grazed and young lambs trotted behind their mothers, bleating for attention. This was the England she remembered, the England her mother had yearned for all the years of her exile. Was that why it felt so much like coming home?

London, when they reached it, was packed, just as Paris had been. Rich and poor jostled each other, carriages vied for space with carts, and the noise of it all assailed her ears: grinding wheels, ringing hooves, neighing horses and voices, some high-pitched, some raucous. When the crowd saw who sat in the grand carriages smiling and waving fat beringed hands at them, they were openly hostile. Sophie heard one wag shout, ‘Where’s your wife?’ And this was echoed by others until it became a chorus.

‘What do they mean?’ she asked Lord Myers.

‘Oh, they are referring to the Princess of Wales,’ he said. ‘She is far more popular than her husband, who tries very hard to pretend she does not exist. The people like to remind him of her now and again.’

Their ways diverged after they crossed the river and the Myers’s coach went on to Holles Street, where the servants had been expecting them hours before. It was extremely late, the dinner spoiled and they had to make do with a cold collation before tumbling into their beds.

And now it was morning, the first day of her new life and whatever was in store for her, she would have to make the best of it. Until she had made her call on the Duke, she could make no plans, and meeting the Duke was something that filled her with trepidation. She dressed hurriedly and went down to the breakfast parlour where she found Lady Myers immersed in the morning paper, which reported the arrival of the French King and a great deal of other news, some of it political, some of it mere gossip. She laid it aside on Sophie’s entrance. ‘How did you sleep, dear?’ she asked.

‘Like the dead,’ Sophie said. ‘I was worn out.’

‘That is hardly to be wondered at. Shall we stay at home and rest today? Tomorrow will be time enough for paying calls if you are too fatigued.’

Sophie was very tempted. It would be so easy to presume upon her ladyship’s generosity and do nothing, but her circumstances and sense of fair play would not allow it. ‘Unless you have other plans, I think I should make my call at Belfont House first,’ she said. ‘It has been playing on my mind. If the Duke is from home, I can ascertain if he is at Dersingham Park.’

‘Do you not think you should purchase a new gown before presenting yourself?’ her ladyship suggested.

Sophie looked down at the lilac muslin she had fetched out of her trunk. It was so simple as to be childlike, with its mauve ribbons under the bosom and round the puffed sleeves. Its only decoration was a little ruching round the hem, which had been mended more than once. ‘You think I should be in mourning?’

‘Do you?’ Lady Myers countered.

‘No. I mourned Mama and I mourned the man my father once was, but that was three years ago and, strangely enough, Papa’s last words to me were, “Do not mourn me, I am unworthy of it.”’

‘Then lilac is perfectly fitting, except that gown is very simple.’

‘Simple things do not become outdated so quickly and I cannot afford to buy something just because the fashion changes.’

‘Hmm, no doubt you are right,’ her ladyship said. It was sympathy and help the girl needed and strutting about in the height of fashion would not further that end, though she was wise enough not to utter her thoughts. ‘I will order the carriage for noon.’

Sophie was shaking with nerves by the time the barouche drew up outside the house in South Audley Street and only Lady Myers’s hand under her elbow prevented her from taking flight. She was being a ninny, she told herself sternly. There was nothing to be afraid of; she was her mother’s daughter and Mama had always told her to be proud, hold up her head and look the world in the eye, and that is what she would do. If the Duke of Belfont refused to recognise her, then so be it.

‘Lady Myers and Miss Sophia Langford,’ her ladyship said, handing the liveried footman her card. ‘We wish to speak to the Duke on a personal matter.’

‘I will ascertain if his Grace is receiving, my lady,’ he said pompously. ‘Please be seated.’ He waved them to a row of chairs ranged against the wall of the vestibule and disappeared down a marble tiled hall, his back stiff, his white-wigged head held high.

Lady Myers sat down, but Sophie could not sit still and began looking about her. There was an ornate cantilever staircase that set off at the centre of the hall and divided on a half-landing before climbing again to a gallery lined with pictures. On each side of the stairs the hall was lined with doors, all of which were closed. The footman had gone through one of them and shut it behind him.

‘Oh, I wish I had never come,’ Sophie whispered. The grandeur of the place was overwhelming.

‘Take heart, dear. I am right beside you and I will make the introductions.’

The footman returned, leaving the door ajar. ‘This way, ladies, if you please.’

They followed him and waited while he announced them. ‘Your Grace, Lady Myers and Miss Langford.’ Then he stood aside for them to enter the room.

A second later Sophie found her jaw dropping open because the man she faced was not the sixty-year-old duke she had expected, but the handsome equerry she had dubbed Lord Ubiquitous, elegant in dark green superfine coat and cream pantaloons, his fair curls brushed into attractive disorder. And he was looking just as astonished as she was.

‘Good God!’ he murmured loud enough for her to hear.

Before she could open her mouth to retort, Lady Myers spoke. ‘Your Grace?’ It was a question, not a greeting.

He recovered himself quickly and bowed. ‘At your service, my lady.’

Her ladyship curtsied. ‘Your Grace, may I present Miss Sophia Langford? You have been expecting her, I think.’ She gave Sophie a prod with her elbow because the girl seemed to have forgotten the basic courtesies.

Sophie, jolted from her contemplation of the man who had occupied so much of her thinking in the last twenty-four hours, dropped a curtsy. ‘Your Grace.’

James, who had expected a child, a schoolgirl at the most, found himself looking at a grown woman, a woman he had seen before, though for the life of him he could not remember where or when. It was hardly surprising; she was not particularly memorable. Her lilac dress was so plain, it could have been worn by one of his chambermaids and not been considered too grand. She had a hideous bonnet that hid most of her face and almost all her hair, but her figure was good. ‘I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage,’ he said.

‘How so?’ Sophie asked. ‘Did you not receive my letter?’ If he had not, then she would have to explain who she was and why she was standing in this magnificent drawing room and wishing herself anywhere but there. He was not welcoming and certainly not smiling.

‘I received a letter from Italy, yes, but I had not expected its writer to turn up on my doorstep the very next day.’

‘You may blame me for that, your Grace,’ Lady Myers said. ‘Lord Myers and I were returning to England; as poor Sophie had no one else to escort her, I undertook to bring her to you. I am afraid it was not possible to wait for your reply.’

That was where he had seen them, in Dover, trying to enter the hotel where the Regent and the King of France were taking refreshment and he had noticed them later, following the procession. Being anxious about security, he had been concerned they might be jeopardising that and had kept an eye on the carriage, until it had turned off north of the river. He had laughed at himself for his suspicions.

‘And now you are here,’ he said, wishing Harriet were on hand to relieve him, ‘what do you expect me to do?’

‘Nothing, your Grace,’ Sophie snapped. ‘I was mistaken in coming here…’

Again that defiance; it was almost a defensiveness, as if she expected to be turned away as she had been from the hotel in Dover. And so she should be, turning up at his door as if he should take in every waif and stray who claimed kinship! It was all very well for Harriet to say his father’s niece had married a Langford, but he had never met this cousin and there might have been a very good reason for the family not to acknowledge her. His uncle could have been a reprehensible reprobate who had disgraced the family name; his daughter might have been a demi-rep of uncertain reputation and her husband an unmitigated rogue, which was more than likely if they had to live abroad. Until he knew the truth he could not risk taking her daughter in. ‘If you expected me to fall over myself to offer you a home, then I am sorry to disappoint you…’

‘My disappointment is not on that account,’ Sophie said. ‘It was in thinking that I was dealing with a gentleman.’ She had no idea what made her say that. Perhaps it was the dismay which had been evident on his handsome countenance when they arrived, or the lack of a welcome. Why, he had not even offered them refreshment!

He had never met anyone, certainly not a chit of a girl, who was prepared to answer him back in that fashion and for a moment he was taken aback, and then it amused him. Beneath that muslin-covered bosom there beat a heart of fire. She was beginning to intrigue him. ‘Be thankful that I am gentleman enough not to entertain such a ridiculous idea…’

Lady Myers put her hand on Sophie’s arm to stop her answering. ‘Your Grace,’ she said placatingly, ‘we had no idea… We assumed… Sophie thought…’

‘What did Miss Langford think?’

‘That you were old,’ Sophie burst out.

‘Old!’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘I am but four and thirty.’

‘I can see that,’ she countered. ‘But Mama told me that the third Duke had died and his younger brother had inherited and so I assumed…’ Her voice faded away to nothing.

‘It is a mistake to assume anything,’ he said, remembering how he had assumed she was a child. If he had stopped to think, he would have realised it was unlikely. His uncle, her grandfather, had been the second eldest of the third Duke’s brothers and would have inherited if he had not died first. It would have made all the difference to the young woman who faced him now; her mother would have been a duke’s daughter and she would not be sitting there in that hideous gown, appealing to his softer nature. Perhaps it was as well he had, over the years, managed to stifle that. ‘The brother you mentioned was my father, the fourth Duke. He died last year and I came into my inheritance.’

‘And does that make a difference? Would he have been more welcoming?’

He suddenly realised how vulnerable she was, that she had the most lustrous eyes and they were bright with unshed tears. His conscience stabbed him. His problems were not the fault of Miss Langford and he could not expect her to understand them. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘We have not made a good beginning, have we? Let us start again. Please be seated. I will have refreshments brought in. Tea, perhaps, or ratafia? ‘He turned and tugged at the bell pull by the mantel. The footman arrived almost immediately and, on the ladies saying they would prefer tea, was instructed to bring the tea tray and some cakes. ‘If I had known you were coming today,’ he said, after the man had gone to obey, ‘I would have asked my sister, Lady Harley, to be present to act as hostess.’

‘You have no wife?’ Lady Myers had availed herself of one of the sofas, a pale green brocaded affair, and Sophie perched herself beside her, every sense alert, wanting to run, but conversely determined not to be driven away, simply because the man had taken a dislike to her. Why he should, she did not know. He was not completely unfeeling; she had seen evidence of his kindness on the way from Dover, but that was to other people, not herself.

‘No, I am single,’ he said, smiling at Sophie to try to mitigate his earlier brusqueness. It wasn’t like him to be impolite, but this pair had taken him so much by surprise, and, at a time when he had so much on his mind, he had been less than welcoming. Not that he meant to alter his decision, but he could have put it more kindly.

‘Oh, I see,’ Lady Myers said. ‘Then as you are a bachelor, we understand that taking in a young unmarried lady would be out of the question.’ She paused, unwilling to abandon her quest. ‘But you mentioned your sister. Does she reside here?’

‘No, her home is in Suffolk, but when she is in town for the Season, she stays here. She undertook to reply to your letter on my behalf, but of course that is of no significance now.’

‘And what would her reply have been?’ Sophie asked. ‘Would she have repudiated me on the grounds that the family did not approve of my parents’ marriage and, because I have been brought up abroad, I am not fit to be seen in society?’

‘Has someone said that?’

‘The present Lord Langford,’ Lady Myers said. ‘Miss Langford’s uncle.’

‘Oh.’ He had been going to suggest she appeal to her father’s family, but it seemed she had already done that and been turned away. He found himself thinking, ‘Poor child!’ and then smiled at his foolishness. She was not a child and he suspected had not been one for a long time. He had no idea how old she was, but she had a maturity that had nothing to do with years.

‘Miss Langford may count on me, of course,’ Lady Myers went on. ‘But how long Lord Myers will remain in London, I do not know. He travels a great deal and I always accompany him…’

‘I see.’ He did see, very clearly. Lady Myers’s offer was made out of duty, out of the charity Miss Langford so much denigrated, and she would be glad to have someone take the girl off her hands. And Miss Langford was intelligent enough to realise that.

‘Lady Myers,’ Sophie implored her, ‘please do not go on. I am not incapable of earning a living and would rather do so than be the object of charity, especially charity so reluctantly given.’

‘Earn a living,’ he repeated, ignoring her accusation. ‘How?’

‘I have an education, I can teach—I have done it before. I could offer myself to a girls’ school or find a position as a governess or companion.’

‘And what will you teach?’ He did not know why he was quizzing her in this way—to see how resolute she was? Or simply to tease? There was a faint blush to her cheeks that could have been embarrassment, or anger—he suspected the latter.

‘Whatever is asked of me,’ she said. ‘The basics of reading and writing, literature, languages. I speak French well, German a little and Italian fluently—’

‘Good heavens, a blue stocking!’

‘That, sir, is better than being a milksop, dependent on the generosity or otherwise of a man who can give it or withhold it at his pleasure.’

He had a sudden vision of what it might be like to be a young lady alone in the world. She must either work or beg, scrimp to eat and to buy the clothes for her back, unable to go into society, unable to enjoy the sort of social occasions most young ladies of his acquaintance took for granted, unable to marry well. He was used to the ladies of the ton, aristocrats who peopled the Regent’s court, simpering helpless females who did nothing without the permission of fathers, husbands or guardians, or demi-reps who flouted convention and were therefore not received in respectable drawing rooms. But the woman who faced him now was neither. He wished he had not been so sharp with her, but he did not know how to retrieve the situation.

The footman reappeared with the tea tray. ‘Lady Harley has just returned, your Grace,’ he said, as he set it down. ‘She asked me to say that as soon as she has taken off her hat, she will join you.’

‘Thank you, Collins.’

The footman began pouring the tea into thin china cups and, while he did so, Sophie was able to look about her for the first time. The room was dominantly pale green and cream, light and restful to the eye and furnished in the French style; it seemed the war with France did not inhibit people from wanting beautiful things no matter where they came from. There was no fire, but the hearth contained a huge bowl of cream roses whose scent filled the room. A Turner hung over the mantelpiece and a cabinet displayed porcelain figurines, which she recognised as Italian and very valuable. The windows were deep and long and looked out into a narrow garden with clipped lawns and beds of those same cream roses; a blackbird flew down to worry a pair of thrushes, squawking its annoyance until they left what he considered his domain. She wished she was out there, walking in the fresh air and not sitting on this elegant sofa being watched by the master of the house, who stood facing them with his back to the fireplace, a picture of studied elegance.

She risked a glance at him, but his expression was bland. He would be difficult to get to know, she decided, a self-contained man who did not let his feelings show. Was that because he belonged to the English aristocracy or was there a deeper reason? As Lord Ubiquitous who could make a small child laugh, she had been drawn towards him; as the Duke of Belfont, she found him top lofty and unsympathetic. It was almost as if he were two people. But wasn’t everyone like that? Did she not have two sides to her? The sad, lost child, in spite of her twenty-one years, and the independent, prickly woman of the world vied with each other according to the situation in which she found herself.

She looked up as a newcomer entered who could only have been Lady Harriet Harley. Dressed becomingly in amber silk, she was slightly older than the Duke; her features, though like her brother’s, were softer, more rounded, and her eyes were not the steely blue of his, but a soft aquamarine. Her hair was a shade darker and piled up on her head and fastened with two jewelled combs. She came forward, smiling.

‘Harriet, may I present Lady Myers and Miss Langford,’ James said, vastly relieved to see her. ‘Ladies, my sister, Lady Harley.’

Sophie rose along with Lady Myers to greet the newcomer, but before she could curtsy, she found both her hands grasped and Lady Harley holding her at arm’s length to look at her. ‘Oh, my dear, how pleased I am to make your acquaintance. If I had known you were arriving today, I would have been at home to greet you. But never mind, I am here now and you shall tell me all about yourself. I see Collins has brought in the tea.’ She turned to the footman who was standing by the tea urn, a cup in his hand. ‘You can leave that, Collins, I will see to it.’ Then to Sophie, ‘Come and sit by me and we shall get to know each other.’ She drew the girl to another of the three sofas that furnished the room, leaving Lady Myers to sink back into her original seat opposite them. ‘When did you arrive in London? Where are you staying?’ She stopped suddenly and looked up at her brother. ‘Oh, do sit down, James, you look so forbidding hovering there.’

He folded his long form into a winged back chair on the other side of the hearth and waited. Harriet could take over now; he need say no more, which was a great relief. He was a man of the world, used to dealing with all sorts of people and situations, known to be cool in a crisis, not easily shaken, but this child-woman had set him at a stand. He had no idea what to do with her.

‘Lady Myers, you will forgive me, I know,’ Harriet said. ‘But I want to hear all about Sophia from her own lips.’ To Sophie she added, ‘You do not mind me calling you Sophia, do you?’

‘Mama and Papa called me Sophie,’ she said with a smile, which made James, watching her, realise she was not plain after all, nor overweening, simply shy. No, definitely not shy, he corrected himself, reserved perhaps, a private sort of person and proud with it. ‘I was Sophia only when they were displeased with me.’

‘And we are certainly not displeased with you, are we?’ She appealed to her brother, who nodded agreement, his mouth twitching slightly. ‘So Sophie it shall be.’ She rose and busied herself with the teacups and handing round a plate of little cakes before resuming her seat. ‘Now, my dear, do begin. Tell us first about your mama and papa. You see, we never knew them. I remember Papa had an older brother called Robert. That would be your grandfather, would it not?’

‘I believe so. But I can tell you very little about him. I believe he disapproved of Papa and so Mama did not correspond with him.’

‘Oh, how sad it is when families fall out,’ Harriet said. ‘It leads to so much conflict and it is not right to visit that on the next generation.’

‘Just what I hoped you would say,’ Lady Myers put in suddenly. ‘It wasn’t Sophie’s fault. Lord Langford was a—’

‘Lady Myers, please,’ Sophie begged her, hating to hear anyone condemn her father, however justified that might be. She had loved him once and her mother had never ceased to be held in thrall by him even when their fortunes were at their lowest.

‘Very well, I will say no more. Lady Harley may draw her own conclusions. I have told his Grace and will not repeat it.’

Harriet looked at her brother, who shrugged his elegant shoulders and smiled. ‘It seems Miss Langford had already appealed to the present Lord Langford and been rejected.’

‘Oh, how mortifying. Sophie, why did you not come to us first? My goodness, how anyone could turn away a relation in need is beyond me. Never mind, you are here now and we will do our best to help you.’

Sophie looked from one to the other, wondering why one should have been so dismissive and the other so welcoming. Even now, his Grace was frowning as if he were afraid his sister might offer something he could not agree to, although Harriet seemed unaware of it. ‘I only need somewhere to lodge until I can find my feet,’ she said. ‘I can and will earn my keep.’

‘Miss Langford has expressed the intention of becoming a companion or a governess,’ James told his sister.

Harriet turned to Sophie; there was a smile and a hint of friendly teasing in her eyes, which made Sophie warm to her. ‘Is that really what you wish to do, or was it said in a spirit of independence?’

Sophie found herself smiling back in spite of her discomfort. ‘Independence, I think, but that doesn’t mean I was not serious.’

‘No, of course not. I admire you for it.’

‘What I really want to do is write a book,’ she said.

‘A novel?’

‘No. The story of our travels on the continent, the places we went to and the people we met. You see, Mama instructed me, showed me how to look at buildings and monuments with a fresh eye, how to observe characters, and she encouraged me to write about them.’

‘How very clever of you!’

‘Mama was the clever one.’ She did not add that her mother’s cleverness irritated her father. Sometimes when he was disguised in drink he would call her a blue stocking—it was not meant as praise, but in the same derogatory way the Duke had meant it. Mama had told her that men did not like clever women, because it diminished them and shattered their illusions that women were not only physically inferior but mentally too. It was best not to flaunt one’s cleverness; though Sophie did not hold with boasting, she did not see why she should hide what talents she had. After all, she was not beautiful; no one would fall at her feet on that account. ‘But until it is written and I have interested a publisher in it, I must live and being a companion will serve…’

‘I doubt that,’ James put in. ‘I believe ladies’ companions are on call twenty-four hours a day—you will have no time to yourself.’

‘Then I will make time.’

‘That is very commendable,’ Harriet said. ‘But we will not talk of companions or governesses. There is no need.’

‘Miss Langford is lodging with Lady Myers,’ James told his sister in a warning voice, which she ignored.

‘It is very good of Lady Myers,’ Harriet said, smiling at the lady to mitigate what she was about to say. ‘But what would everyone think of us if we were to allow Sophie to lodge anywhere but with us…?’

‘Harriet,’ he warned her, ‘you know my feelings on the matter.’

She laughed. ‘Indeed I do. You are as sensible of your duty as any man I know and I am persuaded you are determined to take Sophie into the bosom of the family and do your very best to make her happy. To do anything else would be quite scandalous…’

Sophie was well aware, as was everyone else, that Lady Harley had manoeuvred him into a corner. Though she longed to tell them she would not stay if she were not welcome, she also knew that living permanently with Lady Myers was also out of the question; the lady herself had made that clear. She waited, unspeaking, pinning her hopes on Lady Harley.

‘Of course,’ he said, giving his sister a grin that told her she had won. ‘But you must make yourself responsible for her.’

‘Oh, I shall. I am quite looking forward to taking our cousin out and about.’ She turned to Sophie. ‘Take no notice of his gruffness. What with all the fuss over King Louis’s visit and more state visits to come later in the year, he has a great deal on his mind at the moment. But we can manage quite well without him.’

‘Thank you, my lady, I am grateful, but there is no need to take me out and about. I shall be quite content to have a room and board until I can earn enough to repay you.’

‘Repay us! What nonsense. You are kin and it is our privilege to give you a home for as long as you want it. Now, off you go with Lady Myers and fetch your belongings. By the time you return, your room will be ready.’

Sophie heard the Duke give a low groan. He had been bested and she was not sure whether to feel satisfaction or mortification, but beggars could not be choosers, she told herself. He had come to his feet and she rose too and faced him. ‘I do not expect to be given a come-out, your Grace. I am determined never to marry. I accept your offer of a home only because I have no choice, but rest assured I shall be as little trouble to you as possible.’ She turned to Lady Harley. ‘My lady, I am grateful for your intervention and with your permission will return tomorrow, if you tell me a time that will be convenient.’

‘Any time will do. I have no pressing engagements.’

‘Then I shall bring Sophie at three,’ Lady Myers said. ‘Good day, Lady Harley. Good day, your Grace. Come, Sophie.’

Sophie curtsied and followed Lady Myers to the door. An imp of mischief made her turn as she reached it. ‘My lord, what was it the Regent gave the little boy yesterday?’

‘Little boy?’ he queried, then smiled as he remembered. ‘A silver button from his waistcoat. His Highness’s coats are so tight the buttons are always popping off.’

‘The child seemed bemused. What did you say to him?’

‘I told him it was real silver and he should sell it and buy his family a good dinner before someone stole it from him. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, I rather envied the little one that he had managed to elicit a kind word from you.’ And with that, she sailed out on the heels of Lady Myers.

His initial annoyance gave way to a wry grin as he turned and saw his sister laughing.

‘You deserved that,’ she said.

‘No doubt I did. But I wonder if you know what you have taken on. It will not be easy. She is too proud and outspoken for her own good.’

‘Of course I know, but that is due to her strange upbringing. She is a delightful girl and when I have done something about her clothes and shown her how to go on, she will take beautifully, you’ll see.’

‘Perhaps. She certainly needs someone to look to her wardrobe. Why, that yellow gown Lady Myers was wearing would have suited her better than that colourless lilac. I had begun to wonder if they had exchanged wardrobes or perhaps their maid was half-cut and confused the two.’

Harriet smiled. ‘James it is not kind to make fun of her. She was in desperate straits…’

‘She could have stayed with Lady Myers.’

‘And been an unpaid companion because that is what she would have become and, although the woman did say she would bring her out, I doubt she would have made a very good fist at it. And think how badly that would reflect on us.’

‘I know, which is why I agreed, but I warn you if she does or says anything to embarrass us or our friends, she will be packed off to Dersingham Park and I do not care what social occasions you have planned for her. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, but I don’t know why you are so gloomy about it.’

He did not know either, he admitted to himself, as he left her to meet Richard Summers at White’s. How could a slip of a girl make him feel so old, so weighed down with cares? She meant nothing to him and he would not need to see anything of her; Harriet would look after her. It must be a family trait, this stubbornness, he decided, for his sister had taken the girl’s future on herself, dismissing his misgivings with a wave of the hand as if they were no more important than dandelion seed. She was right of course, he could not have turned the chit away without bringing down the censure of the haut monde, but, having done his duty, he could forget her.

Richard was sitting in the library of the club reading a newspaper, a glass of cognac at his side. He looked up as James flung himself into a chair opposite him. ‘You look as though you need a drink.’ He reached for the bottle and filled the empty glass beside it. ‘Ellen playing up again, is she?’

‘Ellen?’ His mind had been so much on Sophie he had forgotten his erstwhile mistress, who seemed unable to understand their affair was at an end. She had done her best to embarrass him in public, hoping to wriggle back in his favour, but he had never shared his mistresses with anyone, except their husbands, naturally, and he did not propose to make an exception now, especially as the man she had been seeing was Alfred Jessop, his cousin and heir. ‘No, nothing to do with her.’

‘Then what has given you that air of distraction? It can’t be his Highness, can it? You usually take his whims and tantrums into your stride…’

James gave a grunt. ‘He is behaving as if he had won the war single-handed and accepting the adulation of his subjects as his due. I cannot make up my mind if he is deluding himself or trying to persuade those around him that he is not the most unpopular ruling prince the country ever had. It makes my job doubly difficult.’ He drank his brandy in one swallow, holding out his glass for a refill. ‘Yesterday was a case in point. Why was it necessary to go to Dover to meet Louis and, when he did, to keep stopping and making a fool of himself and laying himself open to an assassin?’

‘Nothing happened, did it? No one took a shot at him, no one attempted to pull him out of the coach and tear him to shreds. The abuse is only verbal and he seems to be able to ignore that.’

‘He can, but I can’t. Not that Louis is any better. We had no sooner delivered him to Grillon’s, than he sent for a chair and insisted on sitting in the vestibule holding court like some fat potentate. Good God, it’s a hotel where anyone can come and go. His Highness was with him some of the time and they were sitting targets. It is making me very on edge and I find myself suspecting everyone…’

‘Even two dumpy travellers and a mousy companion in that hired coach, which followed us all the way to London. But perhaps you were right; they could have been in disguise.’

‘Those! That was no disguise. It was Lord Myers, one-time ambassador to somewhere or other, his lady wife and Miss Sophia Langford, or Sophie as she prefers to be known.’

‘You are acquainted with them?’

‘Until today I was not. Miss Langford is a cousin of mine, though I don’t know how many times removed, but the number of removes seems not to weigh with her. She has turned up from Italy, having just buried her father, and expects me to welcome her with open arms…’

‘And her mother?’

‘Died some time ago. She was my Uncle Robert’s granddaughter.’

‘Then the relationship is not so distant. It is not like you to be uncharitable, James.’

‘Oh, I have taken her in—had no choice since Harriet has taken a liking to the girl, and I felt sorry for her. Not that she invited sympathy; she has the Dersingham pride and obstinacy, no doubt of that. Said if I didn’t take her in, she would become a governess. Couldn’t let that happen, could I?’

‘No, you could not. So, what is the problem? Lady Harley will do the necessary.’

‘I have no doubt Harriet will expect me to give her a come-out and that means escorting her to whatever occasions my sister deems necessary.’

‘And from what I remember when I met her at Dover, she is too plain for you. You were always known for having the most beautiful women on your arm.’

‘Her plainness or otherwise has nothing to do with it. Nor will she be “on my arm”, as you put it; I shall be her sponsor only. It is simply that I do not know how I will find the time. His Highness expects me to be everywhere at once. Goodness knows what he will think of doing when the Tsar and the King of Prussia pay a state visit later in the year. London will be crawling with foreign royalty and all of it expecting protection, not to mention the return of Wellington, which will be a far more popular event. It will need a whole regiment and more to keep order and since I no longer have a command, I will have to liaise with the military and give way to them on the grounds that I am a mere equerry.’

‘You are far more than that and everyone who matters knows it. Why, if it hadn’t been for you, Boney might never have found himself with no choice but to abdicate.’

James had once been a soldier, and a very good one, but Wellington had soon realised his potential as a spy and he had found himself out of the army and wandering about Europe under a false name, pretending to have a grudge against his own people in order to gather intelligence. It had been dangerous and secret work. It was still a secret except from those who had worked with him at the time and that included Richard, who had been his contact with their commander. When his father died and he had been recalled to become the next Duke of Belfont, he had thought to see an end of it, except that the Regent, on being told of his exploits, insisted on having him in his entourage.

‘And if you think that is the end of the man, you are mistaken, Dick, my friend,’ he said grimly. ‘He will not take his defeat as final. I have already heard rumours…’

‘Oh, that old chant, “I will be back.” Wishful thinking.’

‘We shall see and before another year is out.’

‘Twenty guineas says he stays comfortably on Elba writing his memoirs.’

‘Done.’ James beckoned to one of the waiters to fetch the book of wagers, and, when it was brought, carefully wrote in it, ‘The Duke of Belfont bets Captain Richard Summers the sum of twenty guineas that Napoleon Bonaparte will leave Elba and attempt to regain his throne before a year is out.’ They both signed and dated it.

‘That will put the cat among the pigeons,’ James said. ‘It might even bring the worms out of the woodwork.’

‘Oh, I see, you engineered the wager. I might have known. You are not one to make foolish wagers. But watch your back, my friend.’

‘Oh, I leave that to you, I shall be far too busy.’

Richard grinned. ‘Taking a young lady out and about, I collect.’

‘It is my duty as head of the family,’ he said, so pompously that Richard, who knew him well, laughed.

‘You never know, you might end up leg shackled yourself and it won’t be before time. You should have set up your nursery ten years ago.’

‘How could I? I was in no position to offer for anyone, and, since returning to England, I have met no one with whom I would want to spend the rest of my life.’

‘You will.’ Richard paused, then, deciding he had teased his friend enough, added, ‘Are you dining here tonight?’

‘No, I am expected at Carlton House, some banquet or other. I will be glad when the season is over and I can retire to Dersingham Park and look after my estate. In the meantime, duty calls. Keep your eyes and ears open, Richard. Contrary to the Regent’s belief, I cannot be everywhere at once.’

The two men parted and James strolled back to Belfont House, but strangely it was not his problems at court that occupied his mind, but a pair of lustrous brown eyes. How could anyone be described as plain who had eyes like that?

Chapter Three

Sophie’s arrival at Belfont House with all her belongings the following day did not go as she expected and planned. She had hoped only for a garret room, where she could sit and write, not the sumptuous bedchamber she was given. It was furnished in mahogany and walnut; its thick carpet, in shades of blue, reflected the pattern in the curtains at the windows and those about the large four-poster bed. Adjoining it was a small sitting room. ‘I have had a desk and some shelves brought in,’ Harriet told her when she conducted her there after Lady Myers had been entertained with tea, been bidden goodbye and left, promising to call in a day or two to see how Sophie did. ‘Then you can write if you feel the inspiration. But I do not want you to think that you must do it. Look on it as a pastime when you have nothing better to do.’

‘I do not see it as a pastime, my lady.’

‘No, of course not. How foolish of me. What I meant was that I want you to make this your home. Write if you wish, but I should like it very much if you would accompany me on outings. There is so much going on in London this Season, it is beyond anything the capital has seen before, and it is not much fun if you have no one to share it with. The Duke is too busy.’

‘Is your husband not able to accompany you?’

For a moment her bright smile vanished. ‘He was killed at Oporto in ’09.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry. I did not know…’

‘No reason why you should. It was a comfort to know that James was with him when he died. He stayed abroad until last year when our father died and he became the next Duke. It was a relief to have him safe home again.’

‘I am sure it was,’ Sophie murmured.

‘I have two darling daughters, Beth and Olivia, but I left them at home in Suffolk. I cannot imagine they would find London in summer to their liking. They are more interested in ponies and country walks. When the Season is at an end, you must visit us and meet them.’

‘I should like that very much.’

‘Now, here I am prattling on about myself when what I really want to know is all about you. What was it like to be in Europe when Napoleon was Emperor? Did you ever meet him? Some people here say he was an ogre and others that he was a hero. I cannot find that very patriotic, can you?’

‘No, and I never met him. I saw him in the distance when we were in Paris, and we were in Austria when his son was born and there were tremendous celebrations. But I did meet some other interesting characters. Papa seemed to attract them. He was such an affable man and was always bringing people home for dinner.’ She did not add that it had stretched their housekeeping money to breaking point to entertain them.

‘And is that what is going into your book?’

She had not consciously thought of doing that, but she did know a simple travel book would not interest a publisher; there were dozens of those already. She must make it different, and interesting characters might do that. People lived abroad for many reasons; some, like her father, to escape their creditors; others to get over an unhappy love affair or to run away with someone else’s spouse. Some eloped when parents refused to countenance their marriage and some moved to a warmer climate for the sake of their health. Whatever the reason, there was always a nucleus of expatriates in the major cities of the continent, even during the war. ‘Yes, but I shall have to be very careful not to name names, I do not want to antagonise people. And they will only be part of the descriptions of how we travelled and the interesting places we saw.’

‘It must have been very exciting for a young girl to see so much of the world, almost like a Grand Tour.’

Sophie laughed. ‘It was never like that. And when Mama died—’ She stopped, unable to go on.

‘I feel for you, Sophie. Lady Myers told me a little of it, when we had a few minutes alone together, but you must put all those difficulties behind you now. I am going to enjoy dressing you up and taking you out.’

‘Really, my lady, there is no need…’

‘I want to, and please call me Harriet. Your mama was our cousin and that makes you a cousin too and families should not be formal with one another.’

Sophie laughed suddenly. ‘But when one of them is a duke…’

‘Oh, James is nothing like as top lofty as he pretends. He stands on his dignity to keep the doting mamas and their simpering daughters at bay. Being a bachelor and a duke, he is the target of every ambitious mother of an unmarried daughter.’ She chuckled suddenly. ‘I have told him he will have to marry soon and he ought to be looking for a wife, but he remains stubbornly unwed.’

‘No doubt he is particular. His wife will be a duchess and he must be sure she is up to it.’

‘True.’ She rose and shook out her blue taffeta skirt. ‘Now, I shall leave you to settle in. Dinner is at five and afterwards I have an evening engagement that I cannot cancel, but tomorrow we will go shopping. Shall I send a maid to help you unpack?’

‘No, thank you. I can manage.’

She left and Sophie sat on the bed and regarded her trunk, sitting in the middle of the floor, where the footmen had left it. It was scuffed and scratched, its straps wearing thin, proclaiming her poverty. In it was everything she possessed. She could not bear for a servant to see that. Sighing, she unpacked it, putting the gowns in the wardrobe, her other clothes in a drawer and her writing things on the desk with the miniature of her mother. She had just finished when a maid arrived with hot water and an offer to help her dress and to do her hair. ‘My name is Janet, miss,’ she said. ‘Lady Harley says I am to look after you until a maid can be found for you.’

Dinner would be an ordeal, she knew that. It was not that she did not know how to behave; she had dined with some very aristocratic people when her father was in funds, but this evening she expected the Duke to be present and he would quiz her, or perhaps ignore her; either would be mortifying. She found a spotted muslin that was not too creased, draped a silk shawl that had been her mother’s over her upper arms and followed the maid down to the first-floor drawing room, where she had been received the day before. The Duke and Lady Harley were waiting for dinner to be announced.

‘Miss Langford, good evening.’ He rose politely. ‘I trust you have settled in.’

He was dressed formally in a blue long-tailed coat, an embroidered waistcoat, over which a froth of ruffles tumbled, powder blue silk breeches and white stockings. She noticed how well cut his coat was and how it showed off his broad shoulders and that his fair hair, though in the latest short style, curled over the high collar. He was the most handsome man she had ever met and she could understand his popularity with mothers of marriageable daughters. She wondered why he had not married before now; after all, he had admitted to being four and thirty, long past the age when men in his station of life married and set up their nursery. He would naturally be particular, but surely there were dozens of young ladies with beautiful faces and trim figures who would make elegant duchesses?

This reflection made her acutely aware of her own poor garments and she felt like turning tail, but then her pride came to her rescue and she bent her knee. ‘Yes, thank you, your Grace.’

‘And are you satisfied with your accommodation?’

‘Entirely,’ she said, unwilling to admit she had expected much less considering his lack of a welcome.

‘I have given Sophie the blue room,’ Harriet said. ‘The little boudoir next door to it is ideal for a writing room.’

Sophie turned from her secret contemplation of the Duke to face her hostess, whose gown was of forest green silk with deep lace ruffles round the hem. It had a very low décolletage and huge puffed sleeves. Her hair was piled up in a complicated knot and threaded with gems and there were more studded into a pendant around her neck. She patted the sofa next her. ‘Come and sit down, Sophie. I wish I were not going out this evening, I would much rather have stayed at home to talk to you, but I am promised and cannot disappoint my friends.’

‘Oh, please do not think of if,’ Sophie said. ‘I shall be quite content. I think I might do some writing.’

‘Ah, the book,’ James said in a tone that made her hackles rise. He might treat it as a matter for jest now, but one day she would make him take her seriously. ‘You must tell us all about that.’

‘I do not think it would interest you, your Grace.’

‘Why not?’

‘It is but a little thing and you must have been to all the places I have and seen it all.’

‘When?’ he asked sharply. Did she know something he would rather not have made public? He had never met her before, had he? She was never in any of the places he had been operating in, was she? Always alert to danger, from whatever direction, he suddenly felt threatened.

‘When?’ she repeated, puzzled. ‘I assumed you went on the Grand Tour before the Continent was closed to travellers.’

‘Oh, yes, a rather curtailed Grand Tour, as I remember. It was 1799, Napoleon was on the march and Europe was in turmoil.’ He was being foolish, he told himself. What could a chit like her know of espionage and those engaged in it? She would have still been in the schoolroom when he was sent to Austria. Or was it something else altogether making him feel he ought to take more interest in her? Her vulnerability in spite of her efforts to hide it?

A footman arrived and announced that dinner was served and James moved forward and offered his arm to Sophie. She got up and laid her fingers on his sleeve and even that slight contact made her catch her breath. She was shaking with nerves and had no idea why. He was only a little above average height, but he had an overpowering presence, as if he was used to having his own way and would brook no argument, but she had no intention of arguing with him. He was her host, her provider, and, however much it irked her to admit it, she could not afford to alienate him.

‘We are eating in the small dining room,’ Harriet told her, as she took her brother’s other arm. ‘It is much less formal than the large room we use when we entertain, and we can talk comfortably without having to raise our voices.’

And talk they did. While eating their way through a delicious fish dish, roast beef, boiled potatoes and mushrooms in a cream sauce, they spoke about the celebrations, the visits of foreign royalty, the plight of the soldiers coming home to unemployment and hardship, about Wellington and Napoleon and the latest on dit, which meant nothing to Sophie, though Harriet did her best to explain who was who. The Duke was an affable host and seemed to forget his earlier antagonism. Sophie found herself relaxing a little, though not completely. She was only too aware that she was the poor relation, there under sufferance, though she meant to remedy that situation as soon as she could afford it.

‘Is it true that the Regent hates his wife?’ she asked, when everything had been removed in favour of fruit tartlets, jelly and honey cakes. She had been too nervous to eat heartily; in any case, she had become so used to frugality, her stomach would not take rich food.

‘I am afraid so,’ he said. ‘His father badgered him so much to marry, he agreed to marry her without ever seeing her and he disliked her on sight. How he is going to keep her from the celebrations, I do not know. She is related to half the crowned heads of Europe who are coming and expecting to meet her.’

‘I am sorry for her. How dreadful it must be to be despised and unloved in a strange country.’

‘She is hardly unloved,’ Harriet put in. ‘She is very popular with the people.’

‘It isn’t the same though, is it? The public face and the private one. I think it is very important to have a fondness for the person one marries and it doesn’t matter if you are a prince or a duke or the man who clears the middens.’

‘Love,’ he murmured, making Sophie turn to look at him, thinking he was laughing at her, but though he was not laughing, there was a slight twist to his mouth that might have been humour directed against himself. ‘Are princes and dukes allowed to fall in love?’

‘Of course they are,’ Harriet said bracingly. ‘The world would be a very poor place without it.’

‘Mama loved Papa,’ Sophie said. ‘And he loved her. He was brought so low when she died, he never properly recovered.’ It was said with a kind of defiance, which was meant to offset whatever tale Lady Myers had told Harriet, who would undoubtedly have passed it on to the Duke. She did not want him to blame Papa, or feel sorry for her. Or perhaps just a little, she amended, just enough to give her a roof over her head and food to keep her from starving until she could prove to him and the world that she was an author to be reckoned with.

It was as if her listeners understood her point, for neither commented and a minute later the footman came to tell her ladyship the carriage was at the door. Harriet rose to go. ‘I must be off. I will see you tomorrow, Sophie, and we will make plans.’ She bent to kiss Sophie’s cheek. ‘Sleep well. You are very welcome.’

Then she was gone in a rustle of silk, leaving Sophie to face the Duke. ‘Am I?’ she asked in the silence that followed.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Am I welcome? Or am I an encumbrance you would rather do without?’

‘You are certainly forthright,’ he said, laughing. ‘But I assure you, you are not an encumbrance. This house is large enough for two dozen guests; one little cousin who is determined not to be noticed is not going to upset my routine.’

‘Then I am glad of it.’ She spoke with a certain amount of asperity; it was so very difficult being beholden.

He knew he seemed cold and heartless, but that was his way. He had taught himself to be self-contained, not by word or gesture to reveal what he was really thinking. It was all very well for people like the Regent to weep copious tears over nothing at all, but if he had been emotional when he was living with the enemy, when he had to pretend to be at one with them, a show of feeling, even the twitch of an eyelid, could have meant death. It had become a habit hard to break. ‘Do not be so prickly, Sophie,’ he said, trying to unbend a little. ‘Naturally you are welcome, you do not need to question it. And Harriet will love having you for company. Since her husband died, she has not been out and about so much as she was used to and I have not been able to accompany her as I would like.’

Did that mean she was to be an unpaid companion? Perhaps, though Harriet had given no indication that was what she expected. She had taken a liking to Harriet and bearing her company would be no hardship. ‘Thank you, your Grace.’

‘Now, I, too, must leave you,’ he said, rising. ‘I am afraid duty calls.’

‘I understand,’ she said, then laughed. ‘I must not disrupt your routine.’

‘Touché!’ He took her hand to raise her to her feet, then solemnly kissed the back of it. ‘Goodnight, cousin.’ And then he was gone.

She stood for a moment, looking at the back of her hand where his lips had briefly touched, wondering why the mark of it did not show; it had made her feel so hot, almost melting. Sighing, she made her way up to her room, where she went through to the boudoir and sat down at the desk. Drawing a sheet of paper towards her, she picked up a quill, dipped it in ink and then stopped. The flowing phrases she had rehearsed in her head refused to come. Her mind was blank. No, not blank, for it was filled with what had happened that day, from getting up that morning; breakfasting with Lady Myers, who chatted about the Duke as if she had known him for years; to the carriage ride and her arrival at Belfont House; the welcome of Lady Harley, who pretended not to notice the paucity of her luggage; and then the sumptuous dinner and her conversation with the Duke. The Duke more than anything filled her mind.

He intrigued her. One minute he was arrogant and over-bearing, the next trying to put her at her ease. He obviously did not think a great deal of her ambition to be a writer; he was probably one of those men who decried educated women. He had called her a blue stocking which was palpably not true; she was not learned. She could not converse in Latin or Greek, though she could chatter to her heart’s content in French, German and Italian. She knew only a smattering of mathematics and architecture, but she prided herself on getting on well with people. But the Duke wasn’t ‘people’, was he? He was different. He made her heart thump and her hands shake and yet she would not admit she was afraid of him.

Why had he never married? The romantic in her began to weave stories of unrequited love or unfaithful lovers. He had murmured about dukes falling in love as though he wished it were possible and knew it was not. Must he marry to oblige the family with an heir and nothing more? Did he enjoy the work he did for the Regent? Did he have to do it? Was his wealth and prestige dependent on it? Why did she think that was unlikely? Because he was proud, she answered herself, too proud to demean himself to anyone, not even a future king. Would that pride make a broken love affair harder to bear? She laughed softly at her own foolishness; why did she imagine he had been thwarted in love? He had been born and bred an aristocrat, one of the top one hundred, and ever since her mother’s father died, he had known he would be the next duke; it was his manner to be distant, nothing more.

It was no good sitting there being fanciful, nor to try to write; she was too tired to work. She put down her pen and moved into the bedroom to prepare for bed. Perhaps tomorrow she would feel more like it. Tomorrow she would go through her notes and that would start her off. Climbing between the sheets, she turned down the lamp and shut her eyes. Tomorrow…

The Regent was having one of his interminable receptions, showing off his opulence, being the jovial host, making jokes, flirting with the ladies, and James, keeping watch in the background, wished himself anywhere but where he was. He would rather be talking to that dowdy cousin at home than standing here, pretending to enjoy himself. It was strange he had never heard of her before now, yet he had little doubt, and Harriet none at all, that she was who she said she was. From what she had told them, his uncle had not approved of her mother’s choice of husband and Lady Myers had hinted that Lord Langford was a wastrel and a gambler and that, after his wife’s death, Sophie had been forced to work to keep them both. What father worth his salt would allow such a thing? Not that Sophie had complained, had not said a word about it, pretending it was the demise of her father that had forced her to seek sanctuary with her mother’s family. It could not have been easy for her to do that, being proud and wanting very much to be independent. As if writing a book, even if it found a publisher, would achieve that for her!

‘What, all alone?’ a female voice said at his elbow.

He did not need to turn to know who had spoken. Not only did he know every nuance of her voice, every seductive drawl, but, being observant, he had seen her crossing the room towards him, though he had given no indication of it. Ellen Colway had a tall, shapely figure made taller by the huge trio of feathers that adorned her pink satin turban. It matched her gown, which was draped so close to her figure it left little to the imagination, though he did not need imagination when memory served him better. She had firm rosy flesh and she knew how to seduce a man, even one as tightly in control as he had imagined himself to be. He had enjoyed her for a time, but her charms had already begun to pall when she deceived him with his cousin. That he could not condone.

It was not so much her perfidy that hurt but the fact that Alfred was a jackstraw, still attached to his mother’s apron strings, who spent his time gambling, tolerated by the ton because he was heir presumptive to the Belfont dukedom. What Ellen would want with the fellow, he could not think. She surely did not expect him to become the next duke in the foreseeable future, if ever. He did not intend to remain a bachelor all his life. He would marry when he found a suitable bride and in the fullness of time would beget his own heir. Alfred could not prevent that.

He turned towards her, a sardonic smile on his face. ‘Lady Colway, good evening.’

She smiled back, not at all put out. ‘So formal we are, your Grace. Can it be the company you keep? I hear the Regent is a stickler for protocol.’

‘Perhaps it is the company you keep, my lady.’

‘Oh, you are not going to prose on about that, are you? I have told you it was nothing. I was miffed with you and wanted my revenge. I did not expect you to make such a mountain of it.’

‘Then you do not know me very well.’

‘Oh, my dear,’ she said, sidling close to him, ‘I know you very well indeed, every inch of you…’ The voice was seductive and at one time might have had him running with her for the nearest bed, but all it did now was make him laugh.

‘And I, Ellen my dear, know you very well too, not just your beautiful body, but your ugly mind.’

She sprang from him, eyes flashing angrily. ‘How dare you! If Clarence were to hear of your insults, he would call you out.’

‘Would he? He had his chance a year ago and did nothing and from that I deduced he did not care. I have never cuckolded a man in love with his wife, and as you were known for your affairs…’ He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished.

She returned close to his side and took his arm. ‘Oh, James, do not let us quarrel. Clarence is not worth it and Alfred certainly is not. I came to invite you to a little soirée tomorrow evening. Clarence is still in the country and there will only be a handful of guests. After they have gone home we could be alone…’

‘I am afraid I am promised elsewhere.’

‘Then you will be the loser,’ she said, her vanity stung by his rejection. ‘I bid you goodnight.’

‘What is it they say about a woman scorned?’ Richard murmured, coming up behind him as he watched her cross the floor towards Alfred. ‘You have made an enemy there, my friend.’

‘What can she do? I am not the first, nor will I be the last, and if she makes a public brouhaha of it, her husband will no longer be able to ignore it and will have to do something to stop her excesses. I do not think she will want that.’

‘You may be right.’ He paused. ‘Does that mean you have found a new light o’ love?’

‘Not at all. A man does not have to be on with the new the instant he is off with the old, does he?’

‘Then where are you promised tomorrow evening? I know the Regent does not want you, I heard him tell you so.’

‘I have a mind to escort my sister and cousin to Lady Carstairs’s soirée.’

‘The dowdy little mouse? Good Lord, James, I had not thought to see you brought so low.’

‘Leave off your quizzing, Dick, I have agreed to sponsor the girl for the Season and it behoves me to act the father figure…’

It was a statement that had his friend in gales of laughter. He was so convulsed it was a full minute before he could speak. ‘Father figure! You!’

‘Why not? I am head of the family, am I not?’

‘True.’

‘Then I thank you to keep your mirth to yourself. Harriet has undertaken to dress her so she will not disgrace us and, my duty done, I can forget her.’

Except, of course, she was not easy to forget. Was it her worn and unfashionable garments, the very opposite of the modishly dressed ladies of his acquaintance, that made her stand out, or her composure and belief in herself, which made him think there was more to her than met the eye? Or was it her hair, dark as a raven’s wing, or those amber eyes that could be cold as the charity she disdained, or warm as treacle depending on her mood, which were so memorable?

Even now, with the noise of drunken laughter surrounding him, he could hear her. ‘How dreadful it must be to be despised and unloved in a strange country.’ She had been talking about the Princess of Wales, but it could equally have applied to her. It had unsettled him, made him feel unworthy. Was that what she had intended? And then she had bluntly asked, ‘Am I an encumbrance you would rather do without?’ So clever of her. Oh, how he disliked clever women. But, for all that, he must do his best for her, make her feel part of the family; nothing less would do, not only for his reputation but his self-respect.

Sophie looked at herself in the long mirror and smiled. Being a single girl not yet out, she should have been wearing white, but Lady Harley had said it did not suit her and her life before returning to England had been so unconventional it was not in the least necessary to follow custom slavishly. Nor would she countenance black. Another colour was called for, one to make her stand out in the crowd. Sophie wasn’t sure that she wanted to stand out in the crowd, but when Harriet had taken her to the mantua maker and insisted she try on a gown in a grey-green silk that reminded her of the lakes in Switzerland palely reflecting the green of the trees on their banks, she knew her mentor was right.

The fabric slid over her hips and swirled about her ankles in soft flowing lines and made her feel—oh, she did not know how she felt. Womanly, sensuous, consequential came to mind. She knew she was not beautiful, could never be that, but she found herself wondering if clothes could make a plain person attractive, or was it simply that the excitement of her first public outing was giving her a heightened colour, making her eyes sparkle.

She and Harriet had spent the morning and half the afternoon shopping for clothes. They were looking for something ready made, Harriet had explained, so that she could wear them straight away, but later she could choose some material and have gowns made up for her. In vain did she protest she could manage with the clothes she had, she did not intend to be seen out and about and that it was not right that Harriet should spend money on her.

‘It isn’t my money,’ Harriet had replied, nodding at the assistant who had been serving them to wrap the two day gowns they had chosen, one an azure blue, the other a warm apricot. ‘It is James’s.’

‘Oh, no! What will he say when the bills arrive? I can’t accept them. I really can’t.’

‘He will be insulted if you do not. He told me to buy whatever was necessary.’

‘But is all this necessary?’ She waved her hand at the pile of parcels waiting to be taken out to the coach.

‘Of course it is. You have promised to come out and about with me and you must be properly dressed for each occasion. It would not look well for us if you were not.’

‘But—’

‘I will hear no buts. You shall have a come-out and I will eat my best hat if you do not make a hit.’

Sophie was not sure she wanted to make a hit, especially if it meant being ogled by all the single young men with questioning eyes. How much was she worth? How big a dowry had been settled on her? Was it worth offering for her, even though she was so plain? Perhaps if she could make herself even more unattractive, they would give up. But when she had slipped into the beautiful gown for her first sortie into society, she knew she didn’t want to. It would be lovely, just once, to be admired, to flirt a little, and then retire into the life she had mapped out for herself.

What would his Grace make of her transformation? she wondered. Would he realise there was more to the waif he so disdained than he had at first thought? Would she elicit a smile from him, a genuine smile, not that condescending twitch of the lips that had characterised his exchanges with her until now? But then she stopped herself. He had handed her over to his sister and been relieved to do so, which was hardly flattering, but Lady Harley had been so welcoming and friendly that she more than made up for the shortcomings of her brother. After all, he had far more important things to do than put in an appearance at a musical evening being given by one of Lady Harley’s friends. It was a simple affair, she had told Sophie, a suitable occasion in which to introduce her to society.

Rose, one of the chambermaids who had been promoted to look after her, sat Sophie down at the dressing table and arranged her hair in a soft Grecian style, which went well with the classical lines of the gown, and then fastened her mother’s pearls about her throat. They lay against her skin, picking up the colours of her dress. ‘There, miss, you look lovely,’ Rose said.

‘Thank you.’ She stood up, slipped her feet into her matching slippers and, picking up her fan, drifted out of the room and down the stairs in a kind of waking dream. If only her mother could see her now. She had always talked to her about the grand occasions she had enjoyed as a girl, how she wished she could give them to her, and, if Papa’s ship came in, she would. It was an idle dream and they had both known it, but here she was, her eyes misted with tears at the memory, walking sedately down the grand staircase of Belfont House to be introduced to the beau monde. She was halfway down when she realised someone was in the hall looking up at her, and it wasn’t Harriet.

If she had not had her hand on the banister, she would have stumbled, but she quickly regained her balance, pausing a moment before continuing her stately progress down the stairs. Had she detected a tiny show of appreciation in his blue eyes as he watched her descend? If she had, it was gone so quickly she thought she had imagined it. She must have. He saw beautiful and elegant women every day of his life, was used to the opulence at court, the rich materials, the flashing jewels, the grandeur. In spite of her new clothes, she would be an antidote beside them.

She paused on the bottom stair because he had not moved. She would have to let go of the banister and step to one side to go round him and she did not think she could. Her knees felt as if they would not support her. On this step she was the same height as he was and could see the dark flecks in his blue eyes, his firm mouth and the tiny curls of hair about his ears. He had a tiny scar on his chin, too, which she had not noticed before. It made him slightly less than perfect, more human.

He had been so taken aback by the vision of her coming slowly down the stairs, one gloved hand on the banister, her head held high, her gown fitting so perfectly to a figure just the slim side of the curves fashion dictated that he had been mesmerised. Whatever had made him think she was plain? She was a vision of loveliness; he found his heart beating faster than its usual sedate pace and, for a moment, was deprived of speech. He suddenly realised she was waiting for him to move aside.

‘Miss Langford.’ He bowed slightly and stood to one side, so that as she passed him he caught the scent of violets. He would never be able to smell those tiny flowers again without bringing to mind the picture of Sophie Langford drifting down his staircase like a woodland nymph. Good heavens! He was becoming sentimental. He smiled wryly, more himself. ‘Good evening.’

‘Good evening, your Grace.’ He was dressed in an evening suit of black superfine with velvet facings, a white figured-brocade waistcoat, and an intricately tied white cravat in which nestled a glittering diamond pin. She wondered where he was going; wherever it was, it was not to be as formal an occasion as the evening before when, according to Harriet, he had attended the Regent’s reception.

Her question was answered almost immediately by Harriet who had followed her down the stairs, mature in dove grey taffeta with blue lace trimmings. ‘There you both are! Is the carriage outside?’

‘It is,’ he answered. ‘And has been these last ten minutes.’

‘Good,’ she replied, ignoring his slight tone of impatience. ‘Sophie, James has been so good as to escort us this evening, is that not wonderful?’

Sophie was taken aback. All her self-confidence evaporated at the thought that she would have to be on her very best behaviour. Instead of being able to blend into the background unnoticed, she would be the focus of attention simply because he was escorting her. No wonder he had looked so critically at her; he had been sizing her up to see if he cared to be seen with her in public. She supposed she had passed muster because he had made no comment either complimentary or otherwise. He was looking at her now, evidently expecting her to reply. ‘I am honoured, your Grace,’ she said.

‘It is my pleasure,’ he said, smiling easily now and sounding as if he might mean it. ‘Shall we go?’ He offered both arms and the ladies took one each. The footman sprang to open the door and they went down the three steps to where the carriage waited.

‘Lady Carstairs is a very good friend of mine,’ Harriet explained as they rode. ‘She is also known for a society hostess of the first water. If you are invited to one of her soirées, then you know you will be accepted by the ton and more invitations will follow.’

‘Has she invited me?’ Sophie asked, meaning, had she been foisted on Lady Carstairs by Harriet; it would be difficult to refuse the sister of the Duke of Belfont.

‘Naturally she has. As soon as I told her about you, she wanted to meet you.’

According to Harriet, the party was not to be a large one and she would soon get to know everyone, but when they were ushered into her ladyship’s salon, she found herself wondering what a large party might be like. The room was packed to suffocation, everyone talking and laughing at once; the clamour was unbelievable until the stentorian tones of the footman announced, ‘His Grace, the Duke of Belfont, Lady Harley, Miss Langford.’ The silence that followed was just as overwhelming as the noise had been as everyone stopped in mid-sentence to turn and look towards the entrance where the Duke stood, surveying the scene, his hand lightly under Sophie’s elbow.

He exerted no particular pressure, but she could feel the warmth of his hand through the thin material of her sleeve and was grateful for it; such a light touch and yet so reassuring. He guided her into the room, followed by Harriet, and slowly the broken conversations were resumed, as Lady Carstairs came forward to greet them, her old-fashioned wide skirts billowing around her, a smile of gratification on her face.

‘Your Grace, you honour us. I had no idea—’ She stopped, suddenly aware of Sophie.

‘My lady, may I present my cousin, Miss Langford,’ he said.

‘Miss Langford, I am pleased to meet you. Lady Harley tells me you have recently come home from a protracted stay abroad.’

‘Yes, we could not come home because of the war,’ Sophie answered.

‘And now you are alone in the world.’

‘Not at all,’ James put in before she could answer. ‘Miss Langford has returned to live with her family.’

‘Of course.’ Aware of the set-down, she turned to Sophie. ‘One day you must tell us all about your adventures. But now, do enjoy this evening. We plan to have a little music on the pianoforte and a string quartet is to play for us. Later there will be a few country dances for the young people.’ She paused and addressed the Duke. ‘You will stay for those, will you not? I am sure your cousin will enjoy a measure or two.’

He looked about him. There were dozens of young ladies whose mamas were giving them nudges and whispering. It was always the same whenever he appeared at a gathering like this, which was why he tried to avoid them. He could not, for the life of him, think why he had decided to come tonight. The sooner he escaped, the better. On the other hand, having offered to escort Sophie and his sister, he could hardly drag them away too soon. He bowed an acknowledgement.

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