London, 1814

A season of secrets, scandal and seduction in high society!

A darkly dangerous stranger is out for revenge, delivering a silken rope as his calling card. Through him, a long-forgotten past is stirred to life. The notorious events of 1794 which saw one man murdered and another hanged for the crime are brought into question. Was the culprit brought to justice or is there still a treacherous murderer at large?

As the murky waters of the past are disturbed, so is the Ton! Milliners and servants find love with rakish lords and proper ladies fall for rebellious outcasts, until finally the true murderer and spy is revealed.

REGENCY

Silk & Scandal

From glittering ballrooms to a smuggler’s cove in Cornwall, from the wilds of Scotland to a Romany camp and from the highest society to the lowest…

Don’t miss all eight books in this thrilling new series!

The Officer and the Proper Lady
Regency Silk & Scandal

by

Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

LOUISE ALLEN has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise divides her time between Bedfordshire and the north Norfolk coast, where she spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating. With any excuse she’ll take a research trip abroad – Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website – www.louiseallenregency.co.uk – for the latest news!

Chapter One

May 20th 1815. Brussels

His eyes were an unsettling blue-grey, like a sky threatening storms. How Julia Tresilian knew that, when the possessor of those eyes was quite twenty yards away, lounging with a group of fellow officers around a park bench, she was not precisely certain.

Nor had she any idea why she was staring in such a brazen manner at a strange man. Miss Tresilian was, above all else, a perfectly proper young lady. Every day, weather permitting, she would walk in the Parc de Bruxelles with her young brother. And every day, she would exchange polite greetings with her acquaintances, play with Phillip, do the marketing and return to Mama in their apartment on the Place de Leuvan. She did not speak to unknown gentlemen. She most certainly did not stare at them.

And most of the gentlemen she saw on the streets of Brussels were unknown to Julia, she acknowledged with an inward sigh. The arrival of the British refugees fleeing Paris ahead of Napoleon’s return in March had certainly enlivened the scene. It made the Tresilians thankful that they had already obtained genteel lodgings, but the newcomers did not much improve the social life of a widow of modest means and her daughter without connections or introductions. The new residents crowding into every house for rent in the desirable Upper Town were from quite another strata of Society to their own.

Then the military had arrived in ever-increasing numbers, both in the city and in the surrounding countryside, culminating only three days before in the Duke of Wellington establishing himself in a house on the corner of Rue Royale overlooking the Parc.

The sight of the commander in chief of the Allied forces sent the civilian population into what Mrs Tresilian described acidly as a tizzy. Such a celebrity in their midst could only be exciting, and the knowledge that they were under the protection of a great general filled everyone with confidence. But it also reminded them that this corner of Europe was where the inevitable confrontation with the French Tyrant would take place.

And to a large extent, the outcome of that confrontation would depend on men like the young officers relaxing so lightheartedly in front of her. Julia realized that she was still staring at the one man—and that he had become aware of her regard. His gaze sharpened and focused as he lifted his head to look at her. She felt the colour flood her cheeks and discovered that she could not look away.

He did not smile, yet his direct stare held no insolence. He looked as she felt, that he had seen someone he recognized at a level far deeper than simple acquaintance. He seemed faintly puzzled, or perhaps intrigued, but not disconcerted by their silent exchange. But then, he did not look like a man who was disconcerted by much. Julia, on the other hand, could not recall feeling more flustered in her life. Her breath was short, her heart was pounding and she felt absurdly shy. She should look away. Unfortunately, it seemed that she could not.

‘Julia?’ Phillip, thank goodness. With the sense of being pulled out of a trance, Julia bent down to hear what her four-year-old brother wanted.

‘Yes, my love?’

‘Throw my ball, please?’

She took the dusty yellow and blue ball and tossed it for him towards the largest empty expanse of grass. With a whoop, he gave chase, tumbled over, picked himself up and ran on. Julia brushed off her gloves, turned her back on the disconcerting officer in his blue uniform and pretended to admire the formal bedding lining the gravel walk.

‘Miss Tresilian. What a happy chance.’

‘Major Fellowes.’ She shifted her gaze from the marigolds with reluctance. ‘Hardly chance. I walk here every morning, after all.’ And will change to the afternoon if that is what it takes to avoid you. His manner over the past weeks had grown uncomfortably familiar for someone met by chance at a mutual acquaintance’s house. She wished she had brought their maid to accompany her, but she had never felt the need before.

‘Frederick, please. You know I wish you would use my given name.’

‘We are not on such terms that it would be seemly, Major.’ Julia opened her parasol with a snap and deployed it as a barrier between them. She had been naive to think him merely a nuisance. Even to someone with her sheltered background, this had reached the point where his intentions were blatantly obvious. His very dishonourable intentions.

The major countered by moving to her other side. ‘But you know I wish we were, Julia.’ He ignored her tightened lips and lack of response. ‘A young lady, alone in a foreign city, needs a man to protect her.’

‘I am not alone, sir.’ Julia tried to look bored and sophisticated. She suspected she merely looked embarrassed and alarmed. Vulnerable. She had no experience to help her deal with this.

‘A widowed mother, a baby brother? What protection are they?’

‘Sufficient. Or they should be, if a lady were surrounded by gentlemen.’

‘My dear Julia, you will find that gentlemen do not flock to the side of young ladies who are living on the continent for reasons of economy and who cannot offer a dowry to accompany their undoubted charms. In those circumstances, a more businesslike relationship is appropriate.’

‘And what, exactly, would it take to send you about your business, Major? How much clearer do I have to be that I do not wish for your company?’ Julia demanded. There was at a tug on her skirts and she looked down, forcing a smile for her brother.

‘Throw the ball, Julia.’

‘Of course, Phillip.’ She tossed the ball a good distance, and watched him scamper off, before she turned on the man at her side. ‘You should be ashamed, not only to proposition me but to do it with a child present!’

‘My dear Julia, consider.’ Major Fellowes laid a hand on her arm, and she stiffened. ‘Just what is your future without me?’

‘Respectable.’ She glared at his gloved hand protruding from the gold-braided cuff. ‘Will you kindly unhand me? Nothing, believe me, will make me agree to be your mistress.’

‘You will not be so very respectable if word gets around that you are open to negotiation,’ he suggested. ‘I would only have to drop a word in a few ears that we have had this conversation and the damage would be done.’

Julia tried to shake off his hand, but he closed his fingers, drawing her towards himself. ‘Let me go, people will realize something is amiss,’ she hissed.

‘No doubt, any onlooker will merely deduce we are discussing the price.’ His face bore an expression of such self-satisfaction that she was tempted to strike it. But that could only make matters worse. She had to get rid of him before Phillip came back. But how, without creating an even worse scene?

‘Bet against Thomas’s mare over that distance? You must be all about in your head,’ Major Hal Carlow said to the man at his side who was earnestly explaining the merits of a chestnut gelding belonging to a certain Lieutenant Strong.

Captain Gregory launched into details lost on Hal as he watched the young woman on the upper walk—the apparently respectable young woman who had been staring at him as though she knew him. He had never seen her before, so far as he knew, although, as she could hardly be described as a Diamond of the first water, it was possible she had escaped his attention. In which case, what was so attracting him now?

‘Carlow?’ He ignored his companions, still watching the young woman. She had been joined by an officer in a scarlet coat. Foot Guards. He narrowed his eyes: 92nd Foot and not someone he recognized. And not someone she wished to recognize either, judging by her averted head and her stiff body. The man put a hand on her arm.

‘I’ll see you back at the Hôtel de Flandres,’ Hal said abruptly, abandoning his plans to go and catch up on his sleep. He took the steps up to the wide lawn at a stride and strode off to intercept the small boy with the ball. ‘Good morning.’ He hunkered down to eye level, managing the unwieldy length of his sabre without conscious thought. ‘Is that your governess in the green pelisse?’

‘My sister Julia.’ Big brown eyes stared back solemnly, grubby hands clasped his toy. ‘Are you in the cavalry, sir?’

‘Yes, 11th Light Dragoons. My name is Hal Carlow.’ Hal scooped the child up in his arms and began to walk towards the path. ‘And what is your name?’ He liked children—well enough to ensure his frequent adventures left no by-blows to haunt his somewhat selective conscience.

‘Phillip Tresilian and I’m four.’

‘A big boy like you? I thought you must be six at least.’ Hal stepped over the strip of marigolds and walked up to the couple on the path. Close-to he could see the flush on her—Julia’s—cheeks and the distress in her eyes, large and brown like her brother’s. The other officer still had his hand on her arm.

‘Miss Tresilian! You must have quite given me up, I do apologise,’ Hal said cheerfully as he came up to them. Her eyes widened but she did not disown him. ‘Shall we go on to the pavilion for tea? I expect Phillip would like an ice as usual.’

‘Not in the morning, sir! You know he is not allowed ices before luncheon,’ Miss Tresilian said in a rallying tone.

Good girl, he thought, as he extended his free arm for her to rest her hand on, then feigned surprise at seeing the other man was holding her. He let the good humour ebb from his face and raised one eyebrow. ‘Major? I believe I have the prior claim.’ Now what had he said to make her blush like that?

‘Miss Tresilian was walking with me, sir.’ The infantry officer bristled. He outweighed Hal by about a stone and had a good three inches of height on Hal’s six foot.

Hal met his eyes and allowed the faintest sneer to cross his features. ‘And now, by appointment, she is walking with me.’ The small boy curled an arm around his neck in well-timed confirmation of his friendship with the Tresilians. ‘I believe I do not have the pleasure of your acquaintance, Major? Nor, I suspect, have my friends.’ Hal let the slightest emphasis rest on the last word and saw his meaning go home.

The other man released Miss Tresilian’s arm. ‘Frederick Fellowes, 92nd Foot.’

‘Hal Carlow, 11th Light Dragoons.’ That went home too. Something of his reputation must have reached the infantry. ‘Good day to you.’

Miss Tresilian rested her hand on his sleeve. ‘Good day, Major Fellowes,’ she said with chilly formality. She waited until they were out of earshot before she said, ‘Please, sir, do put Phillip down, he is covered in dirt.’

Hal set the boy on his feet and threw the ball to the far end of the lawn for him to run after. ‘Are you all right, Miss Tresilian?’

She looked up at him, her face still flushed beneath the brim of her plain straw bonnet. He studied big brown eyes and a nose that had just the suggestion of a tilt to the tip, a firm chin and a neat figure. No great beauty, but Hal had the sense of a vivid personality, of intelligence and humour. He felt a desire to make her blush again, she did it so deliciously.

‘I am now, thanks to you, Major. I do not know what I would have done if you had not rescued me—hit him over the head with my parasol, I expect—and then what a figure I would have made of myself.’ Her eyes crinkled with rueful amusement as he smiled. ‘And how clever of you to get our names from Phillip. Did you really mean by that reference to your friends that you might call Major Fellowes out?’

She was quick on the uptake, this young lady. And lady she was, for all her lack of maid or footman and her simple gown and spencer.

‘Of course. Fellowes lacks address: it really is not done to persist where one is unwanted, even when a lady is so temptingly pretty.’

She ignored the automatic compliment. ‘Not with discreditable offers it is not,’ she said with feeling, then blushed again. ‘Oh dear, I should not have mentioned that, should I? But I feel I know you, Major Carlow.’

‘Is that why you were looking at me just now?’ he asked. ‘I hoped you wanted to make my acquaintance.’

She bit her lip in charming confusion. ‘I really do not know. It was very brassy of me, but there was something about you I thought I recognized.’ She recovered her composure a little and her chin lifted. ‘And you stared right back at me.’

‘True.’ Hal stooped to pick up the ball and sent Phillip chasing towards the fountain in its octagonal basin. ‘But then, I am a rake and we are supposed to stare at ladies and put them to the blush.’

‘You are? A rake I mean?’

‘Indeed. I am precisely the kind of man your mama would warn you about and, now I think on it, you may have leapt from frying pan to fire. I am absolutely the last man you should be seen walking with in the Parc.’

‘No, Major Fellowes is that,’ she retorted. ‘You rescued me.’

Hal was not given to flirting with young unmarried ladies. For a start, whenever he hove into sight, their mothers herded them together like hens with chicks on seeing a fox. And he had absolutely no intention of finding himself confronting a furious father demanding that he did the decent thing by his compromised daughter.

Society was full enough of carefree widows and dashing matrons—and the demi-monde of skilled light-skirts—to keep a gentleman of an amorous disposition amused without him needing to venture amongst the ingénues adorning the Marriage Mart.

But Miss Tresilian was not one of those young ladies either. She was, to his experienced eye, a good three and twenty, her manner was open and her wits sharp. She was not one of the fashionable set either: he did not recognize her name and her bonnet was a Season out of style. There was something about her that argued both virtue and a lack of sophisticated boredom.

‘My reputation is worse,’ he observed, reverting to Major Fellowes. ‘I have not heard of him—but he had heard of me.’

‘And he was very wary of you.’ Miss Tresilian nodded. ‘So you are a notorious duellist as well as a rake?’

‘I confess I fight, gamble, drink and amuse myself with some dedication,’ Hal told her with a shrug, feeling he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb so far as his reputation with Miss Tresilian was concerned. He did not have to mention loose women in his list of sins: the slight lift of one eyebrow showed that she could add those herself.

A shadow passed over her face. ‘Gamble? What on, Major?’

‘Anything, everything. Cards, dice, horses, what colour gown Miss Tresilian will wear for her next appearance in the Parc.’

‘Do you often win, Major?’

‘Almost inevitably.’ She raised the brow again. ‘I play cards well, but I have the knack of calculating odds even better. I enjoy gambling, not throwing money away. You disapprove of gambling, Miss Tresilian?’

‘My mother and I are in Brussels on what is called the economical plan,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste for the term. ‘In other words, we are compelled to live abroad where it is cheap in order to husband our resources. Many of the British community are here for the same reason, and for most of them, it is because the head of the household has gambled away a fortune.’

‘Your father is not with you?’

‘Papa died just before Phillip was born.’ Miss Tresilian looked round, sighting her brother standing hopefully in front of the refreshment stand. His nankeens, Hal saw with amusement, were now an absolute disgrace. ‘Thank you, Major Carlow, for rescuing me and for your escort. I am sure you must be wanting to rejoin your friends now.’ Whatever her reasons for staring at him so fixedly before, they were evidently nothing to do with flirtation. She was now intent on politely disengaging herself.

‘Not at all. At least, not until I have put a stop to any tittle-tattle that you being seen walking with me might arouse.’ Hal scanned the array of elegant ladies gathered in little parties around the pavilion. ‘What we need is a matron of influence and reputation. Ah yes, just the person.’ He tucked Julia’s hand under his arm and led her across the gravel to a lady sitting alone, delicately spooning vanilla ice from a glass. Behind her, in the shadows of one of the trees, stood her maid.

‘Lady Geraldine. How very lovely you look today.’

‘Major Carlow, a delightful surprise to see you doing something as tame as walking in the Parc, and at such an early hour! Perhaps you never got to sleep last night.’ Her ladyship smiled wickedly from under the brim of her hat as Hal bowed, returning a smile every bit as wicked.

‘May I introduce Miss Tresilian, ma’am? Miss Tresilian, Lady Geraldine Masters. I have just rescued Miss Tresilian from a rather slimy dragon. I have done my utmost not to flirt with her, but she will now have been observed by the censorious walking with me for quite ten minutes.’

‘And requires some respectable chaperonage? Indeed. Do sit by me, Miss Tresilian. My first duty is to warn you against associating with bloods of Major Carlow’s ilk. However, I must congratulate you upon escaping from a dragon’s clutches. Major, take yourself off so I may restore Miss Tresilian’s reputation as required.’

‘Ma’am.’ Hal bowed, repressing a smile at the expression of barely concealed alarm on Miss Tresilian’s face. Lady Geraldine, daughter of the Duke of Wilmington and wife of the indecently wealthy Mr John Masters, was one of the leading Ladies of the Park, as the reigning English set in Brussels Society were known. She was a handsome woman in her late thirties, kind, outspoken and apt to be amused by handsome young men of address of whom she had a number in her train. Her devotion to her husband was, however, in no doubt. He should know, he had tested it personally. ‘I leave her in safe hands. Good day, Miss Tresilian.’

‘Good day, Major. And thank you.’ She smiled, an expression of genuine sweetness, and her face, that he had thought merely pleasant, was transformed.

Hal swallowed, bowed and took himself off, pausing to direct a waiter to send ices and tea across to Lady Geraldine’s table. He handed the coins to pay for it to Phillip. ‘Settle the account, there’s a good chap,’ he said, amused by the delighted expression on the small boy’s face as he followed the waiter, the coins clasped tight in his grubby fist.

A charming pair, the Tresilians, he thought as he strode towards the Place Royale exit, heading for his hotel and a couple of hours’ sleep. One grubby urchin and one respectable young lady. One virtuous young lady, he thought and told himself to forget about her.

‘Tell me about your slimy dragon, Miss Tresilian.’ Lady Geraldine fixed her eyes on Julia’s face and smiled. Her regard wavered as someone approached their table.

‘My brother, ma’am,’ Julia apologised as Phillip marched up, waiter in tow, a huge grin on his grubby face. ‘He is not usually such a ragamuffin.’

‘Boys will be boys,’ her ladyship remarked, with a glance at Major Carlow’s disappearing figure. Julia dragged her own eyes away from broad shoulders in dark blue cloth. Did every officer have his uniform tailored to such a pitch of perfection? If they did, she had never noticed before.

‘However,’ Lady Geraldine continued, ‘I am sure he does not need to hear the tale of the dragon. Monique!’ Her maid came forward. ‘Please take Master Tresilian to a table in the shade to eat his ice. There, no-one can overhear us. Now tell me, what necessitated your rescue by Major Carlow?’

Julia could see no way out of telling her everything. ‘I presume Fellowes thinks that because we are not well off and I have no male relatives in Brussels, I am open to such offers,’ she concluded. ‘It is very lowering to think such a man assumes something like that about one.’

‘It is nothing to do with your appearance or manner,’ Lady Geraldine said soothingly. ‘After all, Major Carlow obviously recognized you as a respectable young lady, or he would not have brought you to me. And if the worst rake in Brussels sees that, then you have no need to fear.’

‘He warned me he was,’ Julia said with a frown. ‘Not that I have any experience of rakes, but he did not seem so very shocking.’

Although she had been very aware of a faint, and very feminine perfume when she had taken his arm and there had been a smudge of what might have been face powder on his shoulder. And perhaps the tiny red mark on his cheek was rouge and not a shaving nick. There had been dark shadows under those beautiful blue eyes: it was beginning to dawn on her that the gallant major had probably come straight from a woman’s bed to join his friends in the Parc.

‘Charm is a rake’s stock in trade. He did not flirt with you?’ Lady Geraldine appeared surprised.

‘I don’t think so, ma’am.’

‘Extraordinary.’

Julia told herself that her good opinion of Major Carlow would have suffered if he had flirted, but she had the uncomfortable suspicion that she might have enjoyed it. No-one had ever flirted with her, and the fact that such a notorious rake had not attempted it was disappointing. Unflattering, even. From a purely academic point of view, it would have been interesting to see what all the fuss was about.

‘May I have your direction, my dear?’

Julia jerked her wandering attention back from Major Carlow and opened her reticule. ‘Mama’s card, ma’am.’ Lady Geraldine was hardly likely to call on the Tresilians, although Mama would want to write and thank her for her help.

‘A good address,’ Lady Geraldine observed.

‘I know. We were lucky to arrive before the rush.’

‘Indeed you were. After all, the Richmonds have had to settle for that barn of a place on Rue de la Blanchisserie in the Lower Town.’ Something in her ladyship’s smile hinted that she was not over-fond of the Duchess of Richmond. ‘When does Mrs Tresilian receive?’

Goodness, she did intend to call! ‘Between two and four on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, ma’am.’ But their usual callers were modestly circumstanced people such as themselves, not Society ladies. ‘Thank you for the tea, and for lending me countenance, Lady Geraldine. I must take Philip home.’ Julia gathered up her reticule and her scattered wits and shook the proffered hand in its tight kid glove.

‘Will we meet the major again?’ Phillip demanded, as they left the Parc and negotiated the crowd outside the Duke of Wellington’s house. ‘I liked him.’

So did I…‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Julia said. ‘But he had a lovely uniform: you must tell Mama all about it.’

‘And a great big sword for killing Boney with,’ Phillip said with a bloodthirsty chuckle, dancing off down the pavement swinging an imaginary weapon. Julia followed, suddenly sombre.

Chapter Two

Two days later, Lady Geraldine duly called and was received by Mrs Tresilian and Julia, Phillip having been deposited with the landlady and a litter of kittens in the kitchen.

‘My niece has just gone back to England to be married,’ Lady Geraldine observed once tea had been poured. ‘I find I miss having a young lady to go about with quite dreadfully—I have no daughter of my own, you see, and I do so enjoy the company of young people.’ Mrs Tresilian made sympathetic noises. ‘So, if you would lend Julia to me, I would be delighted to chaperone her to parties and so forth.’

‘Lend?’ Mrs Tresilian said faintly. ‘Parties?’

‘And balls: we seem to have them every night, after all. Routs, receptions, picnics. You know the sort of thing.’

‘Me?’ Julia felt she had to add something, however inane.

‘You do enjoy parties, Miss Tresilian?’

‘Yes, ma’am. But I know no-one in Society…’

‘But I do. Mrs Tresilian? I would not be depriving you?’

‘Not at all,’ Mrs Tresilian said with emphasis. ‘I live very quietly, which is so dull for Julia.’

We cannot afford to live any other way! Julia thought in alarm. Parties? Balls? Picnics? That means gowns and silk stocking and gloves and…money. What is Mama thinking of? I cannot spend like that just to enjoy myself!

Lady Geraldine stayed the regulation half hour then departed in a froth of green muslin leaving promises of invitations, a wave of chypre perfume and two astonished Tresilians behind her.

‘Mama! I have not got a thing to wear.’

‘Well, that would present an original appearance!’ her mother observed with a smile. ‘Let us make a list of what you will need. We can trim up some things with fresh ribbons, and we can look at my lace, see what can be done with that. But a ball gown is essential. A new afternoon dress, a walking dress. And something for half-dress occasions. We will make a list.’

‘But how can we afford it?’

‘It will be an investment. This is a miraculous chance, to be here just now when Brussels Society must be full of men who do not need to hang out for a rich wife. It will not be as it has been up to now, with so many people like us, here to save money. Diplomats, confidential secretaries, chaplains, officers—think of it!’ Julia did, and very improbable it seemed that any of them might be interested in her.

‘We cannot hope for a title, of course, just a comfortably circumstanced gentleman, but even so, it will be worth the effort.’ Mrs Tresilian gave a happy sigh. ‘You are a good girl, Julia, you deserve some enjoyment and the opportunity to find a husband worthy of you.’

Julia sat down on the hard horsehair sofa and tried to imagine being part of that social whirl. But it would be a huge responsibility, and a gamble. If Mama spent their precious savings on gowns, then she must find a husband. It had been so long since she had come to accept that without dowry or connections she was never likely to marry, that the idea of setting out in cold blood to find a husband was daunting.

‘You are quite right, Mama.’ Julia managed a smile. This was her duty and she must try, however diffident or awkward she felt. ‘It is a wonderful opportunity and I will do my best to attach a respectable gentleman.’ It was disconcerting to find that despite this worthy resolution, the only feature she could imagine that this unknown paragon should possess was a pair of stormy blue-grey eyes.

Hal sauntered into Lady Fanshawe’s reception on the stroke of eleven with every intention of enjoying himself and no particular scruples about how. He had spent a hard day drilling with his troop at their base near Ninove, ten miles from the city. It had meant a long gallop to get back to bathe and for his valet to insinuate his long limbs into his skin-tight dress uniform. After that, he had been ready for supper and a bottle of claret with friends in one of the little bistros that had sprung up to serve the influx of officers.

Now, refreshed and relaxed, he smiled at the prospect of an evening surrounded by beautiful, intelligent and, above all, sophisticated women. He would drink champagne, find a willing partner and arrange an assignation for later. He greeted his hostess and turned to view the throng: heated, chattering, animated with the heady mix of alcohol, gossip and sexual intrigue.

And there was a woman who might have been designed for exactly what he had in mind: Lady Horton. Her husband, as always, was nowhere to be seen. Hal strolled across, amused by the way in which she pretended she had not seen him, posing and laughing to show off face and figure to best advantage.

And what a figure, he thought appreciatively—lush, graceful and provocatively displayed in shell-pink satin silk that clung to every curve. And if she was wearing a stitch of underwear beneath it, he was a French general. Hal made himself a small bet that he would discover the truth of that by sun-up.

‘Lady Horton. Barbara—’ he lowered his voice ‘—you look edible.’

She turned, laughing up at him, every line of her body confirming the wanton message in her big brown eyes. If he wanted her, she was his.

‘Edible?’ She pouted and his body tightened as the tip of her tongue touched her full lower lip.

‘A perfect bonbon. Sweet strawberry cream encased in wicked dark chocolate,’ Hal murmured, reaching out to flick one glossy curl over her shoulder. ‘It makes me want to bite. And lick. Very slowly.’ She moved close so the scent of her skin—warm woman, musky perfume, desire—filled his nostrils.

‘How will you keep your elegant figure,’ she murmured back, reaching up to brush an imaginary fleck from the braid on his chest, ‘if you eat such naughty sweet things?’

‘I will have to exercise it off.’ Hal held her eyes. ‘Hard.’

Barbara’s lips parted and her lids drooped heavy over those insolently beautiful eyes. She adored this, lived for it—the compliments, the suggestion, the intrigue. And by reputation she was magnificent in bed: skilled, demanding and tireless. ‘We should discuss that at our leisure. You know where I live. The side door will be open,’ she said, husky promise in every syllable. ‘Until later.’

‘Later,’ he agreed, lifting her hand to kiss her fingertips. Then as he straightened up, he found his gaze captured by another pair of fine brown eyes, only these were wide, clear and, he could tell from right across the room, shocked.

Hell. Miss Tresilian, here, looking like a snowdrop in a hothouse, all simple purity against glaring colour and elaboration. And with an expression akin to a nun who had walked into a brothel. What was she doing here? His assessment of her as outside Society must have been adrift. Hal was conscious of the tingling along his nerves, a sharpening of his attention that signalled the urge to flirt, to hunt, to…No, this one was an innocent.

By his side, Lady Horton had turned to another guest. She would flit through the rooms, garnering compliments and outrageous offers, laughing and teasing, becoming heated and excited. Becoming ready for him.

Hal bowed slightly towards Miss Tresilian, and her chin went up, infinitesimally. She inclined her head and turned back to speak to the young lady at her side. A display that would not have shamed a duchess acknowledging a distant, and not very desirable acquaintance—if it were not for the fact that she had blushed like a peony.

And now he felt uncomfortable to have been under that clear-eyed scrutiny while he set up his liaison. Damn it, is she judging me? She knows what I am, I told her. The fact that he had just told himself off for wanting to pursue her made him feel irrationally indignant. He was trying to behave himself and she was giving him the cold shoulder. The urge to hunt resurfaced, and this time he did not attempt to control it.

Hal walked straight across the floor towards the chattering group of single young ladies gathered under the eyes of the seated chaperones while they waited for suitable, approved gentlemen to come over. He was not a suitable, approved gentleman of course. This could be amusing. It would certainly teach his virtuous new acquaintance not to send him disapproving looks.

‘He’s coming over,’ Miss Marriott hissed.

‘Who?’ Julia enquired, fanning herself, her shoulder turned to the room. She knew perfectly well who, and she had seen clearly the way Hal Carlow’s eyes had narrowed and his chin had come up when he had found her staring. He had not relished her scrutiny, it seemed. Well, he should not flirt like that with provocatively clad ladies in public. If flirting was the word: they had looked as though they were mentally undressing each other. She put a hand to her cheek, dismayed at her own blushes.

‘Major Carlow of course! Do you think he will talk to us? He is quite shocking you know—did you see him just now with Lady Horton? Mama will be furious if he does come over. Only he is so good looking.’ She pouted as Major Carlow was stopped by an artillery officer. ‘Oh. Anyway, even he would not talk to us without an introduction, I suppose.’

Julia had known Felicity Marriott for some time. Her father was a baronet and he and his family were visiting Belgian relatives by marriage, not living in exile to save money. Miss Marriott was used to parties of this kind, and her mother had assured Mrs Tresilian that she was more than happy to keep an eye on Julia as well as Felicity. Lady Geraldine might be kind enough to obtain invitations, but Julia must not expect her to play the chaperone the entire evening, her mother had warned.

‘I have met Major Carlow,’ she admitted. Her pulse was beating erratically; it had been from the moment she saw who it was talking to Lady Horton in her utterly indecent gown.

The conversation had been indecent too, she was certain. They had stood so close together, the eye-contact had been so intense, that Julia felt scorched by it. And he had seen her staring at him again and now he was coming over and she was probably going to sink through the floor with shame.

‘Really? How?’ Felicity broke off, simpering. Here he was. How he had got into that uniform, which was skin tight and blatantly showed off his quite excellent physique, she could not imagine. Perhaps he was sewn into it. Thinking about that made her decidedly flustered and cross with both of them. He should not wear such shockingly tight trousers and she should not notice.

‘Miss Tresilian. Miss Marriott, I believe? A charming affair, do you not think?’

‘Delightful, such fun, such lovely flowers,’ Felicity babbled, beaming at him in a way that was going to earn her a severe word from her mother later.

‘And do you think it delightful too, Miss Tresilian?’

Julia made herself meet his eyes, very blue in the candlelight. The dark smudges were still beneath them, making him look faintly dissipated. There was colour on his high cheekbones, but it was certainly not from shame or confusion. The thrill of pursuit, no doubt, although that woman had hardly needed chasing.

‘Utterly delightful, Major Carlow. But this is a rare treat for me, so my opinion is not the equal of Miss Marriott’s on the subject.’ Over his shoulder, she could see the lady he had been talking to, her pink satin gown clinging to her long limbs as she prowled around the room. ‘I have been admiring the gowns,’ she said, coming out with the first subject that came into her mind.

‘Indeed? And I am sure many will have been admiring yours, Miss Tresilian. A model of chaste simplicity, if I may say so.’ His eyes ran over it as though they could penetrate the modest neckline and the layers of petticoats.

Dull, he means. Prudish compared to the other gowns. Why even Felicity’s bodice is cut lower, and her mama is very strict. She had been pleased with the primrose silk underskirt and Mama’s idea of buying two lengths of gauze—one cream the other amber—when they saw it at a bargain price. It would be an easy task to sew alternative over-skirts onto the silk gown and give the illusion of her having a more extensive wardrobe than she did.

But chaste simplicity, when it was the result of having no money for lace or flounces, was not the fashion. Nor were home-made gowns a match for shell-pink satin. He had no need to patronise her, she thought, maintaining her expression of polite interest with some effort. Although how he managed to be both patronising and make her feel he was simultaneously undressing her, she had no idea.

‘Felicity!’ Lady Marriott swept her daughter away, leaving Julia stranded with Major Carlow. Apparently, in her haste, it did not occur to her to rescue her other charge. Julia realized she was unable to think of a single syllable of conversation to break the silence.

‘What did I say to make you poker up so?’ he enquired, placing her hand on his arm and strolling towards the buffet. Julia followed, chiding herself for being so meek. But just how did one snub a rake? ‘Have a glass of champagne, Miss Tresilian, and explain how I have offended you.’

‘You haven’t,’ Julia lied.

‘Nonsense, you were looking highly disapproving, like one of the chaperones. You must tell me or I will not let you go and ten minutes in my company is all your reputation will bear.’

‘You are outrageous,’ Julia said, alarmed, annoyed and illogically inclined to laugh.

‘I know. I did warn you.’ They halted by the buffet where footmen were pouring wine from bottles standing in long ice troughs.

‘You remarked on my gown,’ she admitted, twitching the gauze as though that would transform it into a creation from the pages of La Belle Assemblée.

‘I complimented you upon it,’ Major Carlow corrected her, handing her a flute of sparkling wine.

‘Sarcastically.’ Julia took a sip and sneezed. ‘Oh dear, I do not usually drink this.’

‘Then you must have some more and become accustomed.’ He took a bottle and topped up both their glasses. ‘You thought me sarcastic? I meant nothing but honest admiration. That style suits you.’

‘It would seem that your appreciation of gowns encompasses a wide range of styles, Major Carlow.’ Julia glanced down at her wine glass in alarm. It was empty, which could be the only excuse for such a remark. He was silent. Julia risked a glance up through her lashes. He was smiling, although whether that made it better or worse she had no idea.

‘Horses for courses, Miss Tresilian. Or in this case, gowns to suit personalities. You represent virtue most charmingly. Another lady may better represent…freedom.’ He reached for her wine glass; she held tight to it, but his fingers lingered.

‘Even when that lady is married?’ she asked, suddenly reckless, goaded by his touch. And jealous, she realized, appalled at herself. Which was insanity. The other day this man had yielded to a gallant impulse and saved her from annoyance. That did not change the fact that he was nothing but trouble for any virtuous woman. He was probably deliberately provoking her.

Major Carlow shrugged, still amused. Presumably cross and indiscreet virgins were an entertaining novelty for him. ‘If her husband does not build good fences, he must expect poachers in his coverts.’

‘Really, Major! Ladies are not game birds for you to bag,’ she snapped.

‘I am sorry to disillusion you, Miss Tresilian, but for some, it is always open season.’

‘Well, I am sorry for you then,’ she declared roundly. ‘For when you are married, you will have to spend all your time building your own fences and worrying about poachers. Poor woman,’ she added with feeling.

‘But I have no intention of marrying, Miss Tresilian. I have an elder brother already doing his duty by the family name, so your sympathy for my imaginary bride is quite unnecessary.’

‘I am certain she would do you a great deal of good.’ For a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of bitterness in the mocking eyes.

Julia found she wanted to cry. Here she was at her very first ton party and not one of the respectable men of easy circumstances her mother dreamed of had exchanged so much as a sentence with her. And what was she doing? Bandying words with Hal Carlow, who was the last man in Brussels she should be seen with. No-one respectable was going to talk to her now, and she had lowered herself to discuss quite shocking subjects with him.

‘You disappoint me, Miss Tresilian.’ And indeed, the amusement had gone from his eyes and there was a distinct hint of storm clouds back again. ‘I did not think you one of those ladies who believes that all rakes are capable of redemption and that it is their duty to try to accomplish that.’

‘Redeem you?’ Did he mean what she thought he meant: that she expected him to fall for her? That she wanted to reform his wicked ways, to have him run tame at her command? ‘You, Major Carlow, may drink yourself under the table, fall off horses and break your limbs, gamble until your pockets are to let and dally with married ladies until an enraged husband shoots you, for all I care.’ She thrust her wine glass back into his hand. ‘And, should you survive all that, I will pity you, because you will end up a lonely man, realizing just how empty your rakehell life is.’

That was a magnificent parting line, she told herself, sweeping round and stalking off without the slightest idea where she was going. It would have been rather more effective without the crack of laughter from behind her.

The reception room had been thrown open into a gallery running the length of the rear of the house with views south out over the ramparts towards the Fôret de Soignes. Now, late at night, a few lights twinkled from amidst the dark blanket of trees.

‘A splendid position, is it not?’ a voice beside her asked. ‘Of course, it is not good for security. The Capel household were burgled the other day by rogues with a ladder from the ramparts.’

‘Oh, how unfortunate.’ Julia pulled herself together and turned to find a sombrely dressed man of medium height and with mouse-brown hair standing at her side. ‘But the walks on the ramparts are very charming unless it is windy.’

‘I beg your pardon for addressing you without an introduction,’ the man continued. ‘Only there seem to be none of the chaperones within sight, and it does seem so awkward, standing here pretending we cannot see each other. I should leave.’

‘I am sure we can pretend we have been introduced,’ Julia said. How refreshing, a respectable gentleman who was worried about polite form. ‘I am Julia Tresilian.’

‘Thomas Smyth.’ He bowed, Julia inclined her head. ‘Are you a resident of Brussels, Miss Tresilian?’

‘My mother and I have been here for some months, Mr Smyth.’

‘A charming city. I am touring and had hoped to visit Paris, but that is out of the question now. I shall have to return home without that treat, I fear.’

‘Wellington will defeat Bonaparte,’ Julia said, mentally crossing her fingers, ‘and then you may return.’

‘I doubt I will be at liberty. In August, I take up a living in a parish in Suffolk.’ As Mr Smyth turned to face her, she saw he had calm hazel eyes and nondescript features. With his unassuming manner, he exuded a feeling of tranquil commonsense.

‘You are a clergyman, sir?’

‘A most fortunate one. I was a scholar, with little hope of advancement, then my godfather secured me the patronage of an old friend of his and I find myself with the most delightful country parish. It will be lonely at first, I have no doubt, to be a bachelor rattling around in a large vicarage.’

Julia murmured something polite, her mind racing. Was Mr Smyth, on the strength of two minutes’ conversation, telling her that he was available? Surely not.

‘Perhaps, if I were to find your chaperone, we could be properly introduced?’ he asked. ‘I have hired a horse and curricle for the duration of my stay: you might care to take a drive one afternoon?’

He is! Oh my goodness, one party and I have already met a respectable gentleman who is interested in me! Mama will be so pleased.

‘That would be most pleasant,’ she said, smiling. ‘Thank you. Lady Geraldine Masters or, if she is not free, Lady Marriott.’

She watched his well-tailored back as he left the gallery, contrasting his restrained neatness with a certain flamboyant gentleman. There was no comparison, of course, and no doubt which a respectable young lady of modest means should be associating with, she thought with a certain wistfulness.

Chapter Three

Hal had the reputation of never losing his temper. It was a valuable characteristic, whether on a battlefield, in a gaming hell or looking down the barrel of a duelling pistol. He reminded himself of it, while his friends ragged him about his assignation with Mrs Horton.

‘So you can’t describe her boudoir?’ Captain Grey said, pushing the bottle across the table to Jameson.

The major caught it as it rocked perilously. ‘Too caught up in the toils of passion to notice, old chap?’

‘You must recall something,’ Will wheedled. ‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Carlow. Mirrors on the ceiling? Silken drapes? Golden cords? A bath with swan-headed taps?’

‘I cannot describe it, because I have not been in it,’ Hal said, taking a swig of claret.

‘What?’ The captain’s chair legs hit the ground with a thump. ‘But we saw you, last night. Damn it, the way you were looking at each other, you might as well have called the town crier in to announce what you’d be doing later.’

‘I changed my mind.’ Hal stretched out and took hold of the bottle, just as Major Jameson reached for it again.

‘You changed your mind? Bloody hell.’ Grey stared at him. ‘Are you sickening for something?’

‘No. Are we going to the Literary Institute, or not?’

‘We’re not moving until we hear why you didn’t stagger out of the luscious Barbara’s bedroom, weak at the knees after a night of passion,’ Jameson said, obviously fascinated. ‘Cards can wait.’

‘I never stagger weak at the knees after a night of passion,’ Hal said. ‘I stride. Last night I changed my mind and, no, I do not intend telling you why.’

‘My God,’ said Grey, awed. ‘She’ll be hissing like a cat this morning.’

‘You are welcome to go and try putting butter on her paws, if you like,’ Hal suggested, making his friend blush and grin. ‘But naturally, I sent a note of apology.’

‘Citing what reason, exactly?’

‘Pressing military duties.’

They subsided, agreeing that even Lady Horton would be placated by such an irrefutable excuse under the present circumstances. Lieutenant Hayden, silent up to this point while he demolished the remains of the fruit tart and cream, looked up, his chubby face serious. ‘Turning over a new leaf, Carlow? New Year’s resolution or something?’ The others laughed at him, but he just grinned amiably. ‘I know, it’s May. Thought you might be getting into fighting trim—early nights, clean living.’ He sighed. ‘It’ll be the betting next and then we’ll all be in the suds. How will we know what to back if you give it up?’

‘I am not giving up gambling or betting and I am not giving up women,’ Hal said, trying to ignore the strange sensation inside his chest. It felt unpleasantly like apprehension. Or the threat of coming change.

He had watched Julia Tresilian walk away from him in her modest little home-made gown, her nose in the air, her words ringing in his ears, and he had laughed. It was funny, it genuinely was, that a notorious rake should give his head for a washing by a prim nobody who had about as much clue about the things she was lecturing him on as the canary in a spinster’s parlour.

And then he saw her cross diagonally in front of Barbara Horton and felt suddenly as though he had eaten too much rich dessert: faintly queasy and with no inclination to dip his spoon in the dish for another mouthful. What he wanted was a draught of sharp, honest lemonade.

He wanted Miss Julia Tresilian. As he stood there staring blindly at the chattering crowd, it hit him like a thunderbolt. He wanted Julia Tresilian.

It was impossible. It had sent him back to the hotel last night with his head spinning, and it woke him up at hourly intervals all night with waves of panic flooding through him. He was losing his mind, he told himself at breakfast, washing mouthfuls of dry toast down with cup after cup of strong black coffee. He never spent nights tossing and turning—not before battle, not before a duel. He, Hal Carlow, did not lose sleep over some prudish little chit.

She was an innocent, respectable young woman. A gentleman did not toy with such a woman—not unless he meant marriage. Hal did not want to marry, and he most certainly could not marry a girl like that. Not with his reputation, all of which had been hard-earned and was entirely justified.

He was not fit to touch her hand, he knew that. She might be almost on the shelf, she might be dowerless and of no particular family. But decency and integrity shone out of those expressive brown eyes and all he had was his honour as a gentleman—and that was telling him to run a mile before he touched her, physically or emotionally.

Hal drained his glass. If he had fallen in love with her, he could understand it. But he had not. He hardly knew the girl. Men he knew who had fallen in love mooned about writing poetry, or lost weight, or likened their beloved to a moonbeam or a zephyr.

Not his brother Marcus, of course, Marcus had spent most of his courtship in a state of violent antagonism to Nell, but they were obviously the exception. Marcus was the sort of virtuous son and heir who did things properly, took his pleasures discreetly and then settled down, married and produced heirs. But a second son did not have that obligation, although that did not stop family disapproval when he acted on his freedom.

Hal shrugged away memories of tight-lipped arguments, sighs and youthful disgrace. He wasn’t a youth any more, he didn’t feel like mooning, he couldn’t think of a line of poetry, and Julia was neither a moonbeam nor a zephyr. She was innocent, sharp-tongued, painfully honest, intelligent and pleasant to look at. He was not in lust either. In fact he shocked himself even thinking about physical passion in the same sentence as Julia’s name. And he could not recall the last time he had shocked himself. And yet, he wanted her. Ached for her.

This is a passing infatuation, an inner voice lectured him, or you’ve been overdoing things. Just keep out of her way and you’ll get over it.

‘Right.’ He grounded the empty bottle with a thump. ‘The Literary Institute it is.’

The eminently respectable Institute was where the gentlemen of the British community retreated daily to use the library, write their letters, read the London papers and argue about the best way to deal with Napoleon.

It was also a front for a gaming hell. How their sharp-nosed wives had not discovered this was a mystery to Hal. Men whom he knew were living in Brussels on the economic plan, necessitated by excessive gaming, could be found cheerfully losing hundreds of pounds a night, often to him. It just went to prove, he thought, handing his cloak, hat and sabre to the attendant, that men were incapable of reform, whatever women believed.

‘I’ll see you down there, just need to look something up,’ he called, turning into the library as they clattered off down the stairs into the candlelit fug of the gaming rooms. The Landed Gentry was on the shelves and he began to thumb through until he found Tresilian.

Here they were: her father David, younger brother of the present baronet. Hal cross-checked Sir Alfred Tresilian, Bt. A modest marriage, a quiverful of children, so presumably uncle had no great resources himself. David had married Amelia Henry, there were two children—Julia Claire and Phillip David—and he was marked as deceased 1810.

What had that achieved? Hal asked himself, as he walked into the card room and chose a table. Nothing, except to feed this ridiculous obsession.

Julia had been correct about her mother’s reaction to the Reverend Mr Smyth. After checking with the vicar of the English church in Brussels she pronounced him eminently suitable. ‘Not that we must put all our eggs in one basket,’ she warned Julia. ‘There is nothing wrong with meeting more eligible gentlemen.’

‘No, Mama,’ Julia agreed. She allowed herself the pleasure of a ride in Mr Smyth’s smart curricle and then, in the space of three days, was gratified by introductions to Mr Fordyce, the confidential secretary to Lord Ellsworth, a diplomat dealing with British relations for the new King of the Netherlands, and Colonel Williams, a widower in his forties with a fifteen-year-old daughter. She attended a small dance, a musicale and a charity luncheon.

At none of these events did she see Major Carlow, which was, of course, a relief. At frequent intervals she recalled the way she had spoken to him and his laughter as she had stalked off, and her cheeks burned afresh. Frequently she saw the blue uniform of the Light Dragoons amongst the scarlet and the green of other regiments and her heart would behave oddly for a beat: but it was never Hal.

She did see Major Fellowes at the musicale, and whispered to Lady Geraldine that the slimy dragon was there. Her ladyship kept her close and raised her eyeglass when she saw him watching. His retreat was highly gratifying.

Julia was becoming accustomed to her new life. In the course of one week her world had been turned on its head and she felt as she had after that glass of champagne: slightly dizzy and surprisingly confident. Mrs Tresilian, receiving every detail with great interest, was delighted.

On the last Saturday in May Julia got up early, dressed in one of her new gowns, picked at her breakfast and then fidgeted, waiting to be collected for an all-day picnic in the Fôret de Soignes.

It was the most talked-about event for weeks and now, as she looked out at a cloudless sky, she could hardly believe she was attending. Her gown was more than suitable, thank goodness. Madame Gervais, the elegant modiste that Mama had discovered in the Lower Town, had shown them the illustration in the Journal des Dames et des Modes.

‘The hat composed of white and lilac satin,’ Julia had translated from the French. ‘Ornamented with bows of ribbon and a cluster of flowers. Robe de satin lilas…lilac satin—I suppose I had better have muslin—trimmed entirely round the bosom and at the bottom with a large quilling of blonde lace. Gloves, pale tan, shoes of lilac kid.’ She studied the drawing. ‘I like the way the hat brim turns up and the detail of the sleeve.’

And now she was tying the thick, smooth ribbons under her chin while Mama fluffed up the sleeves and the specially dyed lilac kid slippers peeped out from under the blonde lace—not quite as lavishly applied as in the illustration, but a positive snip at three shillings and six pence the yard. Would Major Carlow think this gown a model of chaste simplicity? But he was unlikely to be at something as staid as a picnic, she supposed.

‘Now, be sure not sit down on the ground until the blankets are spread,’ Mrs Tresilian fussed. ‘I do not know what it is about picnics, but the most tidy young ladies always come back looking complete romps.’ She frowned. ‘And I worry a little about it being in the woods—do not go wandering off alone, dearest, or with a gentleman, even Mr Smyth.’

‘Why not?’ Phillip enquired. He was watching all this early morning prinking with close attention. ‘What’s in the woods?’

‘Er…wolves,’ Julia explained, earning a chuckle from her mother and sending Phillip off on a new game of Hunt the Wolf that the landlady’s kittens found highly entertaining.

Lady Geraldine’s barouche arrived on the stroke of nine. Mr Masters had gratified his wife by accompanying her, and they had already taken up Miss Marriott, a picture in lemon muslin and scalloped lace with a cottager hat trimmed with artificial primroses.

Felicity chattered; Julia simply sat drinking it all in. Around them, the cream of Brussels Society streamed out through the Namur Gate on the road south through the forest to Ixcelles and its lake, the site of the picnic. Mr Smyth waved from his curricle, a friend beside him. She saw groups of officers on horseback and numerous carriages like their own. This was going to be a picnic on an epic scale and someone had organised it with military precision.

‘Miss Tresilian?’ Mr Masters was looking at her in concern. ‘Are you chilled? You shivered.’

‘No, sir, thank you. I am not cold. A goose just walked over my grave,’ she said with a smile. It would not do to spoil everyone else’s enjoyment with foolish premonitions. But the sight of all those brave scarlet coats, the sound of masculine laughter and shouts, the clatter of hooves and the rumble of wheels reminded her vividly of why all these men were here. Soon, within weeks perhaps, troops would be streaming south out of this gate, down towards the French border. Towards war.

But no-one spoke of it in so many words. Not of the death and destruction to come, only of the politics, the tactics, as though they all just happened to be gathered in Brussels as an extension of the Congress in Vienna. And the balls and the parties must go on and everyone must pretend—on the surface at least—that the storm was not coming.

Her nerves were still jumping when they reached the picnic site on a rise of ground overlooking the lake. Tents had been set out for refreshments, for sitting in the shade, for the ladies to retire to. The band of the 52nd Foot played by kind permission of its colonel. It was, Lady Geraldine remarked, as though a Hyde Park review had been dropped into the midst of a garden party.

Mr Smyth was there to help her down from the barouche, Colonel Williams strolled past with his daughter and stopped to talk, his eyes appreciative when he looked at her, and then both gentlemen were cut out by Mr Fordyce who swept her off to the breakfast tent with the aplomb of the seasoned diplomat.

It was all very glamorous and rather unreal. Her gloomy visions of battles evaporated in the face of sunshine and tables with floral arrangements and Charles Fordyce fetching her hot chocolate and tiny pastries.

Only Julia could not be easy. Someone was watching her. She could feel it like the touch of a finger on her spine, the merest pressure. She scanned the sweep of meadow in front of her, but everyone was sitting or strolling and not paying her the slightest attention. She shifted in her seat and looked into the refreshment tent. But there were only bustling waiters and assiduous gentlemen fetching laden plates of delicacies for their parties.

‘The woods are so pretty.’ She turned in the other direction, hoping Mr Fordyce would not think her both fidgety and inane—and there he was. Major Carlow leaned against the trunk of a beech tree on the edge of the wood, his eyes steady on her.

Julia turned back, her pulse spiking all over the place, and picked up her cup. ‘Is Lord Ellsworth at the picnic?’ she enquired, almost at random. He is here, she thought, realizing how much she had secretly hoped he would be. And she had sensed him, had felt that sultry gaze on her. What did it mean, that she was so aware of him?

‘His lordship is afflicted with the gout. He bit my head off when I brought in his post, then relented and told me he did not want to see my face again until tomorrow and I should go and fritter the day away. I was not, he informed me, to give a thought to him, alone, in pain and having to manage without his secretary.’

‘Thus ensuring you felt thoroughly guilty?’ Julia said sympathetically. She had learned that Charles Fordyce was set on a political career and his post with Lord Ellsworth was considered to be a useful first step. It sounded a very trying position.

‘I soon learned not to take any notice of his megrims,’ Charles said cheerfully. ‘He will be fine once his gout subsides.’

Julia set herself to make conversation. It should be very pleasant in the sunshine, nibbling cinnamon curls and listening to the band. Only, the touch of Hal Carlow’s regard did not leave her and she had to fight the urge to turn round and stare back. Her stomach tightened with nerves, not unpleasantly. She could feel her colour rising and her pulse quickening at the thought of another exchange of words with him. Why was he watching her? Surely not to give her the opportunity to throw any more ill-considered and outrageous remarks at his head?

With the last crumb consumed, Charles Fordyce stood. ‘Shall we stroll down to the lake, Miss Tresilian?’

Julia opened her new parasol and took his arm. It gave her the chance to look up towards the trees, but the lean figure in blue had gone. Had she imagined him?

Julia made herself attend to the man with whom she was walking. He was pleasant, intelligent, cheerful and well-connected and although Mama thought his current circumstances not as comfortable as Mr Smyth’s, Julia found him better company. But it was a very cool and calculating matter, this husband-hunting, she decided, thinking of the little rituals, the formal games, the pretences that one was expected to go through on the route to the altar.

What did the men make of it? Or perhaps they did not mind very much, provided their bride brought what they required to the match, whether it was connections, or breeding or money. Or, in my case, Julia thought, waving to Mr Smyth and his friend, none of the first, a touch of the second, none of the third but an unblemished reputation to sweeten the bargain if a gentleman is attracted enough to overlook what was lacking. Falling in love was out of the question. Respectable couples only did that in novels and a realistic young lady did not think of it.

‘Mr Fordyce!’ A lady was gesturing imperiously.

‘Oh lord,’ he muttered. ‘Lord Ellsworth’s sister, Lady Margery.’

‘You must go and speak to her, of course.’ It would not do for him to antagonise his employer’s relative. ‘Look, there is Miss Marriott, feeding the ducks. I will join her.’

‘Bless you. Lady M will want a blow by blow account of the gout and what medicines he is taking.’ Charles rolled his eyes and strode off. ‘Ma’am?’

Underfoot, something squelched. Julia looked down and saw the ground was marshy. For the first time she realized that Felicity was standing on a low wooden jetty; to join her she would have to go up the slope to the path. She reached the fringe of the wood and rested a hand on a tree to look at her new kid slippers.

‘Botheration!’ There were traces of mud along the sides and the ladies’ retiring tent with its attendant maids was right across the far side of the site. By the time she got there the moisture could have soaked in, taking the dirt with it.

But she could hardly remove her shoes here, baring her stockinged feet in full view: only the fastest young lady would do such a thing. Julia slipped between the trees and into the wood. It did not take long to be completely out of sight of the open meadow, although the music was still clearly audible. The trees parted onto a sunlit glade with not only a fallen tree to sit upon but soft long grass to wipe her shoes with.

Julia perched on the trunk and untied the ribbons around her ankles, slipped off the shoes and regarded them critically. The water had not soaked through and a careful dab with the grass took off the mud almost entirely. A careful wash with soapwort when she got home and they would be as good as new.

She wriggled her stockinged toes and leaned back, staring up through the leaves to the cloudless sky above. This was perfectly lovely. She must persuade Mama to hire a gig one day and they could bring Phillip for a picnic by the lake.

‘Why, Julia! Tying your garter in public? How very dashing of you.’ Major Fellowes strolled out of the trees, an almost lurid figure in his scarlet uniform against the fresh greens.

‘I am wiping my shoes,’ she said coldly. There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. She was only yards from a crowd of people. ‘And a gentleman would leave me in privacy.’

‘Let me tie up your ribbons for you,’ he said, his voice suggestively husky. ‘Or untie some others.’

But of course, as he very well knew, she might be within yards of safety but if she ran she was going to burst out of the woods, barefoot and dishevelled—and he had only to let his vivid uniform be glimpsed through the trees for it to appear that she had been involved in a most disreputable tryst.

Julia jammed her feet into the slippers, tying the ribbons with a hasty knot. ‘Go away.’ She got to her feet, the fallen tree trunk massive behind her: no escape that way. She began to edge around the glade, but he was faster. With two long strides he had her, his hand fastening around her wrist to jerk her to him. Julia landed with a thump against his very solid chest, the braid and buttons of his uniform imprinting themselves painfully through spencer, gown and camisole.

‘Now then, stop being difficult—’ Fellowes wrapped his left arm around her, imprisoning her as she struggled to lift her free hand.

‘Stop it!’ Julia ducked her head to find some bare skin to bite. She wouldn’t win, she knew that, he was too big and too strong, but if she could just get him off balance she might have a chance to run.

‘Let her go.’ The words dropped into the still air of the clearing like three strokes on a bell. Hal.

Chapter Four

‘You are developing a bad habit of spoiling my fun, Carlow.’ Fellowes did not release her, but against her breast Julia felt his heartbeat quicken. He was not as unmoved as his drawl might suggest.

‘I do not think Miss Tresilian shares your idea of fun.’ Hal was behind her, but she could hear from his voice that he was coming closer. ‘Let her go.’

‘I don’t come interfering with your bits of muslin, Carlow, though by all accounts, the town is littered with them. I suggest you leave mine alone and get back to that opera dancer you’re chasing.’

‘Oh dear.’ Hal sounded vaguely regretful. By tipping her head back Julia could see Fellowes’s jaw clench. He was no more fooled by the mild tone than she was. He began to edge backwards, keeping her between himself and the other man.

‘You know,’ Hal continued, close now, ‘I was ready to settle this with just your grovelling apology to Miss Tresilian and your word that you would not trouble her again. But now I am going to have to hurt you.’ Fellowes went very still. ‘Of course, if I am to do that, you will have to let Miss Tresilian go and stop skulking behind her like a coward. But perhaps you are that, as well as being no gentleman?’

‘Be damned to you, Carlow.’ Fellowes spun Julia round and pushed her towards Hal. For the second time, she landed painfully against braid, buttons and solid man, but this time it took an effort of will not to cling on for dear life.

‘Miss Tresilian, are you unhurt?’

Except for frogging imprinted all over my bosom, she thought wildly. ‘Yes, thank you, Major.’

‘If you would care to sit on the fallen tree, ma’am? Just while I deal with this—’ He waved a hand towards the other officer.

‘Of course. Thank you.’ Julia suppressed the urge to curtsey—Hal’s manner was better suited to the ballroom than to a brawl in a woodland glade—and retreated to the log. ‘You won’t kill him, will you?’

‘I would remind you, sir, that duelling between serving officers is forbidden,’ Fellowes cut in.

Julia sat down and tried to tug her clothing into order while keeping her eyes riveted on Hal. Fellowes was right. If Hal fought a duel he could be in serious trouble with the military authorities. If he assaulted a fellow officer without the benefit of a duel’s formalities and killed him, then things would be even worse.

‘He is a blackguard,’ she said, controlling the shake in her voice. ‘But Wellington will not thank you for killing any officer of his just now.’

‘Exactly,’ Fellowes blustered.

‘Thank you both for your flattering, and quite accurate, assumption that I would best Major Fellowes,’ Hal remarked, and despite everything, Julia felt her lips curve at the arrogance in his voice. ‘What would you like me to do with him, Miss Tresilian?’

A well-bred lady should have fainted by now. Or, if conscious, she might say, in a forgiving and dignified manner, Send him on his way with a warning. Julia smoothed down her skirt, straightened her bonnet and said, ‘Hit him, please.’

‘With pleasure.’ Hal took two long strides, doubled his right fist and hit Major Fellowes squarely on the point of the jaw. The taller man went down on his back, scrambled to his feet and launched himself at Hal, meeting a solid left hook that threw him back against a tree. Hal closed in, hit him in the stomach, took a blow to the side of the head, countered with another left, and Fellowes slid ungracefully to the ground, legs sprawling.

Hal took him by the lapels, hauled him to his feet and gave him a push that sent him staggering out of the clearing. ‘And if I ever find you have been bothering Miss Tresilian again, I really will hurt you.’

He turned back to her, blowing on his grazed knuckles. ‘Are you all right?’

There did not appear to be much breath left in her lungs. Julia collected what little she could find. ‘Yes. Thank you. I feel a little…odd.’ He frowned, as he came towards her. ‘He didn’t hurt me; I am just not used to violence.’

‘You did say to hit him,’ Hal pointed out, not unreasonably. ‘Running him through would have been—’

‘Messier,’ she finished faintly, then got a grip on herself. ‘Thank you, Major Carlow. That is the second time you have rescued me from Major Fellowes. You must think I have been encouraging him, but really, I have not.’

‘I know.’ He stopped, perhaps six feet from her, and grinned. Her stomach swooped in a most disconcerting manner. Really, the wretched man had far too much charm to be allowed out. As for the effect on her of the way he had dealt with Fellowes—that was too shamefully primitive to contemplate. ‘But I am surprised you didn’t give him a lecture on his morals. It worked with me,’ he continued, managing to look penitent.

Julia bit back a gurgle of laughter. It was the shock, it was making her positively hysterical. ‘Indeed, Major Carlow? Are you telling me that you have reformed?’

‘I am working on the gaming, ineffectually so far I am afraid, and I am not making much progress with the fighting or the drinking either, but otherwise, yes, I am completely reformed.’ He looked convincingly serious.

‘Gaming, fighting, drinking—what does that leave?’ Julia asked and then realized: women! Opera dancers. Lady Horton. ‘Oh! Major Carlow, you should not mention such things to me!’ As if he is going to give up womanising because I do not approve!

‘I very carefully did not,’ he said, his lips twitching in the way that made her want to smile back. ‘I am afraid you have just revealed a surprising indelicacy of mind, Miss Tresilian.’

‘You—’ Julia bit back the words, seeing the wickedness in the blue-grey eyes. ‘I know what you are doing: you are teasing me to take my mind off Fellowes.’

‘Did it work?’

‘Admirably,’ she acknowledged. ‘Do I look respectable enough to go back to the meadow?’

‘Yes.’ He studied her, frowning. ‘Although one of the flowers in your bonnet has come unpinned. I can fix it well enough for you to get to the retiring tent.’

‘Thank you.’ Julia got up and took a step towards him, rather too hastily she realized as her feet tangled in her trailing shoe ties. ‘Ah!’ She pitched forward and was neatly caught. Hal did not seem inclined to release her, and she found she had no will to step away either. ‘Major, I have to say that, however magnificent officers’ uniforms are, they are not comfortable if one is propelled into them…’

Her voice trailed off. Hal was looking down at her, all the laughter gone from his eyes. And all the blue, too. Stormy grey stared down into her wide gaze and her breath caught up as though in that storm. His hands curled lightly around her upper arms, holding her away from his chest where she had landed, but not so far that she could not see the pulse beating hard in his throat above the rigid neck cloth or the way his lips had parted fractionally.

He is going to kiss me, she realized, heart pounding. Her first kiss. She had imagined it would be a chaste and respectful salute by a gentleman who, once they were betrothed, would only commit such an intimacy in the presence of a chaperone.

Only Hal’s kisses would not be chaste, or respectful or subject to the dictates of a chaperone. His would be exciting and dangerous and she had no vocabulary to even fantasize about them. But she wanted them. Mouth dry, Julia stared back into the troubled, stormy eyes above her and became very still, waiting.

Julia was waiting for him to kiss her. Hal could see it in her wide, trusting eyes, in the softly parted lips, in the way her breathing had become faster as he held her. Had she ever been kissed before? Kissed, as a man like him would kiss her? Of course not. And he wanted to take that first kiss, that first taste of innocence. He wanted to mould her lips with his, to open them and explore with his tongue, plunder the sweet, moist secrets of her mouth. Taste her, teach her his taste. Teach her to know his body and her own.

Wanted? Hell, he needed to kiss her, ached to do it. He was iron-hard with arousal as he stood there.

She would let him because, madly, she seemed to trust him, despite his warnings, despite what she must have heard about him. She would let him kiss her, because she had no idea what it would be like or what fire she would be playing with. She thought kisses were sweetly romantic, that one brush of the lips was all that would be exchanged here.

He stared down at the heart-shaped face, the absurdly determined little chin, the tip-tilted nose, the intelligent eyes, all shadowed by the upturned brim of that fancy new hat. She was his to take. She was all he wanted. And he had no idea why.

Hell, why not? He had always felt denying temptation was over-rated. He wanted her, she wanted him—and afterwards, he would be cured of this ridiculous desire. Hal swallowed. It wasn’t like that with Julia; he couldn’t be that calculating, it was wrong…

But if he kissed her, made love to her skilfully so he did not alarm her, if he was careful and made certain she wanted him as much as he wanted her—was that so very wrong?

As though of their own volition, his hands came up to untie the thick silk of the bonnet ribbons, slithering like a warm caress over the backs of his hands. He tossed the hat aside, and her eyes widened so he could see his own reflection in them, but she made no sound of protest, only parted those soft, infinitely tempting lips in a little gasp.

Hal bent his head and skimmed his lips over her temple, feathering the delicate skin with tiny kisses. Julia tipped her head like a cat, and he moved lower, down her cheek, nipping lightly at the earlobe. She caught her breath, and he stopped, waiting for her to accept the different sensation. It was intriguing to discover her untutored responses, to lead with an inexperienced partner and not to expect her to reciprocate.

His fingers moved up to cup her head and encountered pins. One by one, he pulled them free and her hair came down, transforming her into the image of a wood nymph in the green glade.

‘Ah yes,’ Hal murmured and bent to kiss her. Her mouth was so sweet, tasting blamelessly of sugar and spice and lemonade. She smelled so fresh, so good, and, when he pulled her to him she came with a yielding that part of his mind, the part that was quite deliberately using all his skill to seduce her, recognized as innocence.

How long was it since he had tasted innocence? He recoiled from the memory of youthful passion, of naïve intentions made to seem impure and wrong. He wanted that purity again, even though all he could bring to it was the soiled expertise of experience.

Under his, her lips softened, parted without resistance when he probed with his tongue, feeling the sensual delight overwhelm his lingering scruples. Ah yes. Her response was total and trusting; it told him he could move further, and, when he slid one hand to her breast, rubbed his palm against it as if by accident, he felt the nipple peaking, rising for him.

Julia could hear her own voice, even though words were beyond her. She had expected Hal to kiss her on the mouth, and he had. But he seemed as fascinated by her throat, her ears, her cheek, her temple…‘Aah,’ she whispered as his lips found the swell of her breasts above the froth of lace.

She wanted to pull him back to her mouth, which ought to feel safer than these mysterious sensations that were sending shivers down her spine, making her breasts ache, creating that strange sensation in the pit of her stomach and the embarrassing heat where her thighs…She couldn’t think about it, only feel.

Julia lifted her hands and ran them into the thick gold-brown hair, tugging gently until he lifted his head, his eyes bright and intent. ‘What do you want?’ he asked, his voice husky.

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I want something and I don’t know what it is.’

‘We will find it,’ Hal promised, capturing her mouth again, one hand cupping her breast, the thumb stroking through the flimsy fabric, tormenting the hard nub. It would take very little, he thought hazily, to bring her to the peak, to tip her into ecstasy, to give her pleasure and be satisfied with that himself. But his usual control seemed to be slipping, his breathing was all over the place, and it was an effort not to crush her to him, grind his hips against her yielding body. She smelled so sweet, felt so soft, yielded so passionately.

He was drowning in her as much as she in him, swept away by emotions he had had not felt in years. He had to have her, he realized, his sophisticated control shattered.

There was fabric and fastenings between him and his goal now. Without lifting his mouth, Hal went to his knees, taking Julia with him, down into the long, soft grass spangled with flowers, their scent as innocent as she was. Then he was stretched above her, his fingers finding their own wicked way around buttons and tapes; she quivered as they brushed her skin.

His booted feet shifted, crushing the lush grass, filling the air around them with the smell of it, bringing with it a swirl of memories and emotions long buried. Confused, Hal opened his eyes. The sunlight through the branches sifted shadows over her spread hair, and he was shaken out of the present, back to another wood, another time—with a girl as innocent and sweetly generous as Julia.

The suppressed memory surged back: shouting and discovery and a rural idyll exposed as adolescent desire that had got out of hand. Whoreson rakehell…The voices filled his head, stabbed at his conscience, killed his desire.

Hal rolled away from Julia and sat up, raking his hands through his hair, breathing hard through clenched teeth. Damn it, he had learned expertise and with it, control, so that a whoreson rakehell he might be, but he was a skilful one, utterly in command of himself. So command yourself now.

‘I am sorry.’ He made himself look at Julia as she sat up, her mouth swollen with his kisses, her eyes wide and confused by his assault on her senses and his withdrawal. ‘Did I hurt you? I’m as bad as he is. Hell…’

‘No,’ she said, her hands fumbling blindly with the bodice of her gown. ‘No. You would have stopped if I had asked you, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Please God that is true. He rested his head on his knees for a moment, fighting the dread that he might not have listened. ‘I’m sorry, I warned you what I am, but I should not expect you to understand.’

Julia was silent. He made himself look at her and found she had fastened her gown and was standing up, brushing at her skirts, her hair still tumbled around her shoulders. Just the sight of it sent a spear of lust through his groin. Hal got to his feet and went to pick up her bonnet, holding it while she twisted her hair up, fixing it with the pins that remained, then trapping it under the hat.

‘No, I do not understand,’ she murmured at last. ‘I

do not understand what I felt just now, why I…when I know I should not.’

He had no answers for her, no excuses. ‘If you take that path there, you will find you come out very close to the tents.’ Hal pointed back to the way he had entered the clearing, just wanting her gone, safe, away from him.

He made himself stand still while she smiled a little uncertainly and walked away, vanishing in seconds into the green foliage. Then he went to sit on the tree trunk, clasped his hands, leaned his forearms on his thighs and stared at the crushed grass. He must stay away from her. There were a number of perfectly pleasant men—worthy men, he had no doubt—who were taking a respectable interest in her. She would marry one of them. And then she would be safe from men like Fellowes. Men like himself.

There was a small scrap of blonde lace lying by his boot. Hal bent and picked it up, smoothing it between his fingers for a long time—until he thought he could master his expression—then he slid it into the breast of his jacket and walked out of the clearing.

‘Have you ever been kissed, Felicity?’ Julia asked without preamble as they sat side by side on a rug, under their parasols, waiting for Mr Smyth and Mr Fordyce to fetch them ices. Half an hour in the ladies’ retiring tent, and she was tidy and composed enough to make the grass stains on her skirts plausibly the result of a trip.

‘Kissed?’ Felicity simpered, blushed, then asked, ‘Properly kissed?’

Julia nodded.

‘Yes, once.’

‘What was it like?’

‘Oh, wonderful…’ She smirked, glanced sideways at Julia, then admitted, ‘No, actually it was horrid.’

‘Horrid?’ No, Hal’s kiss had not been that. It had been wonderful, terrifying, puzzling.

‘It was wet. He wanted me to open my mouth and—’ Felicity lowered her voice even further ‘—he tried to put his tongue into it.’

‘What did you do?’ Julia fought the blush rising to her cheeks at the memory of that shocking intimacy.

‘I kicked him,’ Felicity said, smug. ‘And told him he was a beast. And so he slunk off.’

‘Well done,’ Julia said weakly. Her nerves were tingling, her pulse still erratic; a strange, unfamiliar restlessness was making it very difficult to sit demurely on the rug as a lady should; and her conscience was struggling to make itself heard against those novel physical messages.

‘Why do you ask? Has someone tried to kiss you?’

‘Well, er, yes,’ Julia confessed. Was that all it had been: a kiss? It had seemed more somehow.

‘Mr Fordyce?’ Felicity hazarded. ‘I think he is very nice. So is Mr Smyth, but he’s a clergyman, so I don’t expect it was him.’

‘No, neither of them. Ssh, here they come.’

Julia ate her ice and talked and strolled around and was introduced to people, drank lemonade and joined in the applause at an impromptu cricket match. The sun began to dip in the sky, and the restless, nameless yearning became stronger, harder to ignore, no easier to control and her eyes searched fruitlessly amongst the crowd, seeking Hal’s face.

Whatever these feelings were, they had everything to do with a lean, hard body against hers making her feel, at one and the same time, both recklessly abandoned and utterly insecure. I must not see him again. I must not.

When stumps were pulled and the company began to wander towards the tents for tea, Lady Geraldine said, ‘There is talk of a torch-lit carriage drive through the forest after dark. Do you think your mamas would object if we kept you out so late?’

‘Why no, I do not think Mama would mind; she said that as I was with you, Lady Geraldine, she was not at all concerned what time I was home.’ Felicity nodded energetic agreement.

‘Well then, we will all take part. And, Julia, if one of your beaux should ask, you may ride with him in his carriage—provided that it stays close to ours at all times.’

Both Mr Smyth and Mr Fordyce had their sporting carriages with them, it was just a question which of them asked her first. A drive through the forest would be exciting and romantic in the most innocent and respectable of ways, she was sure. Only it was not one of her respectable potential suitors she wanted to be with. In the darkness the only man she yearned to be beside was Hal Carlow, her pulse beating wildly, her breath catching in her throat, as they galloped through the night, his hands strong on the reins.

A Gothic romance in fact, she scolded herself. She was obviously reading too many of them, if she found the idea of being alone with him, racketing through the darkness at a potentially lethal pace, romantic. In reality, it would be thoroughly alarming, just as that kiss had been.

That bracing thought supported her through tea and the flattering experience of having not just Mr Fordyce but Mr Smyth and Colonel Williams solicit her company for the torchlight drive. Mr Fordyce was first, so good manners dictated that she accept his offer, although if she had a free choice she could not have said which gentleman she preferred. They all seemed pleasant, intelligent, worthy—and rather dull. Just what she should be hoping for in a potential husband in fact. Excitement in a husband would be very wearing.

As the sun dropped below the trees a cool breeze set in. Julia wrapped her cloak snugly around herself while the men set about organising the carriages into a line. Someone had anticipated the drive and had brought a wagon filled with torches to light at the brazier, and the horsemen were drafted into acting as outriders to carry the burning brands.

At last, all was ready and the cavalcade set off at a decorous trot. Julia wondered if someone staid had been put at the front, then decided not as the trot became a canter. From in front and behind there were whoops of delight, but Mr Fordyce kept his pair well in hand.

On either side, riders holding up the torches were cantering on the wide grassy verges. ‘It is like a scene from fairyland,’ Julia gasped, entranced by the wild shadows thrown on the trees, the thunder of hooves, the echoes of laughter.

‘That’s a fine animal,’ Charles Fordyce observed, glancing to his right.

Julia leaned back so she could look around him and gasped. It was, indeed, magnificent. A huge grey, so pale as to be almost white in the torchlight, its mane and tail dark charcoal. Its rider, quite still in the saddle, was watching her, his face garishly highlighted by the flaming brand he held. Hal. Everything that she had been trying to forget about the day came flooding back, and she gave thanks for the darkness hiding her face.

‘A Light Dragoon.’ Fordyce gave his own team more rein. The grey lengthened its stride to stay alongside.

‘It is Major Carlow,’ Julia said without thinking, and the pair pecked as though the reins had been jerked, just as her heartbeat seemed to jolt in her chest.

‘Carlow? You know him?’ Fordyce’s normally pleasant voice was cool.

Hal’s wretched reputation, he did warn me about that too…‘He rescued me from a man who accosted me in the Parc,’ she said. ‘And he introduced me to Lady Geraldine at once; that is how I met her.’ She managed what she hoped was a light laugh. ‘I understand he is the most terrible rake, but on that occasion, I would have welcomed the assistance of Bonaparte himself.’

‘Who would have been rather less detrimental to your reputation, I imagine,’ Charles said, sounding intolerably stuffy.

‘I am sure that would be the case, if I had continued round the Parc in Major Carlow’s company,’ she said stiffly. ‘As it was, he took pains to limit any damage that might arise from sanctimonious persons getting the wrong idea.’ Oh dear, now that sounds as though I have accused him of being a prig. And if only he knew it, he is right: Hal is dangerous.

Mr Fordyce obviously thought so too. ‘An unmarried lady cannot be too careful,’ he snapped. ‘One can only speculate upon why he has chosen to ride beside this carriage.’ He turned more obviously and stared at Hal. ‘I’ve a mind to call the fellow out—’

‘No! My goodness, please do not do any such thing!’ Julia grasped his forearm. ‘He is said to be lethal.’

‘—but I will not, lest your name were to be linked to the affair,’ Charles said, as if she had not spoken. ‘You will not, naturally, have anything more to do with him.’

‘What?’ Julia gasped. ‘I have no intention of doing so, but you have no business telling me with whom I may, or may not, associate, Mr Fordyce!’

‘I most certainly have, unless you have been playing fast and loose with me, Miss Tresilian.’ It was not easy, quarrelling in a moving carriage behind a team cantering through near darkness, but Charles Fordyce was obviously set on it.

‘You, sir, have been leaping to quite unwarranted conclusions,’ Julia snapped.

The big grey suddenly surged ahead of them, crossed between their team and the rear of the Masters’ carriage in front and was brought round to canter close beside Julia.

‘What the devil!’ Fordyce exclaimed.

‘Miss Tresilian, do you need assistance? You sounded distressed.’

Julia glared up at Hal, suddenly completely out of charity with the entire male sex. ‘I am perfectly fine, thank you, Major Carlow. Will you please go away?’ I would be as calm as a millpond, if it were not for you, she wanted to throw at him, confused at her own anger.

‘Ma’am.’ He spurred the horse ahead without looking back, leaving Julia fulminating beside an equally furious driver.

‘He has the nerve to ask if you are all right when you are driving with me?’ Charles Fordyce demanded. ‘That hell-born blood thinks you need protection from me?’

‘Mr Fordyce!’ Julia grabbed the side rail as the carriage lurched. ‘Will you kindly look to your horses and stop lecturing me and ranting about Major Carlow?’

‘Certainly, ma’am,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘I apologise for boring you.’

‘Not at all,’ she replied, equally stiffly as they drove on in seething silence.

Well, at least I know he has an unpleasant jealous streak. Better to know now than after I have agreed to marry him, Julia thought, wondering how she was going to explain the disappearance of one of her handful of suitors to her mother and Lady Geraldine.

Chapter Five

Hal woke with a thundering hangover. He lay flat on his back trying to work out why, when he could recall no party. He was still in shirt and trousers and was wearing one boot; his mouth felt as though a flock of pigeons had been roosting in it overnight and his head was splitting.

When he sat up with a groan, keeping his stomach in its right place with some difficulty, he saw the bottles on the floor and realized why. There had been no party. He had been drinking brandy—his foot knocked against a black bottle that rolled away and crashed into the others with nerve-jangling effect—and claret, all by himself.

‘What the hell?’ he enquired of the empty room as he squinted at the clock. Ten. He wasn’t on duty until the afternoon, thank God.

Julia. He had kissed her. Oh God, he had more than kissed her. He had almost debauched her, right there in that glade.

Hal got to his feet and lurched for the bell pull. Trying to think was damnably painful, and he didn’t seem to be doing very well. Keep going, he told himself. It will make sense eventually. But why? What came over me? There was only one answer to that: lust. Then he had seen Julia in the carriage with that smug secretary of Ellsworth’s so he had ridden alongside, just to keep an eye on her. And she had been upset, he could hear it in her tone as she talked to the man, even if he could not hear her words. So he had asked her if she was all right, because no-one was going to distress Julia while he could help it—except, obviously himself—and something had gone wrong…

And then he’d been angry and…He couldn’t recall anything else. But whatever had happened, it had not involved either Julia or any other sort of satisfaction, otherwise he would not be ankle-deep in bottles.

‘M’sieu?’ The waiter flung the door back with his usual enthusiasm.

‘Silence!’ Hal started to shout, then dropped his voice to a hiss. ‘Coffee. Strong, black. Lots of it. Toast. Dry. And is Captain Grey in his room?’ The man nodded nervously. ‘Then ask him if he will come here, will you? Quietly.’

‘Headache?’ Grey asked with a cheerful lack of sympathy five minutes later, picking his way through discarded bottles and clothing.

‘You might say that.’ Hal sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the room to stop moving.

‘I thought you had the hardest head of any man I know,’ Grey observed with a grin. ‘How gratifying to find you are human after all.’

‘I do have the hardest head. And just now, the most painful. Will, did I challenge anyone last night?’

‘What? To a duel? No.’

‘Thank God for small mercies.’ So, he had ridden away, not challenged Fordyce for whatever quarrel he and Julia had been having. Such restraint surprised him.

It was not until he had drunk three cups of coffee, forced down two rolls and stuck his head into cold water that he remembered that Julia had told him to go away in a voice icy with anger, and he had gone, because, much though he wanted to quarrel with her companion, he wanted her to forgive him. And she was angry with him, not just with Fordyce.

‘There’s post.’ Will Grey strolled back in and poured himself some coffee from the second pot that Hal was working his way through. He tossed the heap onto the table, ignored Hal’s wince, and sorted through it.

‘Who’s that?’ Hal pulled the top one in his pile towards him. ‘Don’t recognize the writing.’

‘Open it,’ Grey suggested as he broke the seal on one of his, scattering wax shards all over the table. A waft of heavy perfume filled the air, revolting Hal’s stomach. ‘Ah, the divine Susannah.’

Hal opened it and glanced at the signature. Your obedient servant, Mildenhall, the strong black signature said. What the devil was Monty, Viscount Mildenhall, doing writing to him? He’d been at Monty’s wedding to Midge Hebden, back in February, but they were hardly regular correspondents, despite having both served together before Monty left the Army.

Despite his aching head, he grinned at the memory of the most chaotic wedding he had ever attended. The groom had dragged his bride up the aisle of St George’s, Hanover Square, and demanded that the vicar marry them, the vicar had protested that the bride was obviously unwilling, her relatives were swooning from mortification or glowering like thunderclouds, depending on their sex, and the bride was arguing with almost everyone. At this point Hal had been forced to stuff his handkerchief into his mouth and duck under cover of the pew in order to stifle his laughter.

Monty, a man of quiet determination, had not been an effective officer for nothing. He overcame both bride and cleric, and the couple were duly wed. It was not until Hal and his brother Marcus were back at the wedding breakfast that Rick Bredon, Midge’s stepbrother, drew them to one side to explain the chaos.

Hal’s reminiscent grin faded. Midge had been stopped on the steps of the church by a man claiming to be her half-brother, Stephen Hebden. Midge, affectionate and impulsive as ever, had wanted him to come into the church, only for him to be violently rejected by her uncle until Monty, marching out to find his bride, had stopped the argument. By which time the man had gone.

Rick, whose father had tried to find Midge’s half-brother for years and believed him dead, was adamant that the man was an impostor, but Hal had known better. Stephen Hebden, also known as Stephano Beshaley, was the illegitimate son of Midge’s father and his Gypsy lover and a sworn enemy of the Carlow family, and of the family of Marcus Carlow’s wife, Nell Wardale.

The reason for his hatred was a mystery that they were only slowly unravelling. All they really knew was that it reached back twenty years to the days when Hal’s father, the Earl of Narborough; Nell’s father, William Wardale, the Earl of Leybourne and Midge and Stephan’s father, Kit Hebden, Baron Framlingham, had worked together to unmask a French spy at the heart of government.

Hebden, the code breaker, had been murdered, apparently by Wardale, who went to the gallows for the crime while his best friend George Carlow, Lord Narborough, stood by, convinced of his culpability. His father, Hal knew, had never recovered from his sense of guilt over that. With their title and their lands attaindered, the Wardale family had slipped into poverty and lost contact with each other. Midge’s mother had remarried.

And then, for some reason no-one could fathom, the old scandal had resurfaced last year in a series of attacks on the three families that all seemed to centre on Stephen Hebden. Hal felt the cold anger sweep over him again as he recalled the nightmare.

But the more they had discovered, the more people who were drawn into the mess, the less they understood, even with the assistance of old family friend Robert Veryan, Lord Keddinton. Although Veryan was high in government circles, even he could not explain it.

When Hal was last home on leave, Marcus had said that he suspected someone else must be involved, that it could not just be Stephano Beshaley, ruthlessly fulfilling his mother’s dying curse on the three families.

Hal shook his head, winced and focused on the letter.

My dear Carlow,

I have been in some trouble to decide what best to do in this matter, but, given that I know you better than your brother, I have decided to write to you.

You will recall the events that disturbed my wedding in February. Despite my best efforts, my wife continues to associate with her half-brother, Beshaley. Midge, bless her, would believe the best of Beelzebub.

Damn it, this was what he feared. Had another of Beshaley’s calling cards—silken ropes that recalled the execution of a peer—been found? If it had, danger at worst, scandal and ruined reputations at best, were to be expected.

You will forgive me, I hope, for referring to the gossip that arose when your sister-in-law resumed her place in Society. That, and the other incidents affecting the three families, have been well-managed by those concerned. But now murmurings have come to my ears from busybodies who delight in telling me gossip affecting Midge. Speculation is resurfacing about the old scandal.

To be frank, there is doubt thrown on Wardale’s guilt as the murderer. Hebden died in your father’s arms, outside your father’s own study. I will tell you this bluntly, as in your shoes I would prefer to be told—there are whispers at the highest level that it is suspicious that Lord Narborough did nothing to help clear Wardale’s name, despite the fact that they were close friends.

I have tried, discreetly, to find the source of these rumours, for the respect I have for you from our days fighting together, and for the friendship Midge has for your sister Verity. But it is like chasing a wisp of smoke.

Nothing is spoken of that links your father’s name with the spy’s treachery—that aspect of the original murder is still not common knowledge. But whispers about Wardale’s liaison with Midge’s mother are circulating, along with comments that your father is known to hold the strongest of views on marital infidelity. Without an understanding of the work the three men were engaged on, a puritanical aversion to adultery is no motive to be taken seriously for murder. But once spying is added to the mix, at this time when the whole country is in uproar over the renewed French menace, God knows what stories will be spun.

I hope this warning will suffice to put you on your guard to protect your father and your family. I imagine you could well do without this news, just when the great confrontation with Napoleon is looming. I envy you the opportunity to take part in that fight.

For myself, with a happy event expected in the autumn, I only want to keep Midge safe from the poisonous webs her half-brother weaves.

Believe me, my dear Carlow,

Your obedient servant,

Mildenhall

‘Hell and damnation.’ Hal tossed the letter onto the table and tried to think. He had two conflicting duties, but the priority was clear. He must not follow his immediate instinct and go home: Napoleon could make his move at any moment, this was no time to take leave. All he could do was to write to warn Marcus.

‘Problems?’ Grey raised a languid eyebrow. ‘I’ll swap you for my mail; it is all bills—and Susannah wanting a new gown. Could I have spent so much at my snyder when I was last in town? Hard to believe.’

‘You don’t want this,’ Hal said casually. ‘Legal problems with some tiresome old family legacy. And yes, I can believe your tailor’s bill is astronomical.’ He stood up, letter in hand. ‘I’d better write to my brother, I suppose.’

‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Grey ambled out, coffee cup in hand. ‘See you at luncheon?’

Hal shuddered at the thought of food, although he knew he was going to have to eat. ‘Yes.’ As the door shut, he flipped open his writing desk and unscrewed the top of the ink pot. Best to send Monty’s letter as an enclosure, save rewriting the lot.

Marcus, he scrawled.

Read this. What the hell is going on? Can’t someone put a bullet in the bastard?

Say the pretty to the parents and my love to Nell and the girls,

Yr. affect. brother,

Hal

Not his greatest literary work, but the best he could do with this headache. Hal folded Mildenhall’s letter inside his own, sealed it in four places and wrote the country address on it, adding To be forwarded, just in case Marcus had taken it into his head to travel. He doubted it. His sister-in-law was increasing again and Marcus, deeply protective, was certain to have her tucked away in deepest Hertfordshire.

Monty about to be a father, Marcus with a little son already and another child on the way. People no sooner got married than they were fathering brats, he thought irritably, despite the fact he was fond of young William George Carlow. He was half way to the bell pull to have the letter taken down, when a mental picture of Julia with one hand resting protectively on the swell of her belly hit him like a blow.

He made a sharp gesture of shocked repudiation. First he had almost ravished her, now his imagination had made the wild leap to her carrying his child. Which she might well be, if some shreds of self-control hadn’t saved them both yesterday. He tried to recall what had stopped him, but he couldn’t, it was all too confused. But one thing was clear: this could go no further. There was no way he could allow himself to see her again.

Julia tried hard to look regretful while Mama and Lady Geraldine regarded her with expressions of deep disappointment over their tea cups. She was not used to disappointing anyone and it was an unpleasant novelty.

‘You quarrelled with Mr Fordyce?’ Mrs Tresilian said in tones of disbelief. ‘But you never quarrel with anyone, Julia. You would never do anything so unladylike, surely?’

‘He was priggish and jealous beyond bearing,’ she said, setting her cup down with a rattle. So much for making a clean breast of it—of some of it, she corrected herself—you got lectured. Being a fast and disobedient young lady was beginning to have its attractions. ‘I was sharp with him.’

‘Jealous of whom?’ Lady Geraldine enquired. ‘Mr Smyth or the colonel?’

‘Major Carlow,’ Julia said, hurling oil on flames.

‘Hal Carlow!’

‘But you said he was a rake, Julia,’ Mrs Tresilian said into the silence that followed Lady Geraldine’s exclamation. ‘What could you possibly have done with him to make Mr Fordyce jealous?’

‘Nothing,’ she denied vehemently, managing to blush rosily at the same time. She had done nothing that Charles Fordyce knew about, that was true. But she had done more than enough with Hal Carlow to send her mother into fits of the vapours.

‘Julia,’ her mother began as Lady Geraldine’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

‘I let slip that I know him. So Mr Fordyce treated me to a lecture on the danger to my reputation. Which he had no call to do,’ she added hotly, guilt making her protest too much. ‘Anyone would think he had made me an offer.’

‘Who?’ Mrs Tresilian gasped. ‘Which of them? What kind of offer?’

‘Mr Fordyce. Marriage,’ Julia said, hanging on to her temper with difficulty. ‘But he has not.’ What was the matter with her? She never lost her temper, never answered Mama back. And now listen to her!

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