Regency Rogues

August 2019

Outrageous Scandal

September 2019

Rakes Redemption

October 2019

Wicked Seduction

November 2019

A Winter’s Night

December 2019

Unlacing the Forbidden

January 2020

Stolen Sins

February 2020

Candlelight Confessions

March 2020

Rescued by Temptation

April 2020

Wives Wanted

May 2020

Disgraceful Secrets

June 2020

Talk of the Ton

July 2020

Exotic Affairs

LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast & spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. www.louiseallenregency.co.uk, @LouiseRegency http://janeaustenslondon.com

Regency Rogues: Unlacing the Forbidden

Unlacing Lady Thea

Forbidden Jewel of India

Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90105-9

REGENCY ROGUES: UNLACING THE FORBIDDEN

Unlacing Lady Thea © 2017 Melanie Hilton Forbidden Jewel of India © 2013 Melanie Hilton

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Unlacing Lady Thea

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Forbidden Jewel of India

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

About the Publisher

Unlacing Lady Thea

Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Hussies, with thanks for all the support,

advice and laughter.

Chapter One

London—June 3, 1814

The skeleton clock on the overmantel struck four. No point in going to bed. Besides, he was thoroughly foxed, although not drunk enough to keep him from lying awake, wondering what had possessed him to make this insane plan. And worse, to follow through with organisation so ruthlessly efficient that to cancel now would throw his entire staff, financial team, estate management and social life into disorder—and make it seem he did not know his own mind.

‘Which I do not,’ Rhys Denham informed the ragged-eared ginger tom that sat on the hearthrug eyeing him with the disdain that only a feline or a dowager duchess could muster. ‘Know my own mind, that is. Always do, just not this time.’

The appearance of the kitchen mouser on the principal floor, let alone in the study of the third Earl of Palgrave, was unheard of. The household must be stirring already, too distracted by their master’s imminent departure for the Continent to notice an open door at the head of the servants’ stair.

‘It seemed a good plan at the time,’ Rhys mused. The brandy at the bottom of the glass glowed in the candlelight, and he splashed in more and tossed the lot back. ‘I’m drunk. Haven’t been this drunk in years.’ Not since he had woken up one afternoon and realised that drink was never going to blot out the disaster of his wedding day, restore his faith in friendship or his delusions about romantic love.

The cat switched its attention to the plate with the remains of the cold beef, cheese and bread that had been left out with the decanters. ‘And you can stop licking your whiskers.’ Rhys reached for the food. ‘I need this more than you do. I have to be more or less sober in three hours.’ That seemed improbable, even to his fogged brain.

‘You have to admit, I deserve a holiday. The estate is in order, my finances could hardly be better, I am bored to the back teeth with town and Bonaparte has been out of harm’s way on Elba for a month,’ he informed the cat around a mouthful of beef. ‘You think I am a trifle old for the Grand Tour? I disagree. At twenty-eight I will appreciate things more.’ The cat sneered, lifted one hind leg and began to groom itself intimately.

‘Stop that. A gentleman does not wash his balls in the study.’ He tossed it a scrap of fat and the cat pounced. ‘But a year? What was I thinking of?’ Escape.

Of course, he could come back at any time and his staff would adjust to his demands with their usual smooth efficiency. After all, if there was some kind of crisis, he would return immediately. But to cancel on a whim was not responsible behaviour. It put people out, it let them down, and Rhys Denham despised people who let others down.

‘No, I am going to go through with this,’ he declared. ‘It will do me good to have a complete change of scene, and then I’ll be in the mood to find a pretty, modest, well-bred girl with a stay-at-home temperament and good child-bearing hips. I will be married by the time I am thirty.’ And bored out of my skull. A vision of the succession of prime bits of muslin who had worked their magic in preventing just such boredom flitted across his memory. They had never expected dutiful monogamy. A wife would. Rhys sighed.

The friends who had deposited him on his doorstep an hour ago after a convivial farewell night at the club were all married, or about to be. Some even had children. And, to a man, they seemed cheered by the thought of someone else falling into parson’s mousetrap. As Fred Herrick had put it, ‘About time a rake like you stops nibbling the cheese, takes a proper bite at it and springs the trap, Denham.’

‘And why is that such a damnably depressing thought?’

‘I could not say, my lord.’ Griffin stood in the doorway, his face set in the expressionless mask that signified deep disapproval.

What the devil had his butler got to be disapproving about? Rhys levered himself upright in his chair. A man was entitled to be in his cups in his own house, damn it. ‘I was speaking to the cat, Griffin.’

‘If you say so, my lord.’

Rhys glanced down at the rug. The ginger beast had vanished, leaving behind it only a faint grease stain on the silk pile.

‘There is a person to see you, my lord.’ From his tone it was clear this was the cause of the stone face, rather than his master’s maudlin conversations with an invisible cat.

‘What kind of person?’

‘A young person, my lord.’

‘A boy? I am not up to guessing games just at the moment, Griffin.’

‘As you say, my lord. It appears to be a youth. Beyond that I am not prepared to commit myself.’

Appears? Does Griffin mean what I think he means? ‘Well, where is it…. Him?’ Her? ‘Below stairs?’

‘In the small reception room. It came to the front door, refused to go down to the tradesman’s entrance and said it was certain your lordship would wish to see it.’

Rhys blinked at the decanter. How much had he drunk since he got back from White’s? A lot, yes, but surely not enough to have imagined that faint hint of desperation in Griffin’s voice. The man was capable of dealing with anything without turning a hair, whether it was pilfering footmen or furious discarded mistresses throwing the china.

A faint trickle of unease ran down his spine. Mistresses. Had Georgina failed to take her congé as calmly as she had appeared to do yesterday? Surely she was satisfied with a very nice diamond necklace and the lease on her little house for a further year? Rhys got to his feet and tugged off his already loosened neckcloth, leaving his coat where it was on the sofa. Ridiculous. He might seek pleasure without emotional entanglement, but he was no Lord Byron with hysterical females dressed as boys dogging his footsteps. He was careful to stick to professionals and fast married women who knew what they were about, not single ladies and certainly not unstable cross-dressing ones.

‘Very well, let us see this mysterious youth.’ His feet seemed to be obeying him, which was gratifying, considering the way the furniture swayed as Griffin preceded him down the hallway. Tomorrow—no, this morning—promised a hangover of monumental proportions.

Griffin opened the door to the room reserved for visitors who did not meet his exacting standards for admission to the Chinese Drawing Room. The figure seated on a hard chair against the far wall came to its feet. Short, bundled into an ill-fitting dark suit of clothes that said ‘junior clerk’ to Rhys’s unfocused eye, it had a pair of portmanteaux at its feet and a battered beaver hat on the chair by its side.

Rhys blinked. He wasn’t that drunk. ‘Griffin, if that is male, then you and I are eunuchs in the Great Chan’s court.’

The girl in the youth’s clothes gave an exasperated sigh, set her fists on the curving hips that betrayed her sex and said, ‘Rhys Denham, you are drunk—just when I was counting on you to be reliable.’

Thea? Lady Althea Curtiss, daughter of the Earl of Wellingstone by his scandalous first wife, the plain little brat who had dogged his heels throughout his boyhood, the loyal friend he had scarcely seen since the day his world fell apart. Here, in the early hours of the morning in his bachelor household, dressed as a boy. A walking scandal waiting to explode like a smouldering shell. He could almost hear the fuse fizzing.

Rhys was bigger than she had remembered. More solid. More…male as he loomed in the doorway in his shirtsleeves, his chin darkened by his morning beard, the black hair that came from his Welsh mother in his eyes, that blue gaze blurred by drink and lack of sleep. A dangerous stranger. And then she blinked and remembered that it was six years since she had seen him close to. Of course he had changed.

‘Thea?’ He stalked across the room and took her by the shoulders, his focus sharp now, despite the smell of brandy on his breath. ‘What the blazes are you doing here? And dressed like that.’ He reached round and pulled the plait of mouse-brown hair out of the back of her coat. ‘Who were you attempting to fool, you little idiot? Have you run away from home?’

Rhys was thin lipped with anger. Thea stepped back out of his grip, which made it easier to breathe, although it did nothing for her knocking knees. ‘I am dressed like this because on a stagecoach in the dark it is enough to deceive lecherous men. I am perfectly aware that I do not pass muster as a youth in good light. And I have left home, I am not running away.’

Rhys’s lips moved. He was silently counting up to ten in Welsh, she could tell. When he had been a boy he would say it out loud and she had learned the numbers. Un, dau, tri… ‘Griffin. More brandy. Tea and something to eat for Lady Althea. Who is not, of course, here.’

Thea allowed herself to be shepherded into the study. Rhys dumped her bags on the hearthrug and pushed an ugly ginger cat off one of the chairs that flanked the fire. ‘Sit. The cat hairs can’t make that suit any worse than it is.’ The cat swore at both of them, battered ears flat to its skull.

When she clicked her fingers, it curled its tail into a question mark and stalked off. Hopefully this was not an omen for how her reception was going to be. ‘Is it your pet?’

Rhys narrowed his eyes at her. ‘It is the kitchen cat and appears to think it owns the place.’ He dropped into the opposite chair and ran his hands through his hair. ‘Tell me this is not about a man. Please. I am leaving for Dover at seven o’clock and I would prefer not to postpone it in order to fight a duel with some scoundrel you fancy yourself in love with.’

If he was sober, it would help. As for duelling, she wondered if he was capable of hitting a barn door with a blunderbuss in this state. ‘Of course it is not a man.’ Of course it is, but if I tell you the details we’ll never get anywhere. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. And why would you be fighting duels on my behalf, pray?’ It was surprising how difficult it was to keep her voice steady. She must be more tired than she had realised.

‘I always used to be,’ Rhys said with a sudden grin and drew his index finger down the line of his nose. Its perfect Grecian profile had been lost in a scrap with some village boys who had called her names when she was six and he was twelve. The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. ‘So if it isn’t a man…’

‘It is, in a way.’ She had rehearsed all this in the smelly darkness of the stagecoach through the long hours on the road. Not quite lies, not quite the truth. ‘You recall I have had three Seasons. No, of course you do not—our paths never crossed in town. You weren’t attending all the Marriage Mart ghastliness that I was expected to.’

His jaw set hard and she bit her lower lip. Stupid, tactless, to mention marriage. He still cares; it must still hurt. ‘Anyway, Papa said I was wasting money and another Season with all the other girls so much younger would be even worse. So he sent me back to Longley Park and set about finding me a husband locally.’

‘Do you mean you didn’t have any offers—?’ Rhys broke off as Griffin brought in a tray, then waved a hand for her to help herself as he sloshed dark liquid into his glass. ‘I mean, I know that with your mother…’

‘Oh, yes, several very eligible younger sons offered. My dowry is respectable and there’s my trust fund, of course.’ Both were considerable inducements to make up for the other things—her plain speaking, her intellectual enthusiasms, her very average looks. Not to mention a mother who had been an actress and her father’s mistress before their impetuous marriage and her tragic death in childbirth. ‘I turned them all down.’

‘Why?’ Rhys squinted at her over his glass, apparently in an effort to bring her into focus.

‘I didn’t love any of them.’ They didn’t love me…. None of them. ‘Papa has settled upon Sir Anthony Meldreth.’ Would Rhys understand if she explained why she felt so betrayed now? Why she had to leave? The old Rhys would have done, but this man, in this condition? No, better to fudge. ‘We did not suit, but Papa says that either I marry Anthony or I must remain at Longley and be a companion for Stepmama for the rest of my days.’

‘Hell.’ Rhys obviously recalled her stepmother’s capacity for hypochondria, vapours and utterly selfish behaviour all too well. He rubbed long fingers against his forehead as though to push away a headache, or perhaps push coherent thought in. ‘I understand your problem.’

Does he understand? Probably not, a man like Rhys couldn’t be expected to comprehend the sheer mind-numbing dullness a spinster daughter was supposed to dwindle into. It would be like being buried alive. Nor could she expect him to comprehend the horrors of finding herself married to a man she did not like or trust or have a thing in common with.

‘I can see it would be tiresome,’ he continued, confirming her belief in his lack of understanding. ‘But running away…’ He frowned at her. ‘I do not have time to deal with this now. I am about to leave for a Continental tour.’

‘I know, Papa told me. He considers it shows a commendable enthusiasm for culture he had hitherto not recognised in you. Please listen, Rhys. I am twenty-two and of age. I am not running away, I am taking control of my life.’

‘Twenty-two? Rubbish. You don’t look it.’ It was not a compliment.

Thea gritted her teeth and ploughed on. ‘All I need is the approval of two of my three trustees in order to take control of my money and be independent.’ It wasn’t a fortune, but it would give her freedom, give her choice. ‘If I do not get consent, then I will receive nothing unless Papa approves my marriage.’

‘One of the trustees is your father, I presume.’ Rhys picked up the decanter, studied it for a moment then put it down. ‘Tempting as complete oblivion is at this moment—’

‘He is,’ she interrupted. ‘And Grandmother was quite well aware of what he is like.’ There was no point in feigning filial piety. Her father had been a distant, shadowy figure throughout her childhood, only taking any notice when she was of an age where she could not be relegated to the nursery. A girl was bad enough. A girl without a glimmer of her mother’s legendary beauty and charm was worthless unless she made a useful marriage. Thea felt she hardly knew him, and, regrettably, felt no desire to do so.

If this stratagem failed and Papa realised what she was about and put pressure on the third trustee, Mr Heale, then she was trapped. She shivered at the memory of her cold, loveless childhood home. The Season had been an escape, but now that had been snatched away the walls were closing in.

‘Grandmother had to name Papa as a trustee, for it would have seemed very strange if she had not, but she put in the clause about me only needing the permission of two of them for major decisions in order to get around him.’

She poured another cup of tea, ravenous and thirsty now that her immediate worries about finding Rhys at home were laid to rest. ‘One of the others is the younger Mr Heale, the son of Grandmother’s solicitor. I have spoken to him and he is perfectly agreeable to my taking control. I have his letter to that effect. So long as Papa does not realise exactly what I am about and try to influence him…’ She touched the packet over her heart and felt the crisp, reassuring crackle of parchment. Surely her father’s bullying could not negate that letter? ‘My other trustee is Godmama Agnes.’

‘Godmama. Now, she would approve of you having control of your fortune.’ The brandy seemed to be having no serious effect on Rhys’s understanding, or perhaps the fumes were clearing. ‘Although what you’ll do with it at your age…’

He was paying attention, even if he still seemed to believe she was sixteen, or incapable of making decisions. Thea took a sustaining gulp of tea, then reached for another scone. It had been a long time since breakfast at Longley Park and a snatched bun at the midafternoon change of horses.

‘Has it ever occurred to you how fortunate we have been in our godmother?’ Rhys asked. The thought of Lady Hughson was enough to curve his lips into a smile.

‘Daily,’ Thea agreed fervently. ‘When we were all children I never gave it a thought, but now I see how lucky we were that she turned her unhappiness into pleasure in caring for her godchildren.’ Godmama’s home had been the only place she had experienced love and warmth.

‘The fifteen little lambs in Agnes’s personal flock?’

‘Exactly. She must have loved her husband very much, then she lost him so young, before they could have children.’

Rhys gave a grunt of agreement. ‘But that is history and if you ran, sorry, left, home to go to her, she’s not in London. Have you just discovered that? Is that why you came to me?’ The sleepy blue eyes studied her over the rim of his glass.

‘I knew she was not in town and I dared not write and risk her reply falling into Papa’s hands. She’s in Venice. That is why I came straight here. As soon as I discovered where she was and what you were planning…’ This was the tricky part. Would it help that Rhys was castaway?

He was not drunk enough to miss her meaning or perhaps he just knew her too well. ‘Oh, no. No, no, no. You are not coming with me to the Continent. It is impossible, impractical, outrageous.’

‘Have you become such a conventional prude that you cannot help an old friend?’ she demanded. The old Rhys would rise to that lure.

‘I am not conventional.’ Rightly taking her words as an insult, Rhys banged the glass down, slopping brandy onto the highly polished mahogany. The smell was a physical reminder of what she was dealing with. ‘Nor am I a prude. Revolting word. Like prunes and…’ He shook his head as though to jerk his thoughts back on course. ‘You cannot go gallivanting about Europe with a man you are not married to. Think of the scandal.’

‘A scandal only if I am recognised, and who is going to do that? I will be veiled and anyone who sees us will assume I am your mistress.’ He rolled his eyes, as well he might. She was hardly mistress material, veil or no veil. ‘Frankly, I do not care if I am ruined. It can’t make things any worse. Rhys, I am not asking to be taken about as though I was on an expedition of pleasure, merely to be transported. I cannot go by myself, not easily, although if you do not help me then I will hire a courier and a maid and attempt it.’

‘Using what for money?’ he demanded. ‘Or do you expect me to lend you the funds to ruin yourself with?’

‘Certainly not. But my life will be wrecked if I have to stay.’ He looked decidedly unconvinced. ‘I have eighteen months’ allowance with me.’ The bundles of notes and the coins sewn into her underwear had kept her warm and comforted her with their solid presence throughout the long journey.

‘I suppose your father handed it over without question?’ There was the faintest hint of a twitch at the corner of his mouth. It gave her some hope that the old Rhys, the carefree, reckless boy who was up for any lark, was still lurking somewhere inside this rather formidable man.

‘Of course not. I have not spent more than a few pounds of my allowance for three months. The rest I took from the money box in Papa’s study. I left a proper receipt.’

‘And who taught you to pick locks, madam?’

‘You did.’

‘The devil! I can’t deny it.’ He did grin then. ‘You were very good at it, I recall. Remember the day when you opened Godmama’s desk drawer and rescued my catapult? And I had a perfect alibi, clearing up under the nose of the head gardener after I broke three windows in the conservatory.’

‘You said that you would be for ever in my debt.’ She did not make the mistake of smiling triumphantly.

‘I think I was thirteen at the time,’ Rhys said. ‘That is a very long time to remember a debt.’

‘Surely a gentleman never forgets one, especially to a lady.’ His eyes flickered over her appalling clothes, but he refrained from comment. ‘You have three choices, Rhys. Take me with you, leave me to my own devices in London or send me back to Papa.’ Thea smiled to reduce the bluntness of her demand. ‘Think of it as one last adventure. Or don’t you dare?’

He shook his head at her, then winced as his eyes crossed. ‘Do not think you are going to provoke me that way. I am twenty-eight, Thea, much too old for that nonsense.’

Rhys was not too old for anything, she thought as she concentrated on keeping her face open and ingenuous. He looked perfect for one last adventure, one last dream. ‘Please?’

It had never failed before. She had no idea why, of all the group of godchildren who had spent their long summers with Lady Hughson, she was the one who could always wheedle Rhys into doing anything she asked. Her, ordinary little Althea, not the other boys, not even Serena, the blue-eyed beauty he had fallen in love with.

‘I must be mad.’ She held her breath as he took a long swallow of brandy, his Adam’s apple moving in the muscled column of his throat. ‘I’ll take you. But you had better behave, brat, or you’ll be on the first boat home.’

Chapter Two

Rhys might have been foxed, but he could still organise his affairs with an autocratic authority. Hurrying upstairs to get changed, a sleepy maid at her heels, Thea recognised the development of the charm she remembered from years before. Then he would smile, explain, persuade—and things happened as the young Earl of Palgrave desired them. Everything except his marriage.

As an adult he still smiled, but he had no need for persuasion, it seemed. What his lordship ordered, happened. Now a travelling carriage was waiting behind the chaise in which she sat, clad in the plain, crumpled gown and cloak she had pulled from her portmanteau. A startled housemaid had received an unexpected promotion to lady’s attendant and was chattering excitedly with Rhys’s valet, Hodge, while the remainder of the luggage was packed into the carriage.

Thea twitched the side blind to make certain it was securely down, although there was no one in the dawn-lit street to see her inside the vehicle, let alone recognise her with the thick veil that covered her face. She yawned and wriggled her toes, relishing the thick carpet and the comfortable squabs after the Spartan stagecoach. Her new maid—Molly, Polly?—would join her in the chaise and Rhys would travel in the carriage with his valet, she assumed.

That was a good thing. She had not realised quite what a shock to the system this fully grown Rhys would be. Other than some distant glimpses when their paths had crossed while she was doing the Season, her last memories were of a youthful, trusting twenty-two-year-old standing white-faced at the altar as his world fell about his ears. After that he had been in London and, even when she was there, too, following her come-out, the paths of a wealthy, sophisticated man about town with no interest in finding a bride did not cross those of a young lady in the midst of the Marriage Mart.

The door opened and a footman leaned in. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but shall I put your seat into the sleeping position?’ As he spoke he tugged a section of the padded facing panel away to reveal the darkness of the compartment that jutted out at the front of the vehicle, then he fitted the panel into the gap in front of the seat. She had heard about sleeping chaises, but had never travelled in one before.

‘No, thank you.’ She felt too tense to lie down. The maid deserved some rest after being dragged from her sleep to attend to her so she could use the facility.

The door opened again, the chaise dipped to the side as someone put their foot on the step. ‘Rhys?’

‘Not sleeping?’ Shaven but heavy-eyed, he climbed past her, shrugged out of his coat and slid down the bed the footman had created, his booted feet disappearing into the void. ‘Wake me when we stop for breakfast.’ He closed his eyes and curled up on his side. ‘Or for highwaymen.’

Without his coat Thea had an unimpeded view of the back of his head, his broad shoulders, the quite admirable lines of long thigh muscles and—she made no effort to avert her eyes—a firm, trim backside.

She stared for a long minute, being only human and female, then fixed her gaze on the postilions as the chaise lurched into motion. Oh, yes, indeed, her childhood friend had grown up. She felt rather as if she had whistled for a friendly hound to come to her side and had found instead she had summoned a wolf. He might be Rhys, but he was also a male. An adult male. With, she recalled, a reputation.

She brought to mind the sight of him in a box at Covent Garden Theatre, plying a beautiful woman with champagne, and hearing the whispers of the married ladies in her party. He had snatched that ladybird from the keeping of Lord Hepplethwaite and the displaced lord had blustered about calling him out—and had then recalled Rhys’s reputation with a rapier.

After a few minutes Thea lowered the blind. It was easier on her nerves to see where they were and, if she was looking out of the window, then she was not watching the man slumbering by her side. He was snoring a little, which was not surprising after all he had drunk, she supposed. The sound was oddly comforting.

A glint of water showed her they were crossing Westminster Bridge, the new gaslights disappointingly extinguished. But the view downriver was as dramatic as when Wordsworth had written about it. ‘The City now doth like a garment wear the beauty of the morning…’ she murmured.

Beside her Rhys sighed as if in protest at the sound of her voice and turned over, his eyes tightly closed in sleep. His hair was fashionably cropped, but one dark lock fell over his forehead, a vivid reminder of the youth she had known. Thea reached out to brush it back, then stopped, her ungloved hand a fraction above the slightly waving strands. They rose to meet her fingertips like the pelt of a cat that had been stroked until its fur crackled.

Thea folded her hands in her lap. Some things were better left as dreams and memories. Some things were safer as girlhood follies. After a few minutes she drew the road guide from her reticule, where she had placed it in case she had needed to set out by herself, and unfolded the map.

They were heading into Southwark. As she had since she had begun this journey, she began to count off milestones in her head. Gathering everything she needed, undetected. Escaping from the house to the King’s Head—not the closest inn, but one where she would not be recognised, despite the extra hour’s walking it added to her flight. Taking the stage. Finding a hackney carriage to Rhys’s house and then, the most difficult part of all, persuading him to take her with him.

Would he have agreed if he had not been drinking or if he had recognised that she was a grown woman now? She glanced down at his face, pillowed on his bent arm. Those blue eyes were closed, the veiling lashes a dark fringe. The bend in his nose was more visible from this angle and his lips moved slightly with his soft snores. There was a small scar just below his ear. That was new.

Thea wrenched her attention back to the map and the view from the window. Houses were thinning out; ahead was Deptford, full of history. According to her guidebook, it was where Sir Francis Drake was knighted and where Tsar Peter the Great stayed when he visited England. She watched eagerly for signs of the glamorous past and was sadly disappointed by crowded, dirty streets. They rattled over cobbles, the chaise jerked to a halt several times but Rhys slept on, much to her relief. When he woke, sobered and doubtless with a crashing hangover, would he change his mind about her?

The road began to climb towards Blackheath. Wake me for highwaymen, Rhys had instructed. Well, if they were to find any, this was a likely spot. She found she could not become very apprehensive, not on a clear June morning. More worrying was wondering where he had given the order for the first change. If it was too close to London, then there was the risk he would send her back. They rattled past the Sun in the Sands, the Fox under the Hill and the Earl of Moira as the road kept climbing. Shooter’s Hill, she supposed, and relaxed a little.

Now they were slowing. Ahead she could see buildings, swinging inn signs. The postilions turned into the Red Lion’s courtyard and ostlers ran out to make the change as the landlord strode across the yard towards them, attracted no doubt by the coat of arms emblazoned on the carriage doors.

Thea dropped the window. ‘Shh! His lordship is sleeping,’ she whispered to the man. Hodge appeared beside him and she murmured, ‘Please have something if you need to, but don’t wake his lordship.’

Hodge showed no surprise, but then, he must have been aware of the state his master had been in when he boarded the chaise. He nodded and went into the inn, her maid on his heels. Thea closed the window and sat on guard, her veil in place, jealously watching for anyone who might disturb Rhys’s sleep. But after the arrival of a stagecoach, an altercation between two stable dogs and the shrill laughter of a kitchen maid flirting with an ostler all failed to do more than make him bury his head more firmly in his arms, she began to think he might sleep all morning, and began to doze herself.

Hodge opening the door woke her with a start. He passed her a mug of coffee and a napkin wrapped around a bread roll stuffed with bacon and glanced at his unconscious master.

‘Does he always sleep like this?’ Thea whispered.

The valet shook his head. ‘No, my lady.’ He took the mug when she had gulped the cooling coffee and closed the door softly, leaving her more than a little disturbed. Did Hodge mean he always drank that much and therefore slept heavily?

It had shocked her to find Rhys castaway and to see him toss off brandy as though it were lemonade. The rumours immediately after the fiasco of his wedding day were that he was a man who did not care, who had been glad to lose the responsibility of a wife and that he had plunged into a life of rakish dissipation.

He had cared, of course. She had seen his face in that first shock of betrayal; she had felt his fingers shake as she had pressed her pocket handkerchief into them, had felt his body rigid with pain when she had risked a brief hug. But then he had turned from the altar rail, a rueful smile on his lips, confessed that he had suspected the impending elopement all along and that he wished the scandalous couple happy.

For a man not given to falsehood, it was an impressive performance. It confused the gossipmongers, deflected some of the opprobrium from Serena and Paul and, she supposed, it salved Rhys’s pride not to appear a victim, someone to be sorry for.

When she had been in London for her first Season the only news she could discover of him was that he had steadied, taken his seat in the House of Lords and was managing his estates with a firm hand—but that he had a shocking reputation with women. Far from seeking a new bride, he flirted as if it was a form of elegant warfare, while keeping a string of mistresses who were, she gathered from the whispers, both beautiful and expensive. He was either not invited to the entertainments thought suitable for innocent young ladies, or he chose not to attend them.

The mothers of hopeful daughters were outraged: a young, wealthy, handsome earl should be setting up his nursery. Preferably with one of their girls, any of whom had been better brought up than that flighty Lady Serena Haslow. If Lord Denham would stop indulging in the pleasures of the flesh and the gaming room long enough, he would soon come to his senses and marry one of them.

The chaise rattled out of the yard and turned east towards Dartford. No one was forcing Rhys to go on this European trip. A few months ago, with the Continent at war, he could not even have contemplated it. So why was he going now, and why had she sensed such equivocal feelings about it the night before?

The bed, unaccountably bumpy, suddenly tipped. Half awake, Rhys grabbed for the edge, missed it and slid down until his booted feet hit some obstacle. Boots in bed? A gentleman always takes his boots off, at the very least. ‘Where in Hades…?’

‘This is the West Hill down into Dartford. The route guide warns it is uncommonly steep.’ The matter-of-fact voice jolted him into a wakefulness that the discomforts of his bed had not achieved.

‘Thea?’ Rhys sat up, shoved the hair out of his eyes and groaned at the sunlight. If this was a dream, it was an uncommonly uncomfortable one. ‘What the devil are you doing in my chaise?’

‘You said I might come with you to the Continent. Surely you weren’t so foxed last night that you cannot recall promising?’ Pin neat, drab in mud-brown wool, as ordinary as a London sparrow and three times as real, she regarded him with what appeared to be disapproval.

‘I’d hoped it was a nightmare. And what are you looking at me like that for?’ He lifted the section of padded board and slotted it back into position so he could sit. ‘My mouth feels like the floor of a cockpit.’

‘I am not surprised—you were positively castaway last night. I suggest you tell the postilions to stop here and have some breakfast. The rest of us ate at Shooter’s Hill.’

To retort that he was in charge of this journey and would make the decisions where to stop was to plunge back into the bickering of their childhood. Not that Thea had ever bickered. Or whined, come to that. She merely widened those unremarkable hazel eyes until he felt he had somehow disappointed her. And he did want something to eat and a quart of black coffee and then, with any luck, someone would hit him over the head so he could forget this headache in merciful oblivion.

Rhys dropped the window, leaned out and yelled, ‘Next decent inn!’

‘That will be the Bull.’ Thea frowned at her road book.

‘Never mind inn names, what the devil am I going to do about you?’ He must have been beyond foxed to give in to the girl. Vague memories of an awful suit of male clothing swam into his memory.

‘Take me to Godmama.’ She regarded him through eyes suddenly narrowed with suspicion. ‘As you promised.’

‘You took advantage of me,’ Rhys retorted.

‘Do women often take advantage of you?’ she enquired sweetly.

‘When my luck’s in,’ Rhys muttered and Thea laughed. How could he have forgotten that wicked gurgle of laughter? He bit his lip to stop himself smiling back at her. ‘This is an improper conversation and an utterly improper situation. If it ever gets out, you’ll be ruined.’ He squinted at her. ‘You aren’t a child any longer.’ Was she? She looked about seventeen, if he was generous.

‘No, I am not. And as for being ruined—’ Thea shrugged as the chaise slowed. ‘Good. Then Papa will stop trying to marry me off to devious, fortune-hunting… I mean, then I can have the freedom to live my life as I want to and not dwindle into an old maid.’

What is the matter with her? Every other girl wants a husband, full stop. Why must Thea be so contrary? ‘Is that before or after your father shoots me?’ he enquired as they stopped and an ostler hurried up. Rhys opened the door. ‘No, we do not need a change of horses, but I want breakfast.’

‘So do I, now I think about it.’ Thea hopped down before he could offer his hand. ‘A bacon roll and warm coffee were not very sustaining.’

She had her thick veil down, so he could find no reason to object, but when she returned from, he presumed, finding the privy, he wedged a chair under the door handle of the private parlour.

‘Very wise,’ Thea observed, taking her seat. ‘If this was a stage farce, someone would burst through the door just as I removed my veil to eat. And, of course, by hideous coincidence they would know me very well and have a fatal penchant for gossip. Papa would arrive with a horsewhip….’

‘Do you see many farces?’ Rhys refilled his cup and added sugar. He needed all the strength he could get.

‘Not these days,’ Thea said, and sliced the top off an egg with undue force. Eggshell fragments splintered, Rhys winced. ‘Papa knows perfectly well that being kept away from London and the galleries and the theatres and the libraries is a torture. I am so looking forward to Paris.’

Rhys told himself that it was unmanly to whimper. ‘Perhaps you have a friend somewhere in Kent or Sussex? Someone you can stay with?’

‘You promised.’ And he had. Being drunk was no excuse; a gentleman should be able to hold his liquor. A gentleman never broke his word. And he owed her. Not for that lock-picking incident that he vaguely recalled coming up last night, but for years of friendship culminating in that moment in the church when she had slipped him her handkerchief, had looked at him with a world of understanding in her eyes for his pain, had given him a brief hug.

Thea had said nothing and had broken the contact almost immediately, as though she knew that too much sympathy would break him. The sixteen-year-old girl had offered him the only thing she could: her understanding and a calm presence that stopped him falling apart. That clear-eyed look told him that she trusted him to do the right thing and, somehow, he had.

What would have happened if she had not been there? Would he have given chase, called out his best friend? Put a bullet in him and left three lives in ruin instead of just his own?

‘Yes, I did, didn’t I? All right, I won’t go back on it.’

‘Thank you.’ Her hand shook a little as she lifted her cup, but otherwise she gave no sign that she had feared his refusal.

She always was a courageous little thing. Rhys poured more coffee so she wouldn’t know he’d noticed that tremble and felt a pang of guilt. He should have kept in touch. But gentlemen did not write to young girls.

‘Why were you—?’ Thea broke off. ‘Nothing.’

‘Why was I so drunk last night? Damned if I know. Twelve months suddenly seemed a hell of a long time to be away and I started having doubts about whether I really wanted to do it, whether it was just a whim. I’d told myself I deserve a holiday before—’ he almost did not finish the sentence, but then this was Thea and he’d always been able to tell her anything ‘—before I look for a wife next Season.’

And I despise myself for snatching at Bonaparte’s defeat as an excuse to put off that search for another year, and that’s why I was drinking. Coward. You should have dealt with those memories. There was little risk history would repeat itself; it was safe enough to seek to marry. His reason knew it, but apparently his emotions did not. It seemed there were some things he could not confess to Thea after all.

‘You always have a plan,’ she said, so coolly that he was taken aback. But what did he expect? That she would gasp in shock that he could forget Serena?

‘And that involves getting back on the road now. I expect to be in Dover at half past four. That will give us an hour to get the carriages loaded and still catch the tide.’

‘You are taking the carriages to France? How?’ Her voice was oddly muffled behind the veil as she replaced her bonnet. Had he upset her somehow?

‘I’ve hired a ship. I do not intend roughing it.’

‘Excellent.’ Thea’s voice held nothing but approval. He had obviously been mistaken. ‘I do so approve of luxury. And that means much more room for the shopping.’

‘Shopping?’ The Thea he remembered had no interest in shopping. But then, she had only been a girl and a tomboy at that. Looking at that disastrous gown, he shuddered to think what her idea of shopping entailed. Oh, well, her stepmother would soon sort out her wardrobe before her come-out. The vague memory of her saying she had been out for several Seasons floated into his aching head. And offers, and some man she was supposed to marry… No, surely not.

‘Of course. Shopping is the entire point of Paris.’

This time he did not care how weak it sounded. Rhys whimpered.

Chapter Three

Dartford, Greenhithe, Northfleet. They travelled the next five miles in virtual silence, both of them, it seemed to Thea, adapting to their new relationship as travelling companions. Rhys had the excuse of his hangover as well, of course. She almost suggested they stop at the next apothecary’s shop for a headache remedy, but this was a grown man beside her, not a boy. The very last thing she wanted to do was mother him.

‘What has put you to the blush?’ he asked without preamble.

She wished she had resumed her veil, but it hardly seemed friendly, not while they were travelling through open country. ‘I was thinking about a man.’ After all, she had always been able to tell Rhys everything. Almost everything.

‘Really?’ Rhys stopped slouching in his corner and regarded her quizzically. ‘A very romantic man, by the look of those pink cheeks. Fallen in love with the drawing master?’

‘No.’ He obviously could not stop thinking of her as a sixteen-year-old. ‘Not the drawing master and no one romantic. Men do not woo me romantically. They check that I am not a complete ninny-hammer, assure themselves that I have all my own teeth and do not giggle and then they trot off and talk to Papa about the size of my dowry and whether he can assure them my mother’s family will never make themselves known.’

‘Thea, give it a chance. Just because you haven’t taken yet it doesn’t mean you won’t get a perfectly reasonable proposal or two.’

‘Rhys, I have not taken in three Seasons. I am not a beauty. I am not pretty. I am not even interestingly eccentric in my looks. I am perfectly ordinary. Average height, average face, ordinary eyes, mouse-brown hair which does not cascade into tumultuous waves to my waist when I take it down.

‘If any man wrote poetry to my eyebrows I would fall about laughing and suggest he bought eyeglasses. When I do laugh no one compares it to the trill of a lark or the ripple of running water. I can sing and play the piano adequately and no one is so foolish as to ask for an encore.’

Rhys looked rather daunted. ‘But you—’

‘If you say I have a wonderful sense of humour, I will lose all respect for you,’ she warned. ‘Such a cliché.’

‘Well, you do have. But what I was going to say is that you have a talent for friendship.’

‘Oh.’ Now he had surprised her. What a very lovely thing to say. He had always been generous with his friendship—to her, to Paul who had betrayed him. She had not realised he had valued that in her and she was touched he recalled it now. ‘You have made me blush in earnest now,’ Thea said as lightly as she knew how. ‘I hope I am a good friend. But I do have a talent, and you will see what it is in Paris.’

‘Shopping?’

‘Not quite. Where are we now?’

‘Gravesend. We will change horses again at Strood. But you have evaded the subject. Who is this man that the mere thought of him makes you blush? Did he break your heart?’

He was teasing, that was all. Thea found her smile from somewhere. ‘Not deliberately. He had no idea of my feelings, you see, and besides, he was in love with someone else.’

‘He was?’

‘Is, I am sure. He was never the fickle sort. But don’t look so indignant on my behalf. It was ages ago.’

Simply a youthful tendre, the delicious, painful quivering of first love. Puppy love. That was behind her now, thank goodness. That girl and that young man no longer existed. Except in dreams, sometimes, but it would be too cruel to give up on dreams of love.

But they were dangerous things to hold on to. If she had realised that then, she would never have believed Anthony sincere when he began to court her, never have thought that she could find an adult love, prosaic and sensible perhaps, but true and honest nevertheless. It had made the disillusion even greater when she had overheard her father discussing the terms of her dowry, the extra lands he was adding to compensate Anthony for taking his plain, awkward daughter off his hands.

Rhys had the tact to stop questioning her, which was a relief because she was not certain how long she could maintain a mask of indifference in the face of direct interrogation. She should never have said as much as she had. ‘Look,’ she said as she drew down her veil. ‘This must be Strood.’

They arrived in Dover at a quarter to five and Rhys ushered his small party into private rooms at the Queen’s Head on the quayside. ‘I’ll go along to the ship and send for you in about an hour.’

Thea balked at the threshold. ‘I will come with you.’ The prospect of sitting in a stuffy parlour with a yawning maid and a ramrod-backed valet perched on the edge of his chair had no appeal. ‘You go and lie down and get some sleep, Polly.’

One of the things she had always liked about Rhys was the way he would never try to persuade her out of the harmless things that stuffy convention decreed girls were not supposed to do. She tucked her hand under his arm and walked along the quayside. The wind flipped her veil back from her face, but there was no one around who might recognise her.

‘The wind is quite strong.’ Waves slapped high against the stonework. ‘And the sea looks rather rough, even in the shelter of the harbour.’

‘Do you get seasick?’

‘I don’t know. I am fine in a rowing boat on the lake and as cool as a cucumber in a punt on the river.’

‘They do not have waves.’

‘No.’ Thea took a deep breath of bracing sea air and found it was composed of an equally bracing mix of rotting seaweed and drains. ‘I am sure it is all a case of mind over matter.’

‘Or stomach. Perhaps I should acquire a basin.’ Rhys nodded towards a chandler’s shop. ‘They probably have some.’

‘We should write a book together. A practical guide to elopement. You do it from the male point of view, I will do the hints for the ladies. It should have a list of things to take that can fit in a small valise….’

‘Very small. No cabin trunks,’ Rhys said with feeling. ‘A rope ladder.’

‘Sensible shoes for climbing down a ladder. Smelling salts.’

‘A road book and plenty of money. A good team of horses to start with and close-mouthed postilions.’

‘A compass to make certain the gentleman really is heading for the Border.’

‘Cynic! And that obviates the need for a basin. No sea crossing.’

‘So it does. Oh, dear,’ Thea said mournfully. ‘I was so enjoying the vision of an amorous young gentleman, tiptoeing around the corner at the dead of night, lantern in his teeth, rope ladder tripping him up, basin under one arm.’

Rhys chuckled. ‘Why would he take the basin with him for the ladder-climbing part of the proceedings?’

‘Because he is young and romantic and silly. Of course,’ she added hopefully, ‘his true love may be overcome with nerves and need it. Or he could use it to knock out a pursuing parent.’

Rhys disentangled himself from her grasp and caught her hand in his. ‘You,’ he said with a grin, ‘are a bad girl.’

‘I wish I was. I fear I am simply too prosaic.’

‘If leaving home disguised as a boy, bullying a half-cut gentleman into escorting you across the Channel and spinning fantasies about elopements is prosaic, then I hope I may never meet an adventurous lady.’ He looked down at her, more intently. ‘Thea, how old did you say you are now?’

Having Rhys smile at her was such a relief it affected her like one glass of champagne too many. It was going to be all right. He really would take her, not change his mind at the last moment. ‘Twenty-two. I am six years younger than you, just as I have always been.’ She laughed up at him and, distracted, tripped over a mooring rope.

Rhys spun her round and caught her up in his arms before she fell on the rough cobbles. ‘Steady! Are you all right?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Tight in his embrace, close against his body and breathless with laughter, Thea looked up into intent blue eyes and smiled.

And then he went very still and his arms tightened around her as his eyes went dark. It lasted a second. It lasted an hour. Heat, strength, intensity. A hard, very adult, body against hers. A body that was becoming aroused.

Then he let her go, stepped back, stared at her in horror. ‘God! I am sorry. Hell, Thea…I never meant for a moment to…manhandle you like that.’

Rhys was more shaken than she had ever seen him. It was that bad, holding me in your arms, was it? ‘Please, do not regard it. I most certainly do not, you merely steadied me.’ Once I would have paid with everything I owned to be in your arms.

‘Of course you should regard it,’ he snapped. As though it was my fault, as though I had flung myself into his embrace on purpose… ‘I beg your pardon. Let me escort you back to the inn.’ He offered his arm and she slid her fingers under his elbow. Through the kid leather of her glove she could feel his warmth and the thud of his heart against his ribs. So agitated by discovering I am female!

‘There is no need. I would like to see the ship and the carriages being loaded.’ Anything to stop her thinking about how the body that had pressed against hers had been so… A man’s body, not a youth’s.

Rhys ignored her, as though intent only on setting a brisk pace towards the Queen’s Head. Then, just as she was on the point of jerking her hand free, he said, ‘You are right not to regard it. Men are creatures of instinct, I am afraid. To find one’s arms suddenly full of woman… It is no excuse, but you must not take it personally. It does not mean I do not hold you in the highest respect.’ He cleared his throat.

As well he might, he has probably just heard how pompous he sounds. The rake lecturing on propriety, indeed! And he has just admitted that he was aroused and that I would have recognised that, so now he is thoroughly embarrassed and it is all my fault.

‘I should regard it in the light of a cat who cannot resist catching a trailing ball of wool or a hound chasing a rabbit?’ Thea enquired with all the sweetness of a lemon drop. She could not decide who she was more angry with: Rhys for making it so very clear that never again, if he was in a position to give it a moment’s thought, would he take her in his arms, or herself for finding that attitude wounding. She should know better than to care. Caresses were betrayals; Anthony had taught her that.

‘I am afraid so, hence the rules young ladies are sheltered by. But please, do not fear that it will ever happen again. You will have severe doubts about travelling with me now, of course. I will change places with your maid for the rest of the journey. Or I could escort you to a friend. Are you sure you do not have one in the area?’

There is no need to sound quite so hopeful, you exasperating man. ‘There is no one and, besides, I am so desperate to reach Godmama that I would risk travelling with a carriage full of rakehells if need be. I could not bear to be taken back.’ She sensed his frowning sideways glance, but kept her own gaze firmly forward, focused on the uneven stone setts. He really had no idea of what an emotional prison she faced. Men had so much freedom, unmarried women, none. ‘You may rest easy. I have no intention of casting myself upon your manly bosom a second time.’

Delivered with punctilious formality to the custody of her maid, Thea waited until the parlour door had closed, then threw bonnet, reticule and finally herself onto the plush-covered sofa.

‘Did the sight of the sea upset you, my lady?’ Polly scooped up the scattered things and began to roll the bonnet ribbons neatly. ‘I’m used to it, but I know many folks get proper queasy just looking at it.’ Thea’s silence seemed to make no impression as she chatted on. ‘Mr Hodge says as how his lordship’s taking the carriages over on deck. Now, that’ll be the place for you to sleep, my lady. The chaise with the window open. Fresh air’s what you need. Me, I like it nice and snug down below and I’m used to the smell of the bilges, what with being brought up on me dad’s sailing barge on the Thames.’

‘Really?’ Thea made herself listen. It was ridiculous to sit there panicking—besides, what Polly said made sense. ‘I’ll do that, then. The chaise seats convert into a bed.’

‘If you’ll take my advice, my lady, you have a nice wash now and leave off your stays when you dress again. That way you can lie down and be properly comfy.’

No stays? It sounded rather…loose. A huff of laughter escaped her at the unintended pun. Loose or not, it also sounded exceedingly sensible, and she could always wrap her cloak around her so any lack of support was not noticeable. Not that there was anything wrong with her figure that made stays a necessity. It was a perfectly nice, perfectly ordinary figure that went in and out where it should. Nothing jiggled unnecessarily, there were no scrawny bits. Perfectly ordinary…

‘That was a big sigh, my lady. You’ll be tired, I’ll wager. I’ll ring for the hot water and you have a little rest.’

Polly bustled out and Thea sat quite still and kept her hands folded in her lap, nowhere near her lips that tingled as though Rhys’s mouth had touched them.

Of all the damn-fool things to have done, embracing Thea came top of the list by a country mile. What had possessed him? The only consolation was that he had not kissed her. Rhys strode along the quayside past a group of loitering labourers who stepped back sharply at his approach.

He was scowling. Rhys unclenched his teeth and slowed his pace. Poor girl, she must have been appalled to find herself being clutched like that by her old friend, the man she so obviously trusted. No wonder Thea had snapped at him. It had never occurred to him to think of her in that light and then, suddenly, there she was in his arms, laughing up at him, and all he was conscious of was warm soft curves pressed against him and smiling lips and the faint scent of roses, and his treacherous body had reacted.

And she had felt it and had understood what was happening. Twenty-two! He still could not get his head around the fact that she was an adult—although when she was in his arms he’d had no trouble with the concept.

Thea had been too shocked to move, he thought, heaping hot coals on his conscience. Why, she hadn’t even turned her head away. Her mouth had been… Stop it! Even now, thinking about it, he was growing hard, to his shame. Thea. Hell, he might have kissed her. He might be an arrant flirt, but he never trifled with virgins. Never.

‘My lord?’

Rhys found himself at the foot of a crane alongside a sturdy hoy. With the tide full, its deck was on the level of the quayside and a blue-coated man with his hat pushed to the back of his head was standing, hands on hips, studying him. Men were leading away the teams from the carriages and removing the shafts under the watchful eye of Tom Felling, the coachman.

‘I am Lord Palgrave. Are you Captain Wilmott?’

‘I am, my lord, and this is the Nancy Rose all ready to take you to Dieppe in an hour.’

‘How long will the crossing take?’

The captain squinted up at the sky. ‘Twenty-four hours, give or take.’

‘Give or take what?’ Rhys demanded. Twenty-four hours cooped up on a boat with an embarrassed, angry woman was probably fitting penance, but he could do without the uncertainty.

‘Give or take sudden changes in the weather, accidents to the sails or rigging or getting stopped and searched by the coastguard,’ Harris said. ‘Acts of God, men overboard, collisions with whales…’

Rhys bit his tongue. The man was master of his own vessel and wouldn’t take kindly to imperious orders to get a move on. ‘Try to avoid the whales,’ he said with a smile to show he knew it was a joke. I hope it was, he thought as he strolled over to watch the men fixing ropes to the chaise to attach it to the crane.

There was something very compelling about watching experts working. Within half an hour the carriages were on deck and were being lashed down and the harness and shafts stowed. Rhys, temper restored, walked back to collect his party. The only possible approach was to act as though nothing had happened.

Thea, he found, was at least as good an actor as he was. ‘Polly is an experienced sailor,’ she remarked as they left the inn, a lad with a barrow trundling their hand luggage behind them. ‘She advises that I sleep in the chaise in order to benefit from the fresh air. Will that inconvenience you, my lord?’

He echoed her tone of careful formality in front of the servants. ‘Not at all, Lady Althea. She will be joining you, I collect?’

‘She says she prefers to be below decks. There are no other passengers on board, are there? Surely I will be quite safe alone.’

‘I will sleep in the carriage with Hodge. You have only to call out if you feel alarmed, but you will be quite secure.’

‘Begging your pardon, my lord, but if I might spend the night below decks I would appreciate it. I don’t rightly fancy being up on the top like that.’ The valet was wearing his usual poker face and Rhys wondered whether it was fear of the sea or the company of Polly that motivated him.

‘As you will, Hodge. Make certain there are blankets and pillows for Lady Althea.’

He helped Thea to the foot of the gangplank, then let the sailor stationed on deck take her hand to guide her safely onto the deck. Same old Thea, he thought with a rush of affection. Sensible, level-headed, brave enough not to flinch at the narrow bridge of wooden planks, rising and falling over the drop to the water.

Ridiculous to worry that she would be affected by that moment on the quayside. In six years he had forgotten what she was like—intelligent, loyal, full of fun and thoroughly rational. Until she was seized by some madcap idea, and then she was unstoppable.

Even during those awkward years when all the little girls he knew suddenly transformed into mystifying, alarming, thrilling creatures who left him hot, bothered and, ultimately, falling in love with one of them, Thea had stayed an honorary boy, even with her hems down and her hair up.

She had never giggled at him or ruthlessly used him to practise the arts of flirtation or reduced him to stammering incoherence with one look from beneath fluttering lashes. Good old tomboy Thea. No wonder she never received an offer. Rhys rested his elbows on the rail next to her. ‘Off we go on our adventure.’

Her answering smile was not the carefree grin of the young Thea. There were layers he could not read, a tension about her that he supposed was partly anxiety and partly tiredness. But she would be all right when they were safely across the Channel and she’d had a good night’s sleep. Plain little brown mouse—what the devil was the matter with him that she could send that shock of arousal through him? Must be the hangover, that was it.

Thea studied Rhys’s profile as he watched the crew working the hoy away from the quayside and into the harbour. He was a trifle heavy-eyed still—hung-over, she supposed.

How long ago had it been when she had first realised how her feelings were changing for the boy who had been a part of her childhood for so long? And how had he, who had always understood her so well, failed to notice that she had tumbled into love with him with all the disastrous suddenness of their fall out of Squire Gravestock’s pear tree, the time he broke his arm?

It must have been almost eight years ago. So long! Rhys always told her she was stubborn and she supposed he must be correct. Certainly her adoration was stubborn, for it had lived for months, flourished in the barren soil of his cheerful, friendly ignorance and then the desert of his total absence. Eventually she’d come to her senses and had grown up and out of love.

It had seemed such a good idea to go to Rhys when she’d heard he was going to the Continent, for any Grand Tour worth the name must include the great cities of Italy. It had not occurred to her for a moment that there was any danger in being alone with him. That girlish infatuation was long over and she could never forget that this was a man who loved another woman. If he did not, then surely he would have married by now.

But she had not taken the passing years into account. She had grown up and so, inevitably, had Rhys. And her mind might be cool and sensible, but her body was having a perfectly outrageous conversation with his, clamouring at her to look at him, admire him, let it explore this fascinating, frightening man. Her entire skin felt sensitive, her fingers itched to touch his….

She had never felt in the slightest danger from any of the dull, dutiful men who had asked for her hand when she was undertaking the Season. Even Anthony… No, do not think about him.

Now, alone with a man who was not dull and who was probably anything but dutiful, it was not Rhys who presented a threat, it was her own sensual self, startled into awareness when all she had ever expected to feel for a man again was a dull ache, like an old bruise.

And then she remembered his rejection just now when he had found her in his arms. No, she was quite safe. The only danger was of embarrassing herself thoroughly by allowing him to glimpse her new consciousness of him as a man.

Chapter Four

Being at sea was more pleasant than Thea had anticipated. The sun shone, her heavy cloak kept the wind at bay and seeing how the ship worked was entertaining. The captain took them straight out into the Channel where they met the large waves head on, so, once she had got used to the motion, Thea felt quite comfortable.

‘Take my arm,’ Rhys urged.

It was a foolish indulgence to cling to him, feel his strength expended just to keep her safe, to be looked after, the sole focus of his attentions. This was how beautiful women felt all the time: cared for, fussed over, treated as though they were fragile and valuable.

‘We can stagger drunkenly up and down the deck together,’ he added as they set off, surprising a gasp of laughter from her. No, Rhys didn’t think of her as a delicate flower. Good old tomboy Thea, that’s me.

It was difficult to speak, the wind whipping the words from their mouths, so they fell silent, occasionally pointing things out to each other—the famous White Cliffs, shining in the afternoon sun, the ship’s boy scampering amidst the rigging like a monkey, the gulls following their wake.

It made it all too easy to think and to remember.

She had been fourteen, a woman for only a few months, still awkward with her changing body and her strange shifting moods. Rhys had just turned twenty and for two years he had spent most of the summers with his male friends. Still, when he came back he treated her just the same, as a younger friend, not as a little girl or a nuisance. Looking back, she supposed that was because he simply did not think of her as female, a lowering conclusion.

She could recall thinking with relief that he hadn’t changed at all in the five months since she had last seen him. And then Serena Halstow had walked into the room, seventeen, blonde and pretty, and Rhys was looking at her in a way she had never seen him look at anyone before. Thea had not quite understood what was happening, but she did recognise her own feelings. She’d been violently jealous. In fact, she could have slapped Serena simply for lowering that sweep of dark lashes over her big blue eyes and then biting her lower lip as she peeped up at Rhys, who was looking, Thea had thought viciously, like a stunned cod.

They had taken no notice when she’d stamped off to sulk in the summerhouse, but when she’d calmed down a little she’d applied her brain to the situation and realised that Rhys was besotted with Serena and Serena was by no means averse to that. It had also become clear that her perception of Rhys as her best friend had shifted into something else entirely. She loved him. She was not sure what that meant, she simply knew that she had given her heart. When you are fourteen, love is for ever. She knew better now.

The butterfly-fluttering, pulse-quickening wonder of that feeling had lasted until supper when she’d stood next to Serena and saw them both reflected in the long glass. Her emotions might have decided they wanted to grow up, her body had started the uncomfortable, embarrassing process of doing so, but she was still a girl while Serena, there was no doubt, was already a young lady.

Thea had resented the approach of womanhood. She’d dug her heels in and fought every step, hating her changing shape, the monthly misery of her courses, the restrictions and the rules. But Serena had run towards it, arms wide, thrilled with her transformation into a beautiful young woman.

Looks had never mattered to Thea, who was far more interested in character. Her stepmother was constantly lecturing. ‘Stand up straight. Rinse your hair in vinegar, it might make it shine. Put this cream on those freckles.’ But most of the time she would just stare at Thea and sigh.

Gazing into the mirror beside Serena, she’d realised why. She was ordinary. Not ugly, not even interestingly plain. Just run-of-the-mill ordinary. Dull. Men were not attracted to ordinary—not that she wanted men in general, just her Rhys. And her Rhys had eyes only for Serena.

In one evening Thea came to terms with the truth: that she was not fit for the handsome, eligible young man she wanted because handsome, eligible men deserved beautiful wives. She was a disappointment to Papa, which was why he did not love her and she was invisible as a female to Rhys—and so he did not want her, either.

She’d stayed very quiet all that summer and even Godmama, usually so perceptive, put it down to her being at an awkward stage. By the time she’d met Rhys again she had conquered that foolish puppy love and had learned to live with reality. It was better in the end—daydreams only led to hurt.

‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Rhys bent to her ear, his breath hot on her wind-chilled skin.

‘Only one penny?’ Her laugh sounded as shrill as the gulls’ cries to her, but he did not appear to notice. ‘Ten guineas at the very least, my lord. They are very deep thoughts about ancient history.’

‘Are you a bluestocking, Thea?’ he teased.

‘I fear I am not serious enough.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Rhys said. ‘That’s what I always loved about you, Thea. You are so bright and yet such fun to be with.’

Her stomach swooped with a sensation that had nothing to do with the waves beneath the hull. ‘Is that what it was? And I had always assumed it was because I would tell the most outrageous fibs to get you out of scrapes.’

Love me? As a friend, there was no doubt. Rhys had always been a loyal friend. What would it be like to hear him say those words and mean them, as he must have said them to Serena?

He had fallen in love with Serena Halstow, had wooed and won her, so everyone thought. And then Serena had run away on her wedding day with Paul Weston, Rhys’s best friend, leaving Rhys to receive a note on the altar steps. In one shocked moment both Thea and Rhys had realised that Serena had been using Rhys’s courtship as a disguise for her love affair with the other man, who had little money and smaller prospects.

Paul, Thea had thought as she stood clutching the bride’s useless bouquet until the stems bent in her fingers. Of course. Paul, who Lord Halstow had been so vocal in dismissing as a rake and a wastrel.

For a second, a shameful second, her heart had leapt. Rhys was free. Then she realised he might be free, but he was also broken-hearted, however well he covered it up. The last thing he needed was his gawky little friend. Thea had bitten her lip and slammed the door firmly on the silly, romantic girl she had been.

She was grown-up now. When she’d come out, the men who did court her confirmed everything her stepmother had said. Men were not interested in ordinary girls unless they had connections and wealth. She had those in abundance, but her suitors were careless enough to let her see that was all the value she had for them. They were not interested in her sense of humour, her mind, her gift for friendship.

She would never have asked Rhys to let her travel with him if she had not believed those foolish feelings for him were safely in the past. And, of course, they were. Only, she never dreamt he would touch her on the first day like that.

Oh, well, as the Duke of Wellington said, I must tie a knot and carry on. Although she rather doubted whether the duke, famous for his amours, ever found such things disturbing his plans.

‘Tired?’ Rhys was leaning against the rail, supported on both elbows. His coat fell back, exposing the length of those well-muscled horseman’s legs, the breadth of his chest, the flat stomach under the watch chain curving across the subdued silk of his waistcoat. ‘You look very heavy-eyed.’

Her body felt achy, her lids heavy. She knew the cause, but it was hard to fight it. She was tired, that was the problem. Once she’d had a good night’s sleep in a proper bed she would be able to control these infuriating animal urges perfectly easily. She was an intelligent woman, after all. Sensible. That was all it needed—common sense.

‘It must be this sea air,’ Thea murmured. The same sea air that blew Rhys’s shirt tight against his body and tugged his hair back from his face. The young man she had known had grown into the breadth of his shoulders and the strong bones of his face as a hound puppy grew into its big feet and suddenly changed from a friendly, ungainly plaything into a sleek, muscled killing machine.

And it was not just physical. There was an assurance about him. He knew who he was, what he was. He existed in his world with complete confidence. No, his worlds, she realised. Even castaway he was master of his household and received only respect. His reputation as a landowner was unblemished. He had a full social life in a shark pool where there was no tolerance for anyone who was less than polished, assured, courageous, physically and mentally adept. How did a young man acquire those attributes? she wondered. He surely never had a doubt, never felt the fear and uncertainty that she was constantly having to suppress.

As for the way he unsettled her, well, she was not a girl any longer. She had read a lot of books, watched from the sidelines many a flirtation and courtship, allowed Anthony liberties that had gone too far, even if they had been disappointing and had taught her little.

What she was feeling was physical desire and telling herself that ladies did not permit such feelings was no help whatsoever. Either she was the single wanton exception to the rule or well-bred young women were fed a pack of lies about sex. Thea strongly suspected the latter.

‘Sea air and the fact that you haven’t had a decent night’s sleep for at least two days,’ Rhys diagnosed. Apparently he could read some of her thoughts, but hopefully not all of them. ‘Still, this swell doesn’t appear to be upsetting you, so you might manage a few hours tonight.’

‘I agree, it is a positively pleasant motion, dip and rise. Very smooth.’ She ran her tongue over salty lips.

‘My lord, Lady Althea. There is dinner below if you would care to come down,’ Hodge announced.

Polly had been right, there was a distinct odour of something unpleasant below decks and the motion of the ship, when one couldn’t see the horizon, was far more noticeable than when she had been leaning on the rail. Thea took a plate of bread and cheese, a mug of tea, and went back on deck with a sigh of relief both for the fresh air and the interruption.

Rhys joined her as she perched on a barrel and sipped cautiously at the black brew. ‘Definitely better than down there,’ he said with a shudder, and bit into a slice of meat pie.

‘Rhys, why not find a wife now?’ He looked across, the pie still in his hand, and a chunk of pastry fell unheeded to the deck. Oh, goodness, whatever possessed me to blurt that out? Too late now to go back on the question. Thea ploughed on. ‘It will be the house-party season very soon, or you could go to Brighton. There would be plenty of opportunities to find an eligible young lady and then you could honeymoon on the Continent.’

‘It is too soon,’ he said. His expression did not invite her to continue.

Too soon? Six years? How long does it take to get over a broken heart? But if Rhys jilted me on the altar steps, would I feel able to marry another man even six years later? Probably not. He still loves her, then.

It felt like kicking his favourite hound, Rhys thought. Thea didn’t snap back or even show any sign that he had snubbed her, although he had an indefinable sense that she had withdrawn from him.

‘Of course, it was insensitive of me to ask,’ she said, each word laid down so carefully it might have been made of spun glass. ‘You are not fickle. You still love Serena. Marrying again, out of duty, will be difficult.’

Still love Serena? Of course not. He almost said it out loud before he realised that would shock Thea. She believed him faithful, steadfast, the sort of man who would love loyally until death, and somehow he couldn’t face the risk that she would think less of him if he admitted the truth.

It had taken six months, not six years, to come to his senses. Six months of heavy drinking, a succession of utterly unsatisfying amatory encounters and the crushing sense that if he wasn’t worthy of being loved, then he wasn’t worthy to behave like a gentleman, to care about his estates, to bother with his friends.

And then he had woken up one morning and asked why he was punishing himself. He had not driven Serena into Paul’s arms; she had been there all the time. She had deceived him, lied to him, used him. He knew then he was not going to drink himself into an early grave for the sake of a woman who had never loved him.

‘I meant that I need a holiday. I’ve been working hard on the estate with the new model farm, the changes to the tenants’ cottages, the improvements we’ve been making to the cropping and livestock systems. I just want a break, something completely different.’ He had also been burning the candle at both ends all Season and he was feeling utterly jaded with women, gaming… Not that he could tell Thea that.

Rhys took a swig of ale and watched Thea out of the corner of his eye as she chewed on her bread, apparently intent on digesting his words as thoroughly as her food.

What would she say if he told her the truth? I want all my wits about me before I select a woman who will not betray me, who will fulfil her part of the bargain, will prove to be the bland, undemanding countess that I will be able to coexist with for the rest of my life. But the whole damn thing feels so cold, so…mechanical, that I’m clutching at excuses to put it off.

He didn’t need to ask Thea’s opinion; he knew what it would be. She would frown a little, making a crease between the brows that were a shade darker than her hair. Then she would twiddle a strand of flyaway brown hair while she thought about it and finally she would tell him that he must wait until he found a woman to love and who loved him. Her obsession with love matches was the only irrational thing he had ever discovered about Thea.

If he waited to stray into the path of Cupid’s arrows, he would die a bachelor. No, he would decide on a wife on the basis of her suitability as a countess and the mother of his heir. She would have to be intelligent enough to be a pleasant companion and a good parent, of course. And she would be attractive enough to make sharing a bed no penance—he intended to take his marriage vows seriously—but really, beyond that, he was prepared to be flexible and businesslike about the matter.

The women he would be deciding between—or, rather, their fathers—would make their decision based on his title, his bloodlines and his estate. It would be rational, calm and safe on both sides. No messy emotions. No pretence of love. He had no intention of laying his own heart out to be trampled on again and he was wary of doing anything that would make an impressionable young woman fancy herself in love with him.

‘Yes, I see.’ Thea nodded at last, a firm little jerk of her head. ‘It is very sensible to take a holiday if you need a change.’

‘Are you cold? You shivered just then.’ They were both well wrapped up, but the wind was cutting across the deck, sending tendrils of her hair dancing. It was rather pretty, that soft brown. Not obvious, just…nice. He’d never noticed before. Rhys leaned forward and tucked a strand back behind her ear, and she shivered again. He really should not touch her, not until he was feeling more himself, he thought, and frowned.

‘I must be tired. I think I’ll retire for the night.’

‘Hodge has made up the chaise, by the look of it.’ The valet was pulling down the blinds as he backed out of the vehicle.

‘I’ll just have a word with Polly.’ Thea stood up and brushed at the skirts of the serviceable walking dress she was wearing. ‘Goodnight, Rhys.’ She leaned forward and, before he could react, planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you for bringing me. I’ll try not to be a nuisance.’

He must be forgiven for that idiotic moment on the quayside, he decided as he watched her making her way across the gently heaving deck, her skirts caught up tight to stop the wind tossing them.

She had developed some very feminine curves since he had last seen her, he realised as she vanished into the companionway. The memory of them pressed against his body was…stimulating.

Ridiculous chit. What on earth had possessed her to think those boy’s clothes would have been any protection at all once it had become light? It was fortunate that he had been home and she had not been out on the streets in the morning.

With a muttered curse Rhys got to his feet and went to see what Hodge was doing to make the carriage habitable for the night. This was Thea, for goodness’ sake! What was the matter with him? He was going to have to find some obliging female company when they reached Paris if a few days’ celibacy had this effect on him. Thea, indeed!

Hodge had created a snug nest for her with pillows and rugs. Thea took off her shoes and stockings, folded her cloak and lay down. How clever of Polly to suggest she take off her stays, she thought as she wriggled into a comfortable position. There was absolutely no reason why she could not get a perfectly good night’s sleep with the boat moving in such a soothing rhythm.

No reason at all, except that her foolish brain decided to worry about Rhys and his marriage plans. Not that he was going about finding a bride differently from most eligible gentlemen, she supposed, punching a pillow into shape. But this was Rhys, and he was too passionate, too involved, too…alive, to settle for a bland marriage of mutual convenience, surely?

If he would only take an interest in the young women themselves and not in their parentage and dowries, then he might find a soulmate, someone who could heal the wounds Serena had inflicted.

She tried to think what sort of young lady would suit him. Not blonde, of course. But she’d have to be pretty. And… Warm, rocked by the waves, Thea drifted off to sleep.

‘Ow!’ Thea let out a startled cry, more of confusion than pain. It was dark, her whole left side hurt from colliding with something hard and she had no idea where on earth she was. The surface she was lying on rose and fell and she thumped down again, her limbs tangled in blankets.

The chaise. I’m in the chaise on the deck of the ship and we must have hit a rock or something. Get out…. She scrabbled at the door catch but it wouldn’t open. I’m going to drown…. ‘Rhys!’

Chapter Five

‘Thea?’ The door swung open and Rhys landed on top of her with more force than grace, a shadowy form in the dark. ‘Are you all right? I heard you cry out.’

‘Are we sinking?’ She grabbed for him and found a handful of linen shirt. He must have shed coat and waistcoat before settling for the night.

‘No, nothing like that, we are quite safe.’ The words ended on a grunt of pain as they were jolted up again. ‘Damn, I bit my tongue.’ He wedged himself into a corner and pulled Thea across his lap, his arms safe and sure around her as the panic drained away.

‘The captain has altered course and we’re running across some very choppy waves, something to do with the set of the wind and the way the tide is running. Do you feel sick?’

‘I was asleep, and when I was thrown into the air I had no idea where I was or what was happening, so I was alarmed, but I don’t feel ill, which must be a miracle. This is like being in a butter churn pulled across cobbles.’ She clutched at his arms. ‘How will we ever sleep?’

‘Stay there a moment.’ Rhys began to rummage around in the dark, heaping up blankets by the sound of it. ‘If I lie down diagonally, I can wedge myself pretty well. You lie down in front of me.’

He reached for her hand and tugged and Thea half slid, half tumbled, across his body.

‘Ugh. Turn your back and try not to elbow me in the stomach again.’

‘Sorry.’ It was a very firm stomach. Thea gave herself a brisk mental shake. ‘Like this?’ He was warm and hard and, when his arms came around her to anchor her in place, she stopped sliding about. It did nothing for the up-and-down jolting.

‘Just like this.’ His voice in her ear trembled on the edge of a laugh.

‘What is so funny?’ she enquired tartly.

‘This is. I was imagining our eloping couple—the ones from the book you think we should write. Here they are, alone at last, and Neptune has decided to act as chaperon.’

‘Of course! He is on the seabed, poking up irritably with his trident. Here he goes…again. Ouch.’

‘Try to relax.’ Rhys ignored her snort of derision. ‘We’ll get used to it. Just let go. You need the sleep.’

‘Impossible! How can I sleep like this?’

‘Count dolphins jumping over rocks,’ Rhys murmured in her ear. ‘Sheep would get too wet.’

‘Idiot,’ she murmured. One, two, three…here comes a porpoise….

Rhys sighed and moved his mouth gently against the head of the woman in his arms. This was the way to wake up. Warm, rocking gently, arms full of soft, curvaceous femininity.

She smelled of roses, whoever she was. He must try to recall her name in a minute; it was ungentlemanly to forget in the morning. Not that he could recall the night before either, but he supposed it must have been good. His body was certainly awake and interested.

When he pulled her more tightly against his groin she snuggled back with an erotic little wriggle that inflamed an already insistent erection to aching point.

‘Mmm.’ Rhys nuzzled the silky fine hair and let his right hand stray lightly across her body. They were both dressed, after a fashion, although their bare feet had obviously made friends in the night. Perhaps she had pulled on her gown again afterwards for warmth, because under the fine wool he could feel uncorseted curves and the sweet weight of an unfettered breast. As his thumb moved across the nipple it hardened and he smiled.

His companion stirred, stretched, her feet sliding down against his. She yawned and he came completely awake. He was in the chaise, on the ship, heading for France and in his arms, pressed against his insistent erection, her breast cupped in his hand, was Lady Althea Curtiss.

Rhys bit back the word that sprang to his lips and went very still. Was she awake? Had she realised? Probably not or she’d be screaming the place down, or, given that this was Thea, applying that sharp elbow where it would do most harm. He let his hand fall away from her breast, lifted the other from her hip, arched his mid-section as far back as he could. If he tried to slide his arm from under her, she would probably wake.

Damn it. Thea, the innocent, respectable friend whom he had already shocked with that embrace. If his wretched wedding tackle would only take the hint and calm down, that would be a help; he was as hard as teak.

Rhys thought about Almack’s, tripe and onions, Latin verbs, tailors’ accounts. It didn’t work. His brain, apparently having lost all its blood in a mad southwards dash, was disobediently musing on just where Thea had acquired those curves from and when she had begun to smell of roses and how that mousey mane of hair could be so silky.

‘Rhys?’ His name was muffled in a yawn.

‘Yes. Roll off my arm, would you? I’ve got pins and needles.’

‘Sorry.’

Merciful relief. In the dim morning light Rhys grabbed for a blanket and hauled it across his lap as he sat up.

Thea sat up, too, stretching her arms in a way that made him moan as her bosom rose and fell. ‘Are you all right? Shall I rub it better?’

‘No! I mean, no, my arm is fine now.’ Rhys gave it a shake to demonstrate and grabbed for the door handle. ‘I’ll get out and let you get…get ready. Yes.’ He landed on the deck and bundled the blanket back into the chaise. Damn it, he sounded like a gauche seventeen-year-old. ‘I can see the shore clearly. We’ll be landing soon, I expect.’

‘Oh, good.’ Thea’s voice came faintly through the closed door. ‘I won’t be long.’

Hell’s teeth. Rhys tottered to the main mast, took a firm grip on a rope and dragged cold sea air down into his lungs. What have I agreed to? That isn’t little Thea in there, that is Lady Althea, all grown up…and out and… Stop it. He was, for Heaven’s sake, a sophisticated man with considerable sexual experience. He was a notorious flirt. His wits were normally perfectly capable of dealing with any female. So why couldn’t he cope with this one? It would be better when she was up and dressed and looking like Thea again in that drab dress with her cheerful, intelligent, blessedly ordinary face smiling at him. And her corset on, please, God.

Thea pulled on her stockings, tied her garters and searched for her shoes, all ordinary, every-morning tasks. Only this was not every morning. Today she had woken up plastered against the body of a virile, aroused man. Which was interesting, if ruinous for her peace of mind. She suspected that Rhys had no idea how awake she had been, or that she knew why he had bundled out of the carriage in such haste with a blanket clutched to his midriff.

After her first encounter with an overamorous rake at a ball during her first Season, she had resolved to discover exactly what physical love involved, if only to avoid unwanted advances.

Her researches had involved a fair amount of eavesdropping on her married acquaintances and discreet rummaging in the library, to say nothing of a survey of some Greek vases that had been pushed right to the back of a high shelf. And there was the Home Farm, of course. No country-bred girl could be completely ignorant, although one hoped one’s husband, if one did ever marry, had more…finesse than Hector, the stud bull. Or Anthony, she thought with a shudder.

Thea felt she was reasonably well informed about the mechanics of the thing and had even gleaned the interesting snippet that men tended to wake up in a state of readiness for the act. That was obviously what had happened this morning. All perfectly natural and normal. Nothing to feel hot and bothered about. It had been quite impersonal, just as Rhys’s hand on her breast had been the unintentional result of sleeping so close together. And presumably her own physical reaction to that sleepy caress was automatic and natural, too. Goodness, he was large…. Even yesterday on the quayside she had not quite realised.

She spared a wistful thought for their innocent childhood as there was a tap on the door and Polly looked in.

‘I’ve got your brushes here, my lady, and some water and a towel. Would you like your breakfast in here or on deck? The ship’s cook’s got some nice fried herring.’

‘Just tea and bread and butter please, Polly. I’ll take it outside. Were you all right last night?’

The motion of the boat was gentle enough now for the water in the deep bowl to lap safely at the sides when she wedged it in a corner. She washed her face.

‘I was fine, my lady, but Mr Hodge isn’t at all happy this morning.’ Polly flapped blankets vigorously as she tidied the interior of the chaise. ‘Green as pea soup, he is, and properly on his dignity when I twitted him about it. There, all that needs is the seats putting back. And did you manage any sleep, my lady?’

Thea glanced at the maid. Was that a snide question or a perfectly genuine one? She was not going to put herself in the position of appearing defensive. ‘I was very alarmed when we started to toss so,’ she said. ‘In fact, I think I cried out, because his lordship came and wedged me in with the blankets.’

‘Oh. Wasn’t he…?’ The maid caught herself up and bit her lip.

‘Wasn’t he in here the entire time? Do you assume that I am his lordship’s mistress, Polly?’

‘Oh! My lady, I wouldn’t… I mean, it isn’t my place.’

Thea raised one eyebrow and waited.

‘Well, yes, my lady. At least, I thought you must be eloping, like. Getting married abroad. Only he’s never brought women—ladies, that’s to say, home before.’ She trailed off. ‘I’m sorry, my lady. You won’t dismiss me for impertinence, will you?’

‘No, of course not. I am not his lordship’s lover, nor are we eloping. I have left home and he is accompanying me to Venice where I will join my godmother. We are old friends, that is all. It makes it quite unexceptional for him to have spent the night in the chaise under the circumstances. Why, he might be my brother.’

It sounded to her own ears like a rehearsed explanation and Polly’s pursed lips indicated that she was less than convinced. ‘Of course, my lady.’ She gathered up the pillows. ‘I’m very discreet, my lady.’

‘I am glad to hear it. If you wish to become a lady’s maid on a permanent basis, then that is essential.’ Thea would not stoop to giving the girl money for silence, for that would convince her there really was something to hide, but the subtle hint that good behaviour might result in the privileged position of personal attendant being assured was probably just as effective.

She followed the maid out onto the deck, wrapped securely into the concealing folds of the cloak. Rhys was leaning against the main mast, hands clasped round a steaming mug, watching the coastline slip past. France, the next part of the adventure.

‘I didn’t realise there would be cliffs,’ Thea observed as she reached his side. Thankfully her voice sounded perfectly normal, although she suspected she was blushing. It was strange to have intimate knowledge of his body like that, even more disconcerting than the fact that he had caressed her breast.

‘They are not as high as at Dover. We’ll be in Dieppe soon.’ Rhys sounded perfectly normal, too. He could not have realised that she had been awake as long as she had, or perhaps men were completely blasé about that kind of thing.

But he had not been indifferent about that hectic moment on the quayside in Dover. A sharp pain made her realise that she was biting her lower lip. The only thing to be done was to seem entirely unconscious of any reaction on either of their parts, and Rhys would soon realise that she had no interest in him as anything but an old friend.

Polly brought her tea and she leaned on the other side of the mast, scanning the coast for anything particularly foreign and exotic. ‘It looks just like England,’ she complained as they swung into the harbour.

‘That doesn’t.’ Rhys nodded to a life-sized crucifix set up to dominate the quayside. ‘And look at the costumes. Do you think they are fishwives?’

‘They are exceptionally clean if they are,’ Thea observed as the crowd on the quay came into focus. ‘Not like Billingsgate at all!’ The women had tight-waisted bodices with vast skirts billowing out and finishing well above their white-stockinged ankles. They wore snow-white caps with flaps hanging down to their shoulders and, as the sails came down and the ship lost way, Thea could see the glint of gold in every ear.

‘So many soldiers,’ she added as they glided closer. The crowd was full of men in greatcoats, military-looking jackets, cocked hats—all studying the ship and its human cargo with sullen faces. Thea was suddenly very grateful that she was not attempting this journey by herself. They had been at war with these people for years and, it seemed, peace had not made much difference. ‘I thought the army would have been disbanded,’ she added, trying for a note of bright interest and not apprehension. She had fought down her fears about leaving home, but it had never occurred to her to worry about dangers beyond escaping the shores of England.

‘It has, by and large. Those aren’t soldiers, at least not anymore. These are just conscripts who have returned home. Look around, virtually everyone is wearing some piece of cast-off uniform, even some of the women. They’ve been at war for years, poor devils, and they probably don’t have much else.’

‘Is there a hotel we will go to?’ Thea saw jostling porters, lads with barrows, and tried to start thinking in French. It had never been her best subject, much to the disapproval of her governess.

‘Of course. It is all arranged. We will be met—in fact, that must be the agent there.’ Rhys raised a hand and a tall, thin man in a dark suit of clothes lifted his hat in acknowledgement.

The ship bumped alongside, almost level with the top of the quay. Ropes were thrown and tied, a ladder let down the few feet to the deck and Rhys went up, then reached out to help Thea, who twitched her veil into place.

‘Monsieur le comte!’ The man was pushing his way to their side.

‘No earls in France,’ Rhys observed to Thea. ‘With or without their heads. It appears I have become a count.’

‘François le Brun, at your service, monsieur le comte.’ He whipped his hat off again as he saw Thea. ‘And madame la comtesse! I had not expected the honour.’

‘Non, monsieur. Je suis…’

‘This is Madame Smith,’ Rhys said firmly in French that was considerably better than hers. ‘A family friend I am escorting to Paris.’

‘But of course!’ Le Brun’s hands fluttered in urgent signals to indicate his total willingness to oblige. He was desperate to please, Thea realised. The returning English must offer employment and hope after difficult times. ‘It is as monsieur le comte says. Another chamber will be no problem. I have taken the entire hôtel for the convenience of monsieur le comte.’

He clicked his fingers and half a dozen men lined up beside him. ‘These will unload your carriages. I have engaged two post boys and hired horses of the best quality.’ He grimaced. ‘At least, of the best quality that is available these days.

‘If you will follow me.’ He turned, apparently unconcerned by the fight that had broken out between porters over who would load their luggage onto whose barrows. Hodge, in French almost as good as his master’s, was laying down the law to some effect and Rhys did not appear concerned, so Thea took his arm and allowed herself to be led through the crowd.

‘They are staring,’ she muttered in English.

‘Of course. We are still a novelty and no doubt they are studying us for the latest in English fashions.’

‘Then they will be sadly disappointed in me,’ she retorted. ‘How long are we staying? I must buy one new gown at the very least. I cannot bear this drab old thing for much longer.’

‘It is fine, surely?’ Rhys glanced down at her skirts, protruding limply between the openings of her cloak.

Either he was completely indifferent to fashion or he simply expected her to wear something dowdy. Probably the latter. ‘No, it is not fine. I chose it because it is so dull and worn. I had no wish to draw attention to myself in England. It is my gardening dress and the last thing Papa would expect me to be seen out in. I took the precaution of hiding some of my newest gowns so the description of what I was wearing would be wrong.’

‘You would make an excellent spy,’ Rhys observed. ‘But can you not endure your limp brown skirts until Rouen? I was intending to spend just the one night here, but two there. The shops should be better, too.’

‘Very well, it does seem sensible. But you are going to disappoint Monsieur le Brun when he has taken over an entire hotel just for one night.’ The Frenchman paused to wave them on with a flourish. Behind them, she could hear Hodge nagging the porters to take care with his lordship’s luggage. She had seen less dramatic circus processions.

‘Monsieur le Brun has been promised a generous fee, so he will be advised to put a good face on it whether I stay ten minutes or ten days.’ Rhys regarded their French guide’s flamboyant gestures through narrowed eyes. ‘This hotel had better be a good one.’

‘He did not believe I was just a friend,’ Thea murmured, tweaking her veil. ‘Perhaps the hotelier will not approve….’

‘The hotelier will approve even if we choose to hold an orgy for two, import every one of the Regent’s mistresses or spend the evening playing whist,’ Rhys said with an edge that startled her. ‘It is none of his damn business. I am Palgrave, and if he does not know what that means then he will discover a startling shortage of English visitors of rank over the next few years.’

I am Palgrave. He would never have said that six years ago, and certainly not with that cool threat behind it. He had never spoken to her in that way and suddenly she saw him as others did: an earl, a powerful man by inheritance and his own force of will. Unnerved by his irritation, she stammered, ‘I-it is just that I had not regarded what people might think, provided no one recognised me. And now I feel a trifle… I would not wish to cause you embarrassment.’

‘Cause me embarrassment?’ Rhys stopped dead and frowned down at her, six foot plus of exasperated masculinity. ‘I doubt anything would put me to the blush, but you are my responsibility now.’

‘Th-thank you.’ Thea had to take a little run to catch up with him as he strode off across the cobbles. ‘I had no intention of being a nuisance.’

‘We will talk when we are alone,’ Rhys said. ‘Here, give me your arm, these stones will turn your ankle.’

In other words, I am a nuisance. It felt very much like being summoned to Papa’s study for a lecture. Behind the sheltering veil, Thea grimaced at the haughty profile, fell obediently silent and wished very hard that she had the young Rhys back again.

Chapter Six

The hotel, when they reached it, was large, but half seemed in ruin with windows boarded up. There was even a small tree sprouting in the gutters.

‘This looks a wreck,’ Rhys said to le Brun.

‘It is too big these days, too expensive to keep it all in repair. Before the Revolution it belonged to…a family. They no longer needed it, so part was taken over by a citoyen, a citizen of the Revolution, you understand? The same has happened all over the town.’ He shrugged. ‘All over France.’

‘No longer needed it? You mean they were guillotined?’ A citizen. Citoyen, one of the people. Had the landlord been part of the mob who bayed for the death of aristocrats? Thea shivered.

‘Madame, such an unpleasant subject.’ He pursed his lips as though she had made a remark in bad taste. Perhaps she had.

‘The half that is in use seems decent enough,’ Thea said to placate him as he ushered them inside.

He exchanged a flurry of rapid French with the short man who came out to greet them and two maids were despatched upstairs, arms full of linens. ‘They prepare another bedchamber for madame,’ le Brun explained. ‘I show you now to the salon of the suite.’ The landlord was swept aside. ‘There is a chef, a proper man cook,’ le Brun announced with a gesture towards a door at the rear. ‘Not a female cook as so often is the case in England, I understand.’

They followed him upstairs, leaving the porters and Hodge in energetic dispute over how much extra it would cost to have the luggage carried up.

‘Voilà!’ Le Brun flung open a door with a flourish.

They were on the principal floor of the house, in a chamber that had once been an elegant reception room. It was whitewashed now and worn rugs were scattered over a floor of soft red brick, but the fireplace was magnificent and marble. The walls were hung with huge mirrors, damp spotted, their ornate frames bearing faint traces of their original gilding, and the assortment of furniture had once seen far better days.

‘Monsieur le comte, your chamber is here.’ Le Brun opened a door on the far side. ‘Madame, they prepare yours there.’

On the far side, thank goodness. ‘I trust the beds are aired.’ Thea had practised the sentence in French in her head all the way up the stairs.

Le Brun shot her a look of deep reproach. ‘But of course!’

‘We will need hot baths immediately, and then breakfast.’ She threw back her veil and produced a smile. ‘If you please.’

The effect on the Frenchman was curious. He smiled back at her with more genuine warmth than he had shown before, then he glanced at Rhys with a faint smirk. ‘I see to it at once, madame.’

Thea snorted as he closed the door behind himself. ‘He has realised that I am not, after all, your mistress. He will treat me with slightly more respect and he feels rather less for you now.’

‘How did you work that out?’ Rhys turned from the window and his contemplation of the street outside.

‘He saw me unveiled. I told you, I am not mistress material. So he decides I am respectable and you are to be pitied for having the chore of escorting me.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! As if the suitability of a woman for that role has anything to do with looks.’ Rhys’s brain appeared to catch up with his mouth and he shut it with a snap.

‘What does it have to do with?’ Thea asked, overcome with curiosity.

‘Never mind! Will you please stop talking about mistresses?’

‘Certainly! Perhaps, while you are lecturing me, you can tell me what it is we have to discuss in private?’

‘Lecturing?’ Rhys narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Please sit down, Thea.’ This was not the just-awakened man who had made her smile with his precipitous exit from the chaise. It was certainly not the inebriated old friend, sprawled in a chair and harassed by the kitchen cat. This was every inch the adult half stranger she had caught unsettling glimpses of on their journey.

‘Very well.’ She swept cloak and skirts around her with a flourish and sat in a chair that had probably once graced the town house of some now-executed aristocrat. The idea made her shiver.

‘You are cold.’ From his frown, that appeared to be a fault on her part.

‘No, I am…unsettled. Please say what it is you wish to say and then I will go and change.’

‘You should never have come to me and I should never have brought you with me,’ Rhys stated without preamble.

‘I was obviously mistaken in thinking I could rely on an old friend to help me.’

‘You should have been able to rely on an old friend to do the right thing. If I had been halfway sober, I would never have brought you. But it is done now and there is no going back from it. I will get you to Godmama safely.’

‘Thank—’

‘I have not finished. Your position is open to misinterpretation from everyone we meet, servants or otherwise. I will not have a lady under my protection insulted or embarrassed, and I would therefore be grateful if you would do nothing to draw attention to yourself, or our journey is likely to be a turbulent one.’

‘Indeed?’ Thea got to her feet with a swirl of skirts that would have been considerably more effective if they had not been overwashed old wool. ‘Other than being female, I do not believe I have done anything that might be said to draw attention to my person. I regret that I am not able to rectify that grievous fault—unless you wish me to dress as a boy? I still have the clothes.’

‘You make an appalling boy—you do not have the figure for it.’ Rhys appeared to find the carved overmantel fascinating.

‘I could bind my—’

‘It is not your… Not the parts that need binding that are the problem. No youth has hips like that, and those can’t be bound.’

‘Hips? Are you saying that I have a fat posterior?’

‘No! Thea, this is a highly improper conversation.’ Rhys glared at her. ‘You have curves, that is all I am saying.’

‘So I should hope.’

‘You never had them before.’ Rhys’s lips twitched into a reluctant smile. ‘You used to be all skin and bone and angles. You still have the elbows. I have the bruises from last night.’

‘I was sixteen the last time we met face-to-face, for goodness’ sake! I was a late developer,’ she added mutinously.

‘Well, you’ve developed now, and that’s a problem.’

‘Not according to Stepmama. She considers that I finally have an adequate figure.’ Rhys appeared to be grinding his teeth. ‘Anyway, I have no intention of flaunting anything, or of flirting with passing rakes, leaning over the balcony en negligée or otherwise drawing attention to myself. Does that reassure you?’

‘It does. Thank you, Thea.’ They watched each other in wary silence for a minute, then Rhys said, ‘I am not used to having to look after an unmarried girl.’

‘I am not a girl.’ His words might have been intended as a small flag of truce, but her precarious hold on her temper was slipping again. ‘If I am old enough to be married, and to inherit my own money, I think that makes me a woman, don’t you?’ Even to her own ears she sounded remarkably tart. What was the matter with her? She never lost her temper—she was known for cheerful common sense, everyone said so.

‘No doubt it does. And that is the problem. At least we understand each other now.’

We do? She opened her mouth to ask that very question as Polly bustled in.

‘The room’s all ready for you, my lady, and the bath’s being filled, although I had a bit of a problem with the servants here to start with. Cobwebs like you wouldn’t believe and no proper pillows, just nasty, hard bolster things.’ She picked up Thea’s discarded bonnet. ‘Amazing how they understand if you speak nice and loud and slow, isn’t it?’

‘French servants or Englishmen?’ Thea murmured as she followed the maid out. From the corner of her eye she saw Rhys’s mouth quirk up at the corner. So he had heard her. Ah well, so long as that half smile meant they were back on their old footing and he stopped that nonsense about drawing attention to herself. And wanting to fight anyone who insulted her.

It was rather charming, she decided as she rolled down her stockings. Gallant. Up to now gentlemen had not seemed to consider that she might need helping down gangplanks or rescuing from embarrassment. Even when Anthony was making his pretence of courting her so ardently he had never tried the ‘fragile flower’ treatment.

Not that she did need assistance, of course. She would hate to be a helpless female, but it was pleasant to be looked after once in a while. The memory of just how safe Rhys’s body had made her feel sent a shiver shimmering across her skin. Odd, she must be tired, or perhaps she was coming down with a chill.

And perhaps safe was not the right word, not when she remembered the shocking pressure of his arousal against her buttocks, or the heat of his body. But that was just a male reflex, nothing to be worried about. Everything would be fine, provided Rhys stopped lecturing her. Even discovery and ruin hardly mattered. Nothing did, provided she was not forced back home into a grey nothingness of an existence. She shivered again. That would be so bad she might even agree to marriage and find herself tied to someone like Anthony.

Polly lifted her gown over her head and Thea shed shift and petticoats before stepping into the bath. ‘Heaven.’ This would stop the shivers. ‘A hot soak and a soft bed that doesn’t move. It is soft, I hope?’

‘The sort that swallows you,’ Polly said cheerfully, and passed the soap. ‘They’ve put me in there.’ She pointed at a door. ‘Great big room. And Mr Hodge is on the other side next to his lordship. Not exactly cosy, though, is it?’

‘Not at all. I think it was a quite grand town house once and this was the main reception floor. These are not really bedchambers.’

‘And the owner’s come down in the world? He doesn’t look much like a gentleman.’ Polly began to shake out Thea’s clothes. The corset had reappeared, she noticed.

‘I suspect the real owner and his family went to the guillotine,’ Thea said, repressing another shiver.

‘Ooh! I was forgetting that.’ Polly’s eyes were huge. ‘Murdering Frenchies. Why, they’re probably eyeing up his lordship and sharpening the blade even now….’

‘We are at peace with France,’ Thea soothed. ‘There is a king on the throne again and Bonaparte is safely banished to Elba in the middle of the Mediterranean.’

‘And quite right, too,’ Polly muttered. ‘Now, I suppose it will have to be the blue gown tonight.’ She prodded the limp garment with disfavour while Thea made herself focus on the immediate crisis of her inadequate wardrobe and pushed other, more disturbing, thoughts back into the shadows.

Rhys folded his long legs into the bath and bent his head for Hodge to pour over a jug of hot water. Thea and that tongue of hers, as sharp as ever. But she never used it to wound. Only to tease, to create laughter, to press home a point.

He’d missed that laughter and teasing from a woman. There was laughter enough with his male friends, but his mistresses were always more intent on being seductive than on amusing him, which he supposed was fair enough, that was what he wanted from them—beauty, sensual expertise in bed and sophisticated conversation beforehand.

They were an expensive luxury, but Rhys was prepared to pay for quality. But some things could not be bought from a woman: friendship, laughter, loyalty. For a few weeks he would have those with Thea, he supposed, and felt the smile curve his mouth.

‘More hot water, my lord?’

‘Hmm?’ He must have fallen into a trance. ‘Yes. More hot water, more soap.’ Thea. Just as long as you remember that she’s an innocent. A bright, clever, independent innocent. It is a good thing she’s been stubborn enough to turn down those marriage offers—she isn’t cut out for matrimony and they’d only make her miserable, forcing her into the mould of a perfect wife.

Hodge passed him a back brush and Rhys began to scrub, shifting his shoulders under the pleasurable rasp of the bristles.

But she’d have to be careful, he realised as he considered it further. Life as a single woman would be made smoother with wealth, but it would be all too easy to slip into eccentricity, or worse, if she failed to find a manner of living that met with the approval of society. He would have to talk to her about it, make certain she made the right decisions, just as he had.

‘So what are you planning to do with all this money when you have control of it?’ Rhys asked.

The wind on the cliff top was blowing her veil in all directions and he could not see her face. With an irritated ‘Tsk’, Thea gave up wrestling with her veil and threw it back over her bonnet. ‘There is no one up here to see,’ she said, as though expecting him to demand that she lower it again. ‘What am I planning? Why, to be independent.’

‘I know that, but independently doing what, exactly?’ Rhys hitched one hip onto a tumbledown stone wall and half turned as though watching the town and harbour below. Out of the corner of his eye he studied Thea as she paced back and forth over the rabbit-cropped turf.

‘Living, of course! What a ridiculous question.’

‘Where? With whom? Who will be managing your investments? What will you be spending your money on?’ He swivelled to face her and she stopped, a furrow between her brows as she frowned at him. ‘What will be your purpose in life?’

‘To enjoy myself. To be free.’

‘Selfish,’ Rhys commented, with the intent of provoking her. Down in the harbour, fishing boats were running out on the tide, and he pretended to watch them. ‘That’s not like you.’ Or perhaps it was. Six years was a long time. He had changed, she must have, too.

‘I don’t mean mindless frivolity,’ Thea protested. ‘I mean doing things that I consider worthwhile. Something that will tell me I am alive,’ she added so softly he thought he must have misheard her. Surely life in her father’s house was not so stifling? ‘I will set up a charity—that would be satisfying….’

‘To be Lady Bountiful to the grateful poor?’ He let the corner of his mouth curl into a sneer. As it had in the past, his goading worked. Thea glared at him, but he had loosened her tongue.

‘No, certainly not. People do not need to be patronised, to be done good to. I will find something worthwhile and invest in it. Perhaps set some enterprising women up in small businesses, or provide apprenticeships for bright boys. I have a brain with some ideas in it, Rhys. I will suffocate if I don’t use it, if I am not free.’

He hid both his approval and his unease at her vehemence. ‘It does not sound as though you have planned it out.’

‘Of course I have not.’ Thea marched round to stand in front of him, cutting off his view of the harbour. ‘I need to find out exactly what my income is, learn how to manage it and, I hope, increase it. I have to find a suitable companion and somewhere to live. I need to work out all those things and then I can see where I am.

‘Anyway,’ she demanded, ‘what is so important about planning? You used to do things on the spur of the moment. Improvise.’

‘I do not any longer.’ He stood up, rather too close for her comfort, it seemed. Thea cast a harried glance over her shoulder, apparently decided that the cliff edge was a safe distance from her heels and took a long step backwards. ‘These days I plan—the estate, my investments, my political life, the way I live.’

‘Predictable,’ Thea retorted. ‘Boring. Do you schedule your mistresses according to a timetable?’

‘Responsible,’ he flung back, ignoring that last jibe. Rhys planned so that nothing, nobody would have the chance to let him down again, but he saw no reason to justify himself. He caught at the ragged edge of his temper and said coolly, ‘Grow up, Thea.’

‘I have.’ Annoyance was bringing out the colour to her cheeks. ‘But I do not understand why being a responsible adult involves losing spontaneity, joy, surprise. Adventure.’ The look she shot him held reproach. ‘Have you any concept what it would be like to have to dwindle into an old maid or be married off to a man whom you cannot like, let alone respect?’

No, he could not, and it made him damnably uncomfortable that Thea of all people feared those things. His conscience nudged him. She had been his friend and he had all but forgotten her as he had rebuilt his life. But what did he know about respectable women and their emotional needs? Perhaps some practical common sense would help—it was all he had to offer. ‘This is not about me. It is about you, Thea. You have two assets that must last you your lifetime, if you are not to marry.’

She tipped her head to one side, instantly curious. She had never been able to hold on to a bad mood for long. The only time he had seen her stay angry was two hours after the fiasco of his wedding ceremony when he had found her wringing the neck of Serena’s bouquet. And even then, when she had seen him, she had smiled ruefully. ‘Poor flowers, it isn’t their fault.’

‘I have my inheritance, that is all,’ she said now.

‘You have that, and you will need to choose your financial and legal advisers with great care, for those funds must last to finance your independence.’

‘So what is the other asset?’ Intelligent hazel eyes fringed with dark lashes narrowed in thought.

‘Your reputation. Respectable single women with wealth and breeding and a certain interesting eccentricity will be accepted anywhere—look at Godmama. But get a shady reputation, just the hint of loose behaviour, and you will find doors close in your face.’

‘Loose behaviour? Me?’ Thea gave an unladylike snort of derision.

‘Like gadding about the Continent unchaperoned with a man to whom you are not related, for example?’

The charming blush faded. ‘Nonsense. No one is going to find out. Godmama and I will concoct a suitable story involving a courier and a suitable female companion, you’ll see.’ There it was again, just that flash of emotion behind the confidence. Surely it could not be fear of what would await her if she had to return home?

‘I hope so. It is getting cold—let’s go down and see what there is for dinner.’ He stood and offered his arm and she slipped her hand under his elbow. He was apparently forgiven. But then, Thea always did forgive. Rhys felt another twinge of guilt, this time for goading her and, at the same time, for entertaining Gothic imaginings about her father. The earl might not be the best parent in the world, but he would not mistreat Thea, surely?

‘Scallops, I hope. Dieppe is famous for them, I believe.’

‘That sounds good,’ Rhys agreed. ‘I was thinking of a fat lobster, personally.’

He waited until they had left the slippery cliff-top turf for the worn path before he asked, ‘Would it not be better to find a husband after all? Someone to take care of you—and your inheritance?’

‘His inheritance, you mean. Once I marry, I lose all control of my money.’

‘Is that why you are so set against marriage?’ A group of soldiers lounged by a checkpoint on the road out of town. They glanced over at them, then went back to their game of dice. There was something she was not telling him, and he was going to winkle it out of her, however hard she resisted.

Chapter Seven

‘I am not set against marriage, as such,’ Thea protested. ‘But it is such a risk. A woman hazards so much. I am resolved not to marry unless I fall in love, which seems to me to be the only reason for taking the plunge. And I can tell you, that is highly unlikely.’

‘What about Sir Anthony Meldreth?’

‘As I said, we found we did not suit.’

Perhaps she had sounded unconvincing, for Rhys stopped and looked at her sharply. ‘What happened?’

Bother and blast, I am blushing. ‘Nothing.’

‘Thea…’ Rhys’s tone told her he would not let this go now. ‘Sit down here and tell me.’ He gestured to a bench by the side of the path.

‘Oh, well, if you must pry into every last detail!’ Thea sat down with an inelegant thump and stared at her toes. ‘He led me to believe he loved me, that he was interested in the things that I enjoyed, that he respected my opinions, that he wanted a wife who would be an equal.’

‘And did you love him?’

‘In a way, yes. I thought he would be a good companion and I trusted him when he said he wanted only me, for myself.’

‘And he did not?’ Rhys’s voice was softer now.

‘I overheard him discussing settlements with my father. They had agreed on his approach together so that Papa could get me off his hands and Anthony would gain my inheritance and a piece of land he had been wanting for a long time that Papa had previously refused to sell.’

‘That must have been…difficult to cope with. What did you do? Confront them?’

‘No. I told Anthony that I had changed my mind and I did not think we would suit. He told me I was frigid and not worth what my father offered him.’

‘Frigid? Did he force you?’

‘No.’ It was apparently possible to blush this hard without bursting into flames. ‘I allowed him certain…liberties. When I thought we were in love, you understand.’ Thea fixed her gaze on her clasped hands.

‘Certain liberties? What the blazes does that mean?’ Rhys sounded furious. Thea flickered a glance in his direction and saw his face. He was furious.

‘Rhys, for goodness’ sake, I cannot discuss this with you!’

‘Why not? You are under my protection. The man’s a bastard to trifle with you. I will deal with him when I get back to England.’

‘Call him out? For pity’s sake, Rhys—on what pretext?’

‘I’ll find one. I am certain I can take offence at his hat, or his face or the way he laughs.’

‘Oh, Rhys.’ There was no point in arguing and, besides, Sir Anthony was a long way away. Rhys’s temper would have cooled by the time he got home. He fired up when he saw her predicament as a matter of honour, but he did not truly understand her horror of returning to that life where she was either a pawn or a tool, where her true self would simply dwindle and vanish. A man simply would not comprehend how a woman’s powerlessness could make her feel.

‘Love’s an illusion,’ Rhys said abruptly. ‘You realise that now, I presume?’

‘No, I don’t. I was mistaken in him and my own sentiments, that is all. You know that love does exist,’ Thea said softly. She reached out and curled her fingers around his forearm for a moment. ‘If it did not, you would not be so set on making a loveless, suitable marriage this time. Love hurts—that is how we know it is real.’

Rhys moved abruptly, but she kept looking straight ahead so all he would be able to see was the top of her plain straw bonnet. ‘Put your veil down,’ he ordered.

‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

She arranged it carefully, then let him take her hand and help her to her feet. Now that she had satisfied his curiosity, perhaps Rhys would drop the subject and allow her to nurse her battered emotions in peace. Her fears she dared not contemplate.

‘Tomorrow I shop,’ Thea said firmly three days later as dinner was laid out on the table in their private salon in the Plume d’Or inn near the Louvre. ‘Rouen was all very well, but one day was not enough.’ All she and Polly had achieved was fresh linen, a pair of stockings apiece and some handkerchiefs.

‘You are not tired by the journey?’ Rhys took up the carving knife and began to dismember a chicken with forensic skill. He sounded hopeful. Why were men so anxious when women went shopping? It was not his money after all.

‘Tired? Not at all. I love travelling. There was so much to look at and the roads are very good.’

‘All the better for marching troops along,’ Rhys said with a wry smile.

‘It seems so strange to be at peace. All my life we have been at war with France. Thank goodness it is over now.’ Thea accepted the meat he laid on her plate and began to investigate the steaming dishes that filled the table. ‘How many people do they think they are feeding! This looks delicious. I am going to put on pounds if I am not careful.’ She chewed a delicious morsel and took a sip of wine. ‘Rhys…’

‘Yes? That sounds like the start of a question I should be wary of.’

‘Nothing of the kind. I just wondered if you could ask the innkeeper to recommend a guide for me tomorrow. My French is not equal to finding my way about and I have no idea where to discover the best shops.’

‘I should escort you.’

‘Thank you, but I am certain you have your time already planned out.’ She studied his expression. ‘I should give you credit for managing to look perfectly calm when I know you are filled with dread at the very idea of being dragged around Paris’s shops in the wake of a female.’

‘Very true. I am quaking, so the offer is one of great heroism on my part.’ She opened her mouth to protest, but Rhys grinned. ‘No, I will not inflict myself on you—take Hodge. His French is excellent and he was in Paris during the last peace.’

There, Thea told herself as she ate her dinner with good appetite. I am safely settled in a good hotel without any scandal or fuss, Rhys and I are conversing quite on our old terms. There is nothing at all to worry about. But she never had been very anxious about scandal or fuss, so it must be Rhys that she was relieved about….

‘What are you frowning about now?’ he asked, the old teasing note back in his voice. ‘Afraid there are frogs in the casserole again?’

‘Provided they are not live ones hidden under the lid, like your birthday surprise for me when I was ten, I am not at all worried, you wretch,’ she retorted. You see? Nothing to worry about at all.

‘Please tell me there is more than a single item left in the shops of Paris.’

Thea followed Hodge, Polly and two hotel footmen into the private sitting room and peered around the piles of parcels at Rhys. He was dressed to go out, immaculate in black evening breeches and a midnight-blue swallowtail coat.

‘Of course there is. These are just some essentials to tide me over until I can pick up the gowns that are being altered for me.’ He rolled his eyes as Thea placed two hatboxes on the table. ‘You look very elegant, I do admire your neckcloth. Where are you off to?’

‘Thank you. I have tickets for the Opéra. There is a spectacular soprano I have been hearing about whom I would like to see in action. I was about to leave you a note to say order dinner without me.’

‘Have a good time,’ Thea called after him as he picked up hat and cane and left. ‘Now what are we going to do with ourselves all evening?’

‘Us, my lady?’ Hodge asked as he came back from carrying the last of the parcels into her bedchamber.

‘Are you tired, or shall we go out again after dinner, all three of us?’

‘Where to, my lady? I’m not at all tired, I must confess. It is very stimulating, being back in Paris, but his lordship might not like…’

‘Oh, pish! What harm is there in going to one of the more popular localities—the Palais Royale, for example?’

‘It used to be rather, er…racy, my lady.’

‘I am not suggesting going into one of the gaming houses, Hodge. But there are all those lovely coffee shops with tables outside—ladies seem to find it quite acceptable to sit there.’

‘Cafés, my lady?’

‘Yes, we will find a nice café and watch the world go by.’

‘You could wear the new peacock-blue gown and that little black chip-straw headpiece with the veil,’ Polly suggested. ‘Perfect, my lady.’

Perfect, indeed. This was what being an independent woman was all about.

The opera singer known as La Belle Seraphina moved slightly in her chair and set her elbows tight together on the tiny café table, presenting Rhys with an even more spectacular view of her cleavage, its creamy shadows enhanced by a hint of lace in their depths.

He shifted in his seat, time enough to admire those very generous assets after he had discussed the possibility of her appearing at the London Opera House next season. His cousin Gregory had an interest in the place and Rhys had promised to keep his eye open for promising singers. After their negotiations, perhaps he would open discussions about a transaction of an altogether different kind. She certainly appeared to be sending out signals that such a suggestion might be welcome.

And a night spent in mutual pleasure would be more than welcome to him, Rhys acknowledged, wondering what was making him so damned randy. Anyone would think he had parted from his mistress a month ago, not just over a week. He moved again, restless, his body’s automatic urging at odds with a surprisingly fastidious unwillingness to come to the point and make the proposition that he was certain the woman at his side was expecting.

Across the clipped box hedges and shorn grass of the central strip of garden, a small party arrived at the café opposite. A veiled woman seated herself in a flurry of peacock-blue skirts. Very nice, he thought absently, noting the trim figure and the grace with which she sat down between her companions, a plainly dressed maid and a man in sombre black.

‘Hodge?’

‘Monseigneur?’ the woman at his side purred as she laid a hand on his forearm, the lush curve of her breast pressed against him in a blatant attempt to regain his attention.

‘I beg your… Excusez-moi.’ Rhys scrambled after his French. He might, strangely, be finding her uninteresting, but that was no excuse for bad manners. ‘I just saw someone I know.’ His valet, Thea’s maid and…the elegant figure, her face hidden under a veil of figured lace that just reached her top lip in a way that was pure provocation…that must be Thea. Thea?

‘I thought I saw someone I knew.’ Rhys forced himself to think coherently in French again as he settled back in his chair, contriving to turn it slightly as he did so to bring the other table fully into his line of sight.

What the blazes was Hodge thinking of, to bring Thea here of all places? It was innocuous enough during the day, except for the effect on the wallet of the numerous tiny shops selling exquisite trinkets, jewellery and objets de vertu, but at night it was a playground. And not for infants, Rhys fumed inwardly.

The place was a very grown-up playground indeed, an ant heap of gaming hells, high-class brothels and intimate eating places. For respectable French couples who were sophisticated enough to know what they were doing it was safe enough, likewise for an escorted lady in a small party, but for an innocent like Thea it was fraught with perils.

He kept the discussion about London theatres going while he fought the instinct to march across, toss Thea over his shoulder and deposit her unceremoniously back at the hotel, sacking Hodge while he was at it. Making a scene was not the way to protect Thea’s reputation and, to be fair, he had told Hodge to escort her wherever she wanted to go.

He realised the moment she recognised him. Her whole body stiffened, then her head tilted to one side as she studied him, and, doubtless, the woman at his table. It was strange seeing such a typical Thea pose from an elegant lady, dressed in the height of Parisian fashion and with her face hidden.

‘Rhys!’

‘I beg your pardon, my lady?’ Hodge, standing stiffly behind her, leaned down.

‘That is Lord Palgrave over there.’

She thought he muttered, ‘Oh, my God,’ but the music and laughter and Polly’s appreciative, ‘That’s a looker he’s with, and no mistake,’ made it hard to hear.

Rhys’s companion most certainly was stunning. Thea assumed she was a courtesan, although she had never knowingly observed one before. Her gown was in the height of fashion, cut daringly to the limits of decency. Her hair, her teeth, her gems—all had an expensive gleam to them and she exuded a sensual confidence that was drawing male attention for yards around.

Thea chided herself firmly for having judgemental thoughts; she had spent all day shopping, Rhys was entitled to his…diversions. And this, she knew, was what men did—they sought out beautiful, elegant, sophisticated women and enjoyed them. There was nothing to feel upset about, not if one was a mature, sophisticated, intelligent woman oneself. Which she was.

But really, did he have to make such an obvious choice? The woman pressing her very ample curves against Rhys had tumbling blonde curls, big blue eyes and a quite spectacular amount of exposed cleavage. As Thea watched she touched her fingertips to his cheek and turned his head so she could whisper something in his ear.

A startlingly explicit image filled Thea’s imagination. The woman was shedding that amber silk gown and falling back onto a wide bed, gesturing to Rhys, who…

‘Oh! Order me a glass of champagne, Hodge, if you please.’

‘My lady?’ The valet sounded faintly scandalised.

Well, she felt scandalised, so that was two of them, and it was very annoying that she was letting herself be affected like this. She had never realised what a prude she must be. ‘And for you and Polly, too.’

‘But, my lady…’

‘Stop dithering! Garçon!’ She snapped her fingers and the man hurried over. ‘Champagne, s’il vouz plaît. Pour trois. Sit down, Hodge. This is a holiday.’

‘I don’t know what his lordship would say,’ the man said, but he sat, perched on the edge of the little metal chair. Rhys had not seen them, or surely he would have made some sign?

‘I am sure his lordship is entertaining himself very well, just at the moment.’ Nibbling that hussy’s fingertips, by the look of it.

The champagne and glasses arrived. ‘Please pour, Hodge.’ The wine fizzed into the flutes and Thea raised her glass. ‘To Paris!’

‘To beauty,’ said a deep voice in English at her shoulder. The liquid splashed over her hand as she twisted round. A tall, saturnine man was watching her, his lips curved into an appreciative smile. He raised the wine glass in his hand in a toast. An Englishman, but not, thank Heavens, one she recognised. Hodge’s chair scraped on the stone as he got to his feet, a slight figure against the stranger’s bulk.

‘Sir, we are not acquainted,’ Thea said, coolly dismissive as she turned her shoulder, her mouth dry with apprehension. In all her chaperoned life she had never been accosted like this.

‘But we have all evening to become so, madame.’

‘Sir, my lady has told you—’ Hodge began, but the stranger slid easily into his empty seat, sending the valet stumbling with a neat shove to the shoulder.

‘Will you kindly remove yourself, sir!’

And then there was a swirl of black evening cloak, the table was sent rocking and the man gave a grunt of surprise as he was hoisted out of the chair.

Polly gave a little scream, but Thea could only stare as Rhys caught the stranger a sharp blow on the chin that felled him accurately into a gap between the tables. It was appalling, a brawl in one of the most public places in Paris, involving two Englishmen—and all she could think, she realised, shocked at herself, was how magnificent Rhys looked.

He towered, lean, muscled…fearless. Thea clutched the table with one hand and Polly’s shaking arm with the other.

‘The lady told you she did not wish for your acquaintance. Do you need me to explain that any more clearly?’ Rhys’s calm tone sounded utterly lethal.

‘Just a misunderstanding.’ The man got to his feet, rubbed his jaw and backed away.

Rhys turned back to the three of them. ‘Time to go home,’ he said between gritted teeth.

‘Of course, my lord. I’ll just call a cab….’ Hodge began.

‘You take Polly. I will look after her ladyship.’ Rhys’s expression had the maid recoiling towards the valet. ‘Get yourselves back to the hotel or I may well reconsider my first impulse, which was to dismiss you here and now.’

‘My lady?’ To do him justice, Hodge looked to her for confirmation.

‘Do as his lordship says.’ Thea stood up. Over his shoulder she could see his table was empty. ‘Your…friend has left. I am sorry.’

‘Are you?’ He swept a hard stare around the nearby tables and their gawking occupants found something else to interest them. Conversation started again, then became general when no more excitement was forthcoming.

‘Yes, of course. She looked…expensive.’ As soon as she spoke Thea regretted it. Never mind that it exposed the shocking fact that she knew what manner of woman the blonde must be, but it sounded like a jealous barb. And what had she to be jealous about, for goodness’ sake? Or shocked. Rhys was a virile man, of course he wanted…needed…

‘That lady,’ he said with a curl of his lips which might, to the charitable, be construed as a smile, ‘is an opera singer. A soprano known as La Belle Seraphina, with whom I was discussing, on behalf of my cousin Gregory, the possibility of her appearance next season on the London stage.’ He took her cloak from the back of her chair where it had been draped and flipped it around her shoulders.

‘I didn’t mean— Oh, yes, I did,’ Thea admitted as she fastened the bow at her neck with stiff fingers. ‘And I am sorry, I should not have mentioned such a thing, or have leapt to that conclusion in the first place.’

‘It was a perfectly correct conclusion,’ Rhys said with ominous calm as he took her arm and steered her towards one of the narrow archways leading out of the gardens. ‘But we had not reached that stage in the negotiations yet.’ Even in the gloom of the passage he must have been aware of her instinctive reaction. ‘Why so indignant, my dear? You raised the topic in the first place, and you must know what manner of place this is at night.’

Thea dug her heels in and he stopped. ‘No, I did not know! Hodge told me it was lively, that there was a degree of licence in behaviour—it sounded like an evening at Vauxhall, not the antechamber to a brothel!’ When Rhys did not speak she added, ‘I will be more aware in future.’

‘There will be no future, you little idiot. This will not happen again. Don’t you know what danger you put yourself in?’

The awareness that she was in the wrong and the reaction to the violence, which had ceased now to be anything but frightening, left her close to tears. And she would not finish this disastrous evening by weeping all over Rhys, which left the alternative of losing her temper with him. And this was a Rhys she hardly recognised. He had rescued her from scrapes often enough when they were young, but this possessive aggression, this physical confidence, was new. Something in her responded to it and she recoiled from how primitive that reaction was. ‘You mean, in danger from gentlemen like you?’

‘No, not like me. A gentleman takes no for an answer. A buck like your friend back there is quite capable of taking other things. What might have happened if Hodge had gone to find the waiter, or to relieve himself? Do you think that maid of yours would have been any protection?’

‘Against what?’ Thea protested. ‘There are people all around.’

‘Against this,’ Rhys said as he jerked her off balance, out of the archway and into the deserted alleyway beyond.

Chapter Eight

Thea found herself trapped in a corner, her back against the brickwork, her body caged by Rhys’s. His hands were on the wall on either side of her head, his big feet bracketing hers in their fragile satin evening slippers. As she drew a trembling breath, her breasts touched his chest.

‘Let me go—you are hurting me.’ She tipped up her chin, a mistake. His mouth was just above her own.

‘I am not touching you,’ he pointed out, his voice reasonable. Only the brush of wine-scented air on her lips betrayed that his breathing had quickened.

Thea jerked up her knee, but he was too close and it merely pushed futilely against his leg. She ducked to get under his arm and he closed his elbows tightly. ‘I’ll scream,’ she threatened.

‘I have only to kiss you to stop that,’ Rhys pointed out. ‘And do you know what your buck would do after that?’ She tried to worm backwards into the unyielding wall. ‘He would flip up your skirts and take you here where we stand.’ His knee pushed against her, separating her legs. She felt her skirt ride up, felt the pressure of his thigh against her where a flutter of arousal was shameful acknowledgement that her body wanted this, and more. He can feel how hot I am. How…wet.

‘You do not frighten me.’ But he did, she realised. This was Rhys, who would never hurt her, and yet it was also an angry man, aroused by frustrated lust, the violence of that brief fight and anger with her, the cause of all of it.

‘Then I am not trying hard enough,’ he said and she saw the glint of white teeth as he lowered his head.

As he moved, so did his imprisoning leg. Thea dropped down between his arms, slid against his thighs and then rolled free to scramble to her feet as he turned and lunged for her. ‘I wouldn’t,’ she warned, yanking the long hatpin from her elaborate hairpiece. As she brandished it, the light from the lantern at the end of the alley glinted off the metal.

There was silence, dangerous. The man she had thought she knew so well shifted on the balls of his feet as though ready to spring, a threatening stranger. What has happened to us?

Then Rhys spoke, amusement threading through his deep voice. ‘I taught you that trick.’

‘I know.’ It was going to be all right. He has not turned into someone else entirely. ‘When I was twelve and that horrible youth staying at the Wilkinsons’ tried to pin me against the stable wall. I had no idea then what he wanted.’

‘You do now.’ Was he really amused or was this simply a trick so she would allow him close again? She wished she could make out his expression. ‘I am impressed by your speed, but I wish I could be convinced you could escape another man so easily.’ Perhaps his anger had subsided. The fluttering panic under her breastbone eased a little. ‘Are you going to put the skewer away now?’ Rhys asked. ‘You could kill someone with that thing.’

‘It was instinct, I would never have used it on you.’ Thea jammed the pin back in and tried to sort out her emotions. Rhys had ruined her evening, had completely overreacted and had unsettled her to an alarming extent. But he had rescued her from the importunate rake and by doing so had spoiled his own evening. She supposed they were even.

‘You would not have had the chance,’ Rhys said, coming closer.

‘I do wish you would stop looming over me like that.’ They might be even, but she was having to hold on hard to her self-control. Rhys had meant to frighten her and, although she would die rather than admit it, he had succeeded and that was infuriating. And he had aroused feelings she simply did not want to acknowledge. ‘Oh, Lord, my new gown.’ She brushed at the skirts with all the force she could not apply to boxing his ears. ‘At least the ground is dry.’

‘If you allow me to walk you home in a ladylike manner, I will show you how to use your hatpin for self-defence without littering the streets of Paris with wounded admirers. Which does not mean,’ he added as they crossed the road behind the Louvre, ‘that I’ll tolerate you putting yourself in a position where you might need it again. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, Rhys, thank you,’ Thea said, striving for meekness and managing to sound at least biddable, she supposed. The flare of temper had subsided, but her heart was hammering and her blood seemed to be singing in her veins. It was the same way she felt after a long, hard gallop across country, or when she heard a beautiful piece of music…and yet, different. She was restless, there was an ache inside. Reaction, she told herself. And physical desire. She discovered that she was, perversely, happy.

‘I am sorry about your singer,’ she said. She had promised not to interfere with his enjoyment, she recalled guiltily. ‘Is she nice?’

‘Nice?’ Rhys chuckled, amused, it seemed by the foolish word. ‘I have no idea. But she is very beautiful.’

Of course. Beautiful. Thea felt the champagne fizz of happiness go flat. For a brief few moments, veiled, elegantly gowned, she had been fought over and pressed against a man’s body as though he lusted for her. But, of course, it was no such thing. Her old friend Rhys had simply been protecting plain, ordinary Thea who had got herself into a pickle and had taught her a hard lesson. The air of Paris must be a drug, making her think she wanted something that, of course, she did not desire in the slightest.

‘Here we are,’ she said as the lamps outside their hotel came into sight. ‘You must promise me you will not be angry with Hodge. It was all my fault.’

And most of all, my pleasure.

‘Good morning!’ Thea sounded quite disgustingly cheerful as she went to the buffet to inspect the chafing dishes.

Rhys scarcely glanced up as he rose to his feet, the French newspaper crumpled in his grasp, then sank back onto his chair to bury himself behind its pages. ‘Morning.’

He was not good at mornings and especially not after a restless night filled with highly charged, and highly confusing, erotic dreams. For some reason the woman he had been chasing, futilely, had brown hair, not blonde, and as he reached for her over and over again he was shaken by feelings of unfamiliar guilt.

In broad daylight the dreams blurred into a half-remembered, discomforting muddle that he was doing his best to forget. He had completely overreacted with Thea last night; he could see that now in the bright light of morning. He could have rescued her from the importunate stranger and packed the lot of them back in a hackney carriage and brought his own evening to its probable outcome. As it was, he found he could not regret the missed encounter, which was strange.

His mood was not helped by Hodge, who started nervously every time Rhys spoke and obviously found it hard to believe that he was not about to be instantly dismissed for allowing Thea to go to the Palais Royale. As if the man had a hope of stopping her once she got an idea into her head.

‘More coffee, Rhys?’

‘Please.’ With half his attention he was conscious of her bustling about while he wrestled with smudged newsprint and colloquial French. A waft of fresh coffee, the clink of china, the rustle of fabric as Thea settled herself at the table, a faint drift of subtle rose scent.

Rustling? Scented? Thea? Rhys folded the newssheet and laid it beside his plate so he could study her. The soft mouse-brown hair was gathered into a neat arrangement of plaits and pleats, her hazel eyes regarded him with slight wariness and small pearl earrings dangled from her lobes. Her face, which was developing a puzzled frown as he stared, was the familiar oval, unadorned by so much as a smudge of lamp black or a grain of rice powder.

And yet…she was curiously soignée. The French word, one that he would never have thought of before in connection with Thea, swam up from somewhere and he realised it was perfect. She was groomed, elegant and perfectly…plain. If plain could be applied to the soft gleam of fine wool cloth, to the narrow edge of Brussels lace around the muslin fichu at her neck, the glow of the little pearls. Or creamy skin that was developing a blush as he stared.

Under his scrutiny she shifted slightly and there was that soft rustle again—silk against linen, he guessed. Good Lord, what was she wearing under that elegantly simple morning gown?

‘You have been shopping,’ he accused. It was bad enough having to make conversation at breakfast without being confronted by a disturbingly different Thea.

Thea rolled her eyes. ‘You know I have. You saw one of the evening gowns last night.’

‘I was in no mood to notice anything but your hatpin,’ he growled.

‘I left home with the smallest portmanteaux I could find and only two old gowns. I have bought two morning dresses, three walking dresses, two evening gowns, several pairs of shoes and all the, um…associated linen.’

‘Just linen?’

A dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth, unfamiliar and utterly feminine. ‘You cannot believe the luxury of silk petticoats.’

‘No, I cannot,’ Rhys said repressively, as much to his own imagination as to her. ‘You look extremely…elegant.’

‘Thank you.’ Thea reached for the butter, apparently unflustered by the compliment. ‘I came to the conclusion when I first came out, and Stepmama was making such a fuss about my looks and figure and everything else, that frills and ornament do not suit me. I am never going to be pretty, but I knew I could achieve elegant if I put my mind to it. And I confess to loving luxury. Beautiful fabrics, well-made clothes, soft leather gloves and shoes, lovely scents and soaps…’ She gave a little wriggle of pleasure and applied herself to her omelette.

‘How did you find so much in only one day?’ How did you turn from a tomboy into such a feminine creature? But she is still plain, he argued with himself. No, she isn’t…exactly. He struggled to superimpose this elegant creature onto his image of Thea.

‘Ready-to-wear gowns seem to be much more easily obtained in Paris than in London. Not everything has been delivered yet—some had to be altered slightly—but I am not out of the common way in any dimension, which appears to help.’

Rhys took a tactical mouthful of coffee to avoid any form of comment on Thea’s dimensions.

‘The only thing I am not happy with is the riding habit. It was foolish of me not to pack my own.’

‘You are unlikely to do any riding.’ Rhys, on the other hand, was strongly considering hiring a hack and removing himself from the chaise as much as possible. If he’d had sisters he would have been better fitted to deal with this, he acknowledged. But the only women he spent any time in private with were from the muslin company and that was no help at all in negotiating the shark pool of life with an unmarried, virtuous woman who was not related to him.

‘No?’ She wrinkled her nose, the expression so at odds with her ladylike appearance that Rhys laughed. Yes, his Thea was still there. She grinned back. ‘That’s better! I was thinking how serious you looked. I have spoken to Hodge, by the by. Thank you for not blaming him for yesterday evening.’

Rhys shrugged and reached for the butter. ‘I should not have expected him to be able to influence you when you had made up your mind to anything. I certainly never could. I have told the hotel to place a large footman at your disposal when you go out. With Hodge, Polly and a bodyguard you should be safe from unwanted attention.’

‘Thank you.’ The smile she flashed at him was warm, with just a hint of mischief. Rhys relaxed. ‘I hope you have a very pleasant day today.’

‘I intend to visit an antiquities dealer who has a pair of globes that sound as if they would suit the library at Palgrave Hall, then I will do some shopping on my own account—Hodge has recovered sufficiently to observe that his lordship requires at least half a dozen more shirts and several more neckcloths if he is to present even a passable appearance in Paris.’

‘And will you see if you can persuade your opera singer to oblige you?’ Thea regarded him with clear, innocent eyes above her coffee cup.

‘Does nothing put you to the blush?’ Rhys demanded hoarsely through a throat full of croissant crumbs inhaled on a sharp indrawn breath.

‘I meant oblige with her agreement to travel to England to appear at the Opera House. If you are put out of countenance because of anything else you want from her, well, you told me about her yourself last night,’ Thea pointed out prosaically while he spluttered. ‘Would you like me to slap you on the back or would a glass of water help, do you think?’

‘Thank you, no. I will certainly send her a note of apology for abandoning her so abruptly.’ And that was all. Rhys mopped his streaming eyes and attempted to sound repressive. He had been mistaken in finding Thea the slightest bit alluring. The chit was as unmanageable as she had been at sixteen.

Thea pursed her lips over what he suspected was an unrepentant smirk. ‘I expect it is the prospect of shopping that puts you in such a grumpy mood—men always seem to hate it.’

‘Grumpy!’ Rhys dug his knife into the butter and recovered his sense of humour. This was Thea, for goodness’ sake. A few silk fal-lals and fine plumage were no reason to get hot under the collar. She hadn’t changed in any way that mattered—certainly not for the better—but she was in Paris for the first time. ‘Shall I get tickets for the opera tonight?’

‘For us?’ The excitement lit up her face and made him feel like a toad for the way he had reacted the night before.

‘Wear something discreet and a veil and we’ll sit in the stalls. No point in drawing attention to ourselves.’

‘Thank you.’ Thea jumped to her feet and came to plant a kiss on his cheek. ‘You are an angel. Now I will go and leave you in peace with your newspaper.’

That was positively sisterly. Rhys turned a page and tried to feel like an indulgent brother. Even so, he was definitely going to ride tomorrow.

Thea gazed out of the window onto the Burgundian countryside. Three days from Paris and Rhys had ridden every mile while she sat in solitary state in the chaise.

It was not as though having the leisure to observe an athletically built gentleman in well-cut breeches was in any way a hardship, of course. Even the fact that the horses available from the posting stations were far below the standard Rhys would normally ride in no way diminished the sight, for it only showed his skill to advantage. As a boy and a young man he had been gangly. Now he had filled out and most of it appeared to be well-coordinated muscle. What did a gentleman do to keep fit, she wondered, other than bed sport? Sporting pursuits, she supposed, firmly instructing her imagination to cover that body with clothing.

A modest gentlewoman would not stare, let alone permit speculation to run wild through her daydreams. Which doubtless meant that she fell far short of the standards of breeding expected of her. Thea contemplated this lowering conclusion for a moment, then decided that she did not care.

Rhys’s amorous interest was fixed, as it had always been, on curvaceous, tall, blue-eyed blondes of a coming disposition, and he would be thoroughly embarrassed to discover that his childhood friend had rediscovered the youthful attraction that—thank Heavens!—he had been blind to before.

The problem now was that the innocent adoration of her fourteen-year-old self had been replaced by the more mature understanding of a curious and uninhibited young lady. She understood what her body wanted and she was coming to regret, very much, that it was not going to experience it.

Still, it did no harm to fantasise. She was sure now that she was not going to find a man to love and who would love her in return, which meant she was not prepared to marry, even if Papa did find her and drag her back.

Thea stamped on the stirring of panic and made herself think of the present. If she did not marry, then that inexorably led her to the conclusion that she was never going to know what it would be like to lie naked with a man. She could not find the slightest shame in her for wishing to experience lovemaking, not after her experience with Sir Anthony. But it was certainly inconvenient for her composure that, if she had to choose a gentleman from a fairly wide acquaintance for the experiment, it had to be this one.

The vine-clad slopes of the Côte d’Or rolled past to the right of the chaise. The stop at Beaune for a change of horses had been regrettably short. The town had looked intriguing and the vast, bustling market colourful and exotic, but Rhys wanted to reach Lyon that evening, for some reason. When she had asked him the reason for his haste he’d simply closed his lips into an implacable line and strode off to talk to Tom Felling, the coach driver.

The horse Rhys had chosen at the livery stables was rather better than the previous one, Thea mused, her attention drawn back from the passing scene to the rider on the wide grass verge. He guided his mount to the side to jump a fallen tree and her breath caught at the fluid beauty of man and animal as they cleared the obstacle.

How would his skin slide under her hands—like silk or would it feel more like kidskin? How would his weight be, over her? He was so much larger than she was that it must be a matter of technique, she supposed. How would it feel when he sheathed himself within her? Would it hurt? Probably, it had with Anthony. She was less clear what happened then in bed, when lovemaking was a leisurely matter of mutual pleasure giving—movement, obviously, with that hard, strong body and her own soft, lesser strength somehow finding a rhythm and a unity.

She had seen Rhys naked as a child, swimming in the lake, but a man’s body was different. Did he have a hairy chest? Would that chafe against her breasts or tickle? They tingled at the thought. She would run her fingertips through—

‘Whoa!’ From behind, Tom Felling shouted at his team. The chaise juddered and skidded as the postilions reined back their horses and Thea jerked her attention to the window at the front and the view beyond the be-capped boys and their waving whips.

A diligence, one of the lumbering French stagecoaches, had overturned, its bulk teetering over the deep ditch that bordered the road. In the road half a dozen passengers seemed stunned with shock and the driver and guard were struggling with the team as they thrashed in panic in the tangled traces.

Thea pushed open the door and jumped down as Rhys dismounted, shouting at the postilions, ‘Hold our horses. Felling, go and help them free the team.’ He saw her. ‘Thea, get back in the chaise, this is no place for you.’

‘I will do no such thing. There are people hurt.’ She ran to help a stout woman to her feet, then pulled off the fichu around her neck to hold to the forehead of a slender young man who was slumped against the bank, blood pouring down his face. This is no time to have missish vapours about blood, she told herself firmly, swallowing hard.

‘It is just a cut,’ she began in English. ‘They always bleed dramatically from the head. Oh, pardon, c’est—’

‘I am English,’ he said faintly and lifted his hand to hold the pad in place. ‘Thank you, ma’am. I will do well enough. Please, see if anyone else is in need of your help.’

A young woman was screaming, in shock more than pain, Thea thought as she ran to her. Then she saw the girl was pointing a trembling finger towards the wide ditch. ‘Mon fils, mon fils!’

The diligence had been stopped from sliding down only by the spokes of one broken wheel and a scrubby thorn bush growing up from the side of the drain. It was slowly collapsing under the weight, the wheel making ominous cracking noises.

For a moment Thea could not see what the girl was panicking about, then she heard a faint wail and saw movement from a bundle of white cloth in the mud, directly under the collapsing carriage.

‘Rhys! There is a baby!’

‘I see it.’ He slid down into the ditch, ducked under the edge of the coach and braced his back to it, his feet dug into the bank. The cracking stopped, but how much longer could he hold it? Thea scrambled down at the other end and crouched to look. The veins stood out of Rhys’s forehead, his hands were white where the load pressed down, his body was bent double like Atlas under the weight of the globe. She wriggled closer and grabbed for the baby in the narrow space.

‘Get out,’ Rhys hissed between gritted teeth. ‘I don’t know how long I can hold this.’

‘You can hold it,’ she said, utterly confident as she got onto her stomach and wormed closer. This was Rhys: in that moment she trusted him to hold the world up if lives depended on him. Her fingers touched, gripped, pulled. The baby howled as she dragged him towards her. The wheel slid down with a jerk, Rhys cursed, shifted and it stopped.

There was movement at her feet, someone trod on her leg, apologised in English. ‘Sorry. Can you slide out under me?’ It was the injured Englishman, supporting the other end of the coach.

Thea wormed her way back with all the speed she could muster.

‘She’s out!’ the Englishman shouted as hands reached down to haul her and her burden up the bank.

‘Then roll free, this is about to go,’ Rhys called, his voice strained to the point of being almost unrecognisable. ‘On my mark. One, two, three—’

The young man landed in an ungainly heap in a patch of nettles as Thea thrust the baby into the arms of its sobbing mother and the diligence subsided into the ditch with the sound of splintering wood. ‘Rhys!’

It seemed to take minutes, not seconds, to reach the side of the coach he had been supporting. Now he lay clear of it, on his back in the mud, eyes closed, hands bleeding, face white. Thea hurled herself down beside him and pressed her ear to his chest. Surely he hadn’t broken his neck?

Under her hands she felt him drag air down to his diaphragm. Not dead, then. ‘Rhys! Rhys, wake up.’

‘Thea?’ He seemed to come to with a jolt and she scrambled to her knees as he reached for her, his eyes opening wide and dark in his pale face, his grip on her wrists painful. ‘You aren’t hurt?’

‘No, just terribly muddy. I thought you were under that when it fell.’ She collapsed back onto his chest and hugged as much as she could of him.

‘Mmm,’ Rhys murmured. ‘Much as I appreciate being cuddled, I prefer not to be sinking into the mire at the same time. I seem to be squashing a frog.’

‘Idiot! I thought… I feared…’

‘Don’t you dare cry on me,’ he said mildly. ‘How do you think I felt when I saw you wriggling into that death trap, you madcap creature?’

Thea got to her feet, trying not to tread on him. He was battered enough without squashing what breath remained in him. ‘Well, who else did you think was going to go in?’ she said belligerently to cover her reaction. ‘The passengers were too shocked or too large. Are you hurt?’

Rhys sat up, winced and uncoiled himself from the ditch. ‘Other than feeling as though our esteemed Prince Regent has been sitting on me, and kicking while he was at it, I am perfectly all right.’

Thea repressed the urge to fuss. ‘I’ll see how the Englishman is, then. He had a nasty cut to the head before he joined us in the ditch.’

She found him retrieving his baggage from the piles strewn along the road. ‘Sir? Should you be on your feet?’

He had tied her fichu into a lopsided bandage which gave his pleasant, regular features an alarmingly piratical cast at odds with his severe pallor, and he was moving with great care as though all his joints hurt. Which, she supposed, they did.

‘Ma’am, I thank you for your concern. They tell me there is an inn a mile or so along the road. I will find myself a room there.’

‘At least allow us to carry you that far. Tom!’ She gestured to the coachman who hurried over. ‘Place this gentleman’s luggage up behind the chaise.’

Rhys made his way towards them through the French passengers who were sorting themselves out amidst much weeping and waving of arms. No one appeared seriously injured.

‘My lord, this is the gentleman who supported the other end of the coach. He needs to get to an inn where he can rest.’

‘The lady is too kind, I trust I do not inconvenience you? My name is Giles Benton. I should have a card.’ He dug into his breast pocket and produced one.

‘The Reverend Benton,’ Rhys looked up from his study of the rectangle of pasteboard. ‘I am Palgrave.’

‘My lord. I recognise you, of course, from the House….’

‘Never mind the politics. And call me Denham,’ Rhys said, offering his hand. ‘May I present my cousin, Miss Smith.’ He blandly ignored Thea’s raised eyebrows, opened the door of the chaise for them then swung up on his horse, calling instructions to the postilions.

Now she was closeted with an Englishman, one who was a gentleman and a vicar to boot. He was probably even now working his way mentally through the Peerage and coming to the conclusion that the Earl of Palgrave had no cousins named Smith, certainly not young female ones without a wedding ring on their finger. If his mathematics was any good, he was putting two and two together and coming up with a thoroughly scandalous six.

But what other option did they have but to take him up? They could hardly leave him bleeding by the roadside. For the first time since her flight Thea faced the fact that a scandal would be humiliating, sordid and decidedly unamusing.

Chapter Nine

Thea took a deep breath and willed herself to calm. Panicking would only make her appear self-conscious and that would raise Mr Benton’s suspicions about her scandalous status, even if he had none now.

She cast a harried glance out of the window at Rhys, who at least seemed capable of sitting a horse without collapse, and studied her new companion. ‘You are travelling far, sir?’ That was a safe sort of question and put the focus on him.

‘To the Mediterranean coast.’ He smiled. ‘I have no very clear destination. I am taking advantage of the recent peace to indulge myself with a journey south to the sun before I take up a new position.’

‘A new parish?’

‘No. After I was ordained I realised I was not cut out for the ministry. I desired to put my talents, such as they are, in the service of the reform of society. I have taken a post as secretary to Lord Carstairs.’

‘He has interested himself in the abolition of slavery, has he not?’ It was a cause she had read much about, much to the disapproval of her father, who had interests in the West Indies. ‘It must be a great satisfaction to assist in that endeavour.’

‘Yes, of course, I should have realised you would be knowledgeable on the subject,’ he said, puzzling Thea. But Mr Benton swept on before she could query it. ‘He is also interested in prison reform, and his wife, Lady Carstairs, is active in advancing the education of women. I hope I may make some contribution to all three causes. I was very fortunate that my elder brother, Lord Fulgrove, knows Lord Carstairs well and was able to recommend me to him.’

‘Lord Fulgrove?’ Thea faltered before she could gather her wits.

Mr Benton shifted on his seat. ‘But do I not know you? I thought your face familiar, but I cannot place… I know, I have seen you talking to my sisters Jane and Elspeth in the park.’

Thea stared at him, struggling to find something intelligently evasive to say. ‘I have met them a few times.’ First the risk of scandal, now the danger that word would get back to Papa.

‘I shall make a point of telling them how you aided me,’ Mr Benton said. ‘I write to them almost daily. They will be delighted to know their friend Miss Smith is such a Good Samaritan.’

‘Ah. I, um… We have arrived at the inn. It seems exceedingly shabby.’ She lowered the window as Rhys walked over. ‘I do not like the look of this place. See how dirty the windows are, and the yard is full of rubbish.’

‘Indeed, the merest country drinking house and none too well equipped for travellers by the look of it.’

‘We cannot abandon Mr Benton here.’ The sooner they parted company the better, but she could not allow his health to be jeopardised to conceal her guilty secrets. A blow to the head was potentially very serious, and he had lost a lot of blood, even before his heroic efforts with the diligence. ‘He is travelling south. We can carry him to Lyon and find a doctor to attend to his head.’ She turned to study his pale face. ‘I fear you may require stitches, sir.’

Both men began to speak, but Polly, opening the opposite door to place a small bag on the floor, cut across them both. ‘Here’s the bag with the medical supplies. Mr Hodge thought the gentleman might need a fresh bandage, Lady Althea.’

Mr Benton shot Thea a glance and closed his lips firmly in a gesture that spoke far louder than any words. Rhys rolled his eyes upwards. ‘Devil take it.’

Thea looked from one to the other, her heart sinking. He was a clergyman; he would not condone what he thought to be immorality. ‘May I trust your discretion, Mr Benton?’

‘This is an elopement, I collect?’ he enquired stiffly. ‘Naturally, it is none of my business.’

‘No, we are not eloping!’

‘Perish the thought,’ Rhys added with what Thea felt was unflattering emphasis. ‘I am escorting Lady Althea to our godmother, Lady Hughson, in Venice. We are childhood friends.’

Mr Benton’s poker face softened into a smile. ‘Lady Hughson? I know her well. What a relief! I should have realised nothing untoward was happening after observing your gallant and selfless actions at the scene of the accident. I do apologise! Lady Althea…?’

‘Curtiss,’ she supplied, her conscience giving her a decided pang. They might not be sinning in fact, but her imagination was scandalous enough to condemn her in the eyes of any minister. ‘Because circumstances have led us to travel in a manner which is so open to misunderstanding, I hope you will understand if I ask you not to mention that we met along the way.’

‘But of course,’ Mr Benton assured her. ‘My lips are sealed.’

‘In that case,’ Thea said, ‘I will dress your head with a proper bandage and then we will be on our way to Lyon. Lord Palgrave, would you be so good as to have the sleeping couch put in place for Mr Benton? I am sure he should be lying down.’

‘By no means, Lady Althea,’ he protested. ‘I assure you I will be quite well sitting up—and in any case, I should be travelling with your servants in the coach, should I not? After all, a lady alone in a chaise…’

‘I have been travelling in the chaise with Lord Palgrave for most of this journey,’ Thea said, unwinding the makeshift dressing from his head. ‘I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Besides, I doubt the presence of a clergyman will harm my reputation.’ She peered at the cut. ‘The bleeding has stopped, and I will not risk starting it again by washing your head with the water from this dirty inn. If you will just sit quite still…’

By the time they reached Lyon at seven o’clock that evening Rhys was convinced that he would never get off the horse, let alone walk to his bedchamber. The bruising and strains from holding up the coach had coalesced into one blaze of pain, and his hands, cut and pierced with splinters, were cramped on the reins.

‘Hodge,’ he called as the valet stepped down from the coach, ‘see her ladyship and Mr Benton into the inn. I need to talk to Felling.’

He waited until they had vanished through the impressive front door of the Chapeau Rouge before he called to the coachman, ‘Tom, come and give me a hand, I’m damned if I’m going to fall flat on my face in front of a gaggle of French ostlers.’

It was inelegant and exceedingly painful, but they managed the manoeuvre with a lot of swearing on Rhys’s part. ‘Say nothing to her ladyship or that maid of hers, do you understand?’

‘Yes, my lord. You need some liniment on your back, I reckon. Got just the thing in my baggage.’

‘Horse liniment? Do you want to take the skin off my back, man?’

‘If it’ll do for your thoroughbreds, I reckon it won’t do you much harm, my lord,’ the coachman said. ‘But they’ll be getting a doctor to the other gentleman and he’ll prescribe some fancy French potions for you that’ll set you back a bit of gold, I reckon.’

‘Hot bath is all I need,’ Rhys muttered. It took him the width of the courtyard before he could walk with the appearance of ease, but he managed the stairs and found Althea and Mr Benton in the private salon he had written ahead to reserve.

They were, it seemed, on first-name terms already. ‘The landlord has sent for a doctor and is making up the spare bedchamber in this suite for Giles. Is it not fortunate that they gave us such a spacious one?’ Thea did not turn round as she attempted to press Benton into a chair while she stayed on her feet. ‘Giles, it is foolish to stand on ceremony. You must take care and, really, I am such good friends with your sisters that you may treat me quite as one of them.’

Rhys cast a swift glance at Benton, whose faint air of dizziness seemed to owe at least as much to the effect of being organised by Thea as it did to his head wound. Or perhaps, he thought, narrowing his eyes at the other man, it was more than that. Thea, enchanting a clergyman? Surely not.

‘What are you laughing about?’ Thea demanded, her attention still on her patient. Apparently his huff of amusement had been audible.

‘Just relief at the thought of a hot bath. I’ll see you both at dinner,’ he added, and caught sight of his own grey face in a mirror. Lord, he’d better be out of there before she noticed he was looking like death warmed over.

‘Your chamber is here, my lord.’ Hodge at least had the sense not to exclaim at the sight of him until the door was closed behind them. ‘I’ll send the doctor to you when he arrives.’

‘Certainly not. There is nothing wrong with me that a good soak and basilicum powder will not put to rights. Which is probably more than can be said for that coat,’ he added as Hodge eased him out of it and then held it up to inspect its battered back.

The sting of the hot water had made him hiss between his teeth as he lowered himself into it, but half an hour’s soak had loosened the abused muscles, and he felt rather more human when he climbed out of the tub and wrapped a vast bath sheet around his waist.

Hodge began to dab cautiously at his back with a towel while Rhys hitched one hip on the edge of the table and contemplated his bruised and splinter-stuck hands. ‘I need a needle to get these out, Hodge. Can you find one?’

‘In my baggage next door, my lord. I won’t be a moment.’

The door behind Rhys opened and he added, ‘Tweezers might be a good thing, too.’

‘Rhys Denham! Look at the state of your back!’

‘I can’t, can I?’ he said reasonably, without turning. ‘Thea, you should not be in here. I am not dressed.’ In fact, he was damn near naked. Rhys reached for a towel to toss around his shoulders.

‘Don’t do that,’ Thea said sharply. ‘It needs dressing properly. Why on earth didn’t you say it was this bad?’

‘Hate fuss,’ Rhys muttered. ‘Will you please—?’

‘Hodge, kindly tell the doctor to come in here as soon as he has finished stitching Mr Benton’s head.’

Rhys took a deep breath. Unfortunately, getting the man out of the room was essential before this went any further. ‘Hodge, go and see if you can assist Mr Benton.’ He waited until the door was closed behind the valet before he added, ‘Thea, go away.’

‘You always were dreadful about admitting you were sick or hurt,’ she said, deaf to both orders and propriety. Rhys heard the rustle of her skirts and then a towel was pressed gently over his back. ‘I’ll just get this dry and then you can get half dressed at least before the doctor comes in.’

He should get up and put her outside, but, clad in only a thin towel, Rhys had no confidence in maintaining even a vestige of decency. ‘If I promise to let the doctor see to my back, will you leave?’

‘Of course.’ Thea came round to face him, her eyes sharp as she studied his naked torso. ‘Your front does not appear to be injured.’

Rhys clutched a towel to his chest before she saw his nipples tightening. He did not dare look down to see how effective the towel around his waist was at concealing his sudden arousal. ‘All I need is a light dressing on my back,’ he began, but she reached out and took his hands in hers.

‘Oh, look at these! How could you have held the reins? I will get a needle and some tweezers and take those splinters out while the doctor sees to your back.’ To Rhys’s enormous relief she released him. ‘I’ll leave you in peace to put your pantaloons on and come back when he has finished with Giles.’

‘Thea, has no one told you that a young lady should faint before mentioning a man’s nether garments?’ Rhys demanded as she bustled away. He was not certain whether he was more relieved that she had taken no notice of his near-naked state—let alone the effect she was having on him—or whether he was indignant at being bossed around by her. The temptation to get up and let his draperies fall where they might was considerable. That would stop her ever trying such tricks again.

‘Of course,’ she said with a gurgle of laughter. ‘Oh, poor Rhys, am I embarrassing you?’

‘Shocking me, more like.’ But she had gone.

It was quite obvious that she regarded him in no other light than the friend of her childhood. Grown-up to be sure, but no more to be treated with reserve than his fourteen-year-old self had been.

The only positive aspect to this trusting innocence, he concluded as he reached for his trousers, was that he was alone in the unfortunate physical attraction that being close to her provoked. If she felt the slightest awareness of him as a sexual being she would never be so open and so unselfconscious.

The doctor was ushered in ten minutes later. Monsieur Benton needed only a little rest. He had not even felt it necessary to bleed him. Ah, but monsieur le comte required a dressing on those abrasions and to rest for two or three days.

‘Be damned to that,’ Rhys said in English and was tutted at by Thea, who sat in front of him wielding a darning needle and tweezers to efficient, but painful, effect on his hands.

‘Do listen to reason,’ she scolded, her eyes fixed on what she was doing.

Rhys tried to sit still while the doctor prodded his bruised back and fixed his eyes on her bowed head, the neat centre parting of her hair and the intricate twists that secured it. How long is it? he wondered. If I pull out those pins…

Thea was still lecturing. ‘…or I will tell him to bleed you. Besides, Lyon looks delightful—what is the rush to get south?’ She did not wait for his reply. ‘May we suggest to Giles that he travel with us? I do not think he should travel on the diligence until he is well again, do you?’

Rhys almost told her that his vehicles were neither a public carrier nor a mobile hospital unit, then bit his tongue. ‘You like him?’ he asked warily.

‘Very much. He is intelligent and good company and he was very brave back there on the road. Not as brave as you, of course,’ she finished, matter-of-factly.

‘Thank you.’ She thought him brave? He had acted without considering the dangers because it was obvious what would happen if he did not stop the vehicle’s slide downwards. A flutter of something absurdly like pride surprised him. Popinjay, he reproved himself. A gentleman simply did what was necessary without having to think about it, that was all.

But Benton, who’d had the opportunity to assess the dangers, and who was hurt into the bargain, was obviously a man of courage and resolution. And good birth, even if he is a younger son. An idea, probably absurd, was beginning to form. Thea ought to be married to someone of her own choosing. The man should be someone of principle who would value her for what she was, not for her connections and wealth. The nonsense about wanting to fall in love was just that, nonsense, and she would realise it soon enough once she found someone congenial and eligible she could trust. Someone who would steady her wild starts.

Rhys would give Benton some subtle encouragement. It was, if he said it himself, a brilliant plan. Thea eligibly, if not spectacularly, married, no risk of scandal—Godmama could put it about that Thea and Benton had met when Thea was staying with her in Venice—and the fact that she had travelled there so scandalously would be conveniently hidden.

The doctor finished and Hodge ushered him out. Thea dropped her tweezers on the table and peered at his hands closely. ‘There! That should do perfectly,’ she exclaimed, tipping her head back to study his face. ‘And just what are you looking so smug about, my lord?’

‘Just relief that it is over.’ Rhys tried to turn the smirk into something innocuous. Relief no one was prodding his injuries any longer and relief that, as Thea said, he always had a plan.

Chapter Ten

‘And you will rest for at least two days?’

Rhys gave a heavy sigh. Thea watched him suspiciously. He sounded as though he was reluctantly allowing himself to be persuaded. ‘Two nights, certainly. And you and Benton can explore the city, if he feels well enough. I’ll spend tomorrow lying down,’ Rhys added. ‘I’ll probably go mad with boredom, but it is no doubt sensible.’

That was so unlike Rhys. Perhaps he really had changed with the years, for she would have sworn he would do anything rather than admit to weakness.

‘Giles says his headache is better already and the doctor does not think he has a concussion, so if you do not need us, it will be amusing to explore.’ She reached for a towel and tried to pat his hands dry.

Rhys twitched it out of her grasp. ‘Don’t fuss, Thea. I’m indestructible—you should know that by now.’

And yet you meekly agree to rest? ‘Don’t say that and tempt fate.’ She met his eyes, saw thoughts there she could not decipher and felt the colour rise to her cheeks. ‘I am sorry I burst in here when you were…had just got out of your bath. I had no wish to put you to the blush.’ Rhys raised one eyebrow and she laughed. ‘I suppose managing that is quite a challenge! But I made you uncomfortable, I know that.’

It had certainly made her uncomfortable. The shock of seeing his elegant, muscled back, and then the realisation of how much those vicious bruises and splits across the skin must hurt, had left her dizzy with a mixture of desire, horror and admiration for Rhys’s stoicism.

Thea got up and walked across to the bed where his shirt was laid ready. She found she was shivering. Perhaps it was delayed shock after the accident, or perhaps the realisation of just how much danger they had been in under that carriage. She let her fingertips trail over the soft linen. Yes, both those things, but most of all, the impact of finding herself alone with Rhys when he was almost naked.

‘You had better put this on. I’ll help you so you do not dislodge the dressings.’ She gathered it up in her hands as fiercely as she gathered her self-control and turned, her expression schooled into the one of slightly harassed practicality she knew he’d recognise.

Rhys still sat on the edge of the table, which brought them almost eye to eye. He bent his head for her to drop the shirt over, then threaded his hands into the sleeves, a little clumsy because of the strapping. For some reason that made her vision blur with sudden tears. I might have lost him.

Thea swallowed and reached to straighten the collar where it had rucked up at the back of his neck. With Rhys so close she could feel the warmth of his skin against her chest, see the laughter lines at the corner of his eyes, paler against his faintly tanned skin. What joys had caused that laughter? And what concerns had etched the faint lines between his brows and at the corners of his lips? Rhys had an entire, adult life she knew nothing of. Her fingers brushed the ends of his hair as she fussed with the collar.

Her composure seemed to unravel as though he had tugged a string, and yet he had not moved or spoken. ‘I was worried about you,’ Thea said abruptly. Before she could think she was clinging to him, her arms tight around his neck, her face buried in his shirtfront. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled into the cloth. ‘But when the diligence collapsed I thought you were still under it.’

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