Regency Scoundrels And Scandals

‘My lady,’ Philpott pronounced in tones of throbbing horror, ‘there is a man in the spare bed!’

A man in the spare bed? A man? Lord! Of course there was. Why had she not thought what her staff would find when they started the day’s chores?

‘Yes?’ Bel enquired, more brightly than she felt. ‘I know.’

All three women were staring at her bed, she realised. Staring at the smooth, untouched pillow next to her own, the tightly tucked-in bedding on that side, the perfectly unrumpled coverlet, the chaste order of the whole thing. She could almost see their thought processes, like the bubble above a character’s head in a satirical cartoon. Despite the outrageous presence of a man next door, no one, quite obviously, had been in her ladyship’s bed, other than her ladyship. She raised her eyebrows in haughty enquiry.

‘If I had known your ladyship was expecting a guest—’ Mrs Hedges crossed her arms defensively ‘—I would have aired the sheets.’

‘I was not expecting him myself,’ Bel said, adopting a brisk tone. ‘It is Lord Dereham, from whom I bought the house. He was taken suddenly ill, most fortunately almost upon our doorstep, and, having a key, sought refuge in here.’

‘But the front door is bolted, my lady. Hedges bolts it every night.’

‘The back-door key, it must have been.’ Bel wondered where she had suddenly acquired three such assiduous chaperons from. ‘I assume his lordship was passing the mews when he became unwell.’

‘Should I send for the doctor, my lady?’ the housekeeper asked.

‘Er…no. His lordship’s indisposition is not medical, it is something that will wear off in the fullness of time.’

‘He was drunk?’ Philpott was aghast. ‘It does not bear contemplating. What is the watch coming to, to allow such a rakehell to roam the streets in that condition? What outrage might he not have inflicted upon a helpless woman!’

‘Lord Dereham was perfectly civil, and er…respectful.’ If one did not count nuzzling her ear and giving her the prolonged benefit of the intimate proximity of his magnificent body. She stifled a wistful sigh at the thought of just how magnificent it had felt.

‘What shall we do with him now, ma’am?’ Mrs Hedges, ruffled, made it sound as if Bel had imported an exotic animal into the house.

‘Leave him to sleep, I suppose.’ Bel wriggled up against the pillows and tried to think. ‘When he wakes up, then Hedges can fetch him coffee and hot water. My husband’s toilet gear is in the small trunk in the dressing room, if you could find that, please, Millie; no doubt he will wish to have a shave. And then, depending on what time of day it is, it would be only hospitable to offer a meal.’

Her staff scattered, Mrs Hedges to bustle downstairs to update her husband on the situation, Millie to fetch her morning chocolate and Philpott to sweep around the room, tweaking everything into place. ‘What shall I put out for you, my lady?’ She retrieved the volume of poetry from the hearth, rattled the poker back into its stand and straightened Horace’s head with the point of her toe. Bel watched out of the corner of her eye, suddenly incapable of looking Horace in the face.

‘The new leaf-green morning dress, please, Philpott. I had intended walking to Hatchard’s, but I suppose I had better not go out while his lordship is still here. The brown kid slippers will do for the moment.’

A new gown, her single strand of pearls and an elegant hairstyle would, she hoped, establish a sufficient distance between Lady Belinda Felsham and the scantily clad woman his lordship had crushed beneath him last night. Bel remembered the way his body had lain against hers, the way it had made her feel and the sudden heat in his eyes as they had rested fleetingly on her fragile nightgown.

The unsettling stirrings inside returned, making her feel flushed and uncertain. Was this the effect of desire, or of unsatisfied desire? Would she need to take a lover to stop these feelings disturbing her tranquillity, or, now they had been aroused, was she going to be prey to them for ever?

Bel leaned back on the embroidered linen of her pillows, turning her cheek against the coolness. But the little bumps of the white work embroidery pressed into her skin, reminding her forcibly of the pressure of the major’s buttons and frogging against her bosom. She waited until Philpott went into the dressing room and risked a peep under the neckline of the nightgown, expecting to find a perfect pattern imprinted on her skin. Nothing, of course—why then could she fancy she still felt it?

And how was she going to face Lord Dereham when he awoke?

Ashe turned over on to his back and threw one arm across his eyes as light from the uncurtained window hit them. Even through closed lids the effect was painful.

He lay there, waiting patiently as he had done every morning for a month now, waiting for the noise of battle, the shouts and screams, the boom of the cannon and the crack of musket fire to leave his sleep-filled brain. The battle was over. He was alive. The fact continued to take him by surprise every morning. How much longer before he could accept he had not been killed, had not been more than lightly wounded? How much longer would it be before he could start to think like a civilian again and find some purpose in the life he still had, against all the odds?

Eyes remaining closed against the impact of a massive headache, Ashe stretched his legs and came up hard against a footboard. Odd. He did not appear to be in his own bed. Vaguely, through the brandy fumes, his brain produced the memory of a woman. A tall, dark-haired woman with a glorious figure that had fitted against his body as though she had been created to hold him in her arms. A beautiful stranger. And a white bear. A bear? Hell. How much had he drunk last night?

His nostrils flared, seeking her. Wherever the woman in his memory—or had it been a dream?—had gone, she was not here now. The bed linen smelt fresh and crisp, there was no hint of perfume or that subtle, infinitely erotic, morning scent of warm, sleepy femininity.

Time to open his eyes. Ashe found he was squinting at a very familiar window. His study window, in his house. Only, the desk that always stood in front of it had gone, the bookcases had gone. The room had been transformed into a bedchamber. He threw back the covers and swung his legs out of bed, realising that he was still partly dressed. His boots were standing neatly at the foot of the bed, his dress-uniform jacket hung on the back of a chair. He had not the slightest recollection of taking either off.

The bell pull, thank God, was still where it should be. Ashe made his way across to it, swearing under his breath at the pain behind his eyes, and tugged it, then sat down on the edge of the bed to wait to see who would appear.

The part of his mind that was convinced he was at home expected his valet. The part that was crashingly hungover would not have been surprised to see the door opened by either a white bear or a lovely woman. He had not expected a completely strange, perfectly correct, upper servant in smart morning livery. The butler was bearing a silver salver with a glass upon it filled with a cloudy brown liquid.

‘Good morning, my lord. I believe you may find this receipt efficacious for your headache. Would you care for coffee before I bring your shaving water?’

‘You know who I am?’

‘Major the Viscount Dereham, I understand, my lord.’

‘And you are?’ Ashe reached for the glass and downed the contents without giving himself time to think about it. Butlers like this one always knew the most repellent, and effective, cures. His stomach revolted wildly, stayed where it was by some miracle, and then stopped churning. He might yet live.

‘Hedges, my lord.’ The butler retrieved the glass. ‘Coffee, my lord? Her ladyship has requested you join her at luncheon, should you feel well enough.’

Her ladyship? ‘I am not married, Hedges.’

‘As you say, my lord. I refer to Lady Felsham. I understand from her ladyship that you were indisposed last night and sought refuge here, finding it familiar, as it were.’

So he was in his own house, and he was not losing his mind. Only he had sold it—he could remember now he had been given a clue. He had written to his agent Grimball from Brussels three months ago. This comfortable little house had proved both too small, and too large, for his needs. He had the family town house—mausoleum though it was—for his mother and sisters on their unpredictable descents upon London, and after selling this house Grimball had taken chambers for him in the Albany for comfortable bachelor living.

But who the devil was Lady Felsham? Surely not the Venus in the translucent silk nightgown he could remember now his head was clearing? She must have been a dream. Women like that only existed in dreams.

The butler was waiting patiently for him to make a decision. ‘Coffee would be a good idea, thank you, Hedges, then hot water. And my compliments to her ladyship and I would be delighted to join her for luncheon.’

He frowned at the butler. ‘Where is Lord Felsham?’ If he remembered correctly, Felsham was older than he—about thirty-five—staid to the point of inertia and widely avoided because of the paralysing dullness of his character and conversation. That did not bode well for an entertaining luncheon, but it was probably all his battered brain could cope with.

‘His lordship, I regret to inform you, passed away almost two years ago as the result of a severe chill caught while inspecting the drains at Felsham Hall.’ The butler cleared his throat discreetly. ‘Her ladyship is only recently out of mourning. If you would care to remove your shirt, my lord, I will do what I can to restore it.’

Stripped to the waist, Ashe shaved himself with the painstaking care of a man who was all too aware that his finer reflexes had a way to go to recover themselves. At least he did not look too much of a wreck, he consoled himself, peering into the mirror after rinsing off the lather. Weeks out of doors drilling his troops had tanned his skin, tightened up his muscles, and one celebratory night of hard drinking did not show—at least not on the outside.

Internally was another matter. He was beginning to wonder what the devil he had consumed, if his memories of last night were so wild. The earlier part was no problem. He had called briefly at his new chambers, changed for the last time into his dress uniform and gone straight to Watier’s, leaving Race, his valet, to unpack.

They had all been there, his brothers-in-arms who had survived Waterloo and were fit enough to have made it back to England. And as they had sworn they would the night before the battle, they settled down to a night of eating, drinking and remembering. Remembering the men who were not here to share the brandy and the champagne, remembering their own experiences in the hell that was being acclaimed as one of the greatest battles ever fought—and trying their hardest to forget that they now had to learn all over again to be English gentlemen and pick up the life they had abandoned for the army.

That much was clear. A damned good meal at Watier’s, champagne for the toasts, then on through a round of drinking clubs and hells. Not playing at the tables, not more than flirting with the whores and demi-reps who flocked around them, attracted by the uniforms, but drinking and talking into the night. Doing and seeing the things they could do and see because they were alive.

Eventually, about half past two it must have been, he had turned homewards up Piccadilly towards the Albany. And there old habit must have taken control from his fuddled brain and steered his feet into the curve of Half Moon Street, through the mews and up to his own old back door. He could recall none of that, nor how he had got upstairs, nor what had happened next. Because whatever he might expect to find upstairs in the bedroom of the widow of the most boring man in England, a dark-haired Venus and a large white bear were not within the realms of possibility.

‘Your shirt, my lord, and your boots.’ Hedges materialised with the expressionless efficiency achieved only by the most highly trained English butler. ‘And I have taken the liberty of borrowing one of the late master’s neckcloths.’

‘Thank you.’ Ashe dressed in silence, got his hair into some sort of order, submitted to Hedges whisking the clothes brush over his jacket and followed the butler downstairs. In the blaze of silver lace and frogging he felt distinctly overdressed, but sartorial errors were apparently the least of his faux pas.

‘Luncheon will be served in about twenty minutes, my lord.’ Lady Felsham had not changed the function of the downstairs rooms around, he noted as Hedges opened a door, cleared his throat and announced, ‘Major the Viscount Dereham, my lady.’

Taking a deep breath Ashe tugged down his cuffs and strode into the drawing room to confront the straitlaced widow whose home he had invaded.

The breath stayed choked in his lungs. He had expected a frowsty middle-aged woman in black. Standing in the middle of the room was his Venus of the night before, regarding him with steady grey eyes, the colour high on her cheekbones.

Only she was now decently dressed in an exquisite green gown that made her elegantly coiffed hair gleam like polished wood. Pearls glowed softly against her flushed skin and the memory of the scent of her almost drove his scattered wits to the four corners of the room.

‘Lord Dereham.’ Straight-backed, she dropped the very slightest formal curtsy. She could not be a day over twenty-six, surely?

‘Lady Felsham.’ He managed it without stammering like a callow boy, thank God, and bowed. There was a slight movement at the back of the room and he saw a plainly dressed woman of middle age in the shadows. A chaperon. Where the blazes had she been last night when he had needed her?

‘Please, sit.’ Her ladyship gestured at a chair and sank down on the chaise opposite. The woman at the back sat too. Not a chaperon, then, or she would have been introduced. Her dresser no doubt. ‘I am glad you are able to stay for luncheon, Lord Dereham.’

‘Thank you, ma’am. I am delighted.’ And I’m gaping at her like a nodcock. Pull yourself together, man! ‘I must apologise for invading your home last night. There is no hiding the fact that I had been celebrating rather too enthusiastically.’ A faint smile curled the corner of her lips. The lower lip had the slightest, most provocative, pout. What would it be like to nip gently? He dragged his eyes away from it. ‘I am somewhat confused about what then transpired. This is not helped by recollections of a white bear, which leads me to believe I was rather more in my altitudes than I had imagined.’

‘Horace.’ She might have been naming a relative. ‘He is a polar bear skin on the floor in front of the fireplace.’

‘Horace.’ The damned bear was called Horace. What sort of woman gave her hearthrugs names, for heaven’s sake? But at least he was not losing his mind. ‘I think I must have tripped and measured my length on your Horace,’ he added, the memories coming back now he knew the white bear was not a dream.

Ashe had thought her colour somewhat heightened when he entered the room. Now she flushed to her hairline. What the devil had he said? Lady Felsham could no longer meet his eyes. He closed them, searching the blurred pictures behind his lids. She had been lying on the fur. It was not Horace he had landed full length upon, it was her, and all those tantalising dreams of warm female curves, of the scent of her skin, of, Heaven help him, following the whorls of her ear with his tongue, were accurate memories.

Chapter Three

Ashe stared at his hostess and Lady Felsham gazed back, sitting there, outwardly composed, while inwardly she must be desperately wondering just what he could recall of all this—and whether he was going to gossip about it, or worse. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more anxious he realised she must be—he could ruin her reputation in one minute of indiscreet talk. It was not something he could hint about, and he had no idea to what extent she had confided in her dresser.

‘Might I crave a private word, ma’am?’ Her polite smile vanished and a shadowed look came into those frank grey eyes.

All she said was, ‘Step outside for a few moments, please, Philpott, and close the door behind you.’

Ashe waited for the snick of the catch before speaking. ‘I have placed you in a difficult position—’

‘Not as difficult as the position in which I found myself at three o’clock this morning,’ she interrupted him with some feeling. Ashe almost smiled; she could have been tearful or furious or even hysterical. As it was, her tart tone was refreshing.

‘No. I imagine not. I am also aware that there is very little I can do to make things better other than to offer my profound apologies and to give you my word that I will not speak of this to anyone.’ She nodded acceptance, her lips still unsmiling. The colour had ebbed from her cheeks somewhat, he was relieved to see; it seemed she trusted him. ‘It must have been terrifying for you and I can only wonder at the fact that you did not have me thrown out on to the street the moment you were free to do so. To have given me a comfortable bed and the attention of your servants is charity I am far from deserving.’

‘I doubt my nerves would have stood the results of screaming the house down and then being discovered pinned to the floor beneath an unknown gentleman,’ she said gravely. ‘Once you were on your somewhat unsteady feet I considered what to do and decided that my butler needed his sleep. In any case, the sight of your supine body on the front step would hardly have added to my consequence with the neighbours. I had plenty of time to assess you my lord, and I came to the conclusion that you were harmless enough.’

She was laughing at him now the anxiety was gone. The spark in those fine eyes was not mortification, nor indignation, but amusement. Ashe found an answering bubble of laughter rising and got it firmly under control. Lady Felsham might be prepared to see the funny side of this, but he still felt his own part to have been unforgivable.

‘You are too generous, ma’am. I trust I did not injure you.’

‘Not at all. Horace has thick fur and the carpet beneath was also good padding. I have slept more comfortably, I must admit.’ She smiled at last, a generous, warm smile that had him yearning to press his lips to it. ‘But after almost two years in mourning, living in rural seclusion, a small adventure is not unwelcome.’

There was a discreet tap at the door. ‘Come in!’

‘Luncheon is served, my lady.’

‘Have you an appetite, Lord Dereham?’ Lady Felsham rose to her feet with a graceful sway that had him fighting to keep his eyes away from her hips. ‘I can promise you that Mrs Hedges is an excellent cook.’

Mrs Hedges had indeed done them proud. Bel was thankful for the distraction the formalities of eating in company provided. Lord Dereham had greatly relieved her mind with his assurances of discretion and the impeccable way in which he was behaving, but even so, the sensations conjured up by even referring to the incident were physically most agitating. Bel shifted uncomfortably on her seat and tried not to fidget.

‘Butter, Lord Dereham?’ She helped herself to braised ham, then found herself staring at the big, capable hand with its long fingers and the healing scar across the knuckles as he replaced the butter dish on the table. It was the hand of a fighting man, a strong man, and she could not help but contrast it with Henry’s white, soft and carefully manicured digits.

‘You have not been back in England long?’ She tried to imagine that she was presiding over a vicarage luncheon party and not to remember his mischievous twinkle as she had remarked that a small adventure was not unwelcome. ‘Your agent led me to understand that you were with the army in Belgium.’

‘I arrived the night before last from Ostend and reached London late yesterday afternoon.’

‘Then no wonder you felt so…unwell yesterday. You must have been exhausted. The Channel crossing alone, I am sure, must be wearisome.’

‘You are kind to find an excuse for me.’ His smile really was very charming. Bel found herself smiling back. Seduced into smiling. He was dangerous. ‘But I have none, in truth. I went out to join fellow officers and we talked and drank—with the result you saw.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to remark that they must have been celebrating when she sensed a shadow. It was not so much that his expression changed, as the light went out behind those remarkable blue eyes. He was sad, she realised with a flash of empathy. On instinct she turned and nodded dismissal to the footman who stood silently by the sideboard. If her visitor was experiencing mental discomfort, he did not need an audience for it.

‘It must be so painful to remember all those men who could not be with you last night,’ Bel said quietly. ‘Is it sometimes hard to believe that you are alive and they are not?’

He had raised his glass to his lips as she spoke, but put it down at her words, untouched. Bel thought she caught the hint of a tremor in his hand, then he was in control again. ‘You are the only person I have spoken to who was not there who understands.’ He stared at the glass and at his own fingers wrapped around the stem. She waited, expecting him to say something further, but after a moment he lifted the glass again and drank. A sore spot, then, one to avoid. He was going to have a hard time of it though, once he went out into society again. Everyone would want to lionise another returning Waterloo officer, talk about the battle, demand to know about Wellington, ask about his experiences.

‘We are both going to find our new lives difficult. You have been in the army, I have been in seclusion,’ she observed. ‘Unless you are going back into the army, Lord Dereham?’

‘No. I will go to Horse Guards today and resign my commission. Quite frankly,’ he added with a rueful grin, ‘I am strongly tempted to bolt off to the country and rusticate on my much-neglected estate rather than face certain aspects of London life again.’

‘Town is very quiet just now,’ Bel reassured him. ‘That is why I came up in early June—to replenish my wardrobe and find my feet again without too many invitations. And then I found myself travelling to the Grand Duchy of Maubourg, of all places, for my brother’s wedding.’

‘Indeed? It sounds an adventure. That is an unusual place for your brother to be wed, I must confess.’

‘Not if you are marrying the Dowager Grand Duchess of Maubourg.’ Bel smiled reminiscently. ‘It was just like a fairy tale—or a Gothic novel, if one considers the castle. Quite ridiculously romantic.’

‘I am sorry, I should remember who your brother is, forgive me.’

‘My elder brother is the Duke of Allington. This was my second brother, Lord Sebastian Ravenhurst.’

‘Otherwise known as Jack Ryder! I knew there was something familiar about you—you have the same grey eyes.’

So, Lord Dereham knew Sebastian in his secret persona as spy, investigator and King’s Messenger. It was probably a state secret, but she risked the question. ‘Where did you meet him?’

‘On the morning of the battle.’ There was no need to specify which battle. Bel saw the realisation come over him. ‘Then that very handsome woman in man’s clothing was the Grand Duchess Eva? No wonder your brother looked ready to call me out when I tried a little mild flirtation with her!’

‘Indeed, you were dicing with death, Lord Dereham,’ Bel agreed, amused at the daring of a man who would flirt with any woman under Sebastian’s protection. ‘It is a most incredible story, for he snatched Eva out of Maubourg and back to England in the face of considerable danger.’

‘You are a romantic, then?’ He poured her more lemonade from the cut-glass jug at his elbow and watched her quizzically for her answer. Bel found herself drowning in that deep azure gaze, rather as she might surrender to the sea. He seemed to be luring her on to confess her innermost yearnings, her need to be loved, her wicked curiosity to experience physical delight. And just like the sea, he was dangerous and full of undercurrents. A completely unknown element. Of course she could reveal nothing. Nothing at all.