‘Didn’t I tell you desire wouldn’t be a problem between us, Lucius?’
Chapter Three
Rumour has it that, for reasons best known to himself, the Viscount Eastwood presented his lovely new wife with a sturdy Chippendale armchair as a wedding gift...
Whispers from Behind the Fan
May 1814
‘Well?’ Their mother dropped her toast as a grinning Charity bustled through the door from the early morning stroll she had insisted upon taking in the middle of breakfast. ‘Did you discover anything about our new next-door neighbours?’ They had seen lights in the adjacent house late last night when they returned from Faith’s wedding celebrations in Richmond. ‘Please tell me it’s a nice young family or an old lady or even a crusty and eccentric bachelor who collects butterflies and nasty bugs. I am not sure my poor nerves could take another scandalous H-U-S-S-Y right on our doorstep.’
Number Twenty-Two Bedford Place, Bloomsbury had been vacant for three months ever since the Earl of Clacton’s former mistress had moved out. While she hadn’t been there particularly long, four months to be exact, she had been an interesting neighbour, lacking both morals and any shame that she was a thoroughly kept woman who enjoyed the company of vigorous males far too much. But this morning, a laden cart had arrived containing an enormous bed, a couple of substantial-looking wingbacks as well as the biggest bathtub any of them had ever seen.
‘It’s a single gentleman according to Colonel Wigstock, who said he thinks he saw the fellow arrive some time around eight last night, although nobody else has seen him since to confirm that.’
‘Old? Young?’ Their father loved gossip even though he liked to pretend he was above such things.
Charity shrugged. ‘You know Wigstock—he’s reliably unreliable about those sorts of details. He thinks he might be a naval man.’
‘Why?’ As much as Hope liked to think she was above such things too, this was a new neighbour and she was more than a little intrigued. For the last hour, a succession of merchants and tradesmen had been delivering all manner of things to the house. The food alone had looked enough to feed the five thousand. If he was a sailor, he was a very hungry one.
‘He’s very dapper, fair and has a military bearing apparently.’ Charity stole Hope’s perfectly buttered slice of toast and took a huge bite out of it before she could snatch it back. ‘He also has a pirate as a manservant.’
‘A pirate!’ Their mother was appalled. ‘The C-U-T-T-H-R-O-A-T sort?’
Both sisters rolled their eyes at this because even though the youngest of them was already past one and twenty, their overprotective mother still insisted on spelling out any words she considered too unsavoury for their tender ears.
‘Again, Mama, we only have Colonel Wigstock’s word on that so it’s hardly to be trusted. After all, he did tell the whole street Faith’s new husband was a wandering gypsy simply because Piers happens to have dark hair.’ Charity glided to the fireplace, no doubt to check her own hair in the big mirror over it. ‘But so far, there doesn’t appear to be any sign of either a wife or the sort of feminine accoutrements which go along with one, therefore I think it is fairly safe to assume our new neighbour is indeed a bachelor. Whether or not he is a crusty old one who collects insects is yet to be established.’ Her sister glanced at the clock on the sideboard, then tugged on one of her perfect blonde ringlets to stare at it with disgust. ‘What time is Evan bringing the carriage around again?’
Now that he was mobile again after a nasty fall which had broken his leg, their father was about to embark on another portrait commission in Mayfair and their talented mother’s return to the Theatre Royal inCosì fan Tuttehad been so successful, the opera’s run had been extended for another few weeks. Having secured her first singing engagement in the chorus, Charity always accompanied their mother to the theatre on rehearsal days, which would leave Hope all alone in the house for the first time in months.
‘In ten minutes.’ Their father gave the youngest his most stern look, as they all knew that the charmingly vain and chaotic Charity had a casual attitude towards timekeeping. ‘So if you are going to have poor Lily redo your coiffure, you’d best be quick sharp about it or you’ll be walking to Covent Garden!’ He bashed the floor decisively with his jauntily painted new walking stick. ‘I mean it this time, young lady. If you aren’t down here the moment it pulls up outside, then we are leaving without you!’
‘I’ll be less than ten minutes, I promise, Papa.’
As Charity sauntered out as if she had all the time in the world, he turned back to Hope. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with me to Lady Bulphan’s? We could have a nice late luncheon at Gunter’s afterwards.’
‘I’d much rather finish writing my chapter here than at Lady Bulphan’s. I am so close to writing the end that my head is spinning with it all. I’d be very poor company at Gunter’s today. I am too consumed.’
Which was only partially the truth.
While she really did have a head full of words and characters’ voices—because she always had a head crammed full of the things—she was also quite content to avoid Mayfair, and Berkeley Square in particular, for as long as possible after the regrettable incident with Lucius Duff by the fountain last week.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what had come over her that night. She wasn’t usually so open with a gentleman as she had been him, or so uncharacteristically enthusiastic about kissing one either. Men, under all normal circumstances, were usually best avoided as they only ever wanted one thing. Not that she was resigned to a life of spinsterhood, or at least she hoped she wasn’t, but it would certainly have to be a very special and unusual gentleman indeed to ever tempt her and he certainly wasn’t that. Nor was she the sort who allowed one to dominate her thoughts for longer than was necessary. Hope was more for moving forward than looking back, except since that unfortunate but oh-so-enlightening kiss under the moonlight, even immersed in the excitement of her sister’s wedding, she hadn’t quite been able to shake the memory of it.
Or him.
What was it about him that scrambled her usually sound and cynical wits? He wasn’t the sensible and intellectual sort of gentleman she traditionally favoured. The sort who preferred books to women. In fact, he hadn’t seemed the least bit scholarly and academic and he certainly didn’t look like that sort of gentleman either. Not that he resembled any sort of gentleman at all, truth be told. He was big and drunk and tactless. Too dark. Too tall. Too insightful and much too manly. Exactly as he had said, he looked like trouble—and even that hadn’t stopped her from attaching herself to him like a barnacle!
It had been mortifying enough in the first place to have plastered herself breathlessly up against plain old Mr Duff—the transient stranger who would rapidly disappear out of her life—but now that she knew he also happened to be the new Marquess of Thundersley and therefore likely unavoidable in society, she was nowhere near ready to face him again yet.
Especially as he had been so gallingly smug about it all.
No indeed! When she collided with him again, she would be composed enough to glare at him in disgust, armed with an arsenal of pithy comments so that LordJust-Call-Me-Lukeknew in no uncertain terms that she considered him as vile and unworthy as the hideous Lord Harlington he had rescued her from.
And once she had finished giving him a piece of her mind for his ungentlemanly behaviour she would skewer him some more by lambasting his drunken efforts at kissing. The man was far too good at it and deserved being brought down a peg or two—even though she had greedily kissed him back and thoroughly enjoyed every splendid second of it.
Not that he ever needed to know that!
