AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Kindly check the corridor.’ If he so much as let his lips twitch, she would throw something at him, she swore, but Avery kept a perfectly straight face as he crossed the room and looked out.
‘The coast is clear.’
‘Thank you,’ Laura said with awful sarcasm as she swept past him. And then, as she glanced back over her shoulder, he did smile.
*
A cool bath was certainly helpful. Avery dripped onto the bath mat afterwards and wondered whether he was bewitched or merely besotted. What was it about this infuriating, dangerous, flawed woman that attracted him so, against all prudence? It had attracted Piers, too, but his cousin had the excuse of being younger and a romantic. Now, on top of everything else, not only was she here, but she was expecting Alice to lie about her. He scrubbed his wet body dry, shrugged into his banyan and went to finish reading his correspondence while Darke set the dressing room to rights.
‘Will you require me to shave you, my lord?’
‘Hmm? Yes.’ His concentration was all over the place, he’d probably end up cutting his own throat at this rate.
‘Miss Blackstock said she would bring Miss Alice down to say goodnight early, my lord, at half past five. We understand that Lady Birtwell is holding a gathering before dinner to give the guests an opportunity to mingle.’
In other words, to enable her to parade her selection of young ladies before him, like fillies going down to the starting gate. ‘You had better shave me now then and I’ll get changed before Miss Alice arrives. She is capable of wrecking havoc with my attempts to tie a respectable neckcloth.’
‘Quite, my lord,’ Darke observed with some feeling. ‘The hot water is ready.’
Avery sat back and closed his eyes as the razor scraped through the soap and the bristles of his evening beard. What the devil had his godmother been thinking of, to invite Lady Laura? She didn’t know the truth, of course, but Laura’s reputation was smudged enough as it was, even without the scandal of Alice’s birth. Perhaps she had included her to throw the ladylike deportment of the other young women into relief by contrast.
It occurred to him that Blackie and Darke had both seen ‘Mrs Jordan’ at Westerwood. ‘Darke, when Miss Blackwood brings Miss Alice, I would like you to remain for a few moments. There is something I must tell you both.’
*
Alice arrived as he was sliding his arms into the swallowtail evening coat with the assistance of Darke. She bounced into the room. ‘Poor Darke is going red in the face, Papa,’ she informed him.
‘So would you, if you had to stuff me into this coat.’ Avery tugged down his cuffs, added his watch, chain and fobs, stuck in a cameo tie pin and decided he was as fancy as he was prepared to make himself for the purposes of wife-hunting. ‘Miss Blackstock, Darke, a moment please.’
Alice pouted. ‘I wanted to tell you a secret, Papa.’
‘Is it anything to do with Mrs Jordan?’
She stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘How did you know?’ She glanced from side to side at the servants. ‘She said I was to tell you, Papa, but perhaps I shouldn’t tell Blackie or Darke.’
‘She told you to tell me?’
Alice nodded. That was a surprise. He had not expected Laura to do that. He had misjudged her. ‘Miss Blackwell, Mrs Jordan, who visited while we were in Hertfordshire, is actually Lady Laura Campion. She has had a personal problem that required her to conceal her identity.’
‘She said she was running away from a bad man,’ Alice explained, her face serious with the responsibility of the big secret. ‘It is very exciting and we must not betray her.’
Avery grimaced at his two expressionless staff. ‘A man she wished to avoid,’ he explained. ‘It would be best if you give no indication that you have ever encountered her under any other name.’
‘Of course, my lord.’ Darke gathered up the discarded banyan and removed himself to the dressing room.
Blackie shot a look at Alice, who was busy straightening the fob that hung from Avery’s watch chain. ‘If Lady Laura should approach Miss Alice…’
‘Treat her the same as any of the other guests,’ Avery said and stooped to pick Alice up, making her squeal with laughter. ‘You are not to be naughty and disturb the grown-ups, puss. But if you behave nicely I expect the ladies will want to talk with you.’
And if they avoided her, or made any derogatory remark, then they would be crossed off his list at once. Whoever he married must accept Alice without reservation.
‘Off with you to your supper now.’ He set her on her feet, noticing that she had grown since the last time she had worn that dress. Before he knew it, she would be a young lady. How would he cope when she was the age the girls downstairs were now and men were courting her? He would be forever sharpening a rapier or cleaning his shotgun. But before then he would have a wife to look after her, one who loved the child as much as he did. He just had to go and choose her.
Chapter Twelve
This was nothing like he had expected it to be. Avery, his features schooled into the expression that worked for sensitive, yet boring, diplomatic parties, circulated the room, displaying an outer confidence while he fought an inner sensation that was something akin to panic.
Young women swirled around him like so many birds in an aviary, charming in their pastels and frills, smiling and flirting and chattering. Previously he would have been civil to the plain ones and the dull ones—not that Godmama had invited anyone who fitted those de
