Undesirable Liaison (7 page)

‘Miss
Petrie?’

Flo jumped in
her seat, turning towards the voice. It proved to belong to a
gentleman standing within the doorway to the parlour. He was tall
and loose-limbed, with a striking countenance. A frame of dark hair
tied in the nape of his neck outlined a powerful looking jaw line
and a strong, inflexible nose. Deep-set eyes of brown were fixed
upon Florence’s face, their expression dark and unfathomable.

Her first
thought, unbidden, was that Lady Langriville must have been mad to
have lost him. Her second, prompted by a pattering of blood in her
veins, was a fervent wish she had abandoned her principles and
stayed safe and sound in Poland Street.

***

Jerome was
labouring under strong emotion, but as he watched the colour
draining from the girl’s face, instinct drove him to action. He
turned his gaze upon his housekeeper.

‘Ask Fewston to
bring wine to this room. You need not return.’

He noted the
suspicious glance Brumby cast, on her exit, at the female who had
brought news both staggering and appalling. She was rising from her
seat. Jerome waved her back again.

‘Stay where you
are.’

Gratefully,
Florence sank down. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘Don’t thank
me,’ came the abrupt reply. ‘You look as if you might collapse at
any moment. Though I should think I have more right to do so than
you.’

Startled, Flo
gazed at him. Was there a hint of humour there? It was dry, if so.
She dared not appear to notice it. To her annoyance, she found
herself making an apology.

‘I believe I
must have discomposed you, my lord. I am sorry for it.’

‘Not half as
sorry as I,’ he returned.

His abruptness
began to irritate, and Florence’s sympathies veered back to the
deceased Lady Langriville. If this was the gentleman’s usual
manner, she might be pardoned for seeking to be rid of him. Only it
was hardly a judgement Flo was in a position to make, she chided
herself. Who would not be a trifle out of temper upon hearing such
news?

Lord
Langriville crossed the room in three strides and fetched up at the
far end of the mantel, leaning his arm upon it and turning to
survey her with a disconcerting stare. Flo continued to meet it,
despite the hurried pulse persisting its uneven beat in her throat.
Her intentions had been honourable. It was not her fault if her
advent had set the cat among the pigeons.

The challenge
in her pose had the odd effect of calming Jerome a little. As
unexpected as it was unusual in the females he had known, who were
more inclined to simper and kowtow, it was yet inappropriate in
this dowdy creature with no visible pretensions to gentility. Her
riding habit had seen better days, and the felt on a plain bonnet
was shiny with use. Had not Fewston referred to her merely as a
female “person”? One could not but wonder at her true motive.

‘I have not yet
understood the rigmarole my relative saw fit to unfold,’ he said at
his coolest. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to repeat your story
for my benefit.’

She gave a
faint sigh, he thought, but she answered readily enough.

‘That is easily
done, sir. I bought a gown—’ touching the cloak bag reposing at her
feet ‘—from a pawnbroker.’

Was there a
slight inflexion of defiance on the word? The implications were
legion. Jerome was conscious of tightening within himself, but he
said nothing.

‘When I tried
it on,’ pursued the girl, ‘I discovered a jewel concealed in the
material. I set about finding out the owner, and—’

‘Why?’

Caught mid-sentence and
off guard, Florence could only echo him. ‘Why?’

‘Why did you
set about finding out the owner?’

There was
blandness in his tone, but Flo mistrusted it. ‘I should have
thought that was obvious, my lord.’

‘Not to
me.’

‘Then you have
a very odd idea of human nature!’ It came out without will, and
Florence immediately regretted her tartness. She looked away from
his intent gaze, forcing out the words. ‘I—beg your pardon, my
lord.’

‘Don’t. I
require neither your apologies nor your solicitude—if that is what
you intend. Speak to me as you will, but get to the point. I want
the truth, Miss Petrie, and immediately.’

Considerably
taken aback, Florence stared up at him in gathering dudgeon. What
in the world did this mean? A glimmering of light fluttered at the
edge of her consciousness, but she was too put out to catch at it.
The burn in the man’s dark orbs provoked her into rising
impetuously from the little sofa and taking full advantage of the
permission granted to speak to him in any way she chose.

‘This is
intolerable, sir! You ask for my story, and then interrupt me with
accusations of—I don’t know of what, to be frank. I gather you had
no knowledge of your late wife’s demise, but that cannot be laid to
my account. Until last Friday, I knew nothing of her existence, let
alone yours, so—’

‘Ah, now we
come to it,’ he cut in, contempt entering his features. ‘Let us
pass over how the devil you came to know of my existence, but
having done so, I imagine I have not far to look for the reason you
sought me out, even to my private estates. What do you want, Miss
Petrie? Am I to recompense you handsomely for the information that
my wife is no longer an impediment? Though where you had your
information beats me. Or are you another of Bodicote’s doxies?
Perhaps this is
his
scheme, and you are merely the
instrument.’

Too stunned and
bewildered to speak, Flo watched the hard line of his jaw tighten
the more, and with the fixated fascination one might hold upon the
eyes of an angry snake, she saw the molten brown gaze take
fire.

‘Know this,
Miss Petrie: I am no longer the guileless youth I once was to be
taken in by female stratagems. You will find me remarkably hard to
gull, and so I warn you.’

Florence knew
not how to reply to such a speech. She was more than half inclined
to write Lord Langriville down as a lunatic. The only thing upon
which she could fasten with any certainty was that she had
inadvertently strayed into a situation fraught with dismaying
complications.

Before she
could think how to disabuse his lordship’s mind of its false
assumptions, a welcome interruption came in the form of the butler,
armed with a tray, which he laid down upon a round table set
alongside the harpsichord. Lord Langriville’s smouldering gaze
encompassed the man’s actions, and Flo thought he was experiencing
extreme difficulty in holding his tongue. She was glad of the
respite, and accepted the glass of wine handed to her with real
gratitude, taking opportunity to reseat herself. A few sips served
both to warm her and to clear her head.

‘That will be
all, Fewston.’

The tone was
curt and clipped, but Flo’s ear recognised the lessening of his
lordship’s rage. Waiting until the butler had left the room, she
cupped the wine glass in her hands and seized her chance.

‘Before you say
anything more, sir, pray hear me out.’

The inflexible
look came over his countenance once more. ‘Well?’

Florence drew
breath to steady herself and looked him in the eyes. ‘All I have
been able to ascertain from your diatribe, my lord, is that you
suspect me of an ulterior motive. I neither know nor care what
other ideas you may have in your head. In coming here, I have done
what I conceived to be a duty. If in doing so, I have raised
spectres from the past, for that, and for that alone, I can only
apologise, and protest it was not meant.’

There was no
diminution of the dark suspicion in his eyes, but he did not speak.
She took a last sip of the wine and stood up, moving to place the
glass upon the mantel. Fishing inside the interior of her jacket,
she pulled out the pocket-handkerchief containing the precious gem.
It struck her as ironic that none in the household had required her
to produce the item that had sparked the whole unfortunate episode.
Unfolding the handkerchief with fingers that, despite all her
efforts at control, betrayed her with unstoppable tremors, Flo
extracted the pale rose ruby and held it out.

‘Here, Lord
Langriville. Take it, if you please.’

He made no move
to do so, and Florence met his eyes, unaware of the growing
hardness in her own. Disdain was in his face, but he spoke with
apparent cool detachment.

‘Just like
that? No recompense? Had you no expectation of reward, however
inadequate?’

‘None,’ stated
Flo, matching his earlier curtness. She continued to offer the gem,
willing away the fury igniting in her breast.

Jerome eyed her
with an edge of puzzlement under the deep distrust he could not
overcome. What game was she playing? Impossible she would go,
denuded and profitless. What woman ever had no eye to the main
chance? He tried again, with a vague notion of taunting her into
revealing herself.

‘You would have
done better to keep it than to bring it to me. Or have you no idea
of its worth?’

‘I have every
idea of its worth.’

Ah, but there was steel
in her voice. She did have a motive. ‘Then you took time to check.
Admirable, Miss Petrie. Do you tell me even then you had no thought
of selling it?’ Deliberately, he allowed his gaze to travel down
her gown and up again. ‘I am sure you could make excellent use of
several hundreds of pounds.’

To his secret
satisfaction, she flushed. But her response took him unawares. He
watched her turn to the mantel and set the gem down—with, he
thought, elaborate care. Next instant, she had stepped up close. He
saw the flash of her hand too late to perceive her intent, and the
stinging blow caught him full on the cheek.

‘
That
,
my lord Langriville, is my reward!’

He heard the
furious words through a haze, but instinct sent him plunging after
her as she made for the door. He seized her shoulder and dragged
her about to face him, grabbing at her wrists to prevent her from
striking him again.

‘Let me go,’
raged Florence, dragging away from his iron hold. Beside herself,
she wished to be gone from his presence, from his house, and from
the menace of his cruel suspicions.

‘Be still, for
the Lord’s sake, you foolish female!’

‘You have no
right to hold me here. Let me go!’

‘No right?
After such treatment as you have just dealt me?’

‘It is only
what you deserved,’ she threw at him, past caring what she said.
‘How dare you impute such dreadful things to me? How dare you judge
me and taunt me, when you know nothing of me, nothing of my life?
You may call yourself a gentleman, but let me tell you, sir, no
gentlemen I ever knew would behave as you have done.’

‘Will you be
still?’

‘No, I will not
be still!’

With a sudden
violent wrench, Florence freed herself, half falling back against
the harpsichord. But instead of seizing the chance to be away, her
temper, thoroughly lost and unrecoverable for the moment, drove her
to confront him again.

‘I wish to
heaven I had listened to Bel instead of coming here to be insulted.
She would have had me sell the ruby and make use of the proceeds,
but I would not hear of it, the more fool me. I thought—in my
ignorance and stupidity—there had been a mistake, for which some
poor creature would suffer. Evidently I was the one mistaken. It
had not occurred to me in my idiotic innocence that I had numerous
other possibilities opening up before me. I must thank you, my
lord, for showing me my true self—less a petty thief than a
blackmailer at best! At worst—I hesitate to put a name to the
crimes of which I might have been guilty, had I but the wit to
invent them.’

She stopped at
last, out of breath and inspiration both, glaring at the culprit
with thoughts of unmitigated hatred. And to her utter bewilderment,
the hard suspicion died out of his countenance, to be replaced with
a look of unmistakable amusement. The brown eyes lit, and the lips,
which had formed a hard line up to now, relaxed into mellowed
curves, twitching at the edges.

‘You are
laughing at me,’ Flo declared in disbelief.

He put a hand out
towards her. ‘Not at you, ma’am. At your words alone.’ A grin split
his face. ‘I thought I had a monopoly on sarcasm, but your effort
quite takes my breath away,’

Florence’s rage
crumbled, and she gazed at him in silent bewilderment. A red stain
at his cheek bore witness to her recent attack, and yet he was
amused? She threw up her hands in confusion.

‘You are the
strangest man I have ever met.’

He laughed out
at that, and took a step towards her, again holding out his
hand.

‘Cry friends,
Miss Petrie. I retract everything I said. The finest actress could
not have feigned such a thorough loss of temper.’

Utterly
bemused, Flo allowed him to capture one of her hands. His grip was
hard, and unexpectedly warm. He drew her a pace nearer, and as a
slow smile crept into his eyes, she experienced a rush of sensation
she could not have identified if she had tried. In a daze, she
heard him speak.

‘This was an
ill return for your honesty, Miss Petrie. Let us begin anew.’

‘By all means,’
Flo found herself replying.

By the time she
could think coherently once more, she had been returned to her seat
on the sofa and her wine glass, renewed with claret, had been
placed in her hand. Lord Langriville took the seat from before the
harpsichord and set it down where he had previously been standing.
Florence watched him retrieve the ruby from the mantel, and then
sit, his fingers playing with the jewel.

‘You must blame
my conduct on the shock of the news you brought,’ he said on a
rueful note. ‘I had no time to assimilate it.’ He looked up. ‘Do
you know when she died?’