Page 11 of Not Quite a Lady
‘I have every right, and the sooner you learn it the better, if you intend to be Lady Randall.
‘I come here and find the house the focus of some sort of vulgar riot, I have to enter through the back door like a servant and I find my fiancée half naked, clutching some tradesman to her bosom. Who the devil is he?’
For some reason she was not prepared to admit she knew Jack. ‘I have no idea. He came to my aid and was hurt by a flying stone. And I am not half naked, my gown was slightly torn as he fell, that is all.’
‘No idea?’ His voice sneered. ‘I heard you call him by name.Do you take me for a fool?’
‘No I do not, I take you for uncaring and suspicious.’
Lily turned her back and managed to tie the pad of bandage around Jack’s forehead. Where her hand rested on his shirtfront she could feel the heat of his body, the pulse of his heart. He felt hard and male and formidable for all his present helplessness.
She wanted to wash the mask of blood away and see his face, but forced herself to concentrate on the important things.
‘I think the bleeding has eased. For goodness sake, Adrian, why are you in such a temper about this?‘ she tossed back over her shoulder. ‘I have no idea what caused the chaos outside and I am certainly not responsible for it.’
‘It is not the sort of thing which happens outside a respectable household,’ he retorted.
‘And why am I out of temper you ask? Because I have just spent an hour with your trustees, and a more awkward set of old fogies I have never met. They tried to tell me that as your husband I would have control over only one third of your fortune. How can they think that lying to me is going to help them stay in their positions – with their fingers in the honeypot, I have no doubt?’
‘Because it is true,’ Lily said, fighting to keep her voice calm.
She gave the bandage a final pat and stood up, keeping her hand lightly on Jack’s shoulder. It seemed to give her strength.
‘Until I am thirty, or I marry, all my money is controlled by my trustees. Then I, or my husband, comes into control of one third. The remainder is in perpetual trust for my children until each reaches the age of twenty one.’
‘Impossible.’ Adrian was white with anger. ‘That cannot be legal.’
‘I can assure you it is. My father took the very best advice. I do not find it onerous, I sit with the trustees to make decisions.’
‘You? Your father must have been insane. No womanunderstands money.’
‘I do. And you will not insult my father, if you please.’ She could feel her fingers tightening into the shoulder of the man lying at her side and forced them to open.
‘I am a very rich woman. One third of that fortune is enough for anyone.’
‘It is not enough for me – I do not marry some tradesman’s daughter forone thirdof anything.’
‘Then that is easily remedied.’ The words were out of her mouth before she could think.
Under the flat of her palm she felt Jack stir and bent anxiously to look at him. A hand closed hard on her shoulder and pulled her away.
‘Your lover…’ The words buzzed and faded in Jack’s ears, making no sense.
God, it hurts.He tried to lift a hand to his head but his arm felt like lead, wouldn’t move. He tried to open his eyes but they seemed to be glued shut. Either that, or he was struck blind.
‘…dare you!’ A woman’s voice, incredulous, yet shaking with fury. ‘I have no lover…’
‘Trollop.’
He heard her gasp at the flat insult.
‘You get the taste for it in my arms, then you pick up with some lusty tradesman…pretending you’re so shy…’
The colours swirling behind his blinded eyes intensified. He was losing consciousness. He fought against it, she needed him.
‘I hardly think that after your gropingany woman would be in haste to repeat the experience. Unless possibly in the hope that it would not prove quite so repellent with someone else.’
Jack felt his lips quirk involuntarily at the frank vehemence of her opinion, then they stiffened as he heard her give a gasp of pain.
