Page 14 of Not Quite a Lady
Chapter Four
‘Where am I?’Not the most original of opening lines, Jack told himself, focussing on the magnificently-dressed figure in front of him.
He should recognise her, he thought. Flashes of memory of an angry aristocrat, a crowded coffee shop, of crowds, a bear, his schooldays and, improbably, of an angel, tried to force their way through the headache which was an almost physical presence in his skull.
He shifted his gaze, but not his throbbing head, found himself staring at a sphinx of all things, and hastily looked back at the young woman. Thebeautifulyoung woman, now he could see past the ornately-piled hair, the frills and flounces and the jewellery.
‘You are in my house in Chandler Street, sir.’ She moved closer, forcing him to refocus painfully. ‘You were injured coming to my aid outside. Do you not recall?’
‘Some sort of riot? I came because you wrote. Miss…Franchot?’ He frowned with the effort of recall. ‘Have I met you before?’ For some reason she seemed to be blushing.
‘France. Lily France. You came to my aid a month ago in Piccadilly. Can you remember that? As for this, it was a hoax, someone was playing a malicious trick on me. A fight broke out and you were hit by a cobblestone. The doctor says you bruised your back badly on the steps as you fell.’
That accounted for the fact that he felt as though he’d been flogged. But why, if he had fallen on his back, did his jaw ache? Jack raised a hand and prodded it, wincing. ‘Did someone land me a right hook at the same time?’
Now what had he said to make her blush even deeper? ‘I am afraid so. My…the man to whom I was betrothed hit you.’
‘What the hell – sorry – for?
‘Miss France, please will you not sit down? I can focus better on the level and for some reason I keep seeing sphinxes when I look up.’
She came and sat by the bed in a rustle of silk that whisperedMoneyto a man who had three sisters. ‘That’s because the room is decorated with a gilded frieze of them,’ she said, pride evident in her voice. ‘This room is in the Egyptian style you know, quite in the height of fashion.’
Jack risked a glance around and repressed a shudder. And quite in the worst of taste.
‘Why did he hit me?’ he asked again. Shreds of memory were coming back: a woman’s gasp of pain, a sneering voice. Fog.
‘Because he was angry with me for having you brought into the house, and he mistook the situation – but he was enraged in any case.
‘I broke our engagement, he raised his voice and you, somehow, managed to get to your feet. You were trying to protect me, which was very gallant of you. But you could hardly see, I think, what with all the blood, and Adrian took advantage of that and hit you. The coward,’ she finished, vehemently.
‘Adrian?’
‘Lord Randall.’
Oh Lord. Well, that explained some of the memories. It seemed that Randall was still picking on those smaller or weaker than himself – undersized boys, women, injured men.
Strange that neither had recognised the other in the coffee house, even after sixteen years. That evening in Hatchett’s was coming back now. ‘It took you rather a long time to get rid of him.’
‘Four weeks,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I should have listened to my own feelings and not done what everyone else said was right.’
‘Why agree to marry him in the first place if you do not likehim?’ His head was thudding and the gilded ornamentation of the room seemed to shimmer in the candlelight, but Jack found himself fascinated by the play of emotion on Lily’s face.
Her expression changed to one of surprise. ‘He is a baron,’ she stated as though he had asked a very foolish question.
‘Er, yes. And so?’ She still seemed puzzled. ‘You must marry a baron?’
‘Someone with a title, and baronets are too low down, so it had to be at least a baron.’
The room was definitely beginning to blur and he could feel his eyelids drooping. ‘But why?’
‘So my sons will be gentlemen, of course.’
Lily saw Jack had lapsed into unconsciousness again and sat watching him blankly for a while.
In the space of a day she had lost her fiancé, and very probably her reputation, and had gained one decidedly large and disturbing house guest. She doubted that Aunt Herrick would consider it a very good bargain.
Had she really let him kiss her? Try as she might she could hardly dismissthatas being due to the shocks of the day. And yet she had felt unable to resist.
