Page 53 of Not Quite a Lady
Jack nodded to Gledhill. ‘I thank you for that. I am putting up at the Bull and Mouth. May I offer you gentlemen breakfast in the morning?’
‘You most certainly may. Noon? I suggest you give us a few moments, Allerton, before you reappear.’ He smiled, ‘Enjoy the ball.’
Jack looked round the empty room, assessed the various frail pieces of furniture and sat down on thechaise.
That had been achieved with less public fuss than he had feared, now all that remained was to attempt to get out of this alive and without killing Randall either. Putting a period to his lordship’s existence might be tempting, but exile abroad most certainly was not.
Jack scooped up a few bonbons and absently put one in his mouth while running through what he now had to do. His will was in order, that was one mercy. Then he must write a letter to his mother to leave with his seconds, just in case.
Then…‘Youbeast.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Lily.’ Jack was on his feet in a small shower of sweetmeats. ‘Lily, what on earth are you doing in here?’
‘This.’ The slap across his face rocked him back on his heels. ‘I could think of all kinds of perfectly good reasons why you should not wish to marry me, but I did at least think you would have the courage to tell me if you did not consider me good enough for you,my lord.’
She looked magnificent, her green eyes blazing, her cheeks full of colour, her breast heaving, but Jack was in no mood to admire the effect.
‘Lily, for God’s sake–’
‘Do not blaspheme,’ she stormed, putting him squarely in the wrong. ‘How you must have laughed up your sleeve when I told you I wanted to marry a lord! Why couldn’t you have told me then, before I made any more of a fool of myself than I already had? Or were you too afraid I would make a dead set at you?’
‘I was not using my title in London. I had every hope of remaining undetected. If I found a suitable investor I would have had to admit who I really was, but do you think I wanted it advertised all around the place that the Earl of Allerton was so poor as to have to seek money in that way?’
‘Which way? Asking rich cits and merchants like my family to be investors in your mine? How humiliating for you to even have to speak to that class of person. How lowering to be reduced to propositioning us for our money. How you must have looked down your nose at my trustees.
‘And how high and mighty you are with your tumbledown castle and your out-at-elbow coats,my lord. The likes of Lord Randall would marry me.’
‘But then I am not the likes of him, I am glad to say.’ Hewanted to shake her, kiss her, hold her…Infuriating woman, meddling everywhere. ‘Lily, how on earth do you come to be here?’
‘I was listening from behind the screen.’ She gestured angrily at it. ‘Do not try and change the subject. You turned me down because you consider me vulgar and under-bred. You might at least have told me the truth and then I would not have had to humiliate myself.’
‘Youhumiliateyourself?’ Jack found he was losing his temper and suddenly did not care. He had just put his life on the line for this woman he loved and all she could do was storm at him.
‘You make me a patronising offer like Lady Bountiful, you inform me that once your money has turned the situation around I will be able to buy myself a title, you instruct me to grovel to a corrupt system to buy favour, you map out my future career in politics for me and you expect me to accept with gratitude.
‘Well, let me tell you, Lily France, I would never accept that, not because I am an earl, but because I am a man and I have my pride and I have my honour and I would not be your petticoat pensioner if I was at my last crust.’
She stared at him in fulminating silence, then, ‘How did you get in here, to this ball?’
‘I wrote to her Grace reminding her that she was my mother’s godmother and begging the privilege of an invitation, as I found myself unexpectedly in Town.’
‘Youarewell connected, my lord.’ Lily made it sound like an insult. ‘I am sure her Grace will be delighted to have received a man who looks as though he has just staggered out of a tavern brawl, and who promptly starts another one in her ball room.’
‘I did not start a brawl here and I imagined – obviously foolishly – that you would be glad that I floored Lord Dovercourt on your account, even if itwasin a tavern.’
‘What you do in taverns, my lord, is entirely your affair. Good evening. You can leave by that door over there, at least you will not be seen.’
‘I have no intention of leaving, Miss France. I came here to enjoy the ball, and I fully intend doing just that. Might I suggest that you take that door yourself? It would not do to appear to be engaging in clandestine assignations, now would it?’
Something very like a growl emerged from Lily’s throat, then she turned in a swish of skirts and stalked back towards the screen.
An impression that had been niggling at the back of Jack’s mind surfaced. ‘Lily?’
‘What now?’
‘Have you changed your hairstyle?’
