Page 74 of The Secret Daughter
The old lady snorted again. “Friends? What rot! I disliked her when she was a pushy young gel and dislike her just as much—possibly even more—now that she’s a pushy old—”
“Olive,” one of the old ladies said warningly.
Lady Scattergood gave a pettish shrug. “Well, she is.” She turned back to Julian. “Is that all you wished to say? Because if it is…”
“I am an admirer of the paintings done by your protégée, Miss Benoît. I saw the one she did of my grandmother. I wished to speak with her, possibly engage her services.” And possibly wring her thieving little neck.
The lorgnette was trained on him again. “An admirer of the paintings or of Miss Benoît?”
“Both.”
The old lady made a hissing sound. “I might have known it. You stay away from my protégée and keep your lustful thoughts to yourself, you rake!”
Julian blinked.Rake?
“My Zoë has her career to think of, and she doesn’t need some wretched man dragging her down into domesticity and forcing obedience on her, not to mention other unspeakable acts.”
Julian raised a brow. He couldn’t see any man forcing obedience onto Vit— Zoë. And unspeakable acts? Was the old lady demented?
“Although”—she peered beadily at him through the lorgnette—“do you have any plans to travel abroad anytime soon?”
“Not in the immediate future, no. But I generally do travel abroad most years.”
“Hah! But you come back, don’t you, you blackguard?”
“Yes.” By now Julian was quite bewildered.
“Ah, Foxton, there you are,” Lord Randall said from the doorway. “Good evening, Lady Scattergood, ladies. Could I borrow you a moment, Foxton? There’s someone I want you to meet.” He gestured to Julian, who was only too glad to escape.
“Phew, I’m glad you came when you did,” he said when they’d left the room. “That old lady is—”
“A terror?” Randall said and chuckled. “She’s not so bad once she gets to know you, but she’s somewhat hostile toward men.”
“I did pick up a hint of that,” Julian said dryly, and Randall laughed again.
“It took me months before I could even get past her front door when I was courting my wife. Clarissa was living with her at the time, so you can imagine how it rather inhibited us. The thing is, the old lady had what we suspect to be an unhappy marriage—it lasted a couple of weeks and then her husband sailed off to the Far East, where he remained for the rest of his life. He sent her back an endless flow of gifts, all kinds of statues and ornaments and—you saw the scarves. If you ever get inside her house, which you probably won’t, you’ll see it’s crammed with an enormous clutter of priceless oriental art.”
“So she resents being left alone all that time. I understand.”
“No, you don’t. As far as she’s concerned, that was the best part of her marriage. Did she ask you if you planned to travel?”
“Yes, and I told her I did, regularly.”
“And then I suppose made the mistake of telling her that you also regularly returned.”
“Yes.”
“Ah well, that’s you done for,” Randall said cheerfully. “I hope you got what you came for.”
“I did,” Julian said, though he could have done without meeting the old lady and skipped straight to Vita. Zoë. “By the way, who was it you wished me to meet?”
“Oh, no one. I just thought you probably needed rescuing.”
“I did. And I’m very grateful.” The band had finished one dance and was about to start another. “But if you could introduce me to Miss Benoît, I’d be even more grateful.”
Zoë had started to relax a little. Everyone had been very kind and welcoming, nobody seemed to have any suspicion that the story they’d been told was only partially true, and now that the dancing had started, she didn’t have to talk, just dance. Best of all, Reynard seemed to have disappeared. Leo had taken him away to introduce him to Lady Scattergood for some reason. She didn’t care why, she just hoped he’d left.
The dance that had just finished was a country dance, and her partner had gone to fetch her a drink. She was good at dancing. She’d had plenty of practice in Paris with Lucy and Gerald. The next one was a waltz. She loved the waltz, and it had been bespoken by a pale young man whose name she couldn’t recall. She remembered what he looked like, though. And there he was—oh no. There was Reynard with Race, threading his way through the crowd toward her.
