Page 20 of Lady Daring
“I noted this.” He touched the white silk band around her arm.
There were layers of fabric between them: his gloves, the thick silk of her dress, the thin satin of the mourning emblem and, added to that, the cascades of ruffles at her elbows that served as sleeves. Yet the warm pressure of his finger left a print on her arm.
Something bleak and pained in his eyes tugged at her even as the familiar hurt ripped through her chest. She had forgotten, while talking to Lord Daring, the wound that lay beneath everything. She was forgetting Fanny more and more these days.
She felt an odd prickle on the back of her neck and turned her head to find Pinochle staring at them. More to the point, he was staring at her hand held out in a gesture he had seen her make just that morning as she’d hefted his purse of coins in her palm. His gaze dragged to her face, and cold horror splashed through Henrietta.
He knew.
“Sorry to interrupt,dearestsister.” Charley, seizing her arm, shook Henrietta out of her trance. “Time to gather your wrap. Aunt has taken a headache and wants to go, and Uncle Pell won’t budge an inch until he’s argued Fox into the ground, so I must squire you and Marsi home. Servant, Daring,” he snapped, scowling.
“Same,” Daring said coolly. Henrietta watched his face shut down at the interruption. He had relaxed with her, but now his reserve reasserted, the skin around his mouth tightening, a shadow dimming the intense blue of his eyes. His shoulders straightened. His height had not seemed intimidating before—he was taller than Charley, even—but it did now.
“Have a care at the workhouse, Miss Wardley-Hines,” Daring said. “It’s not a drawing room, you know. There are desperate men there.”
“And also women, and children, and entire families who have no means to support themselves.” Lord Daring, concerned withher welfare? Hadn’t he led dozens of women into desperate situations? “I enjoyed our discussion, sir,” she said politely, surprised to find that was true. “Do you ever decipher the Etruscan alphabet, I hope you will share your findings.”
Good heavens, that sounded like she was casting out lures, which she must on no account do.
“Hetty, you goose. You oughtn’t have stood so long talking with him,” Charley hissed as he hauled her to safety. “Everyone noticed. They’ll all think you’re his next conquest.”
“I tried to repel him.” Henrietta clutched the ostrich feather to her breast, feeling Pinochle watching her as closely as Lord Daring was. “I told him about my languages. And that I read Herodotus.”
Charley paused, a hand on her arm. “And what did he do?”
“He wanted to know what edition. You know, I’m always told men can’t stand such talk, but Lord Daring actually taught me something.”
Her brother gaped at her. “Good Gad, Hetty! What could you possibly learn from that rakehell?”
“Bucchero,” she said, and Charley set his mouth in a grim line.
“That tears it. I’m calling him out.”
“Charley!” She shook her arm free of his grip. “It’s a pottery finish, you clodpate. We were discussing the artifacts! And standing in plain view. What could he possibly do?”
Besides, she had worse things to worry about now that Pinochle had identified her. He feared Lady Bess, but what might he do to Miss Henrietta Wardley-Hines?
“Oh, any number of things,” Charley muttered. “If Aunt Althea hears of this, she’ll fly up in the boughs for certain. You’d best hope your face isn’t on a broadside plastered all over town tomorrow either. Lud, Hetty, all that schooling is meant to fright the fribbles and fortune hunters away, not lure them in!”
“Another salient argument for educating females,” Henrietta snapped. “I shall incorporate it into my debate.”
Across the room, Lord Daring joined his dark-haired companion with a remark that made the other man light with interest and glance their way. The full force of what she’d done crashed in on her.
She’d fallen under the spell of a man known to have no discretion and great seductive power. He crooked a finger and impressionable girls followed where he led, be they Miss Forsythia Pennyroyals or duke’s daughters.
It was easy to say she was not such a wet goose as to land herself in the same situation as Lady Celeste, ruined, outcast, a babe in her belly, and a virtual prisoner in her family home. But Lord Daring did not work by bold flirtations or empty flattery. No, he had subtler, more powerful means.
Intelligence and an ease of manner to go with his potent charm. Keeping a lady’s token and carrying it next to his heart. Giving it to her while it still held heat from his body, a gesture as intimate as a kiss.
If this was how he wooed and won susceptible lasses, he was devastating. Fortunate she had been warned.
She let Charley clap her hat on her head and shove her into the Pomeroy carriage. No need to protest she was unlikely to encounter Lord Daring again. It was for the best. Whether or not Pinochle made a public accusation over her mischief of that morning, Henrietta could not risk her standing with the Minerva Society, or Aunt Althea, any further.
Still, she understood now why so many girls had traded their reputations and risked their hearts for the chance to stand in the light of Lord Daring’s piercing blue eyes and incandescent smile.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The new St. Marylebone parish workhouse sat on a generous plot of land donated by the Duke of Portland. Beside it stood a freshly built chapel and a tidy rising square of bricks meant for the new infirmary. Unlike the gloom and privation that attended London’s houses of correction, the Marylebone workhouse was well-kept and well-ordered. The ladies of the Auxiliary kept up a lively chatter over the sounds of the construction workers banging hammers and hauling wagons and the steady, racketing hum from the workrooms where able-bodied residents sat spinning.
