‘The fee,’ Julia murmured.
‘It may be that there is no fee,’ Madame purred, her eyes on Hal. ‘If the event lives up to…expectation.’
‘Madame.’ Hal went forward, dropped to one knee and saluted the heavily be-ringed hand that was held out to him. ‘Lady Geraldine will confirm all the details in writing. I cannot tell you my relief at finding that you are well.’
‘Foolish boy.’ She petted his hair for a fleeting moment, then Hal was on his feet and backing out of the room as though from the presence of royalty. Julia followed with what grace she could muster, bobbing curtseys as she went.
She pursued him down the corridor and into the dressing room he had been using before. ‘Of all the shocking things! She expects you for the fee! It is outrageous, disgusting! What on earth are you going to do, Hal?’ Julia demanded as soon as the door was closed behind them. Then she realized she had called him by his first name.
‘Run like hell,’ he said with feeling. ‘But she will be all over the duke, there’s no need to fear for my virtue, Julia.’
‘You went in there,’ she said, still so aghast at what had happened that she could not stop talking. ‘You went in, in tending to flirt with her, intending to seduce her!’
‘Seduce? Hell’s teeth,’ he said with feeling. ‘I didn’t have to do any seducing. The woman’s ravenous.’ He frowned at her. ‘You lecturing me? I used the weapons I have, and I got what you wanted—possibly at no cost to Lady Geraldine.’
‘Weapons? Your looks, your charm I suppose. You, Hal Carlow, are utterly unscrupulous. I am shocked.’ Julia found that she was, indeed, scandalised.
The animation drained out of Hal’s face leaving him expression less. ‘Me? You find me unscrupulous?’
Julia caught her breath. If she did not know better, she would have thought she had hurt his feelings. But this was the man who freely confessed to being a rake, who admitted the ploys he had just used to get what he wanted from a woman. How could her words, or her poor opinion, hurt Hal Carlow?
Chapter Seven
Unscrupulous? That hurt, Hal realized, hurt more than he could have imagined. Even as he thought it, even as he saw the look of alarm in Julia’s face at his sudden coldness, he knew he was being unreasonable. How could she have any idea what he was going through? She had no inkling of how he was having to control himself not to do any of the unscrupulous things he was perfectly capable of to seduce a woman.
In the wood, he had simply let his passion have full rein, but now, he wanted her so much it hurt physically and it required conscious discipline not to flirt, not to cajole, not to seduce her into his arms. And mentally, it was an effort to concentrate on anything else except the co nun drum of why he was obsessed with her.
Laughing with her and his friends had been bliss fully dangerous. Holding her hand, alone in the corridor, had been self-inflicted torture. And it was perilous, not only to her virtue, but to her heart. He had no intention of having her fall in love with him, but he knew, without vanity, there was that risk.
‘I am sorry,’ she said, her voice faltering. God knows what she had seen in his face.
‘No, I am.’ Hal smiled, rueful. ‘Was I looking so fierce? It is only that you are quite right: I am unscrupulous. But I am trying very hard not to be so with you.’
‘No, not fierce.’ She smiled, happier, and something stabbed under his breast bone like a sharp finger, warning him. ‘But your eyes change colour when you are angry. They go completely grey, all the blue vanishes. I know you would never harm me, Hal. I trust you.’
Oh God, it needs only that. If she had any idea of the fantasies I have about her, of the things I want to do with her… The acute physical desire for her had gripped him from the moment when she had stumbled into his arms in the forest. Now, to his shame, he wanted her in his bed, under him, around him. He wanted her innocence.
Hal was not used to feeling guilty about anything. He did his military duty with passion and integrity, because that was his life and his responsibility and his honour would not allow him to do anything else. The women he associated with were all at least as experienced as he—nothing to feel guilty about there—and all his other sins harmed no-one but himself.
But now he felt guilt, not for what he had almost done, but for what he wanted to do. A sense of utter unworthiness swept through him. Julia was standing
there, trusting and friendly. How would the lookin those clear brown eyes change if she saw what he knew was the real Hal Carlow and not the fiction he had created for her?
She was an innocent who believed he was her friend, a rake who had momentarily lost control of himself. Hal tried to find the strength to snub her, drive her away, and he failed utterly. He must, if nothing else, distance himself from her after today. I am not worthy of her.
‘Are you going to the cavalry review next week?’ he asked, aghast to hear the words coming out of his own mouth.
‘No, we are not asked. I believe Lady Geraldine has been invited to the banquet afterwards, so I could not go with her.’ She sounded regretful, despite her smile. ‘And in any case, it is at Ninove, is it not? That is miles away.’
There, she had handed him the opportunity to negate that reckless enquiry. All he had to do was agree that it was a pity she would not be there. With an escape route clear before him, Hal promptly dug himself in deeper. ‘I have an acquaintance, an older gentleman native to Brussels, who will be driving there in his barouche. He would be de lighted to take you and Mrs Tresilian and young Phillip along with him. I know he was planning a picnic. He is most respectable—not at all like me.’
‘Then how do you know him?’ she asked wickedly, making him laugh.
He comes regularly to the Literary Institute.’ In fact the Baron vander Helvig came solely for the high-stakes card play, but other than that, he was a respectable and sober widower in his sixties. He was wealthy, sociable and amiable, and Hal had conceived the plan of asking him to keep an eye on the Tresilian house hold when the situation with Bonaparte came to a head. They might need to leave Brussels in a hurry, and the baron had a large stable.
The review would be an admirable opportunity to introduce Mrs Tresilian to him, and the baron was enough in Hal’s debt—quite literally—to be obliging, although he suspected that the sociable Belgian would agree anyway. He tried to tell himself that this was his reason for persuading Julia to come to the review. It was not, he knew perfectly well. His newly awakened conscience was pointing out to him that he wanted to parade in front of her in his uniform, on his big horse, at the head of his men, to prove himself worthy in his profession, if nothing else. Cock scomb, he told himself.
‘Mama would not wish to impose upon him,’ Julia said doubt fully.