At seven o’clock the next evening Phyllida emerged from the Eldonstones’ carriage outside the Millingtons’ house.
She mentally squared her shoulders for a fraught dinner party and wished Ashe was with her. Gregory was concerned for Harriet and she suspected that she would have to spend the time making vacuous small talk to the other relatives, all bristling with disapproval over the return of Mr Phillip Wilmott.
‘Oh, do wait a moment, ma’am, that cloak isn’t quite fastened.’ The maid Lady Eldonstone had lent her was poised in the carriage doorway just as a dark figure strode out of the shadows into the pool of light cast by the door lantern. ‘Here, take care, you!’
The man barged into Phyllida, pushing her back against the carriage. A footpad, so brazen, to attack right on a Mayfair doorstep? Too shocked to feel fear, she grasped her reticule, ready to strike out at him. The cloak slithered off her shoulders to the ground.
For a moment she thought him a stranger, then, as the light caught his face, she knew him. Harry Buck.
‘’Ello, darling,’ he said on a coarse chuckle. ‘Thought there was something familiar about you.’ She flinched as his eyes went from her face to her bosom exposed by the plain, low neckline of her newly altered gown. ‘I remember that. Thought I couldn’t be wrong.’ Her hand flew to the birthmark, but it was too late, he had seen it.
The maid was screaming for help, the front door flew open as the driver swung down from the box seat, whip in hand. Buck vanished, as abruptly as he had come.
If the carriage door had not been under her hand, she would have fallen, for all the strength seemed to have vanished from her legs. It was her worst nightmare made real. Harry Buck, the man who had bought her virginity, had recognised her, tracked her down.
And then, just as she thought she would faint, the butler was hurrying down the steps. ‘Miss Hurst! Are you all right?
Phyllida forced herself to stand straight and think. ‘Yes. He must have been drunk. Most unpleasant, but no harm done. Please do not alarm Mrs Millington by saying anything.’
Somehow she reached the house, was announced, greeted. Somehow she managed to get to a sofa and sit before her legs gave way. Apparently her horror and fear were not imprinted on her face, for no one paid her any heed, other than to introduce her to the dubious relative, Mr Wilmott. She kept her face rigidly expressionless and inclined her head, hoping Mrs Millington would simply think her shy in the presence of an acknowledged black sheep.
Mrs Millington had abandoned all correct form for her table setting, apparently anxious to separate the young ladies from her brother. Phyllida found herself making conversation on one side to an elderly cousin who turned out to be a stockbroker and on the other to Mr Millington. She must have made some sense in what she was saying, and apparently she ate and drank in a normal manner, for no one asked her if she was all right.
On sheer will-power she got through the endless meal and back to the drawing room. Gregory, in a brave attempt to support his future in-laws, engaged Wilmott in conversation. Phyllida felt fainter and fainter until eventually she could not stand it any longer. She got up and went to Gregory’s side. ‘Gregory, I am sorry, but I think I must go back now.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll just say goodnight to Harriet.’
She turned on her heel and almost fled to Mrs Millington. ‘I am so sorry, ma’am, but I have such a headache. Would you think me very rude if Gregory took me home? I am sorry to drag him away, but—’
‘My dear, I will send for your carriage at once.’ Fussed over, wrapped up, Phyllida drove back through the darkened streets, shaking with horror.
Ashe was crossing the hallway as she came in, a book in his hand. He grinned at her. ‘Good evening. Was it as sticky an evening as your brother feared?’
‘Worse.’ She looked at him standing there. The man she loved, her lover. The man who still intended to marry her because she had been too weak to end this when she should have done. ‘Ashe, I must speak with you.’
‘Of course.’ He opened the door of the library for her. ‘There is no one else at home. What is wrong?’
‘I cannot marry you.’ As soon as she said it she knew she was right and she should have refused from the first. Now Buck had recognised her she knew she dare not marry and try to keep this a secret from Ashe.
She could not tell him what she had done, could not bear to see his expression change, the liking and the desire ebb away to be replaced by revulsion when he discovered she had not been the victim of some predatory man but had deliberately sold herself. Made herself a whore. She had heard him speak of those Haymarket whores, knew what he, what any man, would think of a woman who did what she had done.
She would have to do what she had always planned once Gregory was settled: leave London altogether and retire to the Dower House.
Ashe became very still as he stood in front of the cold grate. Then he put down the book he had been holding. ‘Why not? Is it because of what you told me the other night? Or what happened between us?’
‘No,’ she lied. ‘I was wrong to accept your plan to rescue me from the scandal. I only agreed thinking I would refuse in the end, but I allowed myself to become… more involved than I intended. I can see there is no need for you to protect me any more. The gossip has died down, no one will be the slightest bit surprised if your interest in me wanes. We are completely unsuited to each other and it is foolish to condemn ourselves to a lifetime of an indifferent marriage.’
‘Unsuited and indifferent. I see. I had not realised I could be so wrong in my perceptions of either my own feelings or of yours.’ He looked as though he was listening to a dry political speech, his face a mask of concentration with no emotion to be seen. ‘So making love with me was a way of overcoming your fears?’
‘The bad memories. Yes,’ she agreed. If he believed she was simply using him, then he would be less inclined to fight, more convinced that he must not marry her.
‘I am happy to have been of use.’ He raised his eyes to her face and she saw with a shock just how angry he was. Angry, rigidly controlled and dangerous because of it. If she had been a man and had made him this furious he would have struck her, she realised, but she felt no fear, just total misery. Ashe would not hurt her even though he thought she had used him, used his body, in a calculated attempt to deal with her nightmares.
‘I will go home first thing in the morning,’ she said, striving for a control to match his. ‘I will explain to Lady Eldonstone that I realised we would not suit. She can only be relieved.’
‘She will be disappointed to have been mistaken in you,’ he said. ‘As I am.’
‘I did warn you, right from the start, that I am unsuitable for you.’ Best to make certain, to sever the fragile bond that had grown betwe