The Dangerous Mr. Ryder

Carlton

House was just as she had seen in pictures, and even more stiflingly hot, crowded and elaborately ornate than she could ever have imagined. The Regent was gracious, over-familiar to the point of discomfort and determined she would enjoy herself. He insisted on escorting Eva around the crowded reception rooms, introducing her to one person after another until her head spun. She searched the rooms as they went, but there were no tall, elegant, dangerous men with grey eyes and a wicked smile.

‘I am quite out of practice with this sort of thing,’ she confessed to Lord Alveney. ‘My brother-in-law Prince Philippe has been unwell for several months, so our court has been extremely quiet. Please, sir…’ she turned and smiled prettily at the Regent ‘…I beg you not to neglect your other guests for me, I have so much enjoyed seeing these wonderful rooms in your company, but I can see I will be very unpopular if I monopolise you.’

The Regent beamed, blustered a little, then took himself off with a pat on her arm and a promise to show her the Conservatory later.

‘Nicely done, ma’am,’ Alveney said with a lazy smile. Eva was spared from replying to this sally by the arrival of a tall young woman who bumped into her and knocked her feathers all askew.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ I am so sorry! And you are the Grand Duchess and I haven’t even been presented to you and I do this! Oh, dear! Oh, look, there is a retiring room, please, your Serene Highness, if we just go in there I am sure they can be pinned back…’

Eva sent Alveney an apologetic smile and allowed herself to be swept off into the retiring room, which was empty save for a maidservant with a sewing basket, smelling salts and a bottle of cordial. Every eventuality covered. Eva was thinking with amusement when the young woman snapped, ‘Out, now,’ to the maid. The key turned in the lock and the stranger was standing with her back to the door, eyeing Eva with angry grey eyes.

Antoine’s agent? Here, in the Regent’s own house? Eva edged towards the dressing table, hoping to find scissors or a long nail file. ‘What do you want?’ She spoke calmly, as though to someone mentally disturbed. The words she had spoken the last time she had been in this predicament—So, you have not come to kill me?—did not seem appropriate now. This young woman looked as if she intended to do just that, for all her lack of an obvious weapon, and asking the question seemed likely to inflame her further.

But even if her defiant words to Jack when he had appeared like magic in her room were not the ones to use now, she could not help but feel a strong sense of déjà vu. Why? Because she was cornered and in fear for her life? Or because…

Eva stared at the other woman. She was like a feminine, younger version of Jack. The tall, elegant figure, the dark hair, the clear, intelligent grey eyes with their flecks of black. She found her voice.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want to know what you are doing to my brother—and I want you to stop it. Now.’

Chapter Twenty

‘Your brother? You are Jack’s sister?’

‘Sebastian.’ The flurried and apologetic young woman was gone, replaced by a determined, poised and angry one.

‘I know him as Jack.’

‘Oh, it is the same thing! I don’t care how you—’

‘It is not the same thing,’ Eva said firmly. ‘And I am doing nothing to your brother, and have done nothing to justify your behaviour now.’

‘You have broken his heart,’ the other retorted.

‘Nonsense! Why, that is complete nonsense. Your brother left my house without a word to me a week ago. There had been no disagreement, I had not dismissed him. Broken heart, indeed, what melodrama. If Jack Ryder has anything to say to me, he knows where I am.’ Broken heart? I know whose heart is broken—but I did not leave him.

‘You were lovers.’ It was a flat statement. ‘No, do not bother to deny it. He has said nothing about you, all I knew was that he had been in France, on a mission. Then when he came to see me, he had changed—something inside was hurt.’

Eva discovered that her head was beginning to ache, and so were her feet in their new slippers. ‘Oh, sit down, please, for goodness’ sake. What is your name?’

‘Belinda. Lady Belinda Cambourn. I am a widow.’ Eva nodded—Jack had mentioned Bel. ‘I shouldn’t be here, am still in mourning. But I love my brother very much, and I know him very well. And he is hurting. Deeply.’

‘But—’

Bel waved a hand, silencing her. ‘No one else would be able to tell, except possibly you.’ She shot Eva a look of positive dislike. ‘When he is on missions—when he is Jack—he is cool and calm and quiet, but there is still that wicked enjoyment of life behind those eyes of his. When he is Sebastian, he is the warmest, kindest brother you can imagine.’ Bel directed another withering look at Eva. ‘But now something has gone—the laughter has gone, the warmth inside has gone. He came to see me; he was very sweet, just as he always is. I asked him what was wrong and he laughed and said nothing, just a tiring mission in France.’

‘There you are, then,’ Eva said briskly.

‘So I asked Henry,’ Bel pushed on, as though she had not spoken. ‘And he said that the guv’nor had got himself entangled with you. He said the pair of you were smelling like April and May and—’ She saw Eva’s blank expression. ‘Like lovers, like people in love,’ she supplied irritably. ‘And he had warned Jack that no good would come of it.’

‘If your brother does not choose to tell you about his personal life, I am certainly not going to.’ Like April and May…like people in love. She loved him. But Jack…Surely if he loved her he would never leave her like that?

‘Don’t you care about him? Henry says he saved your life.’

‘Yes. He did.’ Suddenly it was too much, she had to speak of him, about him, and this angry young woman with Jack’s eyes at least cared enough about him to virtually kidnap her in the middle of a Carlton House reception.