A Most Unconventional Courtship

‘Why doesn’t he marry you? Your granddaddy was an earl too; he can’t say you aren’t well bred enough for him.’

‘He is planning to go home and marry some little chit on the Marriage Mart. He might want me, but in England I’ll be thought to be on the shelf, and my aunt made it quite clear that everyone will regard my past as shady. He’ll be looking for some eighteen-year-old virgin with pink skin who giggles.’

‘You’re a virgin. You are, aren’t you? All right, don’t glower at me like that. So, you aren’t a spring chicken any more, and you’ve been out in the sun a bit, but you’ve got looks and a brain. He’ll come round.’

‘I don’t want him to come round.’

‘Liar.’

‘Shh! They are coming back.’ Chance had swung Dora up on to his shoulders, and he and Demetri was trudging back through the shallows, panting and wet.

‘Look at you!’ Alessa scolded the children the minute they came within hearing. If she ignored the state they were in, they would assume something was wrong. ‘Come and sit down quietly and drink some lemonade, you are over-excited.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Chance said meekly, earning himself a sharp look and the retort that his lordship was old enough to take care of himself.

Although her instinct was to keep them close, Alessa shooed the children off home with Kate once they had demolished the pile of fruit biscuits and most of the lemonade. Thanks to Chance, the memory of the stern-faced Lady Blackstone seemed to have vanished, but she did not want to run the risk of another encounter that day.

After she had kissed them goodbye she came back and sat down beside Chance on the shingle, their backs against a sea-worn tree trunk that had been tossed up by last winter’s storms. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘That was kind.’

‘To play with them? They are delightful; I enjoyed myself.’

‘I could see.’ Alessa found they were sharing smiles and hastily stared out to sea. She felt easy and relaxed with him: it must be the reaction of finding someone who liked the children after her aunt’s frosty reception. ‘I thought you said you were not used to children.’

‘I was a small boy once; I do remember what was fun.’ He reached for a handful of fine gritty sand, letting it run through his fingers until only the little shells were left. ‘The interview with your aunt did not go well, then? Mrs Street did not say anything when they came out, but I could tell something was wrong.’

Alessa recounted the conversation, as closely as she could recall it. Repeating it again, she found it made her more, not less, angry. ‘I shall stay here,’ she concluded. ‘I have made up my mind now.’

‘No. Come back to England, bring the children. I will be back too; I will make sure that any rumours that start are soon put right. My mother and sisters know all the Society hostesses and will vouch for you. Before you know where you are, you will be regarded as a romantic and intriguing figure and will be invited everywhere.’

Alessa gave an unladylike snort. ‘Indeed? I suppose I had better pack my Corfiot costume, the better to appear exotic.’

‘Why not? I would not suggest you wear the toute ensemble, but some embroidery, a sash—those will be much admired.’

‘You give fashion advice?’ Alessa watched him slantwise from beneath her lashes. It seemed he had taken her refusal of an illicit relationship to heart if he was suggesting ways she could become respectable.

‘I have sisters. Remember?’ Chance said darkly. ‘A man would have to be blind and deaf to live in a houseful of women and not become an expert on every detail of fashion. “Chance, please may I have an advance on my allowance? Hemlines have gone up—or down or sideways—and I haven’t a thing to wear,”’he mimicked with a grin. ‘Or every bonnet in the house has to be retrimmed because no one would dream of being seen in bright green ribbons this week. Or their lives would be blighted because dawn blush is the shade for silk stockings and they are all looking complete frights in soft rose.’

‘You are obviously hard done by,’ Alessa agreed, privately thinking that his attitude to his sisters was attractively affectionate. It did not stop him being an unprincipled rake as far as other women were concerned, of course.

‘We are getting off the point,’ Chance said, cutting across her thoughts. ‘You will be fine once you get to England, we just need to make sure you do all get there together. Your aunt is going by way of Venice—did you know?’

‘The Count told me.’

‘Did he, indeed? What a lot that man knows.’ Chance threw the handful of shells away down the beach. ‘I believe Venice is a strange and lovely city. I hope we can explore it together.’

‘You are going there?’

‘It is my next stop. Then I was going to travel back to England overland. We will discover Venice together, with the children as chaperons.’

‘If I can persuade my aunt to let me take them.’ Venice with Chance. Gondolas, masked balls, canals and shadows, exotic spices and silks. Temptation and risk.

‘The problems of taking them outweigh the potential scandal of leaving you here and people finding out,’ Chance said shrewdly. ‘She will treat them frostily, I am afraid; perhaps the be

st we can hope for is that she will ignore them. They are children used to affection and openness. Do you think it may affect them?’

‘I will explain to them that she is to be pitied because her heart is cold. They understand Anna in the next courtyard, who is not right in her mind, and are quiet and kind around her. They can learn that great ladies are also afflicted in some way they must be tolerant of.’

‘Your judgement cuts like a knife,’ Chance said.