An Earl Out of Time (Time Into Time)

While we ate Lucian recounted our activities of the day before. Sir Clement shot me a startled glance at the news that I had been part of the housebreaking party but Lucian explained it away as the need for a female presence in case we found Miss Trenton in a distressed condition and he murmured something about my courage and delicate sensibilities that had me squirming inside.

‘What news have you, Sir Clement?’ I asked, desperate to shift the focus off me. He was launching into praise for my sisterly fortitude and personal sacrifice and, like him though I might, it was a bit much. I wondered just what these three fine specimens of Georgian manhood would make of being dropped into the middle of, say, my sister’s hen party or an unarmed self-defence class for a mixed group of Specials.

‘I visited all Arabella’s closest friends and I am convinced none of them knows where she is.’

Oh yes? I wondered just how good a gentleman would be at seeing through the mask of sweet innocence these unmarried girls would have been drilled into adopting. ‘Do you have any sisters yourself, Sir Clement?’

He got my point immediately and nodded. ‘I have three. And I know all about the wide-eyed, butter-would-not-melt looks. I am as sure as I can be that they know nothing, except for my cousin, Lady Henrietta Fanshawe. And she, if I am not mistaken, is frightened of something. Or someone.’

‘Doesn’t she realise how important it is to find Arabella? Couldn’t you push her harder to say what she knows?’

‘It might be something Lady Henrietta feels unable to discuss with a man,’ James said carefully. ‘Out of, er, ladylike reticence.’

‘Then she can discuss it with me,’ I said and put down my cup with some force. I’d give her ladylike reticence when her friend might be in danger. ‘Can you get her somewhere I can talk to her alone? No chaperones, no friends to hide behind.’

Sir Clement looked doubtful.

‘Kidnap her if necessary,’ I snapped. ‘No, I’ve got a better idea.’ They let out a collective sigh of relief, even Garrick, who had come in to listen. ‘Take her for a drive in the park and put her down in some secluded spot where I can take a walk with her. Say Lucian is taking me for a drive in the park too, as part of showing me London. Tell her you want her to come along because I am shy – ’ James made a sound suspiciously like a snort, ‘ – or he wants me to meet some nice English girls. Have your groom up behind, whatever it takes to make her relax. Then as soon as we arrive at this spot we will get down to talk and you men can drive off out of earshot and I’ll get the truth out of her. Somehow.’

The men chose Green Park as the quietest location and we trooped out an hour later to call on Lady Henrietta. I sat beside Sir Clement in his curricle. James rode a horse and Lucian drove his high-perch phaeton.

Sir Clement got into a muddle helping me into my seat and began to apologise profusely for his stubborn left-handedness. ‘My father and tutors used to try and beat it out of me, but it did no good.’

I bit down on the comment that such behaviour was barbaric and managed a ladylike murmur of sympathy, then settled back for the ride. He might be clumsy, but there was nothing wrong with Sir Clement’s driving and it was exhilarating, despite the crowded streets.

‘Is it not rather early to be calling?’ I ventured, hoping my supposed foreign origins would explain my ignorance.

‘Not for a ride in the park on such a lovely morning. It is not the fashionable hour, of course, but it is quite suitable for a young lady only just out to be driving with a small party.’

His tiger jumped down to take the reins while he ran up the steps, rapped the knocker and was received inside. Lucian drew in behind the curricle and James reined in alongside me. ‘You seemed exceedingly unsympathetic about Lady Henrietta.’

‘I have no patience with her. This is no time to be keeping quiet when her friend may be in danger.’

‘It might be that she is compromised herself by what she is keeping secret,’ he suggested. ‘Stand, you idiotic animal,’ he added to his big bay hack which was sidling and snorting at a coal cart.

‘Then she is a disloyal ninny and I shall tell her so.’

‘I think things are very different when you come from,’ James said. ‘Girls simply do not have the freedom that you seem to take for granted.’

‘Women don’t have the freedom here, let alone girls.’ I was in no mood to be understanding.

He was saved from replying by Sir Clement appearing at the door with a pretty brunette in a green outfit and an exceptionally flattering bonnet. She bobbed a respectful curtsey to me, which made me feel about a hundred and ten, and gazed round with big brown pansy eyes before being helped into Lucian’s phaeton with a lot of breathy squeaks about how high it was and how big the horses were and how clever Lord Radcliffe was to drive it.

I rolled my eyes at James, the only male present unlikely to be impressed by the show, and he grinned.

‘Like a lamb to the slaughter,’ he said before taking the lead of our little procession. Behind us I could hear Lucian talking to Lady Henrietta, although I could not make out the words. His voice was deep and amused and mildly flirtatious and sent interesting little shivers down my spine.

I turned my attention firmly on the man beside me. I might be pretending to the exotic American visitor, but he would begin to smell a rat if I didn’t appear to have some social graces. ‘I had no idea what to expect of London. Boston is so different – and yet so much the same,’ I prattled. ‘Smaller of course, and we are virtually on the ocean. And we have Harvard University so close, whereas your Oxford and Cambridge are further away, are they not? Which did you attend?’

I managed to get Sir Clement talking about himself, which took the strain off me and, although he seemed to accept my fascination in him and all his works as his masculine due, he still seemed a likeable man.

Green Park had a few strollers, including many nursemaids and children, a few riders and a smattering of carriages. James led the way diagonally across the park and I tried to picture it with the Tube station in the north-east corner and Buckingham Palace in the south west. But that wasn’t called a palace yet, was it? The Queen’s House, I remembered. It would have to wait for another of George IV’s building extravaganzas for its glory days.

James reined in where a gravel path wound into a small grove of bushes. ‘Shall we walk?’ he suggested, dismounting before anyone could reply.

‘Yes, I would like that.’ I remembered to wait for Sir Clement to hand over the reins to the tiger, then help me down. Lucian was doing the same thing. ‘Do let me take your arm, Lady Henrietta.’

Confronted by a request from an older woman, and one who was in some sense her cousin’s guest, she politely obliged and I walked into the thicket with her hand firmly trapped against my side. It was not until we were inside and heading for a bench that she turned her head and saw the two carriages and the horse heading off.