Never Trust a Rake

‘Have you?’ Henrietta’s heart leapt. He’d done this before. Sought her out, when she had truly thought she would never see him again. But she dared not assume that he’d done it because she really meant something to him. She needed to find out why he’d so particularly wished to speak to her tonight before she said something stupidly revealing.

Knowing her attractiveness to the males of the species, it was more than likely that he wished to make quite sure that she really had relinquished all claims on him. That thought was so depressing that it had the effect of dousing nearly all the physical reactions that had been thrumming through her. But that was probably it. He’d been so keen to get her out of the room that he had not told her how he expected her to handle future meetings, should there be any. And he was so used to females pursuing him that he would probably need reassuring that she would not make capital of the intimacy they’d shared at their last meeting by...by... Well, actually, she couldn’t see how she could make capital of it, except by confessing to someone that she’d met him in private and let him...

Her physical reactions surged back. Every one of them.

She plied her fan with a hand that trembled.

‘Admit you have missed me, too,’ he said. ‘And ask me where I have been and what I have been doing.’

Her stomach tied itself into a knot. She’d ached to know where he was, every minute of the last eighteen days, and had tortured herself by imagining what he was doing, and with whom, every single one of those nights. She could not bear it if he confirmed all her worst fears. So she said, primly, ‘Your movements can be of no possible concern to me, my lord.’

‘Ah,’ he said, sitting back and frowning down at the programme, ‘I see.’

He removed his hand from the back of her chair and used it to crush the printed sheet into a tiny ball, while he gazed straight ahead, a muscle in his jaw working. There were a few moments of silence so tense she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. Yet she dared not break it with some inane piece of chatter. Not while Lord Deben had that particularly devilish look on his face. So she just sat and watched out of the corner of her eye, and fanned herself, while he smoothed the programme over his knee. And then began to methodically tear it into tiny strips.

After what felt like an eternity, but was probably no more than a minute or two, Lady Twining climbed up on to the dais and clapped her hands to try to attract everyone’s attention.

‘Honoured guests!’ Conversation became muted. ‘Honoured guests, friends, would you all be so good as to take your seats now, please?’

Those who were about to do readings strode forwards at once, trailing their satellites, taking their places on the front row, or on the edges of aisles. Others began to shuffle forwards more slowly.

Except for one person, who strode to the front of the room and came to a halt before Henrietta.

‘Get up, Hen,’ said Richard, for it was he. ‘And come with me. I am taking you home this minute.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Because Miss Waverley has just informed me that it’s all over town that you’re making a fool of yourself over this blackguard,’ he said, pausing to glower at Lord Deben. ‘And I promised Hubert I’d look out for you. I thought those people you are staying with would have done so, but it’s obvious they’ve been dazzled by his title. Or they just don’t know about his reputation. But I do, Hen. And I won’t stand for it.’

Most of the other guests had taken their seats by now. Lady Twining was shooting the back of Richard’s head a disapproving frown, though since he could not see it, it was having no effect upon him whatsoever.

‘You won’t stand for it?’ Henrietta snapped her fan shut.

‘That’s right,’ he said, grasping her wrist and tugging her to her feet. ‘We are leaving. Now.’

‘Mr Wythenshawe,’ said Lady Twining, loudly. ‘Would you please take your place at the lectern?’

To a smattering of applause, a portly young man climbed on to the dais.

‘Surely,’ Lord Deben said to Richard in that deceptively lazy drawl of his, ‘that is for Miss Gibson to decide?’