you are not shocked, ma’am? The fact that I was sitting for an artist at all, let alone the way I was … dressed.’
‘Admittedly it was not the way in which one would normally wish an unmarried lady to be depicted, but under the circumstances I feel we should disregard it.’
‘Circumstances?’ Tallie said weakly.
‘I can tell Mr Harland is a most respectable person and I am sure that his slip in revealing your name would not be repeated.’
Tallie was so taken aback that for a moment she could not find the words to continue.
Finally she ventured, ‘But, ma’am, if it should be found out once I am launched in Society, it would reflect upon you. After all, I am of no account, but you are a leading member of the ton.’
‘And have more than enough credit to carry off any little indiscretions of my protégée,’ Lady Parry said with a chuckle. ‘And it will not be long before you too are a figure in Society, mark my words. A fortune the size of yours is more than enough to cover up any number of indiscretions. Now then, you are still going to be able to move here in a week?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Tallie stammered.
‘Aunt Kate, please, my dear Tallie. Goodness, is that the time? I am due at Lady Fraser’s in an hour, and be seen in this gown I cannot and will not! No, there is no need for you to rush off, this is your home now. Just ring if you need anything.’ Lady Parry sprang from the sofa on which she had been decoratively draped, fluttered across to drop a kiss on Tallie’s cheek and was out of the room before the younger woman could do more than gasp, ‘Goodbye.’
Tallie got slowly to her feet, too bemused to pull herself together and leave. She had been steeled to explain why she was an inappropriate person for Lady Parry to take under her wing and had found both her anxiety for her friends and her scrupulous confession about Mr Harland swept aside.
Which meant that in a week’s time her former life also would be swept away and she would be making her come-out as a young lady of fashion. Her money worries would be about how to invest and spend it, not how to make enough to afford a new pelisse.
Tallie stood by the window and stared out at the fashionable street life bustling below her. She untied the ribbons of her bonnet and tossed it onto the sofa as though freeing her head would help her think, but things still seemed just as unreal and unbelievable as they had before.
‘Back again, Miss Grey?’ a voice behind her enquired. Tallie stiffened, but did not turn. He had entered without her hearing. ‘Come to confess your secret?’ Lord Arndale’s voice sounded as uninterested as if he had enquired whether she had just returned from walking in the park.
Tallie felt the breath catch in her throat. She wanted … What did she want? Why had she had hardly a coherent, calm thought since this man had found her in the attic studio?
She found her voice suddenly. ‘Confess? Yes, that is precisely what I have been doing, my lord.’
‘You have?’ Despite everything Tallie felt her mouth curve into a smile. So, she had managed to surprise the imperturbable Nick Stangate, had she?
‘Yes, my lord.’ Emboldened by the fact that she could not see his sardonic expression, Tallie wondered if it was safe to tease him further and decided against it. ‘It appears that Lady Parry was already aware of the matter that was troubling me.’
‘And?’ He was coming closer; Tallie could see his reflection blurred in the window glass. How could she ever have said he made her feel safe?
‘Lady Parry appears to feel I am refining too much about it. She does not regard it.’ How her voice was staying so steady she had no idea. Nick Stangate was standing at her shoulder, just behind her.
‘And do you think I would share her opinion?’ He had lowered his voice. It sounded faintly menacing in the quiet room.
‘Without wishing to appear rude, my lord, your opinion does not concern me. But then you are Lady Parry’s trustee, not her guardian, are you not, my lord?’
Had she overstepped the mark? It appeared not: there was a faint noise that she realised incredulously was a muffled snort of amusement. Then he was still.
‘What scent are you wearing, Miss Grey?’ The question was so unexpected it was all she could do not to spin round.
‘Jasmine,’ she replied. Was it her imagination, or was he so close that she could feel his breath on her nape?
‘It reminds me of something,’ Nick said slowly.
‘No—somewhere, a place. But somewhere cold, dusty …’
‘Really? How strange: I have always thought it a summer smell.’ Then Tallie realised what he was remembering—the faint traces of her scent on her chilled, naked skin in the attic room. And he was standing as he had then, close by her left shoulder, close enough to touch, close enough to smell her fear and her perfume.
Talitha turned so swiftly that Nick had no opportunity to step back, even if he had wanted to. He stopped racking his memory for a trace of an elusive perfume as a far more intrusive sensation than curiosity flooded through his body. Simple desire. Damn it, why had he not realised the feelings that Talitha Grey evoked in him for what they were? It was not suspicion of the secret she openly admitted to him she was hiding. It was not even the perfectly natural protectiveness of his aunt that would mean he would take a sharp interest in any new acquaintance of hers.
His habitual honesty with himself answered his own question. He had been rather too preoccupied with another blonde young woman for him to have thought more clearly about this one until she had achieved this insidious effect on him.
Not that the two women were more than superficially similar, of course. That exquisite nymph huddling in the dirty attic closet was shorter than Miss Grey. Her hair had waved in tresses shot through with varied shades of gold, unlike the straight, pale gilt severity of the coiffure so close in front of him now. And she had quivered with fear, unlike the tense fierceness that this young woman showed in the face of his curiosity or disapproval.
Nick shook himself mentally. He had allowed his imagination to drift too often to that naked girl. She had proved a damnably uncomfortable preoccupation, so uncomfortable that he had been tempted to go back to the studio and ask for her name and direction. A natural fastidiousness had stopped him; to do so felt like an extension of Jack Hemsley’s behaviour.
But how had he been so blind as not to appreciate the delicious feminine charms now standing so close to him? That reproof about not noticing a ‘milliner’s girl’ was deserved. And how had he failed to look beyond that frightful pelisse to the charming figure beneath? Lord Arndale ruthlessly suppressed thought of just how Miss Grey would appear clad only in that length of sheer linen and smiled into the defiant green eyes.
‘Naturally I bow to my aunt’s good judgement. Can we not call it a truce, Miss Grey? After all, immediately after you heard of your good fortune we seemed to be on good enough terms, did we not?’
Yes, he had allowed himself to relax with her, succumb to the image she presented of the innocent young lady forced to fend for herself by harsh circumstances. And he had let her lull his suspicions at the way she had reacted to a confrontation with a lawyer. The sensation of her pulse fluttering under his fingers returned and he clenched
