saint into a sinner...’
‘You are lucky, Joan! Nothing thrilling ever happens to me.’
‘Lucky?’ Joan spluttered, gently extricating herself from her friend’s welcoming embrace. ‘You think it fortunate to be set upon by beggars while an elderly relative swoons at one’s side?’
‘I almost swooned with boredom in Kent,’ Louise Finch riposted. ‘There was nothing to do in the evenings but play bridge with my elderly relatives. I did attend a jig at the local assembly rooms, but I can’t recommend a country affair. The ladies were quite standoffish and all the gentlemen had ugly clothes and loud voices.’
‘Not so different then from the people we are used to,’ Joan commented wryly as they strolled past two young bucks in garish waistcoats, quaffing champagne and chortling at their own jokes.
‘Speaking of coarse fellows...’ Louise winked slowly. ‘Vincent mentioned that a pugilist nicknamed the Squire acted the hero, putting an end to the skirmish in Wapping.’ She grinned on noticing Joan’s heightened colour. ‘A gentleman down on his luck who is acquainted with your brother-in-law, is how Vincent described him. I’ll wager your Mr Rockleigh is a very handsome rogue.’
‘Handsome is as handsome does...’ Joan bit her lip, feeling uncharitable. Her saviour might fight for a living, but just minutes spent in Rockleigh’s company proved him to be mannerly and intelligent. And protective...and provocative. Intriguing, too, she realised; she certainly couldn’t stop thinking about the infuriating individual.
Joan forced her concentration to another gentleman as they strolled on towards the supper room. She was miffed that Vincent had blurted out her news before she’d had a chance to tell Louise in her own way about the drama.
Within hours of his aunt and cousin arriving home from visiting his family in Kent the vicar had made a point of paying a call on the Finches. He’d been eager to report how one of the Duke’s coachmen had taken a wrong turning, landing his female passengers in a dreadful pickle. Louise had listened, open-mouthed, to her cousin’s account, but had been keen for more gory details. The invitation to the Wentworths’ ball, propped on the mantelshelf, had provided a prime opportunity for a chinwag with the main protagonist. Louise was confident that Joan would attend as the Duke and Duchess of Thornley were chummy with their hosts.
Moments ago the two young ladies had spied one another through the throng of guests. Simultaneously they’d left their groups to have a fond reunion beneath the scintillating chandeliers.
Joan linked arms with Louise and they began to perambulate the edge of the dance floor, avoiding the sets forming for a quadrille.
‘This is something else I’ve greatly missed,’ Louise said. They had arrived in the supper room, where a dining table was spread with silver platters filled with delicacies. ‘Country fare leaves much to be desired.’ Louise popped a marchpane pineapple into her mouth, enjoying it and licking her lips before adding, ‘Vincent’s people are nice folk, but I couldn’t live on broth and stew as much as they do.’
‘I enjoy a good pheasant casserole.’ Joan fondly remembered the hearty meals served up at Thornley Heights, her father’s primary ancestral seat. During dismal Devon evenings, when the winds sometimes blew so loud that it seemed banshees inhabited the chimneys, she’d loved to curl up by a roaring fire with a book, feeling cosy and content after a satisfying repast.
‘Who is that young lady? She keeps staring at us,’ Louise hissed, holding a napkin to her lips. ‘I’ve not seen her before.’
Joan had been choosing titbits from the buffet, but stopped to glance over a shoulder. Her grey gaze collided with a pair of china-blue eyes, then the stranger flounced aside her face. The girl was buxom and fair-haired, although a sulky twist to her lips marred her pretty features. By her side was a couple Joan guessed to be her parents. The woman was very similar in looks and colouring; the fellow dark-haired and heavy jowled. ‘I don’t recognise any of the family. Perhaps they are just arrived in town.’ Normally Joan might have taken more notice of newcomers, but since her friend had brought up the subject of the beggars moments ago her thoughts had been back in Wapping. She wanted to know what Rockleigh might be planning to do. In common with her father, she longed to believe him still honourable, despite his hardship, yet niggling doubts were chipping away at her peace of mind over his trustworthiness.
‘Ah, there you are, girls.’ Maude had sailed up to join them with Mrs Finch in tow. ‘Oh, those look tasty.’ The Duchess began filling a plate with an assortment of tiny vol-au-vents.
Hot on their tails came Aunt Dorothea’s thin bombazine-clad figure. She announced her presence with a cough.
Since the Duke had sent his sister back to her own home, Joan had seen nothing of her aunt. She felt rather mean thinking that the respite had been very welcome.
‘I promised Lady Regan that we would have a chat to Mrs Denby and her daughter.’ Dorothea swivelled her eyes to indicate the newcomers. ‘My friend has kindly taken the girl under her wing.’ Inclining closer, Dorothea muttered, ‘Sooner hers than mine, I can tell you.’ The widow’s loaded comment soon gained her companions’ interest.
‘What is amiss?’ Maude darted a glance at the strangers. ‘Is there some scandal?’
‘Indeed there would be! If news of it circulated.’
‘Surely it already has, if you know of it,’ the Duchess pointed out.
‘Oh, I have given Lady Regan my word not to tell a soul.’ Dorothea observed that several quizzical looks were turned on her. ‘Of course, I may confide the sorry tale to people I know I can trust.’ She gave her niece a hard stare.
Joan and Louise exchanged a look of muted amusement.
‘Well, don’t leave us in suspense,’ the Duchess prompted in an undertone. ‘I must say Mr Denby appears bored rather than embarrassed.’ As the fellow glanced her way Maude attended to her plate of food. ‘I expect he might prefer to play faro while the ladies mingle,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll ask Alfred to speak to him later about a game of cards.’
The Duke of Thornley had come to find endearing his second wife’s gauche social manners. Maude found nothing strange in expecting him to befriend lesser mortals. And neither did he since she’d entered his life like a breath of fresh air.
‘Oh, that is not Mrs Denby’s husband.’ Dorothea’s explanation emerged from behind her quivering fan. ‘She is a widow. Mr Saul Stokes is Cecilia’s guardian. The girl has just turned eighteen, although she made her come out last year and just as well she did!’ Dorothea added darkly. ‘For I doubt she’d shine this Season.’
‘She is surely old enough to do without a guardian,’ Maude responded. ‘My two girls were independent from an earlier age.’
‘And so was Louise,’ Mrs Finch piped up, keen to join the conversation.
‘Since her debut Cecilia has been a terrible trial to her mother.’ Dorothea pursed her lips. ‘The chit needs a father’s discipline. If she were mine I’d disown her...after I’d taken a stick to her back.’
Maude’s widening eyes prompted her sister-in-law to hurry on. ‘A while ago the minx was caught
