the thick lips tinted with the pink colour she favoured, she felt a wave of disgust, not fear. She took a step back and turned and curtsied to the others.
‘I apologise for not behaving in a ladylike fashion. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. Goodnight.’ She turned back to her aunt. ‘I will never listen to you again. Not ever. You have no voice.’
She heard her father bellow her name, but didn’t stop. She would leave for Keswick in the morning and she would never return.
London—1820
‘There’s no one there, miss,’ the driver of the post-chaise said impatiently as Nell stared at the empty house and the knocker-less door. How could this be? Her father’s last letter had been sent just two days ago and from London. As far back as she remembered he always spent the week before the Wilton horse-breeders’ fair in London, assessing the latest news and horses at Tattersall’s.
‘We can’t leave the horses standing in this rain, miss; they’ve come a long way.’
Nell turned back to the post-chaise. The driver was right. The poor horses had made excellent time over the last stage and they must be exhausted. But where could she go?
‘Do you happen to know where Lord Hunter resides?’
The words were out before she could consider and the driver cocked a knowing brow.
‘Lord Hunter, miss? Aye, I do. Curzon Street. You quite certain that’s where you’ll be wanting to go? Not quite the place for a respectable young lady.’
Nell breathed in, trying to calm her annoyance and fear. Nell knew memories were often deceptive, but she had found it hard to reconcile her memory of the troubled and irreverent young man with Mrs Sturges’s report of a noted Corinthian addicted to horse racing, pugilism and light women. Nevertheless, it was clear the driver shared Mrs Sturges’s opinion of her alleged fiancé’s reputation. Mrs Sturges might teach French and deportment, but she was also the school’s resident expert on London gossip, and when Nell had received the shocking newspaper clipping sent by her father, she had immediately sought her advice. Mrs Sturges had been delighted to be consulted on such a promisingly scandalous topic as Lord Hunter.
‘He is a relation of mine, so, yes, that is precisely where I’ll be wanting to go,’ Nell lied and leaned back into the chaise as it pulled forward. She, like the horses, was tired and hungry and just wanted to sleep for a week, but she was not going to back down now. She was twenty-one and financially and legally independent, and no one...no one!...was going to decide her fate any longer. She didn’t know whether it was her father or Lord Hunter who was responsible for the gossip in the Morning Post, but she wasn’t going to wait another moment to put a stop to it.
‘This here’s Hunter House, miss.’
Nell inspected the house as the postilion opened the chaise door. It looked like the other houses on the road—pale, patrician and dark except for faint lines of light sifting through the closed curtains in the room on the right. The hood of Nell’s cloak started sliding back and little needles of rain settled on her hair. She tugged her hood into place, wondering how on earth she was going to do this. She turned to the driver.
‘Will you wait a moment?’
The driver glanced at the sluggish drizzle and a little rivulet of water ran off the brim of his hat onto his caped greatcoat.
‘We’ll see if there’s someone in, but then we’ll have to get the horses to the Peacock Inn, miss. You can send for your trunk there.’
She almost told him to take her to the Peacock as well, but the thought of asking for a room in a London posting house without maid or companion was as daunting as bearding the lion in his den.
Not a lion, she mused, trying to recall what Lord Hunter had looked like. Too dark for a lion. Too tall and lean for one, too.
Whatever the case, he was unlikely to be happy about her appearing on his doorstep at nine in the evening. However, if he had a hand in this outrageous stratagem, he didn’t deserve to be happy. She still found it hard to believe the handsome and wealthy rake described by Mrs Sturges really wanted to wed her at all, especially after her shocking behaviour four years ago, but it was equally hard to believe a columnist would dare fabricate such a libellous faradiddle.
She climbed the last step, gathering her resolution, when the door opened and golden light spilled out and was immediately obstructed by a large shadow. She stepped back involuntarily and her shoe slipped on the damp steps. She grabbed at the railing, missed and with a sense of fatality felt herself fall backwards. She instinctively relaxed as she would for a fall from a horse, adjusting her stance, and she managed to land in a crouch on the bottom step. She pushed to her feet and brushed her gloved hands, glad the dark hid her flush of embarrassment. The figure at the top of the steps had hurried towards her, but stopped as she stood up.
‘That was impressive.’ His deep voice was languid and faintly amused and she glanced up abruptly. Apparently she did remember some things about her betrothed.
‘Lord Hunter...’
‘Impressive, but not compelling. Whatever is on offer, sweetheart, I’m not interested. Run along, now.’
Nell almost did precisely that as she realised the driver had been true to his word and was disappearing down the street at a fast clip. She drew herself up, clinging to her dignity, and turned back to the man who was thoroughly confirming Mrs Sturges’s indictment.
‘That’s precisely the issue, Lord Hunter. I am not interested either, and the fact that you don’t even recognise the woman that according to the Morning Post you are engaged to only confirms it. Now, may we continue this inside? It’s cold and I’m tired; it was a long drive from Keswick.’
At least that drew a response from him, if only to wipe the indolent amusement from his face. The light streaming past him from the house still cast him into a shadow, but she could make out some of the lines of his face. The dark uncompromising brows that drew together at her greeting, the deep-set eyes that she couldn’t remember if they were brown or black, and the mouth that had flattened into a hard line—he looked older and much harsher than she had remembered.
‘Miss Tilney,’ he said at last, drawing out her name. ‘This is a surprise, to say the least. Where is Sir Henry?’
‘I don’t know. May we talk inside? It is not quite...’ She paused, realising the irony of suggesting they enter his house to avoid being seen on his doorstep. His lips compressed further, but he stood back and she hurried into the hall, her heart thumping. Everything had been much clearer in her mind when she had been driven by frustration and anger and before she had made a fool of herself tumbling down the steps.
‘This way.’
He opened a door and she glanced at him as she entered. She went towards the still-glowing fireplace, extending her hands to its heat and trying hard not to let her surprise show. How had she managed to forget such a definite face? Had she remembered him more clearly, she might have reconsidered confronting him alone. She had vaguely remembered his height and the bruised weariness about his eyes; even his irreverence and his tolerance of her skittishness. But she hadn’t remembered that his brows were like sooty accusations above intense golden-brown eyes or the deep-cut lines that bracketed
