be like to have everything torn from her and replaced with fear. If Mr Dyer was right and the Rouge Noir wasn’t stopped, Moira might find out.
She adjusted the collar of her riding habit against a brisk breeze, but it wasn’t the fear of the Rouge Noir making her shiver, but an awareness of Mr Dyer beside her. His strong presence overshadowed everything, including her reason, as she’d discovered when she’d allowed him to lead her behind the topiary on Lady Greenwood’s portico. He’d taken her in his arms and kissed her before pulling back and smiling like the devil, as if he’d known before she did she would agree to his kiss and his proposal. The thrill of it had been as intense as this morning when she’d faced him with the pistol. If things had been different and she hadn’t given in to the pressure from Aunt Agatha and her father, she wondered where she and Mr Dyer might be now.
She lowered her hand and adjusted her skirt over the saddle. It didn’t matter. Things were as they were and she could not make the past any different. It was the present she needed to concern herself with, the one which had become very uncertain in the space of only a few hours.
Then something across the park jerked Mr Dyer’s attention away from her. She followed the line of his gaze to see Aunt Agatha being driven in the open-topped landau towards them. Mr Dyer’s horse danced with his rider’s agitation before he brought him firmly under control.
‘Moira, I’m pleased to see you here,’ Aunt Agatha observed, eyeing Mr Dyer as if he were a pickpocket. ‘Although I’m not as enamoured of your chosen company.’
Mr Dyer’s horse snorted.
‘Mr Dyer, you remember my aunt, Lady Treadway.’ Moira made the introduction, trying to keep the ice between them from hardening further.
‘I do.’ His response was glacial.
‘I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr Dyer, but after our last conversation, I’d expected you to think twice about approaching Lady Rexford.’
‘Remind me of our conversation, Lady Treadway,’ Mr Dyer urged with a smile as sharp as broken glass. ‘After all, it has been some time since we last spoke.’ Bart remembered exactly what she’d said to him, but he wanted to make her repeat it. He wasn’t about to leave without a fight or be shooed off like some kicked dog because the Dowager scowled at him.
Lady Treadway shifted her shawl on her shoulders, more reluctant this time to speak so boldly to him. ‘As you know, my niece is a countess, the daughter of an earl, the sister of an earl. Her prospects are quite high.’
‘Aunt Agatha!’ Lady Rexford exclaimed, trying to stop her aunt, but she was as determined to put Bart in his place today as she’d been five years ago.
‘It’s true, my dear. I’m only looking out for you.’
‘And once again you’ve deemed me unsuitable.’ It was all Bart could do to sit in the saddle with dignity as he stared down at the small woman dressed in purple and lace, her bearing as stiff as a female workhouse warden. There was no longer a promise between him and Lady Rexford, but it didn’t mean he’d allow anyone to dictate anything to him. What Lady Rexford allowed others to dictate to her was her own affair.
‘My niece is a very generous young woman. I don’t want her friendliness to be mistaken for an invitation.’
‘Aunt Agatha, you have entirely misread the situation and Mr Dyer,’ Lady Rexford protested, to her credit. It was more than she’d dared to say to her aunt the last time they’d been in a similar situation.
‘No, she’s read me exactly as she wishes to.’ Bart leaned over in his saddle, the horse’s height combined with his allowing him to tower over the diminutive woman. The aunt didn’t back down, but straightened, meeting his hard look with an even more determined one. For a brief moment he admired the little force in silk. Despite her snobbery, she truly had her niece’s best interest at heart and he begrudgingly admired her for it. ‘Did you wake up this morning, madam, with the express intent of insulting me?’
This made her back down and she looked away, fiddling with the handle of her unopened umbrella. ‘I don’t mean to insult you, merely to remind you of the facts of the matter which, as a barrister, I’m sure you can appreciate.’
‘Yes, I do.’ He turned hard eyes on Lady Rexford, wishing she possessed as much strength of spirit as her aunt. It might have changed a number of things about the past five years. ‘Good afternoon, Lady Rexford.’
* * *
‘Mr Dyer, wait,’ Moira called after him, but he dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and bolted off down Rotten Row.
‘Let him go, my dear, it is for the best,’ Aunt Agatha declared as if the topic was finished and it was most certainly not.
‘Why did you insult him?’ Moira demanded. ‘There was nothing taking place between us except conversation.’
‘It always begins with conversation.’ Aunt Agatha sniffed in the superior way which annoyed Moira.
‘And it ends with me being pressured to marry a man twice my age, one I didn’t love and who was incapable of giving me any of the things I wanted.’
Aunt Agatha’s pale skin went pink near her greying hair. What Moira said wasn’t a secret, but it’d never been openly acknowledged either, not by her or any of the people who’d insisted she marry Lord Rexford. Her horse tossed its head and Moira tugged the reins, wishing she could control her emotions as easily as she did her mount, but ever since this morning, the many thoughts and feelings she’d done her best to bury and forget had been rising up, refusing to be ignored.
‘We did what we thought best for you, Moira,’ Aunt Agatha answered at last without apology.
‘I know, but perhaps it’s time for me to make such decisions for myself.’
‘Not if it means entangling yourself with Mr Dyer again. He might be a very successful barrister, but he is still a barrister and can offer you and the family name nothing.’
‘Lord Rexford was an earl and what did he offer us?’ Moira pointed out.
‘I’m not going to discuss this with you if you’re going to be deliberately obtuse about the difference between Lord Rexford and Mr Dyer,’ Aunt Agatha huffed before waving one gloved hand at her driver. ‘Drive me to Lady Windfall’s carriage. I’d like to speak with her.’
Before Aunt Agatha could set off, Moira turned her horse around and cantered down Rotten Row, gripping the reins so tight she thought they would split the seams of her gloves. How dare Aunt Agatha question her judgement or talk to her like some senseless schoolgirl. She, more than Aunt Agatha, recognised the difference between the two men for she’d been forced into intimate relations with one while forsaking the more virile of the two. Everything Lord Rexford had promised her she might have enjoyed with Mr Dyer: a home, family and security. Instead, she’d wed a title and prestige and it’d proven as hollow as her late husband’s chest.
Moira adjusted herself in the saddle, pushing back the encroaching sadness and regret, refusing to allow it to dominate her. Despite what Aunt Agatha believed about her judgement, she would choose her own husband this time, assuming any man worth having stepped forward to offer her his hand and heart.
She slowed her mount, remaining at the outer edges of the crush as the traffic in
