noted the flex of muscles under the form-fitting tailoring of his coat. Perhaps it was not achieved by digging holes, but the viscount was keeping exceptionally fit somehow. No, she thought, not a shovel, but I can imagine you with a sword.
‘I am a connoisseur, a truffle hound through the wilderness of a Continent after a great war.’
‘Poseur,’ Mr Rivers said.
‘Of course.’ Alex’s ready agreement was disarmingly frank. ‘I do have my reputation to maintain.’
‘But forgive me,’ Tess ventured, ‘is that not business? I thought it was not acceptable for aristocrats to engage in trade.’ And perhaps it was not acceptable to mention it at all.
‘Social death,’ Grant Rivers agreed. ‘So those of us who cannot rely upon family money maintain a polite fiction. I keep a stud for my own amusement and profit and sell to acquaintances as a favour when they beg to share in a winning bloodline. Alex here is approached by those with more money than taste. Gentlemen are so very grateful when he puts them in the way of acquiring beautiful, rare objects from his collection to enhance their status or their newly grand houses. Naturally he cannot be out of pocket in these acts of mercy. Gabe is a gambler, which is perfectly au fait. It is strange that he rarely loses, which is the norm, but you can’t hold that against a man unless you catch him cheating.’
‘And does he?’
‘He has the devil’s own luck, the brain of a mathematician and the willpower to know when to fold. And he would kill anyone who suggested he fuzzes the cards,’ Alex explained. ‘And before you ask, Cris is the only one of us who has come into his title. The rest of us are merely heirs in waiting. He’s a genuine marquess.
‘And you, little nun? Given that we are being so frank between friends.’
He knew perfectly well that she was not a nun, but perhaps if she ignored the teasing he would stop it. ‘I, on the contrary, have not a guinea to my name, save what Mother Superior gave me for food and the stagecoach fare in England.’ Tess managed a bright smile, as though this was merely amusing. It had been quite irrelevant until Mother Superior’s little discussion a week ago.
Dear Teresa had been with them for ten years, five since the death of her aunt, Sister Boniface. She had steadfastly declined to convert from her childhood Anglicanism, so, naturally, she had no future with the convent as a nun. Equally obviously, she could not go to her, er...connections in England. And then Mother Superior had explained why.
Teresa was twenty-three now, so what did she intend to do with her life? she had asked while Tess’s understanding of who and what she was tumbled around her ears.
I must have looked completely witless, Tess thought as she gazed out of the carriage window at the sodden countryside. She had been teaching the little ones, the orphans like herself, but that apparently had been merely a stop-gap until she was an adult. And, she suspected now she had a chance to think about it, until Mother Superior was convinced no conversion was likely.
But it was all right; even if there was no money left from the funds Papa had sent to her aunt, she would manage, somehow. The dream of a family in England, people who might forgive and forget what Mama and Papa had done, had evaporated. She would not repine and she would try not to think about it. She could work hard and, goodness knew, she wasn’t used to luxury.
Heavy clouds rolled across the sky, making it dark enough outside for Tess to glimpse her own reflection in the glass. What a dismal Dora! This bonnet doesn’t help. She sat up straighter, fixed a look of bright interest on her face and tried to think positive thoughts.
* * *
What was wrong with the little nun? Alex watched her from beneath half-closed lids. Beside him Grant had dropped off to sleep, and he was weary himself after a hard night of cards, brandy and talk, but something about the woman opposite kept him awake. If she was not a nun, what was she doing going to a convent, dressed like a wet Sunday morning in November? Her accent was well bred. Her manners—when she was not ripping up at him—were correct and she was obviously a lady.
A mystery, in fact. As a rule Alex enjoyed mysteries, especially mysterious ladies, but this one was not happy and that put a damper on enjoyable speculation. There was more to it than her sprained ankle and irritation over missed boats, he was certain. Tess was putting a brave face on things whenever she remembered to. No coward, his little nun.
Alex grinned at the thought of his nun. The nunneries he was acquainted with were very different establishments. She raised one slim, arching dark brow.
‘Comfortable, Miss Ellery?’
‘Exceedingly, thank you, my lord...Alex.’ Yes, that smile was definitely brave, but assumed.
‘Ankle hurting?’
‘No, Mr Rivers has worked wonders and there is no pain unless I put weight on it. I am sure it is only a mild sprain.’ She lapsed into silence again, apparently not finding that awkward. No doubt chatter was discouraged in a nunnery.
‘So what will you be doing in London? Making your come-out?’
She had taken her bonnet off and he remembered how that soft, dark brown hair had felt against his cheek when he had lifted her to carry her to her bed. It was severely braided and pinned up now, just as it had been last night, and he wondered what it would look like down. The thought made him shift uncomfortably in his seat and he wrenched his mind away from long lashes against a pale cheek flushed with rose and the impact of a pair of dark blue eyes.
His... No, Miss Ellery laughed, the first sound of amusement he had heard from her, albeit with an edge to it. Her hand shot up to cover her mouth, which was a pity because it was a pretty mouth and it was prettier still when curved.
‘My come-out? Hardly. No, I will stay at the London house until the Mother Superior there finds me position as a governess or a companion.’
‘With a Roman Catholic family?’ That might take a while, there were not that many, not of the class to be employing well-bred young females of her type. Rich merchants were a possibility, he supposed.
‘No. Not only am I not a nun, I am also an Anglican.’
‘Then, what the bl—? What on earth are you doing in a nunnery?’
‘It is a long story.’ She folded her hands neatly in her lap and seemed to feel that ended the discussion.
‘It is a long journey,’ he countered. ‘Entertain me with your tale, please, Miss Ellery.’
‘Very well.’ She did not look enthusiastic. ‘I will make it as concise as possible. My father’s elder sister, Beatrice, converted to Catholicism against the violent disapproval of her parents and ran away to Belgium to join an order of nuns.
‘But Papa, after he came of age, started writing to her. My parents enjoyed travelling, even though there was a war on, and besides, it was often cheaper to live on the Continent.’ She bit her lip and her gaze slid away from his. A prevarication? ‘So just after my thirteenth birthday we were in Belgium and Papa decided to visit my aunt.’
‘And that was when?’ How old is she? Twenty? Alex tried to recall what was happening seven years past.
‘Ten
