must take a long time to learn?’
‘Years and years. I am still learning now and Tante Alicia is sixty-three and she says she does not know it all yet either. She has tried her hardest to teach me, though, in the hope that such knowledge will not be lost and I could be the one to hand it down to the next generation.’
Goodness. Had she said too much? She tried to remember every word she had uttered and found that she couldn’t, a barrier between her and the world.
It was the wine. Placing her near-empty glass down on a table, she wished again that she could have asked for tea or coffee, anything to neutralise the rising warmth that was worrying.
Control was slipping and with it reserve.
‘Your aunt is French?’ Celeste Shayborne clapped her hands. ‘Do you speak the language?’
‘A little,’ she said before she thought, for Lytton Staines had heard her using it on that very first day they had met after Stanley had torn his waistcoat. He would know that what she said was a lie, but she did not want the next questions that might rise with such an honesty.
The Earl’s voice broke her panic and she was pleased for his words.
‘I think something non-alcoholic might be useful.’ He poured a large glass of lemonade and handed it over.
Relief flooded into panic. She would be all right now. She would manage.
Exhaustion swamped gratitude and then sadness overcame that. So many emotions in so very few seconds she could hardly keep up. If she were at home she would lie down with a pillow across her head to keep out the daylight and she would sleep until the headache left her. Sometimes she took sulphate of quinine if it were severe, or cinchona bark or valerian. But there was nothing here that was remotely like anything she needed. She could see Celeste Shayborne looking at her with a frown in her eyes and even the Earl gave the impression of worry.
‘I am quite all right. It’s only a headache and I have them all the time. The wine was strong, too, and it’s still early in the morning...’
A further glance from Thornton told her that her admission had been unexpected, inappropriate even, and her words tailed off. Shaking her head, she tried hard to find a balance.
‘Perhaps on reflection I might be wise to leave. It seems that today is not a good day and I think I may need to go home and sleep.’
Another faux pas and had she just spoken completely in French?
‘I think my headache is worsening and when that happens I am never good company.’
Goodness, now she was switching languages, the words blurring into each other, skipping over tenses and trailing into gibberish. She could not be quite sure she had pronounced any of them properly.
‘So I bid you au revoir.’ She had not seen Lady Lucy as she had promised, but did not feel at all up to it. She would come back tomorrow when she felt she might manage.
The Earl’s arm was around her waist now and she allowed him to lead her to the door. Once in the entrance hall he found her hat and coat and then took her out to the carriage that he had asked to be brought around. Inside the conveyance, cocooned in silence and the comfort of the squashy leather seats, she breathed out.
‘I am sorry.’
‘For what.’
‘For creating a spectacle. For being vulgar.’
‘I hardly think you were that, Miss Smith. Entertaining is more the word that comes to mind.’
‘You are kind.’
‘Often in life I am not.’
She ignored that. ‘Your friends were kind, too.’
‘Have you ever drunk wine before?’
‘No.’
‘God.’ His laughter was not quite what she expected.
‘I hope as a consequence you don’t want your ten pounds back now for I have spent it already.’
‘I know of that. You sent me a note, remember. I did not realise that small sum of money could purchase so much. I commend you, Miss Smith.’
‘Belle.’
‘Pardon.’
‘Belle. You can call me that. Everyone else does. It means beautiful in French, but I do not think she should have named me such for I am not.’
‘Hell.’
‘You are swearing again, my lord Earl. I’m not sure you should. It is more than rude and, while I am not a high-born lady, I am still a woman.’
He knocked on the window and the conveyance stopped. ‘Take the long road around London for at least an hour, Barnes, and stop at the next shop that sells lemonade.’
‘Lemonade, my lord?’
‘In a very large bottle.’
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