Miss Winterley so disarrayed and seductive looking; she had a lover and Derneley knew. And wasn’t that a guilty secret she and her father would pay handsomely to keep that way?
Lord Farenze eyed Colm coolly before he took a quick scan of the room from the doorway, then stepped inside. Colm thought of Miss Winterley a few heartbeats away from disaster again and he didn’t want her to be found out, lover or no. A sneeze or a snatched breath could give her away and then where would they be?
‘Came to find Carter here,’ the master of the house said uneasily under his one-time brother-in-law’s stern gaze. He even managed to make it sound logical for the host to seek the humblest gentleman here in the midst of his own evening party.
Colm called on all his experience of hiding his feelings not to glare at the man. If it wasn’t Miss Winterley who was a hair’s breadth from disaster, he might be stifling laughter instead of a savage growl as the man let his gaze shift past half-empty book stacks and sharpen on the deepest shadows as if he was looking for her. There was something damned odd going on; he hadn’t been imagining things earlier. Colm couldn’t help wondering what Miss Winterley was thinking, standing in semi-darkness and wondering what Derneley was up to as well.
‘I’m weary of cards and gossip and my wife is deep in conversation with Lady Mantaigne, Derneley. I might as well keep Linaire’s librarian company for you, as you have a great many other matters to attend to tonight. You know how I dote on books and a good host can’t absent himself from his own party for long, can he?’ Lord Farenze said so genially Colm shivered. The man’s good humour had so much steel in it he was surprised Lord Derneley wasn’t shaking in his boots.
‘Always knew you were an odd fellow, Farenze, but I suppose you’re right. Best get back to m’wife’s party before anyone notices,’ Derneley agreed airily.
‘I’ll join you as soon as I’ve picked this learned young man’s brains,’ Lord Farenze replied and Colm eyed him uneasily as Lord Derneley finally ran out of reasons to stay in his own library and left with one last frustrated look round the room, as if he might spot Miss Winterley climbing a half-dismantled book stack, presumably desperate for a good read.
‘Hold still,’ Lord Farenze murmured, as if he could see through all that finely carved wood and a wall to his daughter’s hiding place. Colm held his breath as Lord Derneley’s steps faded rather slowly down the marble-floored corridor and Lord Farenze finally shut the door on him. ‘It’s safe to come out now, Eve,’ he said softly.
‘How did you know I was here, Papa?’ she said and did so as if nothing much had happened.
Colm took a second look to be sure she wasn’t on the brink of hysteria. No, Miss Winterley’s blue-green eyes even had the hint of a smile in them now. If not for the way her fingers fisted into her palm on the side her father couldn’t see, he might think her calm as a millpond.
‘The same way I did at hide and seek when you were a child; you are in the place that makes the most sense,’ her father said.
‘Oh, I see,’ she said and Colm wondered why she still looked so white and strained now her father was here to make all right if another lord came in and caught them having a bookish discussion instead of dancing.
‘I wish you both goodnight, my lord, Miss Winterley,’ he said stiffly, feeling he was the invisible upper servant everyone thought and it hurt his pride somehow now he’d finally met Miss Winterley face to face.
‘First promise not to tell anyone I was alone here with you tonight.’
‘I am not a braggart, Miss Winterley,’ he argued before he could think straight. Colm saw Lord Farenze’s eyes harden and found it difficult to meet the steely distrust in the man’s level gaze, but he did.
‘If any scandal is whispered about my daughter, the person who spread it is likely to regret he was ever born,’ the Viscount threatened so quietly it was far more potent than if he’d shouted and shaken his fists.
‘Don’t, Papa,’ Miss Winterley said with a weary wave of her hand that touched Colm far more than feminine hysterics ever could. ‘I think we can trust him.’
‘I don’t trust any man with your safety and peace of mind tonight.’
‘Please give him your word as a gentleman not to reveal I was here alone with you, Mr Carter, or we’ll be here all night,’ she said with a pleading look Colm couldn’t resist, however little he’d wanted to be part of this scene.
‘I promise not to whisper scandal about Miss Winterley, my lord.’
‘You seem to be a man of words, Carter.’ The man gestured at the chaos of packed books and the stacks waiting to say Colm might not be beyond writing scandal even if he didn’t speak of it.
‘I wouldn’t write anything that damaged a young lady’s reputation either.’
‘I am suitably grateful,’ Miss Winterley interrupted their silent battle with rather magnificent irony.
‘And I have nobody much to write it to if I did,’ he told her as if that ought to make this better. He doubted it did from the chilly look she gave him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about anyway.’
Lord Farenze looked hard at him. ‘Derneley is up to something and the servants will gossip, so you had better add a promise to tell me what they have to say about us to that gallant oath, Carter. Then I might trust you to leave my daughter’s reputation alone and let you leave this room in one piece.’
‘Very well, my lord. I vow to report faithfully what the servants are saying or not saying over breakfast. I hope that will be all?’
‘Not quite, I am also unreasonable enough to expect you to come to Farenze House tomorrow and tell me about it in person. Do not put anything in writing.’
‘I have work to do, my lord, but I dare say his Grace will spare me from it for an hour or so to take some air, if I ask him nicely,’ Colm said not quite humbly enough to be truly Mr Carter, who only wanted his bed and an end to this ridiculous situation.
‘Oh, come on, Papa. Leave the poor man be. Don’t forget someone I wish I had never set eyes on could be back in the ballroom by now and busily spreading rumours,’ Miss Winterley said with a pained look in the direction of the ballroom that said her ruin might be going on even as they dallied.
‘Even Derneley isn’t that stupid and I bloodied the nose of that someone else you are talking about. I doubt he’ll say anything for a while, let alone admit he was bested by a slip of a girl he thought to force himself on, then knocked out by her very irate father,’ Lord Farenze added matter of factly.
Colm went very still as he realised why Miss Winterley had really come in here to repair her gown. What a fool he was not to see the difference between a young woman dishevelled by her amorous beau and one attacked by a raddled old rake. His own convalescence in Brighton had given him the inside track on all the society gossip his breathless landlady gathered from friends who let out rooms or their houses for the Season. So he sorted through the guests he’d seen arrive tonight and came up with the ideal candidate. Sir Steven Scrumble was on the lookout for a wife with enough blue blood and powerful connections to drag him back to the heart of polite society. The man would pay generously
