Author: Beverley Oakley
Category: Nonfiction
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It had been nearly twelve months since the so-called crime which had resulted in him being blackballed by polite society. Of course, he had been warmly welcomed by institutions that considered such behaviour somehow deserving of accolades: the gaming hells and drinking dens. And, initially, these were the very places he’d tried to drown all memory of his three hellish evenings at the hands of Lord Leighton.
It was only later that he realised he had not been in his right mind as he’d caroused and gambled away the small estate his father had left him.
And by then it was too late.
Now he noticed Amelia, his salvation, standing a few feet from him. As if willing him to raise his head from his brandy and look her in the eye. Who would have thought the child he’d known as Jane’s playmate would grow up with such courage and determination—all so well hidden beneath her bland and missish demeanour.
He was puzzled by the look in her eye. On the periphery of a group of women, she stood alone, her stance forlorn, her expression almost stricken.
“Amelia?” He made a move towards her, but as he was about to speak, she tossed her head and turned her back on him. “Amelia? What is it?”
“I think the young lady wishes to be left alone.”
A severe-looking woman in dove grey addressed him in reproving tones, stepping forward to prevent Theo from getting any nearer.
After an initial jolt of shock, he remembered Amelia’s ploy. A small act on her part but perhaps noted in the right quarters. He supposed she had chosen her moment for the greatest effect and knew who would be watching.
With a sigh, he turned, searching for something or someone on whom he could train his attention as a means of alleviating his embarrassment. How much he disliked being the villain, yet again.
“Theodore McAlister, I have been remiss is not properly thanking you for rescuing this lovely damsel in distress.”
Theodore swung round to see Dalgleish approaching, a proprietorial hand beneath Lizzy’s elbow. She did not appear to dislike Dalgleish’s close proximity. However, her gaze was fixed firmly on Theodore. There was something sweet and almost yearning in her expression.
And it spoke to his heart.
Then his sense of honour collided with a stab of guilt and he nearly winced. Rising from a small bow, he said, “I could hardly watch a carriage plunge into the river before me and do nothing. There was nothing heroic about it.” He had to be very careful not to make eye contact with Lizzy, and wished the reason he turned his head slightly away was that the pearls woven through her golden locks were dazzling, and not that she really was the most beautiful young lady in the room.
In his eyes, certainly.
The way Dalgleish was looking at her suggested that he thought the same, and the observation twisted in his gut like a dagger. Dalgleish wanted her for her money, but he wanted her for her womanly charms too, and that was what was so unpalatable.
“I beg to disagree,” Dalgleish said. He seemed to think a moment, then added on what appeared to be a burst of inspiration, “I trust you are being suitably lauded for your actions, nevertheless. Your infamous reputation must have…hampered many opportunities these past months.” He sent a meaningful look around the illustrious company before returning a fixed glance at Theodore.
“And why is Mr McAlister infamous?” Lizzy giggled like a silly schoolroom chit, but Theodore recognised it for what it was. A ploy to perhaps punish him for last night. He realised how much he’d have injured her dignity.
Theo quirked a brow. Dalgleish would offer his own interpretation, which would give Theo an opportunity to hear how his exploits were generally described. Perhaps it was better this way. What did it matter if his past was laid bare?
“A gentleman does not publicly slander another in polite company,” Dalgleish said with a smirk.
“Is that what you would do? Or have been doing?” Theo pretended puzzlement. “For the fact that I rescued a young lady from an unwelcome marriage?” He felt the anger bubble up inside him and tried to remain calm. After the drama had unfolded, he had tried his best to make known Catherine’s terrible predicament. But the Harcourt girls’ uncle, Mr Grainger, had legal responsibility for them, and Grainger’s friend, Lord Leighton, Catherine’s betrothed, were far better connected than Theo. Theo’s attempts to explain the real situation had soon sounded hollow to even his ears—for no one would listen.
“You would charge me with kidnap, Dalgleish? When the young lady came willingly with me?”
“Kidnap?” Lizzy’s eyes shone more from excitement than horror, it would appear. “That is a very great crime, Mr McAlister. I hope it’s the worst of them.”
Dalgleish chuckled. “We will leave it there, shall we?” he said, nodding curtly.
“With an undefended charge of kidnap? No, do go on, Mr Dalgleish, if you think there’s worse.”
“The girl died. I think that is what people are up in arms about. She needn’t have died.” Something snapped in Dalgleish’s tone and he went on with a strong note of grievance, “She was left alone in a common inn. Ill and in need of loving care. A disreputable place for a young lady like herself to be in the first place. And that is where she died. Alone. It was her distraught husband-to-be who found her. The man who should have married her just twenty-four hours before you, Mr McAlister, kidnapped her…” Dalgleish paused for effect. “Then you abandoned her to die alone.”
For once, Theo had no response. Everything Harry Dalgleish had said was true. Catherine had died, alone and ill. But she had begged Theo to carry out every act he had done on her behalf.
He saw Lizzy looking at him, unsure and unsettled by Dalgleish’s anger—for Dalgleish was good. It was as if he really had a valid grievance and that Theo truly was beyond redemption.
“How did…Miss Harcourt die?” Lizzy asked in a small voice.
“Of fever.” What more could Theo say. “Now, pray excuse me.” Since it was more in his interests to disabuse Lizzy of any tender feelings she might have for him, he let it go. Though, lord knew, he wished they could have parted with her thinking him the hero she had once believed him to be.
Chapter 17
Theo would have left there and then, only he was invited into a group of gentlemen talking hounds and horses. They were no doubt too in their cups to know who he was.
And then there was Sir Richard’s wife, Lady Conroy, at his side, smiling at him from above her lilac lace fan, though it took him a moment to realise this was the ‘Susan’ Lizzy had spoken of—Mrs Hodge’s daughter—as he bent his head to hear what she wished to say.
“I would very much like you to ask Miss Scott to dance,” she repeated as he strained to hear her above the din. “She has stood up twice with Mr Dalgleish, and I don’t want my mama to declare that doing so a third time is tantamount to accepting a marriage proposal.”
“I’m afraid I was, in fact, just leaving the entertainment.”
Lady Conroy considered this a moment. She was clearly intent that he should dance with Lizzy, however, for she went on, “I know you were gallant enough to bring Lizzy here after rescuing her from near certain death; therefore, dancing with her is a simple act in comparison. Will you do this for me? For her? I really do want to see her whisked out of that dreadful man’s clutches.”
Theo barely hid his surprise. Of course, he wanted to dance with Lizzy, but there was his reception to consider. He didn’t want to be cut a second time. “I think Lizzy looks very happy dancing with Harry Dalgleish.” From a distance, he could see they were sharing a joke. In fact, they looked very much in charity with one another. Perhaps it would be a fine match, after all.
Except there was something about Dalgleish that stuck in his craw. Something elemental, and Theo sensed that it would not be long before he exerted the kind of control—if not tyranny—over Lizzy, that Amelia was trying to escape.
His thoughts were dragged back to the present by Lady Conroy’s gentle persistence. “Please, Mr McAlister. I don’t want Lizz
y forced to marry just for not knowing any better. Or for want of any other offers.”
He studied Lizzy a moment while he wondered at Lady Conroy’s meaning. “Very well,” he said, bowing, while suddenly the blood was thrumming in his head; and it did so, unabated, for a long moment after Lady Conroy had left, as he continued to watch Lizzy from a distance.
Her eyes were alight with humour, her hands expressive as they illustrated a story she was telling Dalgleish. Theo hadn’t expected to feel so painfully jealous. He took a step forward and spoke.
“May I have the honour of this dance?”
The outrage on Dalgleish’s face was worth it. Lizzy’s faint indecision, however, didn’t escape him. No doubt Dalgleish had been elaborating on Theo’s crimes and had painted Theo as a monster, yet he was sure he detected in Lizzy’s expression the desire to dance with him.
So, to save her the embarrassment of having to answer, he merely took her elbow and steered her away, not waiting for a response, until they were on the dance floor and she was standing beside him. Quiet and very unresponsive.
“So, you’re punishing me,” he said.
She glanced up and said frankly, “Well, you have been perfectly horrid to me. But then, after everything Mr Dalgleish says about you, and which you told me yourself, I can see you really are a perfectly horrid gentleman. I don’t know why I’m here.”
“Because you couldn’t resist.” He chuckled at her outrage. “It’s true, though. You could have been more forceful in resisting me though you didn’t, despite the fact I am beyond the pale. Which means you’ll do very well with Mr Dalgleish who is equally so. Though, I would suggest, when all is said and done, that I am the better man.”
“So smug,” she said, putting her nose in the air. “And to think I nearly got taken in.”
“To think,” he repeated. “And yet here we are. So, Lizzy, did you believe everything you heard about me just now? No doubt Dalgleish gilded the lily.”
“You admitted your part without the need to hear too much of what Harry said.”
“Oh, so it’s Harry now.”
Her look was cold, and his stomach clenched. “Has he gone down on bended knee yet? Will you accept him?”
“You’re just changing the subject. Why did you run away with an innocent young girl on the eve of her marriage? You destroyed her reputation—as much as your own.”
“I didn’t run away with her.”
“That’s not what I heard. You said it yourself.”
The pair of dancers just up the line was preparing to dance energetically down the line.
“I rescued her.”
“Indeed!” scoffed Lizzy as she took his hands and they polkaed all the way down the dance floor, holding up their hands in an arch to prepare for the rest of the dancers to duck under in their progress to the top.
“So, you took it upon yourself to decide she needed rescuing?”
“I was asked. She was my sister’s friend. I’d known her for years.”
“Mr McAlister!”
Theodore shrugged. “I told you there was no point in my trying to claim my innocence. Once the story was taken up in the bald terms Dalgleish relayed to you, your reaction has been, I have found, the most usual.”
She looked at him askance. “You don’t do yourself any favours if the case is not quite as…straightforward as it appears.”
Theodore considered her a moment.
“Well, Lizzy, I’m sure I am no better than I’ve been painted.” He hesitated, then said in a softer tone, “Last night should have confirmed that.”
A fiery blush stole up from her décolletage and tinged her cheeks with pink. How delightfully charming she looked. A delectable combination of innocence and minx.
She drew herself up. “I’m sorry that Susan compelled you to dance with me. I cannot imagine why she should trouble herself.”
“Because she can’t bear the thought of you marrying Dalgleish.”
“Is that so? Well, I am hardly spoiled for choice,” she said with a rueful look.
“And with that statement you’ve proved that you really are too young and foolish to be thinking of marrying.”
“And you’re too rude for anyone to want to have you for their husband yet you tell me you’re already spoken for.”
“Which, I’d have thought, would explain my attitude perfectly,” he said softly.
She bit her lip, her look troubled. “I wish I knew the truth about you, Theo.”
“You do. But you do not wish to believe it. And why should it matter?” He prepared to bow and so finish their union as the dance was coming to an end, adding,“For indeed, I am spoken for.”
Lizzy left him more discombobulated than she could recall. She hadn’t wanted to dance with him. And yet she had.
He exerted a pull she couldn’t explain. It was the dangerous kind, she knew. She was susceptible to scoundrels. Mrs Hodge had told her that.
Now Lizzy believed her. Mr McAlister was a scoundrel and he was spoken for. He’d kissed her last night when he should not have. He’d coldly withdrawn when he’d realised how badly he’d behaved to his intended.
And he had only danced with Lizzy just now because Susan had asked it of him.
“And now it is my turn to claim what is mine.” Harry’s triumphant tone should have lifted her sprits, and although she did try and smile with all the encouragement he would have expected, her heart felt very heavy and her mind very disordered.
When he asked her what she’d thought of Mr McAlister’s dancing abilities, she had answered that they were not up to scratch; and in every other way she’d massaged Harry’s ego so that he was positively purring when they parted company.
“I am glad to see you’ve seen sense, Lizzy.” Mrs Hodge was at her side, nodding approvingly as she looked across at Harry, who’d joined a company of young men well in their cups. She wondered if he was a carouser and a gambler.
Like Mr McAlister, so she had heard.
Mrs Hodge must have been able to read her thoughts, for, glancing from Harry back to Lizzy, she said, “A good thing your Mr Dalgleish has kept safe what he inherited. Unlike Mr McAlister who lost everything within a year of his father’s death.”
Lizzy had heard it from several other sources too during the past two days, and while she’d tried to use it to her advantage—that is, to quash any feeling she might have for Theo—it seemed it only took a look from him and immediately she was dreaming up every fanciful thought as to how the opprobrium heaped upon him must be untrue.
“Has Mr Dalgleish said anything about marriage yet?”
“I’ve made it very clear I shan’t entertain such talk until I’m ready. And I’m not ready yet.” She fluttered her fan. “Perhaps I’ll not marry until I’m twenty-five and can decide what to do with my fortune, myself.”
This had the satisfactory effect of turning Mrs Hodge an interesting shade of puce, and as an elderly friend chose that moment to join them, Lizzy used the excuse to slip away.
The evening was drawing to a close, and there was little of interest now. She could see no sign of Mr McAlister and, when she saw Harry glance across at her and appear to disengage himself from his group, Lizzy quickly went up to Mrs Hodge and told her she was going to her bedchamber.
She was one of the few guests in this wing, and so the walk was long and without company. Her room was at the far end of the corridor. As she trailed through the Long Gallery she slowed her footsteps, hoping against hope she’d come upon Mr McAlister. Surely, if he were the slightest bit interested, he’d wait there to waylay her.
But he was to wed another young woman.
She wondered if he loved this woman. Or if she loved him.
She probably did.
And there was probably a compelling reason why they had to marry. Which meant Lizzy might as well marry the first personable gentleman who crossed her orbit. It was what young ladies did. What they were expected to do.
At the far end of the Long Galler
y, she stopped and looked back. The room stretched long and magnificent, dark and brooding, and only relieved by the moonlight spearing the diamond panes.
But there was no Mr McAlister.
So, it seemed like bed was her only, lonely option.
The temperature rose as she stepped into a narrow corridor with a Turkish runner and heavy oak doors on either side. It was a guest wing, though barely used considering that for two days she’d not encountered anyone.
However, someone must be in residence for behind one door she could hear muffled noises that sounded like laughter.
She felt tears gathering and squeezed her eyes. It was nice to know someone was feeling a little happier than she was tonight, she thought dolefully.
Then suddenly the door to her right was flung open and a figure dashed out, long golden hair trailing behind her as she swung her head to look back into the bedchamber she’d just exited; with the result that she did not see Lizzy and fell right upon her.
They both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, Lizzy crying out in surprise, the other young woman yelping an apology as she scrambled to her feet.
“Lady Quamby!” Lizzy cried out in surprise, righting herself and about to rise when Lady Quamby let out a shriek, which caused Lizzy to glance down to see the sconce of candles which Lady Quamby had dropped onto her gown had ignited the fine gauze that was now flaming and smoking.
“Quick! Angelo, help!”
Panicked, Lizzy found herself being hauled to her feet and into the bedchamber beyond where the counterpane was unceremoniously flung upon her, which effectively extinguished the flames that had progressed with frightening rapidity up her skirts so that when she stood, her gown was quite destroyed.
“Are you injured?” Lady Quamby, dressed in a very revealing nightgown, was clearly frightened as she gazed at the damage.
And when Lizzy looked, she saw that a great red weal had formed on her exposed thigh.
“Angelo, cold water! Fetch the water jug this moment!”
Lizzy glanced up as Lady Quamby drew her to sit on the bed, and her eyes grew wide as she saw that the man who was obediently following orders was completely naked.