One Night with a Regency Lord. Lucy Ashford
of Bath. Amelie smiled wryly as she imagined her mettlesome grandmother exchanging vapid gossip at the Pump Room every day. She’d visited Bath as a young child, but the last time she’d seen Brielle was five years ago at her mother’s funeral, a sombre and painful affair.
She stiffened. That was it. She would go to her grandmother. Brielle would be her refuge and would be sure to defend her from the man she blamed for her own daughter’s decline and early death. She had warned Louise not to marry Lord Silverdale, but, desperate for stability, her daughter had not listened.
Amelie got to her feet and straightened the green satin ribbons that encircled her waist. Her grandmother would be her champion, she was certain. But how to get to her, how to get to Bath? Deep in thought, she didn’t hear the bedroom door open until a tentative voice disturbed her meditations. Her maidservant, pale and concerned, white cap slightly askew, hovered in the doorway.
‘Oh, miss, is it true? Are you really going to marry Sir Rufus Glyde?’
‘No, Fanny, it’s not true.’ Her voice was sharp but adamant. ‘I’ve no intention of marrying. And I detest Rufus Glyde. He’s twice my age and not a fit husband.’
‘But, miss, he’s very wealthy, or so Cook says, and moves in the best circles.’
Amelie shook her head in frustration. ‘He may be invited everywhere, but there are whispers that he is a vicious and degenerate man. He repels me.’
Fanny shut the door carefully behind her and said in a conspiratorial voice, ‘Mr Simmonds told Cook that Sir Rufus was coming here tomorrow to make you an offer of marriage.’
‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip,’ Amelie chided her. ‘He may be coming to the house, but I shan’t be meeting him.’
‘But, Miss Amelie, how can this be?’ In her abstraction the maid picked up a stray hairbrush and began to rearrange her mistress’s locks.
‘I’m going to escape—I’m going to Bath to my grandmother. But mind, not a word to anyone.’
Her maid, brushing Amelie’s chestnut curls in long, rhythmic strokes, gaped at her open-mouthed. ‘However will you get there?’
‘I’m not sure at the moment. How would you get there, Fanny?’
‘On the stage, I suppose, miss, though I wouldn’t want to travel all that way on my own. It’s sure to take a whole day. Master’s old valet used to visit his daughter in Bath sometimes and there was always a fuss about how long he was away.’
‘Do you know where he caught the stagecoach?’
‘It was an inn in Fetter Lane. The White Horse, I believe. He used to leave first thing in the morning.’
‘Then that’s what I shall do. You’ll need to call me early.’
‘You’re never thinking of taking the common stage, Miss Amelie?’
‘Why ever not, it’s a public conveyance. What harm can I come to?’
‘But it’s not right. All sorts of vulgar people take the stage—you’ll be squashed in with the likes of clerks and pedlars and I don’t know what. And I’ve heard it’s dangerous. There are highwaymen on Hounslow Heath and they’ll slit your throat for a necklace. And if they don’t get you, then the coachman will get drunk and land you in a ditch.’ Fanny shook her head ominously.
‘Nonsense. If other people travel on the stage, I can, too.’
‘But, miss, you’re Quality,’ Fanny maintained stubbornly. ‘Quality don’t travel on the stage. And you mustn’t go alone.’
‘I have to, and no one must know where I’ve gone. I need time to reach Lady St Clair and explain the situation to her before my father realises where I am.’
‘But you can’t have thought.’ Fanny’s voice sank low. ‘You’ll be unchaperoned, you’ll receive Unwanted Attentions,’ she whispered in a horrified voice, emphasising the last two words.
‘Well then, I must do something to blend into my surroundings,’ her mistress said practically.
She was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Who wouldn’t be noticed on a stagecoach, I wonder? A maidservant such as yourself? I’ll go as a maidservant and you can lend me the clothes.’
‘No, miss, that I won’t.’
‘Fanny, you’re the only friend I have in this house. You must help me. No one will know and once I’m established at my grandmother’s, I’ll send for you. Now, we must plan. First we need a ticket.’
She went to the bottom drawer of the walnut chest that had been her mother’s and brought out a small tin box. How lucky it was she still had most of her quarterly allowance. She pulled out a roll of bills and thrust them into Fanny’s reluctant hand.
‘Here, use this to buy a ticket for the stage tomorrow.’
‘But, miss, even if I can buy a ticket, how will you find your way to Fetter Lane?’
‘I’m sure I’ll manage. I’ll walk until I find a hackney carriage. That can take me to the inn, and once there I’ll take care to stay concealed until the coach is ready to leave. There’s bound to be crowds of people and a lot of activity—I imagine the Bath stage isn’t the only one leaving the White Horse in the morning. It should be easy to find a hiding place.’
Her maid still looked unconvinced and Amelie put her arms around her and sought to soothe her worries. ‘Don’t fret, it’s going to work. When you return, get some suitable clothes ready for me, but keep them in your own room. And then stay away from me for the rest of the day so that no one will suspect anything.’
Fanny seemed rooted to the spot. ‘Go on,’ her mistress urged, ‘do it quickly before supper and then you won’t be missed. Bring me the clothes and ticket at dawn tomorrow. I wouldn’t ask you to do this for me, Fanny, if I were not truly desperate. But I must escape this nightmare.’
In the City some miles from Grosvenor Square, Gareth Denville was also contemplating escape. He sat uncomfortably in the shabby offices which housed Messrs Harben, Wrigley and Spence, solicitors, and wished himself elsewhere. But his demeanour betrayed nothing of his emotions. His straight black brows and hard blue eyes kept the world at bay. He could be accounted a handsome man, thought Mr Spence, who sat opposite him, but for the harshness of that gaze. And the decided lack of fashion he exhibited. He was a well-built man slightly above average height with good shoulders and an excellent form for the prevailing fashion of skin-tight pantaloons. But instead he wore buckskins, his coat fitted far too easily across his broad shoulders to be modish and his necktie was negligently arranged. Rather than the gleaming Hessians of tonnish fashion, he wore topboots, still dusty from his long journey.
Mr Spence gathered together the papers scattered across the huge oak desk and sighed inwardly. The new Lord Denville was likely to find it difficult to adjust to life in the capital. He looked up and encountered Gareth’s austere gaze and quickly began the task at hand. Over the next quarter of an hour, Mr Spence carefully enumerated the full extent of Gareth Denville’s inheritance while the beneficiary remained unnervingly silent.
The news of his grandfather’s death several weeks ago had been accompanied by a polite request from the solicitors for his immediate return to England. His first reaction to their letter had been to shrug indifferently and carry on with his life, but his grandfather’s man of business was nothing if not persistent, and after several summons of increasing urgency, he had bowed to the inevitable. He had been travelling a night and a day now without pause, but his powerful frame appeared not greatly fatigued and his air of cool detachment never left him.
The situation was not without its humour, of course, but that did not prevent a slow burning anger eating him from within. He’d known as he travelled to England after seven years’ absence that he was now the Earl of Denville whether he wished it or not. But as Mr Spence drily read the pages of his grandfather’s will, the