Felicity produced a smile more mechanical than real. She had never felt more bereft, even when she became an orphan, but in the face of his lordship’s avowals, it would be ungrateful to say so. “Thank you, my lord, you are very good.”
“I’m not, and I much prefer your acerbity. I don’t doubt you are too much oppressed to be capable of it at this moment.”
She was touched by his understanding, and once again surprised at his perspicacity. The landlord returning at this moment, accompanied by a stout dame in a mobcap, she let the matter drop. Her eager expectation was disappointed.
“No, ma’am, I’m afraid there was nothing left.”
“No note, nor any message?”
“None, sir. And the room is taken. We have no other tonight, I’m afraid.”
Felicity’s heart sank, and she could only be relieved that Lord Lynchmere took this on her behalf.
“Thank you, but Miss Temple will be staying with Mrs Summerhayes. She has no need of a room.”
A sensation of cold was seeping into Felicity’s limbs. She watched without really taking it in as coin changed hands and without demur allowed herself to be ushered out of the inn and handed back up into the waiting coach. She sank against the squabs and closed her eyes, feeling the shivers start up as Lord Lynchmere gave the direction to his lackey.
The vehicle shifted with his weight as he jumped in and then settled when he took his seat beside her. Felicity tried to control the tremors now fighting for supremacy, hoping he would not notice. In vain.
“Are you cold, Miss Temple?”
She tried for a calm tone, though her teeth chattered. “Not c-cold, sir. It’s the-the shock. I’ve seen it in one of the girls b-before. It will p-pass in a moment.”
He seemed to hesitate. Then, to Felicity’s combined dismay and reluctant gratitude, he put an arm about her shoulders and pulled her into a powerful embrace.
CHAPTER THREE
Locked in the alien arms, Felicity felt only warmth and the needed comfort of a temporary haven while the tremors shook her frame. They receded in time and she became aware of the rocking of the carriage instead of her shaking body.
She made a move to free herself and the embrace loosened, yet keeping a steadying hold.
“Better?”
Abruptly conscious of the indecorous nature of her position, Felicity tugged gently away and sat back. “Much, thank you.”
“Had I my flask on me, I would have administered a tot of brandy.”
She gave a little laugh that broke in the middle. Suppressing the urge to sob, she summoned as ordinary a tone as she could manage. “Where are you taking me? Not back to the party, I trust?”
“I have no choice.” The deep voice came at her from the darkness, throwing a fleeting remembrance of the early part of the evening into her mind. “Angelica will not have left. She considers herself a hostess there, having assumed in some sort responsibility for the Latimers.”
“A family trait, then?”
A faint laugh came. “Come, you begin to be yourself again.”
Felicity had no answer. She felt, on the contrary, as though she occupied some other plane. But the thought of entering into public again was real enough. “Must I go in? Could I not await you in the coach?”
“What, and give every fool in London food for gossip? Besides, I should imagine most of the guests will have departed.”
Felicity said no more. She was in his hands and grateful for it. Though she must suppose his lordship would be thankful to hand over the charge to his cousin. She would be obliged to depend upon Mrs Summerhayes, at least for tonight. Perhaps she might borrow suitable garments and enough money for her journey to Bath, if not tomorrow then the day after. She could post the clothes back once she had acquired her own, although how she was to do so remained a question. There might be something wearable in the trunks in the attics, a jumble of items forgotten over the years when girls left the academy. As for her fare, she could ask for an advance upon her salary. It would leave her seriously short for months, but what other option was open to her?
An access of light drew her gaze and she glimpsed the bobbing flambeaux and the blaze of candles from the house she had so recently left. A patter arose in her bosom as her thoughts shifted to the immediate future and her ignominious reduction to the status of beggar.
Respecting her silence, Raoul found room for the questions he would by no means force upon Miss Temple. She had fastened upon the salient point at once. What the devil was Maskery about? If he did not know the man so well, his conduct would be inexplicable. Not that Raoul could explain it, except to know it was not a random act of insanity. His actions were deliberate and smacked of a plot with all the hallmarks of the kind of villainy to be expected from a man with few moral limitations.
Raoul knew him for an inveterate gamester with a regrettable addiction to drink, women and the fleshpots. His reputation was unsavoury, to say the least, and it was rumoured he lived on a constant knife-edge of ruin. Certain it was he had not yet paid the IOUs Raoul himself held from an evening at Faro when he had held the bank. Maskery had asked for time and that was more than a week since.
Was Miss Temple’s involvement to do with some scheme to avoid disaster? Exactly how Maskery sought to use her was unclear, but if he had driven himself topointnonpluseven the embarrassment of a dependent ward might be too much.
