30
Allegra said, ‘It happened at the picnic in Richmond Park yesterday – you must have heard of it, although you were not there.’
He scowled, though his tone when he spoke was casual enough now, as if he had recovered from his momentary upset, or wanted her to believe that he had. ‘I wonder you noticed my absence. You went with Milton; half the ton is talking of it. I suppose that means he has offered for you, and you cleverly dodged the topic last time we… spoke. Have you accepted him? If you have, your visit to my home is even more suicidally imprudent than it would otherwise be. You haven’t secured him yet.’
Trust a man to focus on inessentials. ‘I asked His Lordship for time to consider his proposal and he granted me that, but it’s of no matter now. You know already that’s not why I am here – for heaven’s sake, let me tell you what happened. It’simportant. Most of the men were playing cricket, and Mr Englishby took the opportunity to get me alone at the edge of the woods, and threaten me. He was half-drunk, I think, but that’s of no significance either. He told me that he knew I’d been seeing you alone,and that I would be obliged to give him what I was giving you – that was how he put it – unless I wanted to be exposed as a strumpet to all the world. He also said, enjoying himself excessively, that he knew my mother had been lying for years about her family background – that she was a woman from the streets before she married, and her father is a beggar, not an Italian aristocrat as she has claimed. I have always been told that she was orphaned when very young, but Mr Englishby seemed very secure that the truth is otherwise, and her father at least is still alive, and in London, in a very low situation.’
He was listening to her with concentrated attention, and seemed especially struck by what she told him about her mother’s past. Frowning, he said, ‘You don’t know if any of this is true, I suppose? I conjecture that you haven’t asked Mrs Constantine anything at all since you heard this news, even in a casual sort of way, not letting her know why you asked. I presume you’d have told me if you’d learned something to the purpose.’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘No, indeed, I haven’t asked her or told her anything. Mama has always been most reluctant to talk about her past. She has told us only her family name, Orlandi Veronese, and that her father’s ancestors went from Verona, where they originated, to the city of Piacenza to serve at the court of the Farnese dukes there, and were ennobled by them as counts long ago, and lived in a grand city palace, with a castle in the hills besides. But the line is extinct now, she said, and the property, of course, passed into the hands of the invading French.’
‘It’s hard to imagine a story that could be more difficult to check,’ he mused. ‘A family with no other living members, in a distant country under enemy occupation. If it is a fiction, it is a sufficiently clever one.’
‘Exactly. We – my sisters and I – have always thought it somewhat dubious. My mama is perfectly capable of inventing a tale ofthis nature, in order to ensure that we are accepted in society, as you know we have been. No doubt there was such a noble line that has now died out. But who is to say at this point if we are truly descended from them or not?’
‘I daresay there’s a fair chance you are,’ he told her sombrely. ‘A half-truth is always safer than a complete lie, as any practised deceiver will know.’ Allegra wondered for a second, before the odd, intense intimacy of the conversation swept her away from the thought, how he could be so confident of such a thing, unless he was also a person living a double life; it seemed ominous. ‘But that doesn’t mean your line is legitimate.’
‘Probably you’re right,’ she replied. This also had occurred to her in the last day or so as she puzzled over the many complications of her situation; perhaps her mother was a natural child of the noble line she claimed as her own, and that was where the idea had come from. ‘But that doesn’t seem of any great importance now either. If indeed I do have a grandfather living and he is here in London, my mother has no doubt had her reasons for keeping us apart all these years. Perhaps they are estranged – how can I know? And a touching family reunion can hardly be my main concern just now. Englishby made all sort of threats, too – said he had criminal connections and could have me killed if he wished. I don’t know if that’s true or it was just bravado.’
He was still looking at her intently. ‘I cannot imagine how unpleasant an experience it must have been for you, Allegra. You came to me first and not your mother?’
She shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I thought it too risky to tell her an incomplete story of blackmail and threats, and expect her to help me without being aware of all the facts. She is prone to swift and ruthless action, but she cannot perform miracles. If she confronted Mr Englishby – God knows she is perfectly capable of it – he would soon realise that she knew nothing of… of what lies between you and me, and use that to his advantage. And obviously, I have not the least wish to tell herthat. You’re the only person I can share everything with. And for that matter, you deserve to know, because you are implicated already, aren’t you? Your reputation is at risk too, if people discover that we have been…’ She didn’t know how to finish that sentence, and so was obliged to let it trail off and die slowly in the space between them.
He laughed, with a tinge of bitterness behind it. ‘I have no shred of reputation to lose, my dear Miss Constantine. I’m sure seducing debutantes is only what would be expected of me. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all, or so everyone would say.’
‘You haven’t seduced me.’
‘It’s true, not quite. And I didn’t seduce… the other lady. But it’s what people would be only too happy to think; it fits perfectly with their fixed ideas of why it is so inadvisable to bring someone like me from a Caribbean hovel into so-called polite society. Never mind all that now. It’s your precious reputation that’s at stake here, the world being what it is, even if not really your life.’
She was forced to agree with that, at least. ‘And my family’s, too. I don’t know what to do; I haven’t been able to think of anything at all sensible. I was hoping we could puzzle something out between us. You have so much more freedom to act than I do. Getting here to tell you was difficult enough.’
His mood seemed to lift a fraction. ‘I’m sure it must have been. You haven’t come to ask me to challenge Englishby to a duel at dawn at Chalk Farm, in the old-fashioned manner, or to use my famous pugilistic skills to knock him down and threaten him with far worse if he doesn’t stop besmirching your fair name?’
She smiled reluctantly. ‘I don’t think being the cause of a duel between two gentlemen would help my situation in the least, not if anyone learned of it, and I’m certainly not asking you to killhim, or get shot and possibly killed yourself. And while I’d love to see you put him in the dirt, I can’t see how that would assist me materially in the long run. Unless you could make him believe that you were actually going to beat him to death, how could we be confident he’d keep silent afterwards? You’d just have proved to him that you had good reason to be angry with him, even to fear him.’
‘Which now he may only suspect but not know,’ he acknowledged. ‘It is a pretty pickle we find ourselves in.’
His use of the wordwewarmed her a little, which was illogical, she knew, even though she had used it first. She was in no better case now than she had been half an hour ago, but she was no longer alone in her predicament, and that seemed to count for something.
But he was speaking again. ‘Of course, the issue has extra urgency in the light of your very flattering offer from Milton. I quite see why you would not want him to hear of any of this, even setting aside for a moment your regrettable involvement with me. You can be certain that such a stiff-rumped creature will not contemplate for a moment allying himself with a woman whose birth is anything less than respectable. I understand you’ve met his horror of a mother, so you must be aware of this. It’s a wonder she has permitted him to offer for you at all. He must indeed be besotted past all reason, though one must admit he shows little outward sign of it.’
The feeling of companionship in adversity she’d experienced a moment earlier melted away as though it had never existed, taking the warm feeling with it. ‘I haven’t accepted him,’ she reiterated shortly. ‘I may very well not do so. That’s not my concern, sir, I assure you. If you think it is, you are gravely mistaken.’
‘And yet it’s such a wonderful offer,’ he said mockingly. ‘Unless it isn’t, of course. He’s a man of the strictest honour, Imust admit, even though I don’t care for him in the least, nor he for me. Perhaps he does have a guilty secret, as I conjectured, and he has nobly shared it with you, and that is why you are hesitating when you might be well on the way to securing your future by now. Is that the way of it, Miss Constantine? Does he have the pox, or a dozen bastards you’d be expected to smile upon? I fully appreciate the irony of me of all people asking such a brazen question; there’s no need to fatigue yourself by pointing it out.’
She had half-expected this, and showed him a stubborn face. ‘If he did, I wouldn’t tell you. That would be an unconscionable betrayal of Lord Milton’s trust. He’s done nothing to deserve that of me, whether I end up taking him or not.’
He grinned outrageously at her. ‘Oh, have I touched a nerve? A woman with a sense of honour! What an extraordinary thing.’
Any tender feelings she might have cherished towards him were entirely forgotten by now. ‘You really are the most provoking man,’ she huffed. ‘What has such pointless speculation to do with anything at all? I don’t give a fig for your precious honour, and I’m surprised to hear that you do, either, after what you’ve just said. The so-called gentleman’s code is a deal of inconsistent nonsense, in my mind. When I walked alone through the streets to come here, I was just as likely to be accosted by an army captain as a carter, it seems to me, or a duke as a drayman, except that there are more draymen than dukes. Let’s put all questions of stupid honour aside, and return to the serious matter at hand. I’m not going to tell you anything that’s been told me in confidence, and I wouldn’t help our situation if I did. What are we going todo?’
31
Max didn’t know if he’d really meant it, when some surge of emotion he didn’t fully understand even now had prompted him to offer Allegra Constantine his unconditional help. He supposed that, even if he hadn’t done such a crazily impulsive thing, she’d still have had to tell him of Englishby’s villainy, because he was, as she’d said, caught up in this unholy mess. She should not have to bear this burden alone.
Despite his dismissive words about his own lack of reputation, unless he actually wanted to be ostracised for good this time, and for her and her family to suffer the same unpleasant fate, he knew what he should do, by the standards of his upbringing by the Severins and by the woman who had loved and cared for him from birth, Celestine. It wasn’t a matter of honour – that word again – or gentlemanly behaviour, even, but of normal human decency. If salacious rumours really did begin to spread about the two of them, there was no doubt that he would be obliged to offer her the protection of his name. Marriage.
And this had always been a risk he’d run, ever since he’d first kissed her. She had been innocent and curious – he had beenneither, and the responsibility therefore was all his. He considered himself unconscionably stupid only to be realising this stark fact just now. This was what came of thinking with the contents of one’s breeches rather than employing the organ more traditionally used for the purpose.
