“Good night, Your Grace,” she choked out, and fled without another glance at him.
He let her go.
Bess all but ran up the stairs to her bedchamber, breath coming fast and sharp. Away from him. Away from the temptation to hope where she shouldn’t, rather than attempt what she could.
She would not waste any more time mooning about after a man like the Duke of Ashbourn, who was as far out of her reach as the north star.
She’d learned early and well that life was short. Too short for regrets and what ifs.
To Bess, it was akin to a sin to squander the time she’d been given—this one chance she had to live her life, the life her family and Davy wouldn’t get.
It was time to forget about the Duke of Ashbourn.
Chapter Ten
“Are you ready to go?” Lucy said as she tied the ribbon on her smart little bonnet with a jaunty bow. They stood in the front hall of Ashbourn House, waiting for the carriage to be brought round. “I promised Charlie we’d visit him today, if I could evade my various tutors and instructors.”
Bess stifled a yawn. “I’m coming. Don’t forget your book; I don’t think Charlie cares about seeing us, so much as he’s longing for you to read him another chapter of that novel.”
“I simply must know if Paulina consents to become the wife of the dastardly Marchese di Valdetti, even though he abducted her and has her trapped in the haunted ruins of his castle!”
Lucy had given up reading scandal sheets after they’d taken vicious aim at her sister in the past year, but she had to get her dose of high melodrama and intrigue from somewhere. She’d become an avid novel reader, the more lurid the better, to Bess’s unabashed delight. She’d even hinted at a desire to try writing a novel of her own.
“I know Charlie is every bit as invested in Paulina’s romantic entanglements as you are, Lucy, but I’m still not certain that’s an entirely appropriate book to read to a boy his age. He’s barely sixteen!”
“If he’s old enough to get shot at on behalf of king and country, he’s old enough for Italian Mysteries.”
The stubborn set to Lucy’s jaw proclaimed her unwillingness to be moved on that topic. “Besides, the last time I visited him, he was telling me all about some of the things he and the other sailors from his boat have gotten up to when they’re in port here, and well—just believe me when I say that nothing the Marchese di Valdetti does is going to shock Charlie.”
Bess felt her ears prick up like the barn cat hearing a rustle in the hay. “What sorts of things?” she asked, as casually as she knew how.
She supposed it was good that the footman who was usually stationed by the front door had stepped out to watch for the carriage. This was liable to be a somewhat scandalous conversation.
Or at least, she hoped so. In the week since the Devensham ball, Bess had made a few secret, tentative forays into exploring the less proper side of London.
In her bid to forget about Ashbourn, who obligingly made himself scarce when not escorting Lucy to their evening engagements, Bess had flouted all social convention by donning a hooded cloak and slipping from the house in the evenings after everyone else was abed.
Feeling rebellious and defiant, she told herself she didn’t care if Ashbourn found out that she’d visited Astley’s Ampitheatre to see the acrobats, or wandered through the Marylebone Pleasure Gardens—Vauxhall’s smaller, wilder, more dangerous sibling.
Thus far, all she’d gained from her outings was a strong sense that she was looking for more than the near-public assignations that took place in the Marylebone Garden shadows. But she’d no idea where else to look.
And when she was at Marylebone, she’d had a bit of a fright that had scared her off her search, at least for the moment. As she was leaving, walking toward the high street through the fog, she’d thought she heard the sound of footsteps behind her.
No one had been about—she’d left during the fireworks, which had drawn the attention of everyone else at the pleasure garden—but her heart had jumped into her throat as she searched the shadows.
She couldn’t see anyone, but when she’d turned and started walking again, she’d heard more footsteps, coming closer, until finally she broke into a run and threw herself into the first hansom cab she came to, gasping out the direction for Ashbourn House.
A terrified glance out the window showed nothing but an empty street, and Bess had tried to laugh it off as the product of an overactive imagination, but the fear lingered. It made her jumpy.
She’d even begun to experience the sensation of being watched when she was out and about with Lucy during the day.
It had gotten bad enough that Bess had paused her evening excursions about town—but perhaps it was time she took them up again.
“Charlie says his mates get up to all sorts of things! Some aren’t terribly debauched, the menagerie at the Tower, gambling hells, and pleasure gardens, that sort of thing. But supposedly there’s a tavern somewhere near the docks where men go to fight one another? For fun? I cannot understand it. What fun is it to be pummeled? Or to pummel someone else? It seems entirely bacon-brained to me, but then, I am not a man.”
Bess felt her pulse quicken. A tavern that hosted fights! Surely if London held any handsome reprobates who might like a short-term affair with a country lass, that was the type of place they’d frequent.
“I’ve known many men who love to brawl,” she said, fishing delicately for more information. “And I even know a few women who relish a fine set-to every now and again. Gets the blood moving, I’m told. I haven’t seen a good brawl since the last time Mr. Cartwright let his pigs into his wife’s kitchen garden.”
