“It will be to anyone who knows me.”
There was a considerable pause while the two older gentlemen regarded Arch with sadness.
At length, unable to withstand their perusal any longer, he said, “Very well. I will call upon her.”
Sir Percival’s relief was immediate and ill-disguised.
“And I will do my best,” Arch continued, “to disguise it as a familial call.”
Lord Upton’s mouth twitched. “A promising beginning.”
Sir Percival rose again, now brisk with purpose. “Excellent. I shall send word that you are coming.”
“No,” Arch said at once.
Sir Percival paused. “No?”
“If you send word,” Arch replied, “she will have time to arm herself.”
Sir Percival looked amused. “She will arm herself regardless.”
“Then I shall meet her at her most honest—” Arch said, “—unprepared.”
Lord Upton nodded once, approving. “Go, then; although your mother is hosting a dinner for her this evening, should you choose to wait until then to greet Miss Vale.”
Arch stood. “I suppose that would do just as well,” he said, his voice deliberately dry.
Lord Upton smiled faintly. “Miss Vale may yet surprise you.”
Arch did not smile back. “I rather think not,” he said, before bowing with all the civility he could muster and leaving the study feeling as though he had just volunteered for his own forlorn-hope ambush.
He fetched his gloves and hat, and as he took them up, he saw his own reflection in the hall mirror: dark hair brushed into reluctant order, blue eyes that looked, at that moment, faintly too cold, and a mouth that had forgotten how to appear obliging. He looked, Arch thought, exactly like the sort of man a young heiress would mistrust on sight. Excellent.
Arch took the front steps two at a time, not from haste but from that particular species of irritation he felt when he was fleeing the scene of his own defeat. He did not slam the door behind him—he possessed too much discipline for such vulgarity—but observed that the footman who had hurried to fetch his greatcoat and hat watched him with the wary attention usually reserved for gentlemen known to possess hot tempers.
He accepted his hat with a curt nod, pulled on his gloves with unnecessary force, and stepped out into the cold air. The forthcoming ride back to St. James’ had the good taste to be grey and wind-brisk, as if the weather itself disapproved of arrangements.
In the yard, his horse was readied, and the groom waited with the reins. Arch swung into the saddle, settled the reins, and set off at a pace that was perfectly proper—just fast enough to feel like rebellion, just slow enough to avoid remark.
It was an awkward thing, to be manoeuvred. In war, at least, he had understood his orders. A man might die for his country and even call it honour, but to be pressed into a Season? To be employed as a social bulwark? To be told—with paternal solemnity—that he must hover near a young woman of fortune like a tame hawk trained to frighten off lesser birds?
He could already hear the polite speculation.
Nothing delighted Society more than the notion of a man ‘taking an interest’ in a young woman of fortune—and nothing was more ruinous to a gentleman who had better things to do.
He had duties to the Crown—duties that, in their own dismal way, were honest. If one was to be made wretched, one preferred it to be in a manner that involved at least a map, a message, or a threat that could be met head-on. Yet Renforth had given consent, which meant the work had already been weighed, measured, and declared compatible with this domestic inconvenience, suggesting Miss Vale’s danger was not imaginary.
That realization sat uncomfortably with Arch’s resentment. It did not extinguish it—he was not made of saintly stuff—but it forced it into a narrower channel, where it could not overflow into complete refusal. He had seen men harmed for less than money; he had seen women ruined by the mere suggestion that they had been unguarded. A solicitor with reforming friends, a fortune with political strings, an heiress who insisted on steering her own ship—this was precisely the kind of combination that drew sharks.
Still, he bristled at his relatives’ manipulation.
He had not been ordered about like this since he had been a boy at Eton, and even then he had found a way to misbehave with elegance. Now he was to be ‘present’ at dinners, at assemblies, at salons—present, not as himself, but as a figure arranged around another person’s comfort. The very thought made him question his profession.
How was he to make it believable?
If he appeared too attentive, he would be assumed to be courting her, and that would tempt every ambitious mother in Mayfair to make sport of him. If he appeared too indifferent, he would not deter anyone at all—and Sir Percival had not asked him to provide ornamental negligence. He required a guardsman, not a statue.
He pictured himself seated beside Miss Vale at his mother’s dinner-table, smiling at the wrong moments, listening to theclatter of compliments, attempting to appear both protective and casual—as though a man could be both at once without seeming ridiculous.
