Well, noteverylady. Emma wasn’t, but then she’d never been susceptible to handsome faces. She knew too well how often they hidan ugly heart.
Still, perhaps it wasn’t as dire as it seemed. Lady Flora was a soft-hearted young lady, but even if she did have atendrefor Lord Lovell, that didn’t mean she was in love with—
“For pity’s sake, Flora,” Lady Silvester began again, exasperated. “If you’d only talk to him—”
“No.” Flora, who’d never treated her grandmother with anything but tender affection, cut Lady Silvester off with an impatient exclamation. “I’m sorry, Grandmother, but I won’t let Lord Lovell spoil my pleasure in the day. Come along, Emma.”
Emma did as she was told, but her heart sank like a stone in her chest. It didn’t sound like a mildtendre, and it hadn’t looked that way in Lady Swinton’s garden last night, either. No, it had looked as if Lady Flora was desperately in love with Lord Lovell, and he with her.
Lord Lovell who, under that handsome face of his, might very well be a fiend.
Dash it, how had everything become so complicated, and so quickly? What a fool she’d been, to suppose it would be a simple task to charm Lord Lovell into revealing enough of his secrets to incriminate himself.
She hadn’t counted on a lovesick debutante, had she? Or on Lord Lymington, who’d do whatever he must to keep her away from his cousin, and whose penetrating gray gaze seemed to peel back her protective layers until he found the raw, tender skin underneath.
No gentleman had ever done that before. None had ever bothered, but as surely as she’d gotten a peek under Lord Lovell’s masque, Lord Lymington had gotten a peek underhers.
Emma hurried to catch up to Flora. “Did, ah…did you and Lord Lovell have a falling out?” she asked, keepingher voice low.
Lady Flora bit her trembling lip. “No, nothing like that. It’s just…well, can’t anyone talk of anything but Lord Lovell? It seems as if some young lady or other is forever nattering in my ear about him. Why, there are plenty of gentlemen here in London as handsome as he is.”
“Well, of course there are—”
“Lord Barrett is every bit as handsome as Lord Lovell. Handsomer,if you ask me.”
Emma blinked at Lady Flora’s vehemence. “Certainly, Lord Barrett is very—”
“Far more gentlemanly, too,” Lady Flora declared with a toss of her head. “I could tell you any number of perfectly dreadful things about Lord Lovell, but I don’t like to alarm you, Lady Emma.”
“Does Lord Lovell have some shocking secrets, then?” Emma braced herself for lurid tales of wicked debaucheries, seductions, possible kidnappings—
“My, yes! Did you know, Lady Emma, that Lord Lovell was sent down from Oxford last year,for brawling?”
“Sent down?”Thatwas Lord Lovell’s shocking secret? Didn’t every nobleman get sent down from Oxford?
“Yes, last September, and now he’ll never finish.” Lady Flora sighed, some of her anger draining out of her. “It’s a greatpity, really.”
September?Emma frowned.
Caroline’s letter claimed that Amy Townshend had gone missing from Lymington House in late August. If Lord Lovell hadn’t been sent down until September, then he wouldn’t have even been at Lymington House when Amy disappeared.
“Are you certain it was September, Flora?”
Emma didn’t have any plausible reason for asking such a strange question, but Flora merely nodded. “Yes, quite sure.”
That didn’t absolve him of Kitty Yardley’s disappearance, of course, but what were the odds there weretwokidnappers at Lymington House?
Very slim, indeed, unless Lord Lovell had been home for a visit in August? “Did, ah…did Lord Lovell visit often at Lymington House while he was at Oxford? In the summer, perhaps?”
It was another risky question, and Emma held her breath, praying her friend wouldn’t remark on it, but Flora was very much caught up in her indignation with Lord Lovell and didn’t appearto notice it.
“He did at first, yes, but in his final year, he… well, you wouldn’t know this, Lady Emma, not having spent any time in London, but Lord Lovell has a rather…unfortunate reputation as a rake.”
Emma adopted a properly horrified expression. “Arake?How shocking.”
“Yes. It broke all our hearts, particularly Lady Lymington’s, as Lovell was always a most affectionate nephew to her. He was a dutiful son, as well.” For all her professed pique with Lord Lovell, Lady Flora was eagerto defend him.
“He does seem fond of Lady Lymington.”
