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Amelia Payton put both hands on either side of his head and pulled his face up to gaze into his eyes. ‘Lord Flambard, I accept your offer with pleasure.’ She put her soft arms around his neck. ‘But please don’t tell Hester this morning, not after spending a clandestine night with me. Make a proper arrangement and come in the afternoon. You know how strait-laced she is. She’ll never forgive me.’

‘Of course she’ll forgive you. You’re her mother.’ He kissed her enthusiastically on the lips. ‘But she may not forgive Mr Shilton,’ he added almost to himself.

Amelia Payton heard him and bridled. ‘What’s Mr Shilton got to do with it?’ An unnamed unease unfurled in her mind. This match between Hester and the most eligible bachelor in London was a triumph for mother and daughter. She did not wish for anything to jeopardise it.

‘He knew about my becoming Baron Whiley to disguise my past scandalous connection to you. Ferdy is so upright and honourable he wasn’t at all happy with the subterfuge, and was particularly embarrassed by deceiving Miss Payton. I wager she won’t be happy on any front.’

Amelia Payton grasped his arm and said with panicked urgency, ‘Don’t tell her then. I don’t want anything to sour her match with Mr Shilton.’

Max Flambard kissed her again and said, with some ingenuousness, ‘I don’t want to delay telling the world our good news. That happiness and redress can follow tragedy.’

‘But at least leave the revelation of your true identity until after Hester and Mr Shilton are married. Nobody needs to know until then.’ Mrs Payton’s voice rose with the anxiety that assailed her.

Lord Flambard smoothed away the worry lines on his lover’s forehead. ‘Come now, Pretty Poll, you can’t control everyone’s reactions… Only mine.’ He chuckled as he pulled Mrs Payton down into his arms and tucked the feather quilt over their heads.

* * *

After his own restless night, Ferdinand Shilton was woken far too soon. He struggled from sleep to the sound of his valet’s coaxing voice. ‘Mr Shilton, sir, Miss Payton is downstairs.’

‘Gordon! What time is it?’

‘It’s nearly nine o’clock, sir. It seems quite urgent. I showed the young lady into the library.’

‘It must be urgent to call at this impious hour. Give me a cursory shave, Gordon, and I won’t bother with full dress.’

He was washed, shaved and clad in pantaloons, embroidered slippers, linen shirt and his most sombre superfine coat, all in unmannerly haste.

‘Just tie me a casual cravat, Gordon. That’ll have to do.’ Still looking rather pink-cheeked and tousled with sleep, he ran lightly down the stairs, anxious at what news had propelled Miss Payton so early to his door.

As he entered the library, the young woman’s agitation was obvious. The immaculate Hester Payton had altered in a disconcerting way. Her hair was slightly unravelled, the skirt of her gown looked rumpled, her cheeks flushed; for the first time, Ferdy Shilton thought her alluring. ‘Good morning, Hester, is anything the matter?’

She rushed forwards, ignoring his outstretched hand, and blurted out in horrified tones, ‘I found out this morning that Lord Whiley, my mother’s friend, your friend, is actually my father’s murderer!’

Although he’d been unhappy about Max’s deception from the beginning and knew it would inevitably be discovered, Mr Shilton was quite unprepared for it to be now. ‘But who told you?’ he asked her, the colour heightened in his own cheeks.

‘Nobody told me! I found Lord Whiley at breakfast when I came down. He was pouring my mother a cup of coffee and smiled, as brazen-faced as a monkey.’ Her eyes were round and her hands had flown to her face as if she were reliving a nightmare. ‘He really looks just what he is, an unreformed rake! I was so shocked, I could not help emitting a little scream. I didn’t know where to look. I didn’t know what it meant. But worse was to come.’

‘Hester, my dear, sit down. Can I get you anything to drink? A brandy?’ Ferdy Shilton took her elbow and led her to a chair. She shook her head and remained standing, her face white. ‘Then this gentleman I had known as Whiley said as bold as brass, “Don’t worry, m’dear, I haven’t compromised your mother and intend to marry her.” Something about his cocksure arrogance made me realise this was not a new acquaintance at all, and a terrible thought sprang to mind. Was he in fact that old bogeyman from my childhood, Lord Flambard, the reckless libertine and murderer of my father?’

Hester Payton now sat down, slumping exhausted into the chair. She looked up and there was pain and outrage in her eyes. ‘All I could say was, “Who are you?” When he smiled in that insufferably self-satisfied way and admitted he was indeed Baron Whiley, but more usually known as Lord Flambard, rage overwhelmed me. How dare he be in my home eating breakfast with my mother as if this were the most natural thing? How dare they both dupe me so despicably!’ She turned scandalised eyes to her betrothed and her voice grew tragic. ‘I then had to face the awful fact of your betrayal of me and could bear no more shocks. I ran from the room straight here.’

During the telling of her story, Miss Payton’s face had registered every emotion from blazing fury to wounded pride, but now she sat, her eyes cast down, all passion spent.

Ferdy had listened in sympathetic silence, shamed by his own part in this duplicity and weighed down with responsibility for the pain he had brought to her blameless life. In a quiet voice, he said, ‘So, you’re here for an explanation of my part in this lamentable business?’

Her anger flared again. She turned on him. ‘Lamentable suggests something farcical – it’s far worse than that. Such collaboration with your friend’s pretence is a betrayal of me by the one person from whom I should expect loyalty.’ Her voice rose with self-righteousness.

This accusation cut him to the quick. She could not have been more wronged, but then he had tried to honour two conflicting allegiances: to her, and to his old friend who had come to his aid so many times when they were boys. In a conciliatory voice, he said, ‘Hester, you are entirely right to be angry and disappointed by my behaviour. I too am angry and disappointed in myself. I was never happy with Flambard’s actions and perhaps shouldn’t have allowed him to implicate me in his deceit in the first place. I’m sorry.’ He attempted to take her hand.

But Miss Payton was not mollified. ‘I’ve been hoodwinked, humiliated, betrayed by my mother, but most reprehensively by you, Mr Shilton, the man trusted with my life and happiness, the man I was to marry. We may not look for love in such an alliance, but surely we can expect unwavering loyalty?’

In the midst of her outpouring of anger and accusation, all of which Ferdy accepted was justifiably cast at his feet, one phrase stood out: we may not look for love in such an alliance. It was true, he had entered into this proposed marriage believing, as she did, that love was an unnecessary complication, but his spirit was unexpectedly in revolt. He no longer wished for a marriage based on these cool terms. In fact, he could no longer countenance such a dispassionate union. The realisation hit him like a thunderbolt and he audibly gasped; one of the pillars in his fundamental beliefs had crumbled and he had to go on without the certainty that his rational self was ascendant over his heart. The pallor of sudden revelation turned Ferdinand Shilton’s face to marble. Then the blood rushed back into his cheeks. He needed love, he longed for love, for the tumult – even chaos – of passion. This sea change threatened to capsize his life, from now on it could not follow its serenely unruffled course. Nothing could be the same again.

So shaken was he at this startling revolution in his own heart that Ferdy only just heard Miss Payton’s voice as she headed for the door. ‘Mr Shilton, I’m afraid in the light of this revelation that your loyalty to your friends surpasses any duty to me, I cannot marry you. I withdraw my acceptance of your offer.’

Ferdy Shilton was in shock. ‘Hester?’ He put out a hand, not certain if he wished her to go or stay. ‘Hester,’ he said again in a gentler voice, but she had turned sharply and fled. He heard the front door slam, and knew she had gone from his life. He sank into his favourite wing-backed chair and reached for the brandy.

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