The couple sprang apart. Hattie noted Livvy’s bright pink cheeks and mussed lace. Silently she thanked her guardian angel that it was she who had happened on the couple rather than one of the old cats who prowled the corridors searching for the latest tittle-tattle.
‘This is Mr Hook, Aunt Harriet. He and I …’ Livvy flushed scarlet. ‘That is—he’s a visitor to Northumberland and …’
‘I’m looking for my gloves. Have you seen them, Livvy dear?’ she asked brightly, ignoring the way Livvy quickly attempted to straighten her bodice and how young but dangerous Mr Hook appeared with his London-cut frock-coat and tousled Corinthian-styled hair. The time for a lecture on propriety, the necessity of maintaining one’s spotless reputation and not settling for the first man who pays you a bit of attention was due later after Hattie had extracted Livvy from this tangle.
‘You must know the ones I mean, Olivia,’ she continued. ‘The lace ones which your dear mama gave me for my birthday.’
‘Your gloves, Aunt Harriet?’ Livvy did an impression of a trout, repeatedly opening and closing her mouth.
‘I think they might be in here. I was …’ Hattie paused, trying to think up a reason why she might have been in the card room earlier. Her mind refused to yield the excuse. She opted for a brilliant smile. ‘Olivia dear, would you mind helping me to search?’
Livvy behaved like any sixteen-year-old and rolled her eyes. ‘If I must, Aunt Harriet, but honestly …’
‘I positively insist. I am all sixes and sevens. Balls and me … well, the least said about my nerves the better.’ Hattie waved a vague hand, well aware that Livvy had no idea about her normal behaviour at balls and quite probably considered a twenty-seven-year-old aunt bordered on senility in the general course of events.
A crease formed between Olivia’s brows and Hattie could see the desire to appear older warring with her natural inclination to stay with her new swain. ‘Yes, you are always like this at balls. When did you last have them? Think carefully now.’
Hattie’s shoulders relaxed. Livvy had taken the bait, even down to spouting the exact words she always used with her nieces. The next stage of operation commenced now—gently guiding Livvy back to the ballroom with no moonlit detours.
‘And you will do the usual and help me to look. Your sharp eyes are so much better at finding things than my ageing ones.’
Hattie waited for Livvy’s agreement. Slowly and steadily she would prise Mr Hook from Livvy’s life before he did any lasting damage. Unlike Livvy, she knew precisely the pitfalls of London gentlemen who made extravagant promises. Whilst she had avoided ruin seven years ago, she had been unable to avoid the heartbreak that goes with discovering one’s beloved had, in fact, been another woman’s beloved at the same time. Livvy would not suffer that fate. None of her nieces would. Silently Hattie renewed her determination.
‘Perhaps your aunt left them in the garden,’ Mr Hook said in a falsely concerned voice. ‘We could investigate, Miss Parteger.’
‘What a splendid idea.’ Hattie clapped her hands and fixed Livvy’s would-be seducer with a stern eye. ‘You may search the garden, Mr Hook, while dear Olivia and I search the library, drawing room and the card room. Make sure you leave no stone unturned in your quest to find my gloves.’
Mr Hook gulped twice and scampered out of the card room faster than a fox with the sound of a hunting horn ringing in his ears.
The sound of slow clapping filled the room.
Someone is here! Livvy mouthed, turning redder than a beetroot. A cold shudder snaked down Hattie’s back. She’d once been a carefree girl like Livvy. But after succumbing to the advances of a dashing soldier, she had been hustled into a quick marriage, a marriage she had considered romantic beyond her wildest dreams until she had discovered the sordid truth after his death. Even now the humiliation of her discovery caused the bile to rise in her throat. Livvy deserved better.
‘Bravo! Bravo!’ a rich masculine voice called out. ‘A truly stunning performance.’
‘What are you doing here, sirrah?’ Hattie demanded, brandishing her reticule like a sword towards the sofa. ‘Listening into others’ private conversations? Show yourself.’
The man rose from the sofa with a book in his hand. Hattie swallowed hard. He was the sort of man to make the pulse beat faster—crisp black hair with brooding dark grey eyes combined with broad shoulders and a lean frame. His face was saved from utter perfection by the presence of a nose which had obviously been broken several times in the past. ‘One could hardly help overhearing. You are the one who should be apologising for interrupting my reading and sending my godson on a pointless game of Hunt the Gloves, but I shall forgive you if you beg prettily.’
‘Aunt Hattie?’ Olivia tugged at Hattie’s hand as she started to back out of the room. ‘It’s Sir Christopher Foxton.’
Christopher Foxton. The name thudded through Hattie. The entire village had been gossiping about him for weeks, ever since it became known that he’d finally decided to visit Southview Lodge. About how he’d beat a man near to death over a game of cards and while the man lay recuperating had stolen his mistress and his fortune. How he was unbeaten in the ring, daring to fight bare-knuckled with the best of them. But mostly how because of his breeding, good looks and personal charm, every door in London was open to him and how various mamas predicted that they would capture him for this or that daughter, even though his mistresses were reputed to be some of the most sought-after courtesans in London.
The amount of sighing and speculation over him had reached such epidemic proportions that it seemed all anyone in the village could speak about was Sir Christopher and his exploits.
Hattie raised her chin a notch and met his intense gaze head-on. He had another think coming if he expected her to beg his forgiveness, prettily or not. She was immune from such men and their superficial charm.
‘Where are my gloves, then, if I have sent your godson on a pointless game?’ Hattie cried, exasperated. Confessing her rescue mission was out of the question. She’d rather face a gaggle of gossips dressed only in her chemise and petticoat than reveal her true purpose to this … this rake!
‘Your gloves are in your reticule.’ Sir Christopher held out an uncompromising hand. ‘Allow me to demonstrate, my dear lady.’
‘There is no need. And you will call me Mrs Wilkinson. I am not your dear or anyone else’s dear or any other endearment you care to mention.’ Hattie clutched the reticule to her chest. Panic clawed at her stomach. The gloves! How could he know? How would he twist the discovery?
‘There is every need, Mrs Wilkinson.’ Sir Christopher’s tone hardened to well-tempered steel. ‘Your reticule.’
Silently Hattie passed the beaded reticule over to him. Their fingers brushed and a single tremor of warmth ran up her arm. Ruthlessly, she suppressed it. A delayed reaction to all the gossip about his private life, that was all.
He weighed the reticule in his well-manicured hand as if trying to decide what to do. She prayed for a miracle and that he might suddenly reveal a handkerchief. He opened it and withdrew a pair of lace gloves with mulberry bows tacked to the cuffs.
‘Very pretty they are, too. Or perhaps you have another pair and keep these for emergencies.’
‘They are mine,’ Hattie ground out, silently wishing him, his dark brooding eyes and his infuriatingly superior expression to the devil. ‘I obviously forgot where I had placed them. I thank you for your assistance.’
‘Always happy to oblige a lady.’ He made an ironic bow. ‘But you owe me a forfeit for finding them.’
‘A forfeit?’
‘The next dance.’ Kit Foxton concentrated on Mrs Wilkinson. The woman with her carefully coiffured crown of blonde braids and severe dress needed to learn a light romance at a ball was something to be desired rather than condemned.