For this was the excuse Aunt Susan was always trotting out, whenever some society matron quizzed her over some defect or other. Or a gentleman drew down his brows when she made an observation that ran counter to some opinion he’d just expressed. ‘Oh, fresh up from the country, you know,’ her aunt would say airily. ‘Quite unspoiled and natural in her manners.’ Which invariably alerted her to the fact she must have just committed a terrible faux pas for which she’d be reprimanded later, in private. Though the worst, the very worst fault she had, apparently, was speaking her mind. Young ladies did not do such things, Aunt Susan insisted. Which shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, really. She should have known that females, and their opinions, were of less value than males. Hadn’t that fact been demonstrated to her, in no uncertain terms, all her life?
Except when it came to Mama. Papa never found fault with anything she ever said, or did. Even when he didn’t agree with it.
‘That would account for it,’ said Ulysses, with a knowing smile. And though Aunt Susan heard nothing amiss, Harriet could tell that he was remembering their last encounter. And decrying her behaviour. The way those society matrons had done. Though at least this time she knew exactly what she’d done to earn his scorn.
‘You might know one of her older brothers,’ Aunt Susan was persisting, valiantly. ‘George Inskip? Major the Honourable George Inskip? He’s a Light Dragoon.’
‘Sadly, no,’ said Ulysses, though he didn’t look the least bit sad. ‘The cavalry rarely fraternises with the infantry, you know. We are far, far, beneath their notice, as a rule.’
So he was in the army. No—had been in the army. He was not wearing uniform, whereas men who still held commissions, like the group still milling around in the doorway to the refreshment room, flaunted their scarlet jackets and gold braid at every opportunity.
So, that would account for the tanned face. And the lines fanning out from his eyes. And the energy he put into the mere act of walking across a room. And the hardness of his body. And the...
‘Oh, I’m sure you are no such thing,’ simpered Aunt Susan. Making Harriet’s gorge rise. Why on earth was she gushing all over the very last man she wished to encourage, when so far she’d done her level best to repulse every other man who’d shown the slightest bit of interest in her?
‘And probably too far beneath Lady Harriet to presume to request the pleasure of a dance,’ he said. Placing a slight emphasis on the word beneath. Which sent her mind back to the moments he had been lying beneath her, his arms clamped round her body as he ravaged her mouth.
Which made her blush. To her absolute fury. Because Aunt Susan gave her a knowing look.
‘But of course you may dance with Lady Harriet, Lord Becconsall,’ trilled Aunt Susan, who clearly saw this as a coup. For a man notorious for not dancing with debutantes was asking her protégée to do just that. ‘She would love to dance with you, would you not, my dear?’
Ulysses cocked his head to one side and observed her mutinous face with evident amusement. Just as she’d suspected. He was planning on having a great deal of fun at her expense.
‘I do not think she wishes to dance with me at all,’ he said ruefully. ‘In fact, she looks as though she would rather lay about me with a riding crop to make me go away.’
Harriet was not normally given to temper. But right at this moment she could feel it coming to the fore. How she wished she were not in a ballroom, so that she could slap that mocking smile from his face.
‘Oh, no, not at all! She is just a little...awkward, in her manners. Being brought up so...in such a very...that is, Harriet,’ said Aunt Susan rather sharply, ‘I know you are very shy, but you really must take that scowl off your face and tell Lord Becconsall that you would love above all things to dance with him.’
Ulysses schooled his features into the approximation of a man who had endless patience with awkward young females who needed coaxing out of their modest disinclination to so much as dance with a man to whom she had only just been introduced.
While the twinkle in his eyes told her that, inside, he was laughing at her. That he was enjoying taunting her with those oblique references to their previous meeting. And, she suspected, that he was going to enjoy holding that episode over her head every time they met from this time forth.
Oh, lord, what was she to do? What would happen if Aunt Susan found out she’d been caught, in the Park, by a group of drunken bucks and kissed breathless by this particular one? When she should have been in her room, in her bed, recovering from the exertions of the ball the night before?
Disgrace, that was what. Humiliation. All sorts of unpleasantness.
If she found out.
Therefore, Aunt Susan had better not find out. Had better not suspect anything was amiss. Or she would start digging.
That prospect was enough to make her draw on all those hours she’d spent in front of the mirror, perfecting that insincere smile. And plastering it on to her face.
‘Lord Becconsall,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I would love above all things to dance with you.’
With a triumphant grin, he held out his hand, took hers and led her on to the dance floor.
‘Lady Harriet,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.
‘Lord Becconsall,’ she replied tartly.
He grinned. Because addressing him by his title had not managed to convey the same degree of censure at all. But then, as she very well knew, lords could get away with staggering around the park, drunk. Or riding horses bareback for wagers.
Whereas ladies could not.
Not that she’d been doing either, but still.
‘I suppose you expect me to feel flattered by your invitation to dance,’ she said, ‘when you are notorious for not doing so.’
‘Flattered?’ He raised one eyebrow. And then the corner of his mouth, as though he was biting back a laugh. ‘No, I didn’t expect that.’
‘Do you want me to ask what you did expect?’
‘Well, if we are about to delve into my motives for asking you, then perhaps I should warn you that you might not like mine.’
‘I’m quite sure I won’t.’
‘But would you like me to be completely honest?’
‘Yes, why not,’ she said with a defiant toss of her head. ‘It will be a...a refreshing change.’ At least, in comparison with all the other encounters she’d had in Town, where people only talked about trivialities, in what sounded, to her countrified ears, like a series of stock, accepted phrases they’d learned by rote.
‘Well then, if you must know, I felt so sorry for you that I felt compelled to swoop in to your rescue.’
‘My rescue?’ That was the very last motive she would have attributed to him.
‘Yes.’ He looked at her with a perfectly straight face. ‘You looked so miserable, sitting there all hunched up as though you were trying to shrink away from the silly clothes and hairstyle you are affecting tonight. And I recalled the impulsive way you dropped to your knees beside my prone body, to give what succour you could. And I thought that one good turn deserved another.’
Harriet sucked in a short, shocked breath. Though it was more in keeping with what she knew of him so far to fling insults at her, under cover of escorting her to the dance floor, than to swoop in to her rescue.
He would definitely never say anything so...rude to any other lady to whom he’d just been introduced. It just wasn’t done. Even she knew that.
But then, since he held her reputation in the palm of his hand, he clearly felt