Captain Langthorne's Proposal. Elizabeth Beacon

      ‘You mean you won’t let yourself, however strong the temptation?’ he asked with considerable satisfaction, and seemed to require no answer. ‘You have no idea how flattering it is to be regarded as so dangerously irresistible that a lady of character dares not risk my company lest she succumb to my fatal charm.’

      ‘Pray don’t congratulate yourself on reaching that ridiculous conclusion, Sir Adam,’ she replied stoically, although of course it was true. Trust him to deduce exactly why she was refusing such a tempting offer. ‘You must have every single one of your attics to let to truly believe no lady dares spend time in your company lest she falls at your feet in a frenzy of gratitude and infatuation.’

      ‘Well that’s properly put me in my place. If I might suggest you take a few lessons in rebuffing a gentleman’s hopes and dreams with finesse before you brave London society once more, Lady Summerton? Or perhaps it should be the other way about and your potential suitors are the ones who need their courage honed by an expert? At least giving lessons to them will help me pass any tedious moments during our stay, and I feel uniquely placed to offer such forlorn hopes my wise counsel.’

      ‘You can’t possibly live with us!’ she heard herself say, as if everything was settled and nothing left to do but decide where they would reside.

      ‘I really don’t see why not. Even the most exacting chaperon would trust your reputation to Cousin Estelle and my sister.’

      ‘Your cousin wouldn’t notice if you held an orgy under her very nose!’

      ‘An interesting notion, but I think I can restrain myself. And my sister would be justly furious if we abandoned her to Cousin Estelle’s tender mercies. She would never see the outside of the nearest library or Hatchards.’

      ‘You would be there,’ Serena protested, but her resolution was faltering.

      She recalled the circus that was the London season for debutantes such as she and Rachel had once been with a shudder. To leave Rachel to face all that in the care of bookish, otherworldly Miss Langthorne would be distinctly unfriendly, and she knew she couldn’t do it.

      ‘My presence will make matters worse,’ she defended herself weakly, feeling she was leading a forlorn hope against a superior tactician.

      ‘Rubbish. Nothing could be worse than poor Rachel spending months being carted from one blue-stocking salon to another on my cousin’s coattails, and you know it—unless you’ve become as blue as my esteemed relative.’

      ‘You know perfectly well I haven’t,’ she told him, ‘and nobody could call Miss Langthorne formidable,’ she added lamely, quite ruining her effect.

      ‘I prefer to call her a force of nature,’ her undutiful cousin said with a surprisingly affectionate smile for a relative who benignly ignored him and everyone else most of the time.

      ‘That’s one alternative, I suppose.’

      ‘It is the only description I ever found that fitted her.’

      ‘As she has a reputation for speaking her mind, I can’t think why you consider her a suitable chaperon for myself or your sister, given that she will doubtless refuse to attend any event that’s unlikely to amuse or interest her.’

      ‘Which is precisely why I need your presence. Cousin Estelle, eccentric though she might be, would never permit immorality to flourish under any roof where she was residing,’ he replied, with every appearance of shocked virtue himself. ‘Any more than I would dream of suggesting it.’

      ‘I should stop right there, Sir Adam. You were doing so well until you got carried away,’ she said, with a frown that was only partly in jest.

      ‘Then ignore my pleas and come for Rachel’s sake. It could be a bigger disaster than her first season if you don’t support her.’

      ‘I really don’t see what I can do that any other widowed lady might not do better,’ she protested.

      ‘You have the sophistication of taste to see my sister is dressed to suit her own looks, rather than those of whichever blonde beauty the dressmakers are promoting this season—or you have when you choose to employ it,’ he said, with a disapproving glance at her very plain gown and shabby cloak.

      ‘You have a way of flattering a lady that is almost unparallelled, Sir Adam,’ she forced herself to parry lightly, but he had given her pause for thought and she suspected he knew it.

      ‘What do you think the Bond Street Beaux would say about my sister if she turned up in the salons of the ton in her current guise?’ he challenged her.

      ‘Poor Rachel,’ she said unwarily, as she considered her friend as she had last seen her clad in a tobacco-brown stuff gown that had never been fashionable, even in the dim and distant past when the village dressmaker had made it up for her.

      ‘Then you’ll do it?’

      ‘I’ll talk to Rachel, and if she truly wishes to go I’ll support her in any way I can.’

      ‘Hmm, an admirably evasive reply. You’ll support her, but is that to be from a distance or at her side, where she needs you?’

      ‘Where she needs me, of course. It’s time I returned the favour.’