accent or usage. “Your French tutor must have been an émigré, Miss Lawrence, to have taught you so well,” he offered as bait.
Mary opened her mouth as if to speak, then lifted an anxious hand to her breast and stammered nervously. “Y-yes, yes indeed. How clever of you. That’s precisely who it was. A poor émigré. The wretched creature so needed employment at the time that I ended up having a resident tutor for several years whilst I was in Sussex.” There, she thought, hiding a grin. That should serve to convince him I’m lying through my teeth. Ah, look at him, smiling one of his devilish secretive smiles, just like the cat who got into the cream. I’m surprised he hasn’t already sent for the constable, so sure of himself is he.
“Tristan! What brings you here today? And Mary, why didn’t you have me summoned at once? You know you should not be entertaining a gentleman without a chaperon.”
“Was I?” Mary commented under her breath as she looked apologetically at her companion.
Rachel’s entrance into the room startled Rule into looking up blankly for a moment, and Rachel heaved a small sigh of relief when she realized that her nephew and Mary hadn’t come to fisticuffs before she could place herself as a buffer between their two warlike personalities. “Have you come to see Sir Henry, nephew? He is out at present, but we expect him back directly.”
“He is back,” came Sir Henry’s voice, shortly to be followed by that man’s pudgy presence in the doorway. “Come courting, have you, boy? Since I saw you not an hour ago at the War Office, it can’t be my face you were longing to see.” Sir Henry nodded his head a time or two, a broad smile on his cherubic face. “Good, good. I rather like the idea of Tristan running tame in his house, Rachel. He’s a hotheaded young puppy, but loyal as the day is long, and valuable. You couldn’t make a better choice, Mary, my dear, not if you looked for a dozen Seasons. Right, Rachel?”
Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head, not knowing whether to box Sir Henry’s ears or give him a smacking great kiss on the mouth. But one way or another—due to his foolish blustering—matters were about to come to a head, and Rachel couldn’t be happier. All this scheming and plotting among Mary and her two nieces on the one side and Tristan, aided by his fertile imagination and stubborn tenacity, on the other was sure to lead her to an early grave—and with her novel just begun. At least now either Mary or Tristan, or both of them, would be forced to own to the truth before Sir Henry went posting the banns.
Tristan, however, was not about to look what he saw as a gift horse in the molars. Instead of denying that he was indeed love-bitten, or even running from the house and matrimony in full bachelor flight, he was saying something ridiculously silly about wishing to take the charming Miss Lawrence for a ride in the promenade in order to convince her that he was sincere in his regard for her.
Clearly, Tristan had twisted everything round to his own advantage and could care less what Sir Henry supposed as long as he could proceed unimpeded in his quest to have Mary to himself in order to ascertain once and for all whether or not she was a traitor.
That left Mary, and Rachel turned to look at her appealingly, hoping that the child had reconsidered her plans now that Sir Henry could end up the innocent victim in the affair. But if sane, rational thinking in the face of impending disaster was what Rachel had hoped for, she was due for a disappointment that would keep her up nights for a long time to come.
Mary, hiding her furiously clenched fists behind her back, was just then smiling sweetly and denying nothing. Indeed, she was looking up into Tristan’s handsome features with a look so cloyingly sweet that Rachel knew she, for one, would be put off sugaring her tea for a sennight.
Tilting her head slightly to one side in a move meant to be coquettish, Mary blushed becomingly (a trick she had mastered in her cot) and simpered, “Oh, Sir Henry! Do you think I should? After the marked attentions Lord Rule has been so kind as to show me, I scarce wish the vulgar tattles to have more to prattle about.” She then hesitated, overdoing things a little bit, Rachel thought, by putting her fingers to her mouth and giggling, before admitting, “But I would like to ride up beside Lord Rule above all things!”
“I’ll have your maid bring your cloak and bonnet, Mary,” Rachel volunteered from between clenched teeth, frantic to quit the room before she did either her overacting charge or her sleuthing nephew an injury.
Within ten minutes, a beaming, benevolent Sir Henry and a resigned, realistic Rachel were standing at the front door, waving the young couple on their way.
BY THE TIME THEY ARRIVED in the park, Mary’s good humor had been much restored, thanks to the brilliant idea she’d had as she spied a rather down at the heels frizeur, hatbox in hand, crossing the street in front of them. Catching the Frenchman’s attention by the simple expediency of a maidenly screech supposedly caused by the distressing sight of a rather large, slavering dog, Mary took great pains in gifting the hairdresser with a broad wink and a furtive-looking wave of the hand before hastily pretending an unnatural interest in one fingertip of her right glove.
It is superfluous to report that this supposedly covert signal was witnessed by the ever-alert Tristan, just as any of that man’s enemies would be quick to point out to the assumed-to-be-careless Miss Lawrence.
Filing away a mental picture of the Frenchman before urging his team forward once more, Tristan determined to seek out Mary’s “contact” and question him as soon as possible, a notion that Mary—just then snickering into her gloved hand—found distinctly amusing. Soon, with any luck at all, she’d have Tristan so busy chasing ridiculous false leads all over London that he wouldn’t have a single moment left free to tease her with his unwanted attentions.
If she had any slight qualms about the course of action she had embarked upon since hearing of Tristan’s assumptions about her, his earnest reaction to her pretended message-passing effectively banished the last of her more tender feelings.
But it would not do to have this thing all onesided. As Jennie had said, it was time Tristan learned just how it felt to be pursued like some helpless deer hunted in a fenced wood. Yes, it was time she started giving him a hint or two about her own, deliberately amateurish investigation of his loyalties.
She began the moment Rule’s curricle was eased into line behind a dowager countess’s rusty black barouche, ready to take their part in the late-afternoon promenade. “You understood my French quite well, my lord,” she began innocently enough. “Perhaps you too have a French émigré as a tutor?”
This seemingly artlessly posed query brought surprising results. Not accustomed to being questioned on his personal life, Rule answered her question with one of his own. “Why do you ask?” he shot back quickly.
Mary took refuge in another girlish giggle. Goodness, the man was touchy! “Lud, my lord,” she needled him, “anyone would think you had learned your French at Boney’s knee, for all you’re so ticklish about the subject. I told you about my tutor; surely your knowledge of the language was not gained through some nefarious means, was it?”
What the deuce was the girl up to? Tristan pretended to concentrate on his horses while he cudgeled his brain for an answer. She was only playacting at being a brainless ninny; he was not so obtuse as to not see through her pretense, but he was at a loss as to why.
Besides, it was he who had questions that needed answering not she. She was the one with no traceable background, just as if she had been hatched full-grown from an egg three months earlier. It was she who had installed herself snugly in Sir Henry’s house, hoodwinking that poor, naïve man with her deadly charms; she who could be anyone from Sir Henry’s by-blow to Bonaparte’s first cousin. She was the one who had some serious explaining to do, and he was not about to allow her to turn the tables on him and try to make him England’s fiercest patriot, into a person of questionable allegiance.
Turning in his seat, the better to see her reaction to his words, Tristan smiled broadly, saying, “Why, Miss Lawrence, what an odd imagination you have. Nefarious French lessons? You didn’t strike me as one of those females who’s