‘Did you see him properly, Brenna?’ The words came hesitantly.
‘No. Why?’
‘I think he could be persistent, you see, as well as both powerful and stubborn. The whole of London treads carefully in his wake and it seems he owns almost half of it.’
‘The wrong man to rescue, you mean?’ Brenna quipped. ‘I should have left him to an untimely end, especially now if he’s going to harass me.’
Michael De Lancey grimaced. ‘I do have a feeling about this man. I think you should at least meet him. Be as dour and miserable as you want. It is the mystery that is making him interested. I know his type. It is only the thrill of the chase that he craves and there are plenty of women in London who will attest to that truth, or so I’m told.’
The words made sense, though already Brenna’s heart beat painfully at the thought as his gold-green eyes and dark copper hair came fully to mind. With a rising irritation she stood and pulled at the plait that hung across her shoulder. She knew better than to allow herself such feelings.
‘I thought I’d finished with all this, Michael. That season in London was by far enough. I’m twenty-four now, a happy spinster and a woman in my own right and I don’t want the Duke of Westbourne to come and call on me.’
Michael frowned. ‘Well then, let’s get it over with. I’ll have Kenneth take over your reply this morning and with any luck we can have him out of our lives by this evening.’ He stood then, searching in a drawer on one side of the room for paper and pen. ‘Here, write to him and say you could see him at three o’clock. I’ll come home at three-thirty and remind you of an appointment we have at four. That way we can have the whole thing finished within under an hour.’
Reluctantly, Brenna took the page and wrote a very brief and very formal invitation to Nicholas Pencarrow, hating herself for having to do it while mentally calculating all the things she’d need to put off till the morrow now that she had him to deal with today.
A reply had come from Pencarrow House by noon: Nicholas Pencarrow would be pleased to call on her at three o’clock p.m.
At half past two Brenna made her way upstairs to prepare her hair in the most unappealing style she could arrange, buttoning her velvet dress up to the collar and placing upon it the shapeless blue oversmock, which she often wore at the orphanage. At five to three she was sitting stiffly in the wing chair near the fire in the small dining room, hands primly in her lap, when she heard his carriage pull to a halt outside. She resisted the urge to go to the window. He’d seen her at the curtains once before and she had no wish for him to think her remotely inquisitive about him. Instead she stood facing the door and waited until it was opened by Polly, the serving maid.
‘The Duke of Westbourne, Miss Brenna,’ the young girl announced breathlessly, shepherding him in before going out again and closing the door.
Brenna’s widening eyes came up to his, all the handsomeness of each reckless libertine who’d ever pursued her across countless nightmares rolled into one. At Worsley with blood on his face and a split upper lip he had still seemed well favoured. Today, dressed in tapered trousers, a double-breasted jacket and silk hat and gloves in hand, he emanated pure masculine grace and style—and something else a lot more unsettling.
He registered her fright and the dress all at once. Today she seemed different and his glance was drawn to her fingers, which turned a handkerchief nervously this way and that.
‘Miss Stanhope,’ he began quietly as cold violet eyes stole up to his, a flinty hardness in their depths, which he could not comprehend.
She fears me, a warning voice came from deep inside. ‘I am Nicholas Pencarrow and I thank you for receiving me.’
‘You did not have to come,’ she spoke now for the first time, her velvety voice exactly as he had remembered it.
‘But I wanted to,’ he replied. ‘May I sit down for just a moment?’
Nodding, she indicated a chair furthest from where she sat. She seemed older today, her hair bound up into unbecoming braids at each ear and drooping down across her neck. He couldn’t recollect ever seeing anybody’s hair put up quite like that and wondered why she should have fashioned it in such a way, knowing he was to call. The truth hit him suddenly even as he pondered it. She wanted him to see her like this: the clothes, the hair, the lack of a welcome, they were all mixed somehow in a puzzle he could not even vaguely begin to comprehend.
Nicholas shifted in his seat and began softly. ‘I wanted to thank you personally for your help last month outside of Worsley.’ Wary eyes flickered briefly to his and then away. ‘If you had not come when you did, I am sure I would not be here today.’ A frown crossed her face as though she struggled for a fleeing social politeness.
She does not want me here. She wishes she had left me in the woods. Nicholas’s mind rebelled at the thought as he continued slowly, ‘The man you shot was taken to the doctor and his leg was lost. I’m afraid he knew who you were. The Worsley constable said your name without thinking. I hope that will not be a problem.’
Palpable fear flickered momentarily in Brenna’s eyes. ‘Yet he’s in prison?’
He nodded. ‘And I’ll make sure he stays there a long time.’
‘What happened to the other one?’
‘He is dead.’
‘Oh.’ Silence stalked the room, a heavy silence, uncomfortable and unbroken, and as she sat there he knew she would not speak.
‘Do you go out often?’ His voice was soft as he tried to lighten the subject and piece together some of the parts of her life of which, as yet, he knew so little.
‘No,’ she answered quietly, a slight frown forming on her brow.
‘Then would you not accept an invitation to my ball next month?’
‘No.’ The reply came definite and flat, a ‘thank you’ added afterwards almost in an unconscious notice of manners.
‘Is there anything you would like to accompany me to in London? The opera? The ballet? The symphony?’ Brenna’s head came up at the mention of the last and for the first time he saw interest, though she shook her head even as he thought it.
‘You like music?’
‘Yes.’
‘You play the piano well.’
It was said not as a question but as a statement, and she looked up, puzzled. ‘How could you know that?’ she asked unsurely, and suddenly it hit her. He had been finding out about her. A giddy spiralling slam of terror crossed her face as she stood.
‘Your thanks are acknowledged, your Grace, but I shall now say goodbye. Polly will see you out.’ Her words left room for no others as she rang the bell and turned towards the window and Nicholas’s perusal of the back of her was abruptly cut off as the young servant bustled in. Amusement creased his eyes at the dismissal. This girl had no notion of the respect normally accorded to him by polite society.
And he liked it.
Gathering his hat and coat, he made towards the door, stopping as he reached it. ‘I shall leave my card on the table here, Brenna. If, by chance, you should change your mind and have a want to see the symphony, I would be most willing to escort you.’
She stiffened at the liberty he took in using her Christian name and turned as she determined him gone, catching her reflection in the mirror above the mantel as she did so. White faced and drawn, even her eyes seemed bruised and guarded.
Is this what I have become? she wondered, as her fingers unlaced the ugly plaits and she pulled her thick hair free. Tears stung her eyes and for a second she longed to call him back and be seen even momentarily in the way she would have liked him to remember her by, but common sense stopped her. If people knew even a tiny part of her secret, the patronage of her orphanage would flounder