The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (11 page)

Turning on his heel, Mr Colin Selwick slammed out of the room. A moment later I heard the front door close – not quite emphatically enough to be a slam, but with enough wrist behind it to imply that somebody was more than a little bit miffed.

Still grinning, I sank back down onto the Persian rug. Round two to Eloise. It might not be dignified, but, oh, it did feel good to see Mr Colin Selwick seething and helpless. Leaving aside his unpardonable rudeness to a guest, I’d been longing for revenge ever since I’d opened that insufferable letter of his. Did I mention that the envelope gave me a paper cut? Just to add injury to insult.

What on earth was his obsession with family privacy, anyway? I wondered, as I stretched out an arm to snag the papers I’d dropped on the armchair. You’d think he’d caught me reading his diary.

It was curious that he had felt the need to curb his temper in front of his aunt. Maybe he stood to inherit from her and was afraid of incurring her ire? It was a classic television drama plot: elderly, eccentric relative, bad-tempered young heir. That could put a whole new complexion on Mr Colin Selwick’s explosive reaction to me. Maybe it wasn’t really about the Pink Carnation papers at all. Perhaps his real fear was that I’d worm my way into his aunt’s good graces through my interest in the family history and oust him from his inheritance.

It was an amusing image. I pictured myself in a smartly cut black dress and a 1920s hat with a spotted veil, perched on a little gilt chair while a grey-faced solicitor droned, ‘And the bulk of my estate I leave to Miss Eloise Kelly.’ Colin Selwick, in spats and slouch hat, would curse loudly and storm from the room, his hopes forever thwarted. That would teach him to write rude letters. An amusing image, but Colin Selwick would have to be more than a little bit mad to see a
potential rival in every little American grad student who wandered into his aunt’s flat. And the inheritance theory failed to explain the intolerable rudeness of his letter to me well before he had seen me cosily ensconced in his aunt’s parlour.

Not that it mattered. Mr Colin Selwick’s psychoses – and I was sure a good psychiatrist could diagnose him with quite a few – were his own concern. In the meantime, I had the trunk of papers all to myself, and a whole night to read them in. Why waste time speculating about insufferable modern men when one could read about swashbucklers in capes and knee breeches?

Even if, from Amy’s letters, it appeared that Lord Richard Selwick was quite as infuriating as his obnoxious descendant.

At least Lord Richard had a good excuse, I decided charitably. Hiding a secret identity must put a considerable strain on a man.

Setting the precious bundle of papers down next to me, I tugged off my gangrenous boots, tucked my feet up under me, and leant my back against the side of the armchair. Ruffling through the documents in my hands, I selected one from Lord Richard Selwick to his friend Miles Dorrington and resumed reading.

I would give Lord Richard a chance to prove himself more congenial than his aggravating descendant…

Chapter Nine

E
douard’s carriage wasn’t there.

Amy looked out over the street for the fifth time in as many minutes. There was still no sign of a carriage bearing the Balcourt crest. The dock at Calais lacked the bustle and flurry Miss Gwen had frowned over at Dover. In the weak, early morning light, the wharf was almost eerily deserted. Only one carriage had braved the dawn chill, a battered black carriage with a broken sidelamp, and starbursts of mud along its sides. When they had wobbled off the ship an hour before in predawn dark, Amy had seen the bulk of a carriage, and assumed it must be Edouard’s. The coachman’s striding past them and making straight for the cargo in the hold had dispelled that happy notion. With little else to do, Amy tugged her shawl tighter and watched idly as three men in rough work clothes trotted up and down the gangplank, heaving assorted boxes and bundles into the carriage. Surely Edouard would arrive soon?

Amy started at the sound of hooves racketing against cobblestones. Four black horses trotted into view, followed by a sleek black carriage. The coachman rose on his box and gave an un-servile halloo in a decidedly English voice. He was answered by the all too familiar tones of Lord Richard Selwick. It was utterly unfair, thought Amy, that a man as devoid of honour as Lord Richard should have his coach arrive on time while theirs was nowhere in sight. Where was the justice in that? Shouldn’t he be at the top of the list for divine retribution for his perfidy? Oh well, there was yet time for justice
to be served. Maybe his carriage wheel would fall off and leave him stranded in a ditch.

‘Hullo, Robbins!’ Richard left his perch atop a pile of trunks and strode over to his carriage. ‘Have a nice drive?’

‘As nice as can be had on them damned French roads, milord – begging your pardon, ladies,’ the coachman hastily added, as Miss Gwen’s loud sniff of reproach alerted him to the presence of three rather dishevelled female persons on the wharf. ‘All pits and potholes, they are,’ he earnestly explained to Miss Gwen.

Miss Gwen sniffed again.

Feeling that he’d done the best he could to atone for his profanity, Robbins shrugged and turned his back on the old harpy with the strange hat. ‘When do I get to drive on good English roads again, milord?’

‘When Bonaparte donates his collection of antiquities to the British Museum,’ Richard said dryly. The words came out by rote; he and Robbins had been through the same routine several times before. Richard’s attention had shifted to the tousled collection of females huddling on the windy wharf.

The second he looked at Amy, she scowled violently.

It would have been quite an effective scowl if the wind hadn’t blown her curls into her face. Richard couldn’t help grinning as he watched Amy paw clumps of hair out of her mouth. She looked like a bedraggled kitten dealing with fur balls.

He, of course, didn’t feel one way or the other about the girl. Well, all right, he did feel quite an uncomfortable tightening in certain parts of his breeches when the wind flattened her skirts against her legs, just as it was doing now, outlining her – Richard let out his breath in a rush. It was best not to think about what the wind was outlining. At any rate, aside from lust – which, he quickly reminded himself, was a physical reaction, which could have been brought on by any other female with kissable Cupid’s-bow lips and intriguing curves outlined by fine yellow muslin – he felt nothing for her. She was just a chance acquaintance, and if she happened to
dislike him, that was her own affair. He scarcely knew her.

He did, however, know Edouard de Balcourt. Balcourt would think nothing of leaving his female relations stranded in Calais for a week, if sending the carriage to pick them up didn’t suit his own schedule. Richard could easily imagine Balcourt being distracted by a fitting for the latest style of breeches and completely forgetting to send the carriage at all. He didn’t like to think of three gently bred young ladies being stranded by the wharf. Certainly, there were inns in Calais, but they catered to a very different sort of clientele. No doubt there was at least one respectable establishment, but docks, as Richard knew far too well from his peregrinations back and forth across the Channel, tended to attract the most unsavoury sort of riffraff. With that deadly parasol of hers, Miss Gwen made a formidable guard – whoever picked her to look after Amy and Jane had known what they were about – but, even so… Richard imagined Henrietta stranded for a week in Calais and his lips tightened grimly. There was nothing for it but to take the women back to Paris with him.

Amy caught Richard’s eye, flushed, and quickly looked away again. ‘Insufferable man!’ she muttered.

‘Amy, I really wish you would tell me what happened between you and Lord Richard.’

‘Shhhh! He’s coming this way!’

Casually swinging his hat in one hand, Lord Richard strolled towards them…and past them, bowing to Miss Gwen.

‘Madam, your carriage seems to have been…delayed. May I be so bold as to offer the use of mine?’

Oh no, thought Amy. Oh no, no, no.

Amy drew herself to her full five feet and three inches and set her chin. ‘That really won’t be necessary! I’m sure Edouard’s coach will arrive any minute now don’t you think? There are dozens of reasons why it might have been delayed. Broken wheels or bandits or…’ Amy’s voice petered out. Miss Gwen and Lord Richard, on either side, were looking down at her with frighteningly similar expressions
of polite incredulity. ‘Well, I’m sure there
must
be bandits, and a broken wheel could happen to anyone!’

‘Indeed.’ Lord Richard positively exuded scepticism in a highly unpleasant way.

Richard
felt
highly unpleasant. Here he was, trying to do something nice for the girl, dash it all, despite all of the extremely rude things she had said to him the night before, and she was treating him as though he had offered to convey her to a leper colony! She could at least attempt to be civil in return. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t as though
he
had murdered her parents.

Amy took a deep breath and resisted the urge to stamp her foot. Preferably on Lord Richard’s. Again. ‘At any rate, when Edouard’s carriage does arrive – which it
will –
it would be dreadfully rude of us not to have waited for it, after he’s put his coachman to so much trouble. And what if the coachman thinks we haven’t arrived yet and stays to wait for us? Why, the poor man could be stranded here for days!’

‘Your concern for your brother’s coachman does you credit, Miss Balcourt,’ Lord Richard commented dryly, with a wry twist of the lips that suggested that he knew it was not Edouard’s coachman who troubled her, ‘but, at present,
you
seem to be the one stranded, not he.’

Amy squared her shoulders for further argument, but Miss Gwen prevented her with a commanding thump of her parasol. ‘I will have no more argument from you, Miss Amy! Your brother’s coach was to have been here this morning. It was not. Therefore we are accepting Lord Richard’s kind offer, and I trust that your brother’s coachman, should he appear, shall have the basic sense to return to Paris. Is that understood? My lord, you may instruct your man to load our baggage.’

‘Miss Meadows, I am yours to command. Miss Balcourt, the opportunity to extend our acquaintance, as I am sure you will agree, is an unexpected delight.’

‘
Indeed.
’
Amy tossed his own word back at him with twice the scepticism.

And he laughed. The bounder actually laughed.

Amy stomped off to the side of the dock as Richard’s coachman joined two sailors in loading all of their trunks onto the top of the carriage. At least, she tried to stomp. Her kid boots made disappointingly little noise on the wooden planks. Amy longed for loud noises – stomping boots, slamming doors, breaking china – to vent her displeasure. Oh for a parasol to thump like Miss Gwen! ‘Maybe that’s why she carries it,’ Amy murmured to the waves. The waves crashed obligingly in affirmative response.

‘It
is
very good of him.’ Jane slipped an arm through Amy’s.

‘It gives the appearance of goodness,’ Amy corrected crossly. She stole a glance at Richard, who was speaking gravely to Miss Gwen. ‘All the better to hide a thoroughly black heart.’

Jane’s pale brows drew together in concern. ‘What did he do to make you feel so about him? Amy, he didn’t behave improperly to you?’

‘No,’ Amy said grumpily, feeling, if possible, even crosser than before. The memory of the almost-kiss – had it even been an almost-kiss? – danced mockingly at the edge of memory, taunting her with her own foolishness. Good heavens, how could she even have considered kissing such a base rogue? Amy wasn’t sure whether she was more irate with Richard for charming her into liking him or with herself for allowing herself to be charmed when she ought to have known better. Either way, she was irate.

Jane was still watching her expectantly. Jane, Amy decided, could not be told of the almost-kiss. ‘No,’ Amy repeated. ‘It was his principles, not his actions, that offended me. Can you believe that the man is employed by Bonaparte! An Englishman, a member of the peerage, working for that—’

‘It might be well not to judge him too hastily,’ Jane interjected as Amy’s voice rose dangerously above the slapping of the waves.

‘Trust me, Jane, it’s a
very
well-considered judgment!’

‘Amy, you’ve known him all of a day.’

‘That was more than long enough,’ Amy stated stubbornly. ‘Oh
blast, the trunks are loaded. I was so hoping Edouard’s coach would appear before we had to leave with
him
.’

Lord Richard greeted each girl with a deep bow as they fell in beside Miss Gwen. Such an excess of civility, thought Amy grimly, could only be meant as insult. Her darkest suspicions were confirmed when Richard followed up his bows with, ‘Good morning, Miss Wooliston, Miss Balcourt. I trust you slept well.’ He spoke lightly, his gaze resting impersonally on Jane and Amy in turn.

‘Quite well, thank you,’ said Jane.

Amy glowered. ‘I was kept awake by the sound of someone stamping about on deck.’

Richard smiled blandly. ‘It’s well you didn’t go up to investigate. You never know what rough sorts you might encounter on a Dover packet.’

‘I believe I have a fair idea, my lord.’

Jane’s bonneted head swivelled from one to the other. She gave Amy a hard look from under the straw brim. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ she whispered.

‘Later,’ Amy whispered back.

Richard regarded them with that infuriatingly benign look of condescension men assume when women whisper in front of them.

Miss Gwen was less benign; she rapped her parasol against the ground like an exasperated orchestra conductor. ‘Are we to stand here taking the air or shall we depart? Sir?’ Grabbing Richard’s outstretched arm, she climbed regally into the carriage. Murmuring her thanks to Richard, Jane followed, taking the seat beside Miss Gwen.

Pointedly avoiding resting her fingers on the arm Richard proffered, Amy peered into the interior of the carriage. Oh, drat! She would have to sit next to Lord Richard.

Amy wedged herself into the very farthest corner of the bench. Richard gave her a somewhat sardonic look as he settled down on his side. He called an order to the coachman, and the carriage jostled into movement. Under pretence of picking up a fallen glove from the floor, Richard leant towards Amy.

‘It’s not catching, you know.’

Amy opened her mouth to retort, but Miss Gwen’s eye was upon her like a falcon sighting its prey. With as much dignity as she could muster, Amy turned her back on Richard and stared out the window.

Amy stared out the window for quite some time. She stared out the window until there was no sign of the coast in sight. She stared out the window until her neck ached. After an hour, she began to wonder if she would ever be able to move her head again. Beside her, Lord Richard was conversing with Jane in low, pleasant tones. ‘Compared with the works of Mozart, Herr Beethoven…’ Jane was saying earnestly. Next to Amy, Richard’s voice rumbled in reply, but it was fading…fading…fading… Amy only had time to think, confusedly, how odd that his voice should be so pleasant when he was so very unpleasant himself, before she fell into sleep.

Amy slept through a debate on the merits of the new romantic music and Jane leaning precariously across the coach to tuck a shawl around her sleeping form.

‘I’ll do it,’ Richard volunteered, as Jane tottered on the edge of her seat. He reached for the shawl, and Jane handed it to him gratefully before sliding back against the velvet squabs. Robbins tended to display his feelings for the French by lurching violently into every pothole he could find, which meant that the coach was swaying from side to side with greater force than the boat in last night’s storm.

Richard toppled back into his own seat more hastily than intended and turned towards Amy. She had fallen asleep curled up against the window, one hand under her cheek, and her back rather pointedly towards Richard. With her booted feet dangling an inch or two off the floor, she looked quite tiny and fragile. Funny, she hadn’t seemed all that little before. Probably, thought Richard ruefully, because she never stayed still long enough for one to notice. Awake, she exuded enough energy for a whole troupe of Amazons. And packed as furious a punch. Or did he mean a kick? Richard half smiled. He knew the memory of Amy’s assault on his foot – and his honour – should anger rather than amuse him, but, for the life of
him, he couldn’t seem to muster up a decent spurt of indignation. Instead, he found himself squelching down an entirely inappropriate feeling of fondness.