She pouted. ‘It is absurd of you to preach propriety, when everyone knows you have never had any time for it.’
Then, in a move so swift it took him completely by surprise, she flung both arms about his neck.
‘God dammit, what are you about?’ He reached up and tried to disentangle himself from her hold. He managed to prise one hand off, but then she dropped her fan, leaving her other hand free to find purchase. When he stepped smartly back in a more determined effort to evade her grasping hands, she clung tighter, so that he found himself dragging her with him.
‘Let go of me, you impudent baggage,’ he growled. ‘I do not know what you think you will achieve by flinging yourself at me like this, but …’
There was a shriek. Light flooded the terrace as the doors from the house burst open. The girl who had been clinging so tenaciously slumped against him, pressing her cheek to his chest.
‘Lord Deben!’ A well-built matron stalked towards him, her jowls quivering with indignation. ‘Let go of my daughter this instant!’
He still had his hands on her wrists, from when he’d been trying to prise her off. As he attempted to push her upright, she gave a little moan and arched theatrically backwards, as though in a faint. Instinctively, he caught her as she began to fall. And though part of him would have dearly liked to let her slump into a crumpled heap on the damp flagstones, another part of him knew that were he to give in to such a base instinct, it would only make the situation look worse for him.
At any moment, another person might take it into their heads to come outside, and what would they see? The wicked Lord Deben standing over the prone body of a shocked, half-ravished innocent? Or the wicked Lord Deben standing with the swooning victim of his attempted seduction clasped in his arms? With the indignant mother demanding the release of his supposed victim?
Whichever tableau they would see, the outcome would be the same. These two females would expect him to make reparation by marrying this scheming little baggage.
He had never been so angry in his whole life. Caught in the kind of trap a greenhorn should have seen coming. And on his first foray into the world of so-called innocents! How could he have so woefully underestimated the predatory nature of womankind? He’d dismissed those virtually indistinguishable white-clad girls in the ballroom as vapid, brainless ciphers. But this girl had a quick mind. And an immense amount of ambition. He was the wealthiest, youngest, most highly ranking man she was ever likely to get within what he guessed was her limited social reach. And she had taken ruthless advantage of his momentary lapse of concentration to compromise him. She didn’t care a whit for his character. Or have a qualm about marrying a man she believed was incapable of fidelity. In fact, she’d told him she would condone it.
What was worse, the chit was not to know he was, in actual fact, looking for a wife. For all she knew, he was still an obdurate rake.
And yet she had persisted in setting out to ruthlessly snare him.
Cunning, ambitious, ruthless and amoral. If his mother were still alive, she would have seen this girl as a kindred spirit.
‘It is quite obvious what has been going on out here,’ said the girl’s mother, drawing herself up to her full height. Then, just as he’d expected, she said, ‘You must make amends.’
‘Offer marriage, you mean?’ That did it. He no longer cared if the old besom did think him ungallant. He thrust her clinging daughter from him with such determination she tottered a few steps and had to clutch at her mother to prevent herself tripping over.
Had he really been toying with the idea of proposing to the first apparently eligible female to cross his path? Was he mad? If he married a creature like this one, history would repeat itself, with the added twist that he would never be entirely certain who had fathered any of the children for whom he would be obliged to provide.
He leaned back against the balustrade and folded his arms. He was just about to inform them that no power on earth would induce him to offer this girl his name when another voice cried out, ‘Oh, please, it is not what it looks like!’
The three of them at his end of the terrace whirled towards the shadows at the far end, from whence the voice had emanated.
He could just make out a slender female form wriggling out from between two massive earthenware planters, behind which she had clearly been concealing herself.
‘For one thing,’ the still-shadowed girl said, reaching down to free her gown from some unseen obstruction, ‘I was out here the whole time. Miss Waverley was never alone with Lord Deben.’
Having freed her skirts, she straightened up and walked towards them. She hovered on the fringe of the pool of light in which they stood, as though reluctant to fully emerge from the shadows. But he’d glimpsed moss smearing the regulation white of her gown as a corner of it had fluttered into the light. And there was what looked like dried leaves caught in the tangled curls which tumbled round a pair of thin shoulders.
‘That’s all very well,’ the outraged mother of the scheming Miss Waverley, as he now knew her to be named, put in, ‘but how did he come to have her in his arms?’
Miss Waverley was still clinging to her mother with the air of a tragedy queen, but on her pretty face he could see the first stirrings of alarm.
‘Oh, well, she …’ The dishevelled girl hesitated. She darted a look towards the worried Miss Waverley, then drew herself upright and looked the older woman straight in the eye. ‘She dropped her fan. And then she sort of … stumbled up against Lord Deben, who naturally prevented her from falling.’
Well, she’d certainly presented the whole sequence of events in such a way as to put an entirely different complexion on the matter. Without telling an outright lie.
In fact, it had been very neatly done.
He pushed himself away from the balustrade and took the two paces necessary to reach the fan, which he bent down and retrieved.
‘No gentleman,’ he said, having decided to take his cue from the girl who, for some reason, reminded him of autumn personified, ‘not even one with a reputation as tarnished as my own, could have permitted such a fair creature to fall,’ he said, returning the fan to the set-faced Miss Waverley with a flourish. He had no idea why the Spirit of Autumn had decided to put a stop to Miss Waverley’s scheme, but he was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Miss Waverley’s mother was looking pensively at the uneven edges of the damp flagstones on which they stood.
Miss Waverley’s eyes were darting from him to the girl who had emerged from the shadows. He could almost see her mind working. It was no longer a case of her word against his. There were two people prepared to swear nothing untoward had occurred here this night.
‘Sir Humphrey should get these flags attended to, don’t you think?’ He smiled frostily at the girl who had attempted to compromise him. ‘Before somebody comes to grief. But at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that you have not come to any lasting hurt from this night’s little encounter.’
She flung up her chin and glowered at him.
Her mother, however, was more gracious in defeat.
‘Oh, well, I see now how it was, of course. And I do thank you for coming to my daughter’s aid, my lord. Though why she was out here with Miss Gibson, I cannot begin to imagine. She is not our sort of person. Not our sort of person at all.’
The matron shot the bedraggled nymph a look of contempt.
Did he imagine it, or did she shrink from the scrutiny, as though she was half-thinking of ducking behind the ornamental urns again?
‘Nor can I imagine how my dear Isabella has come to be on such intimate terms with her. Really, child,’ she said, addressing her daughter, whose mouth was pouting sulkily, ‘I cannot think