His gaze swept her aunt’s drawing room with an air that somehow conveyed the impression he did not see anyone until his eyes came to rest on her.
‘Miss Gibson,’ he said, crossing the room to where she sat, ‘I trust I find you in better health today?’
It was all Henrietta could do to bite back an enquiry as to whether he had ever had any manners, or whether he just did not see the need to employ them today. What kind of man ignored his hostess, let alone the other occupants of the room?
But then Richard had behaved just like this when he’d come here, too. Richard had thought himself too good for this company. Richard had not deigned to speak to any of them either, dismissively referring to them as a bunch of clerks and shopkeepers. Though even he had, in deference to good manners, at least given Aunt Ledbetter a perfunctory bow before giving his undivided attention to Henrietta.
So she was not in the least bit flattered by the way Lord Deben bowed over her hand. When it looked as though he meant to kiss it, she raised it to her own mouth instead, shoving the last of the biscuits defiantly between her teeth.
She heard Mildred gasp.
Lord Deben’s expression did not alter one whit.
‘You still look a trifle peaked,’ he informed her, shutting out the other occupants of the room by the simple pretext of standing with his back to them all. ‘I shall take you out for a drive in the park. That should put the bloom back in your cheeks.’
‘You will take me out for a drive,’ she repeated. What unmitigated gall! Did he think she was so stupid she couldn’t see how he was snubbing her poor dear aunt? Besides, what if she didn’t want to go out? What then? She was just about to inform him that nothing on earth would induce her to leave this room, in the company of a man who clearly thought he was too good for it, when Mr Bentley burst out,
‘My word, what I wouldn’t give for a chance to tool that set-up round the park. Or even sit up beside you, my lord.’ He shot Henrietta a look loaded with envy. ‘You lucky, lucky girl!’
Lord Deben’s heavy lids lowered a fraction. He turned towards Mr Bentley, his lip curling. ‘I do not generally invite young gentlemen to escort me in the park during the fashionable hour,’ he remarked in a crushing tone that instantly reduced his admirer to red-faced silence.
He hadn’t invited her, either. Issued an order, more like.
‘And it is very generous of you to invite Henrietta,’ said her aunt, shooting her a look loaded with meaning. ‘Such an unlooked-for honour. It will not take her but a moment to run upstairs and put on a bonnet and coat.’ She made shooing motions towards Henrietta behind Lord Deben’s back. ‘Will it, my dear?’
No, it wouldn’t. And it would be better, much better for her aunt if she got him out of the house to tell him what she thought of his manners, than create a scene in her aunt’s drawing room.
‘Make haste,’ he said to Henrietta brusquely, finally succeeding in grasping her hand and using the hold he gained upon it to lift her to her feet. ‘I do not want to keep my horses standing.’
His horses! Well, that put her in her place. He rated their welfare far higher than such a paltry consideration as her sensibilities!
Who did he think he was? To come in here and comprehensively insult everyone like that?
Henrietta swept out of the room on a surge of indignation that completely banished the lethargy that had made even walking require a huge effort of will-power since Miss Twining’s ball.
Not keep his horses waiting, indeed! She marched up the stairs and flung open the door to her room.
And to crush poor Mr Bentley, she fumed as she strode across to the armoire and yanked it open, who’d only been expressing the kind of boyish enthusiasm for the splendour of his horses that any of her brothers might have done.
And to ignore her aunt and her cousins like that! Just because they were connected to trade! Because he thought they were common.
Well, she’d show him common.
She stuffed her arms into the sleeves of her mulberry redingote, then marched along the corridor to her aunt’s room, where she ruthlessly plundered her selection of furs until she found the fox. She slung it round her shoulders, pausing before the mirror only long enough to assure herself that it did indeed clash with her coat as horribly as she’d hoped, before making for Mildred’s room and the high-crowned bonnet, topped with a pair of bright red ostrich feathers, which had only arrived the morning before.
When she reappeared in the drawing room, not five minutes after she’d left it, Mildred’s jaw dropped. Her aunt made a faint choking noise.
Lord Deben, who was standing at the window, next to Mr Bentley, cocked his head to one side as his lazy brown eyes scanned her outfit.
‘More colour already,’ he drawled with a perfectly straight face, ‘just at the mere prospect of taking the air.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she agreed with a smile as she stalked towards him. ‘I am so looking forward to being seen driving round the park with you, at the fashionable hour.’
This would serve him right! He looked just the type of man who would hate being seen driving about with someone who looked positively vulgar. He might have lowered himself by inviting a girl to drive with him who was well outside the circles in which he normally moved, but he had taken the greatest care over his own outfit. She knew enough about male fashion to guess that his clothing hailed from the most expensive, exclusive tailors. And he had shaved, very recently. His cheeks had that sheen that only lasted an hour or so after the event, and besides, when he had bent over her hand to attempt to kiss it, she had smelled oil of bergamot.
‘How little did I think,’ she simpered, ‘when I came up to town that I should have the honour of being taken driving by such an important man. In such a … a bang-up rig, too.’
His face, she noted with savage pleasure, was growing more wooden by the second.
‘I shall be sure to give you a full account of my treat, Mr Bentley—’ she beamed at the youth whose eyes were swivelling from the immaculately clad earl, to the ostrich feathers adorning her borrowed hat with something like horror ‘—next time you call upon us.’
Lord Deben gestured for her to precede him into the hall and, with her ostrich plumes bobbing in time to her martial stride, they set off.
So what if he had finally found some semblance of manners and opened the door for her? It meant nothing. Except, perhaps, that he couldn’t wait to escape the presence of people he considered so far beneath him.
So what if he was a good driver? Just because he could weave in and out of the heavy traffic with an ease of manner that made it look effortless, when she knew it required great skill, did not make him any less unlikeable.
She was almost glad when, having swept through the park gates, he repeatedly cut people dead who were trying to attract his attention. It made it so much easier to cling to her bad humour, which the thrillingly rapid drive through the teeming streets had almost dispelled.
‘You are not an easy person to run to ground,’ he said suddenly, just when she was beginning to wonder whether the entire outing was going to take place in silence. ‘I looked for you at the Cardingtons’ and the Lensboroughs’ on Tuesday, the Swaffhams’, Pendleboroughs’, and Bonhams’ last night. And