The Louise Allen Collection. Louise Allen

farm labourers.’

      Joanna put a hand on his arm as he sat down again, his lips tight, his eyes shadowed. ‘I am sorry. That was very stupid and thoughtless of me. Of course, you must do what is best for your family. But has he truly disinherited you?’

      Giles smiled, this time with real humour. ‘He doesn’t mean it. He will be regretting it now, although I doubt if he is regretting the strip he tore off me and the lecture I got on doing my duty and settling down with a conformable, suitable wife!’

      Joanna took a drink of lemonade as the best way of hiding her reaction. So, the old general did not consider Lady Suzanne a suitable wife. Why ever not? She seemed eminently eligible to Joanna, but perhaps he thought her too flighty to make his son a good match. A faint glimmer of hope stirred in her breast. Would Giles heed his father? Would the General’s opinions make him reconsider?

      But, no, surely if he loved Suzanne he would not give her up, and much as it hurt, Joanna would not want him, too. She could only think less of him if he was the sort of man who could turn from true love under pressure.

      ‘You are looking very serious,’ he said after a moment. ‘How do you feel?’

      ‘Much better, truly,’ Joanna reassured him. ‘I was just worried about you and your father. Now you are even further away, and it is all my fault. What if he wants to contact you and make peace?’

      Giles laughed. ‘My mama, who packed me off back to town to indulge in a course of carefully calculated dissipation, assured me it would be at least two weeks before he would admit to any regrets in the matter and another two after that to digest the rumours of my behaviour, which my assorted well-meaning aunts would send back.’

      ‘Dissipation? But what…?’

      ‘The plan, according to Mama, is that he will summon me back in order to engage me in some salutary hard work and will then get accustomed to having the prodigal around and will be reconciled to my assisting with the estate.’

      ‘Goodness,’ Joanna said rather blankly. ‘Do you think it will work?’

      ‘Mama has been winding my father around her little finger for thirty-five years and I have never known her wrong yet.’

      ‘Yes, but you are hardly engaging in dissipation, are you? What sort of dissipation, anyway?’

      ‘Cards, horses, um…’

      ‘Um?’

      ‘I do seem to be having the most improper conversations with you, Miss Fulgrave! Wicked widows and fast matrons is what my outrageous mama had in mind, I think.’

      ‘More than one mistress at once?’ Joanna asked, trying to imagine her own mother recommending such a course of action to William in fifteen years’ time and failing utterly. ‘Isn’t that terribly expensive and complicated?’

      ‘As I have never had more than one at a time I have no idea. Expensive, certainly. But complicated?’

      ‘I shouldn’t imagine they would take very kindly to sharing you,’ Joanna said, frowning over the practicalities. ‘You would have to keep them apart and remember what you had said to each… Have you had many?’

      Giles sank his head in his hands with a groan. ‘Oh lord, what have I let myself say! Your mama would have fits if she knew. Yes, I have had mistresses, in Portugal and in Spain, and only one at a time, and we parted very amicably in every case, before you ask! And, no, I am not going to tell you about any of them.’

      ‘I am sorry,’ Joanna said penitently. ‘I did not mean to put you to the blush, but I feel that I can ask you about things that no one else will explain. I mean, it is obvious that lots of men in society have mistresses, and even I can guess that some ladies are, well…not entirely faithful to their husbands. But no one ever says anything about it and it seems a bit late to find out after one is married.’

      ‘I cannot imagine,’ Giles said, putting one hand over hers and squeezing it reassuringly, ‘that any husband of yours would contemplate setting up a mistress for one second. Especially this mysterious suitor you are so imprudently fleeing from. He seems most devoted!’

      Joanna ignored the reference to Lord Clifton, for she was fighting the urge to curl her fingers into his and return the pressure. Somehow it hadn’t hurt to know there had been other women in his life: she had expected it, the man was not a monk. But being so close to him, his kindness, almost overset her.

      ‘I don’t expect to marry,’ she said, attempting to laugh it off and freeing her hand to reach for an apple, ‘so it really doesn’t arise. I meant, it was a bit late for young ladies in general to find out about that sort of thing.’

      ‘Not marry? Why ever not?’ Giles took the apple from her hand, picked up a knife and began to peel it, the ribbon of red skin curling over his hand.

      Joanna shrugged, trying not to look at his long fingers dexterously wielding the knife. What would it be like to be caressed by them? She shivered. ‘My mysterious suitor, as you term him, is not someone whose regard I return—in fact, I dislike him excessively. My affections are engaged elsewhere, but the man I love, loves someone else.’

      ‘Is that what upset you at the Duchess’s ball?’ He handed her back the apple. ‘You found out about it?’

      ‘Mmm.’ Goodness, how had she let herself talk about this?

      ‘But just because one man has let you down, it doesn’t mean you should give up on the entire sex,’ Giles said, watching her with a frown between his straight brows. ‘There are many other men—the one who is attempting to make you an offer, for example. Are you sure you know him well enough to have formed such a negative impression?’

      ‘Quite sure! I dislike the way he looks at me—and he tried to blackmail me after I had got into a scrape.’ She caught his quizzical expression and nodded, ‘Yes, that night at Vauxhall. And, yes, it is Rufus Carstairs, I suppose you have already guessed. But as for marrying someone I do not love—how can you say that?’ Joanna was hurt and surprised that he could fail to understand. ‘If the lady you love spurned you, could you just shrug and walk away and think “I’ll find someone else”? Of course you could not, not if it were true love! I will never feel like this about anyone else, and I will not marry anyone I don’t love.

      ‘Imagine being tied to someone you did not hold in the deepest affection! I know some unfortunate women find themselves having to accept distasteful suitors, or men have to make duty marriages to restore their family fortunes, and I truly pity all of them. I would rather remain a spinster than marry anyone other than…him. And,’ she added vehemently, ‘I cannot like or trust Lord Clifton.’

      Giles appeared taken aback by her vehemence, but, although he had raised his eyebrows on hearing who her suitor was, he said nothing, so she asked, ‘Will you obey your father in the question of your marriage?’

      ‘No!’ he retorted hotly. ‘I will not!’

      ‘You see? In matters of the heart, feelings run very deep.’

      He regarded her thoughtfully over the rim of his glass. ‘You are sure that this unfortunate experience has not made the entire business of marriage distasteful to you?’

      ‘Oh, no,’ Joanna looked directly into his concerned grey eyes and smiled ruefully. ‘Oh, no, not if it were marriage to the man I love.’