What on earth did he mean by that? Tallie blinked at the closed door, then shrugged, regretted carelessly moving her sore shoulders and began to pull garments from the bag. Both of them were in rather an odd mood this morning, which was hardly surprising considering what had happened last night, to say nothing of what had almost occurred when they woke. Doubtless Nick would be back to his habitual cool, infuriating, distrustful state by the end of the day and she could maintain a safe and comfortable distance from him.
Indeed, when she tapped on the door and he emerged from the dressing-room the mask was firmly back in place and Tallie wondered if she had dreamed those intense, burning eyes, the flashes of deep amusement, the unguarded sharing of thoughts.
He carried her empty portmanteau downstairs, his other hand lightly under her elbow. The hall was empty: presumably when Lord Arndale told his servants he wanted privacy, that was what he got. He lifted a long cloak from the hall table and swept it round Tallie’s shoulders, pulled up the hood and ordered, ‘Keep your head down.’
Outside his carriage was waiting, blinds drawn, and she was inside and it was driving off before she could catch her breath.
‘Now,’ Nick observed, dropping onto the seat opposite her. ‘The trick is to drop you off at Aunt Kate’s front door and be away before anyone inside realises you have not got down from a hackney carriage.’
This manoeuvre was carried out with apparent success and Rainbird opened the door to Tallie without any appearance that her arrival after an unplanned night away was anything out of the ordinary.
‘Good morning, Miss Grey.’
‘Good morning, Rai …’ Tallie was overcome by an enormous yawn. ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon, Rainbird! I am afraid I was up far too late last night, and you know how it is when you sleep in a different bed.’ She stifled another jaw-cracking yawn with difficulty. ‘Would you be good enough to ring for my maid? I think I will go and lie down.’
Tallie had just enough wits about her to remember the state of her back as she was about to be helped out of her gown and to dismiss the girl as soon as she had unhooked the bodice. Her grazes smarted as she lay down, but within seconds the familiarity of her own bed lulled her and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
Tallie awoke with a start to a bustle on the landing and the unexpected sound of Lady Parry’s voice. She tumbled out of bed and dragged on her dressing-gown before peeping round the door.
She was not imagining things. Lady Parry was just untying her bonnet strings and talking to her maid while the footmen carried her portmanteau into her room. She caught sight of Tallie’s tousled head and sleepy eyes and hurried across.
‘My dear! Are you not well?’
Tallie allowed herself to be bustled back into her room. ‘I am quite well, Aunt Kate. It was just that I had a very tiring evening last night and found myself yawning my head off this morning, so I thought the best thing to do was to go to bed and catch up on my sleep.’ Sooner or later she was going to have to confess the whole ghastly business, but she needed to be awake first.
‘My goodness! What have you been up to while I have been away?’ Lady Parry asked archly, her eyebrows rising at Tallie’s answering blush.
‘Oh, it is a long story, ma’am! I will tell you all about it later. But how is it that you are back so soon? How did you find Lady Palgrave?’
Lady Parry made an ambiguous noise, waved her hands vaguely and subsided into a chair, gesturing Tallie to sit down opposite her. ‘Really, in some ways it was better than I could have hoped, which is why I am back so soon. She was already out of sympathy with the monkeys, which had quite wrecked the Blue Bedroom, were attempting to eat the wallpaper in the Chinese suite, of which she is very fond, and had bitten her favourite footman. So she had got rid of them.’
Something in Kate’s voice suggested that this was not quite such good news. ‘How, ma’am?’
‘By the simple expedient of opening the windows and letting them go. Two have already been shot by the gamekeepers on neighbouring estates and a delegation of villagers and the vicar arrived as we did, to complain about the remaining two, which had taken up residence in the church. The vicar was talking darkly about reconsecration—I let poor William deal with that.’
‘How?’ Tallie asked fascinated, forgetting her own troubles.
‘He commandeered a basket of peaches from my sister’s succession houses, drove up to the village, had the church doors opened and placed a trail of fruit from the porch to the lych gate. The curate proved to be a crack shot, apparently.’
‘Poor things,’ Tallie observed compassionately. ‘It was not their fault; I am sure they were only acting according to their natures.’
‘I quite agree,’ Lady Parry said. ‘I remonstrated with Georgiana and put it to her that she should not interfere with God’s dumb creation. At least pretty poets can be expected to look after themselves. She did appear chastened and somewhat sobered, so I deemed it safe to come home. William was becoming somewhat restive.’ She stood up. ‘I must go and change. Are you ready to get up, Tallie? We can have a late luncheon. William has gone to find Nicholas, doubtless for some sympathy.’
Tallie agreed with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Her stomach seemed to contain a cold ball of lead, but she knew she must tell Lady Parry all about her connection with Mr Harland as soon as possible.
As she walked downstairs, schooling her face into an appearance of calm, the front door opened to admit both William and his cousin. Thankfully they did not see her for Tallie stopped dead three steps down and had to stay there for a full minute while she regained her composure. Nick here already! He was obviously not going to waste a moment in telling his aunt what a cuckoo she had been harbouring in the nest.
When she finally made her entry into the dining room, William greeted her with enthusiasm and proceeded to regale his audience with tales of the horrendous experiences he had had to endure. This kept everyone harmlessly occupied for the duration of the meal.
When the footmen came in to draw the covers Nick remarked, ‘I have some matters I need to discuss with you, Aunt Kate. William, could you do me a favour? You know that new bay gelding I bought at Tatt’s last week? I am not sure it is fully sound. You have a good feel for that kind of thing—could you take him out for me this afternoon, give me your opinion?’
He could not have offered a more tantalising bait. Glowing with pleasure at the compliment to his judgement, William made his excuses to his mother and hurried off to change.
Lady Parry was less easy to gull. She led the way into her writing room and sat down, regarding the two of them with a quizzical eye. ‘Well?’
‘I have a confession—’
‘Aunt, there is something I have to explain—’
They broke off, then Nick said, ‘If you start, Tallie, I will join in as we get to my part in events.’ She stared at him, suddenly overcome with nerves and he smiled reassuringly. ‘We had best get it over with, do you not think?’
Tallie nodded dumbly and took a moment to order her thoughts. ‘You recall, ma’am, that I came to you and said there was something I felt I should tell you about? A reason why I should not have accepted your offer to sponsor me?’
Lady Parry nodded. ‘Yes. You were concerned that you had sat for Mr Harland.’
‘Indeed, I had sat for him, ma’am. But not just to assist with portraits he was undertaking. When you said you knew all about it, I thought you really knew what I had been doing.’
‘Which