Lady Whistledown Strikes Back (6 page)

His hand tightened around hers, but sadly, only for a second. “Anyone would have defended her,” he said.

“No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think so. I’d say the opposite, actually, and I believe you know I’m right.”

She looked up at him, her eyes defiant, waiting for him to contradict her.

Smart man that he was, he didn’t.

“A gentleman should never wreak havoc with a
woman’s reputation,” he said stiffly, and she realized with a strange
little bubble of delight that she loved that little hint of stodginess,
loved that he was actually embarrassed by his own strict code of ethics.

Or maybe it wasn’t the code as much as the fact that she had caught him in it.

It was much more fashionable to be an unfeeling rake, but Peter could never be that cruel.

“A woman shouldn’t wreak havoc with a gentleman’s
reputation, either,” Tillie said softly. “I’m sorry about what Lady
Whistledown wrote. It wasn’t well done of her.”

“And do you have the ear of our esteemed gossip columnist?”

“Of course not, but I do approve of her words more often than not. This time, however, I think she may have crossed the line.”

“She accused no one.” He shrugged as if he didn’t
care, but his tone could not lie. He was furious—and pained—by that
morning’s column, and if Tillie had known who Lady Whistledown was, she
would have happily trussed her up like a goose.

It was a strange, fierce feeling, this anger that he’d been hurt.

“Lady Mathilda…
Tillie.”

She looked up in surprise, unaware that she’d been off in her own thoughts.

He offered her an amused smile and glanced down at their hands.

She followed his gaze, and it was only then that
she realized she was gripping his fingers as if they were Lady
Whistledown’s neck. “Oh!” she let out in surprise, followed by the more
mumbly, “Sorry.”

“Do you make a habit of amputating your dance partners’ fingers?”

“Only when I have to twist their arms to get them to ask me to dance,” she shot back.

“And here I thought the war was dangerous,” he murmured.

She was surprised that he could joke about it, surprised that he
would.
She wasn’t quite certain how to respond, but then the orchestra
finished the waltz with a surprisingly livery flourish, and she was
saved from having to reply.

“Shall I return you to your parents?” Peter asked, leading her off the dance floor. “Or to your next partner?”

“Actually,” she improvised, “I’m rather thirsty. Perhaps the lemonade table?”

Which, she had noted, was clear across the room.

“As you wish.”

Their progress was slow; Tillie kept her pace
uncharacteristically sedate, hoping to stretch their time together by
another minute or two.

“Have you been enjoying the ball?” she asked him.

“Bits and pieces,” he said, keeping his gaze straight ahead.

But she saw the corner of his mouth curve up.

“Am I a bit or a piece?” she asked daringly.

He actually stopped. “Do you have any idea what you just said?”

Too late, she remembered overhearing her brothers talk about bits of muslin and pieces of…

Her face flamed.

And then, God help them, they both laughed.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered, catching her breath. “My parents will lock me away for a month.”

“That would certainly—”

“Lady Mathilda! Lady Mathilda!”

Whatever Peter had meant to say was lost as Mrs.
Featherington, a friend of Tillie’s mother and one of society’s biggest
gossips, bustled up next to them, dragging along her daughter Penelope,
who was dressed in a rather unfortunate shade of yellow.

“Lady Mathilda,” Mrs. Featherington said. Then she added, in a decidedly frosty voice, “Mr. Thompson.”

Tillie had been about to make introductions, but
then she remembered that Mrs. Featherington and Penelope had been
present at Lady Neeley’s dinner party. In fact, Mrs. Featherington was
one of the unfortunate five to have been profiled by Lady Whistledown
in that morning’s column.

“Do your parents know where you are?” Mrs. Featherington asked Tillie.

“I beg your pardon?” Tillie asked, blinking with
surprise. She turned to Penelope, whom she had always thought was a
rather nice, if quiet, sort.

But if Penelope knew what her mother was about, she
gave no indication, other than a pained expression that led Tillie to
believe that if a hole had suddenly opened up in the middle of the
ballroom floor, Penelope would have gladly jumped into it.

“Do your parents know where you are?” Mrs. Featherington repeated, this time more pointedly.

“We drove over together,” Tillie answered slowly, “so yes, I would assume they are aware—”

“I shall return you to their sides,” Mrs. Featherington interrupted.

And then Tillie understood. “I assure you,” she
said icily, “that Mr. Thompson is more than capable of returning me to
my parents.”

“Mother,” Penelope said, actually grasping her mother’s sleeve.

But Mrs. Featherington ignored her. “A girl such as you,” she told Tillie, “must take care with her reputation.”

“If you refer to Lady Whistledown’s column,” Tillie
said, her voice uncharacteristically icy, “then I must remind you that
you were mentioned as well, Mrs. Featherington.”

Penelope gasped.

“Her words do not concern me,” Mrs. Featherington said. “I know that I did not take that bracelet.”

“And I know that Mr. Thompson did not, either,” Tillie returned.

“I never said he did,” Mrs. Featherington said, and
then she surprised Tillie by turning to Peter and saying, “I apologize
if I gave that indication. I would never call someone a thief without
proof.”

Peter, who had been standing tensely still at
Tillie’s side, did nothing but nod at her apology. Tillie rather
suspected it was all he could do without losing his temper.

“Mother,” Penelope said, her tone almost desperate now, “Prudence is over by the door, and she’s waving rather madly.”

Tillie could see Penelope’s sister Prudence, and
she seemed quite happily engaged in conversation with one of her
friends. Tillie made a mental note to befriend Penelope Featherington,
who was well-known as a wallflower, on the next possible occasion.

“Lady Mathilda,” Mrs. Featherington said, ignoring Penelope entirely, “I must—”

“Mother!” Penelope yanked hard on her mother’s sleeve.

“Penelope!” Mrs. Featherington turned to her daughter with obvious irritation.

“I’m trying to—”

“We must be going,” Tillie said, taking advantage of Mrs. Featherington’s momentary distraction.

“I shall be sure to pass along your greetings to my mother.”

And then, before Mrs. Featherington could
disentangle herself from Penelope, who had a viselike grip on her arm,
Tillie made her escape, practically dragging Peter along behind her.

He hadn’t said a word during the interchange. Tillie wasn’t quite certain what that meant.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said once they were out of Mrs. Featherington’s earshot.

“You did nothing,” he said, but his voice was tight.

“No, but, well …” She stopped, unsure of how to
proceed. She didn’t particularly want to take the blame for Mrs.
Featherington, but nonetheless, it seemed that
someone
ought to be apologizing to Peter. “No one should be calling you a thief,” she finally said. “It’s unacceptable.”

He smiled at her humorlessly. “She wasn’t calling me a thief,” he said. “She was calling me a fortune hunter.”

“She never—”

“Trust me,” he said, cutting her off with a tone
that made her feel like a foolish girl. How could she have missed such
an undercurrent? Was she really that unaware?

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” she muttered, as much to defend herself as anything else.

“Is it?”

“Of course. You’re the last person who would marry a woman for her money.”

Peter stopped, leveling a hard stare at her face. “And you have reached this conclusion in the three days of our acquaintance?”

Her lips tightened. “No more time was required.” He
felt her words like a blow, nearly reeling from the force of her belief
in him. She was staring up at him, her chin so determined, her arms
like sticks at her sides, and he was seized by a strange need to scare
her, to push her away, to remind her that men were, above all else,
bounders and fools, and she ought not to trust with such an open heart.

“I came to London,” he told her, his words deliberate and sharp, “for the sole purpose of finding a bride.”

“There is nothing uncommon in that,” she said dismissively. “I am here to find a husband.”

“I have barely a cent to my name,” he stated.

Her eyes widened.

“I am a fortune hunter,” he said baldly.

She shook her head. “You are not.”

“You can’t add two to two and expect it to sum only three.”

“And you can’t speak in such ridiculous crypticisms and expect me to understand a word you say,” she replied.

“Tillie,” he said with a sigh, hating that she’d
almost made him laugh. It made it prodigiously more difficult to scare
her away.

“You might need money,” she continued, “but that doesn’t mean you’d seduce someone to get it.”

“Tillie—”

“You are not a fortune hunter,” she said rather forcefully, “and I will say so to anyone who dares to intimate that you are.

And so he had to say it. He had to lay it on the table, make her understand the truth of the situation.

“If you seek to repair my reputation,” he said
slowly, and just a bit wearily as well, “then you will have to depart
my company.”

Her lips parted in shock.

He shrugged, trying to make light of it. “If you
must know, I’ve spent the last three weeks trying rather desperately to
avoid being called a fortune hunter,” he said, not quite able to
believe that he was telling her all this. “And I succeeded rather well
until this morning’s
Whistledown.”

“It will all blow over,” she whispered, but her
voice lacked conviction, as if she were trying to convince herself of
it as well.

“Not if I’m seen to be courting you.”

“But that’s horrid.”

In a nutshell,
he thought. But there was no point in saying it.

“And you’re not courting me. You’re fulfilling a promise to Harry.” She paused.

“Aren’t you?”

“Does it matter?”

‘To me it does,” she muttered.

“Now that Lady Whistledown has gone and labeled me,” he said, trying not to wonder
why
it mattered to her, “I shan’t be able to even stand near you without someone speculating that I’m after your fortune.”

“You’re standing next to me now,” she pointed out.

And a damned torture it was. He sighed. “I should return you to your parents.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t
apologize,” he snapped. He was angry at himself, and angry with Lady Whistledown, and angry at the whole damned
ton.
But not at her. Never at her. And the last thing he wanted was her pity.

“I’m ruining your reputation,” she said, her voice breaking with a helplessly sad laugh. “It’s almost funny, that.”

He eyed her sardonically.

“We young maidens are the ones who have to watch our every move,” she explained. “You lot get to do whatever you want.”

“Not quite,” he said, moving his gaze over her shoulder, lest it fall to riper areas.

“Whatever the case,” she said, waving her hand in
that blithe move she’d used so successfully earlier in the evening, “it
seems that I am the obstacle in your path. You want a wife, and, well…”
Her voice lost its breeziness, and when she smiled, there was something
missing in it.

No one else would notice, Peter realized. No one would realize that her smile wasn’t quite right.

But he did. And it broke his heart.

“Whomever you choose …” she continued, bolstering
that smile with a hollow little laugh, “you shan’t get her with me
around, it seems.”

But not, he realized, for any of the reasons she
thought. If he wouldn’t find a wife with Tillie Howard nearby, it would
be because he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, couldn’t even begin to
think of another woman when he could sense her presence.

“I should go,” she said, and he knew she was right,
but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to say farewell. He’d avoided her
company for precisely this reason.

And now that he had to send her on her way once and for all, it was even harder than he’d thought.

“You’re breaking your promise to Harry,” she reminded him.

He shook his head, even though she would never understand just how tightly he was
keeping
his promise. He’d promised Harry that he’d protect her.

She swallowed. “My parents are over there,” she said, motioning to her left and behind her.

He nodded and took her arm, turning her so that they could make their way to the earl and countess.

And found themselves face-to-face with Lady Neeley.

One can only wonder what events will transpire at tonight’s Hargreaves’

Grand Ball. This Author has it
on the best authority that Lady Neeley plans to attend, as do all of
the major suspects, with the possible exception of Miss Martin, who
received an invitation only at the discretion of Lady Neeley herself.

But Mr. Thompson has RSVP’ed in the affirmative, as have Mr. Brooks, Mrs. Featherington,

and Lord Easterly.

This Author finds that she can only say, “Let the games begin!”

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS,
31 MAY 1816

“Mr. Thompson!” Lady Neeley shrilled. “Just the person I’ve been looking for!”

“Really?” Tillie asked with surprise, before she
could remember that she was actually rather peeved with Lady Neeley and
had quite intended to be politely icy when next they met.

“Indeed,” the older woman said sharply. “I’m furious over that
Whistledown
column this morning. That infernal woman never gets but half of anything right.”